We live in an age of fantasists, a time when people not quite constrained by reality flourish nonetheless. The term is not as harsh as “fabulist,” a person who lives in a make-believe world (think George Santos). It is more forgiving than “liar,” or “mythomaniac,” the condition of being a pathological liar. Fantasists don’t necessarily believe that what they’re saying is false. They just know they don’t know whether what they say is true. And they don’t really care. Their words construct the reality they seek. They feed on the reaction to their words.
Fantasism is a superpower today. It is an ability that most of us do not have and cannot practice, but which can be enormously valuable. Most of us feel the pull of truth or reality. We can’t ignore it easily or without struggle. It nags at us, even when we resist it. We broadcast that we’re lying, even when we try to hide it. Well-socialized souls are handicapped in this way. Society benefits from that handicap.
But some are not so constrained. Some find it easy to just say whatever they want, and seem like they believe it. Donald Trump, in this sense, is a fantasist (2020 was “rigged.”) So too is Elon Musk (“Musk Predicts Level 4 Or 5 Full Self-Driving ‘Later This Year’ — For the Tenth Year In A Row.”) And RFK Jr. (COVID-19 possibly “‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jews”). All three have an extraordinary ability to assert what…
