Helpful or Harmful?

I found an inspiring quote from Walton's "Mimesis as Make-Believe," it says, "Fred finds himself, in an idle moment, alone with his thoughts. Feeling unsuccessful and unappreciated, he embarks on a daydream in which he is rich and famous. He calls up images of applauding constituents, visiting dignitaries, a huge mansion, doting women, and fancy cars. But alas, reality eventually reasserts itself and Fred gets back to selling shoes."

In brief, the upside is, for those who are suffering in reality, living in a daydream like this might make his life "worth-living." The downside is, simply daydreaming is useless, which disconnect one from the reality.

Is it helpful or harmful?

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Danny. I am Senior Philosophy Major. I am going to record my mimetic explorations on this blog during the quarter. Please feel free to comment or criticize. I will be very appreciated to read them.

I find myself particularly interested in exploring the value of mimetic arts. Are they harmful? If they are, in what way they are harmful? I have no absolute answers so far, so this would be one of the aspect that I will explore in this course.

It's been asked in the first lecture, "what is mimesis?" Well, I can't find the most correct explanation but a synonym, not really is but closely meant, which is "imitation." One may have explained, in a few words, mimesis is the imitation of the nature through the forms of art or literature. Here my confusion arises, how could the art or literature of which imitates the nature do harm? Again, I am not able to answer this at the current stage. I hope to hear the answer by the end of this course.