Fire and Ice

Chris's argument at http://faultline.org/index.php/site/bullshit/ about why knowledge adds to appreciation is why, too, I have difficulty understanding why people would rather read fantasy fiction rather than history (leaving out of this some writers like Pratchett and Birmingham who use the fantasy genre more like a thought experiment in history) or even historical fiction. In most fantasy the dragons are simply a distraction from the fact that everybody has exactly the values that we do, not a mistake that Alfred Duggan would make.
And in poetry, Frost's "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice" (http://www.bartleby.com/155/2.html) is an example of doing it right.