Why Do We Pretend?

Why Do We Pretend? Alison Gopnik reveals the core of human nature- our unique ability to use our brain for imagination, something she refers to as counterfactuals. In her essay, “Possible Worlds: Why Do Children Pretend?” Gopnik discusses “the woulda-coulda-shouldas of life”(163) in great detail expanding on her point “ human beings don't live in the real world”(163). Her argument is that our lives are consumed by the alternate realities that run simultaneously with the real world events. Gregory Orr claims to have lived these realities as evident in his memoir “Return to Hayneville”, where Orr revisits his participation in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A memoir- by definition- is an authors way of revisiting their past experiences and summarizing their achievements and also analyzing what would have changed if they had done something different. The theories of causations affected the decisions and actions of Orr and others who played a vital role in the way that Orr revisits his experiences. Gopnik’s theory of counterfactuals illuminates the darker side of Orr’s memoir, his flurry of emotions which explains how and why we pretend.
Orr maintains that his work in the 1960 defines the way he lived the rest of his life, but Gopnik explains why “people are most unhappy when a desirable outcome seems to be just out of reach..”(165) by stating that “the evolutionary answer is that counterfactuals let us change the future…”(165). As humans we use counterfactual thinking almost automatically and tend to push the world in different directions, changing the course of history as we go. Gopnik credits counterfactual thinking to evolutionary success. Perhaps Orr's regret is that he lacked the savoir-faire for this exact situation, and his counterfactuals see to it that he feels heightened emotions for the pain that he endured and caused. Gopnik provides a skeleton outline which is filled with examples from Orr’s experiences with counterfactual thinking
Gopnik’s