User:GONG Kaixuan/sandbox

Introduction
Uchronia, or "that which has no historical reality", is also known as "alternate history". It emerged as a literary genre which explores the possible outcomes of history if an important global event had occurred differently. We argue that uchronia is a vivid and effective medium for understanding the truth in history. To prove that, an interdisciplinary approach can provide a more precise insight with history, literature and philosophy hats on us. As it reverses the history, uchronia can be viewed as the "black mirror" of the contemporary world, revealing deeply entrenched political corruption and a brawl for power. What the public holds as true and undeniable may be challenged in fiction, which acts as a conduit for self-reflection and historical thinking. In this chapter, we will discuss the construction of truth in alternate history fiction and the philosophical thinking of truth in history, throughout which The Man in The High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick will serve as the illustration.

How is truth constructed in uchronia?
"The truth of art lies in its ability to break the monopoly of established reality (that is, of those who established it) to define what is real."

—Herbert Marcuse

Uchronia as a literary genre
The concept of truth is inevitably linked to terms such as fact, reality and authenticity which are diametrically opposed to lie or fiction. In uchronia, authors create fictional content, yet their imagination based on reality allows us to explore matters of universal human interest. When literary story is no longer the same as historical reality due to the change of incidental events, one would perceive pure truth in vivid actuality through understanding the essential factors that affect the choices and values which built the world we know today. This is basically how uchronia, as a literary genre though, is still telling the truth.

Divergence point
Uchronia paves the way for contemporary reflection on historical determinism by giving another result to a contingent event. The very moment when the author steps away from historical reality is called Divergence point. In The Man In the High Castle, this point occurs in Roosevelt's assassination in 1933, after which V2 rockets were not requisitioned by the United States but contributed to Germany's technical superiority, and finally WW2 ended with a victory of Germany and Japan instead of the Allies. Dick bitterly implied in 1960s that, victory of America was not determined, and neither would it bring permanent peace to the country, since the US never actually ceased to be at war whether it was the loser in the novel or the winner in reality. Through uchronia, the author called for readers' reflection on WW2 history against mainstream historical discourse in post-war America manipulated by the power behind.

In typical historical novels, events are not modified but rather enriched with fictional content and elements that do not contradict the historical reality. This means that fiction is what completes reality and makes it more compelling and worth reading. On the contrary, in uchronia, authors ask "what if" to construct an alternate, fictional reality, which lends credibility to the story. Each differences and similarities with our reality reveals important features of truth. In uchronia truth is constructed as a comparative dimension to historical reality. It is by discerning what is true and what is false that the readers questions his reality through his own subjectivity. Uchronia requires active reading: with one's own culture and knowledge of history, one learns about human nature behind history, such as greed, envy, and national interests. While constructing these truths in alternate history, novelists actually expose the virtues and vices of the present. In this way, history is "renewed" with one's modern culture, so that "alternate history is more closely connected to popular culture".

Challenging History
Truth is commonly understood as what objectively exists and has an impact on the "real" world. However, this view can be questioned ever since many communities challenge the official and authoritarian character of history. As K. Singles states, history is the narrative "with the actual world as resource of representation". If this is the case, there would be alternate histories, hidden from us, that are just as real as the official version of history. What we read is the reflection, and what lies between the thing reflected and us is the temporal mood embedded in the past records.

Necessity of history
History is necessary to human beings. It is not simply assembling facts and events of the past, but rather, it is our attempt to understand these historical truths and knowledge, and to understand what human beings are becoming. Uchronia does not alter historical truths; it is not a recount of the author's perspective on what happened, nor is it a different perspective of past events. It is simply a fictional, imaginative account of what could potentially have happened at a divergence point, what it would teach us about human nature, and the way we construct our understanding of our reality.

History as a lesson
George Santayana claims that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". From an optimistic perspective, Uchronia can thus act as a warning against potential threats or events that could reoccur. In the the case of The Man in the High Castle, we learn that a society created as a result of the Japanese and Nazis winning the war is not desirable. Hence, we learn from this undeniable truth (put forward by fiction) so that this image of the world is not recreated in our reality. Instead, we create alternatives and find solutions from the textual fictional dynamic of uchronia to incorporate into our current reality and our future. Conversely, Historical determinism questions if human beings are the authors of history or the unconscious pawns of historical forces. If uchronia serves as a warning against preventing events such as the Holocaust from happening again, then this would merit a degree of individual freedom. Human beings would then be responsible for their acts and able to choose their essence and destiny, so as the existentialist philosophy advocates.

Conclusion
Uchronia offers readers a multitude of perspectives to learn from. It can be viewed as an alternate model in which to make sense of the world refracted through a prism of varied subjectivities. Each author puts forth an argument about their own worldview through various narrative structures. It also encourages us to engage in the relativity of history, despite being surrounded with concrete facts which create the impression of the unchallengeable character of history. Fiction can also be seen as a way of questioning the validity of a worldview. One thing is certain though: if human beings cannot reach the truth as the ultimate purpose of human existence, at the very least they possess the power of fiction, and the ability to manipulate the past.