That was sort of the problem when the novel began to emerge as a dominant form of writing in Europe, in late 18th - early 19th century. People were used to thinking of texts as something that states a truth and needs to be literally adhered to, and they had trouble understanding the novel didn't work that way. Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, for example, caused widespread moral panic because people were afraid young men would imitate Werther (which they did, in a wave of art-inspired suicides).

But it really, really, REALLY hurts my brain to think that Western civilization is still stuck on the same issue. *sigh*