The practice of storytelling as the central defining characteristic of humanity is a theory that has leapt in relatively short order from the dry, closed circle of academic research into the meme-infested waters of popular culture. It is to be expected that those who make their living as storytellers — novelists, for example — would cast the story as the progenitor of all human thought. But many esteemed thinkers who are otherwise noted for their skepticism and unique slant on mankind have also tended to accept this particular idea without question. "Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better," writes Yuval Noah Harari. "To survive, you must tell stories," says Umberto Eco. "If the storytelling mind cannot find meaningful patterns in the world, it will try to impose them," opines Jonathan Gottschall. Such thoughts are widely disseminated and, presumably, widely believed.
But while the storytelling story is compelling and useful, it is just that: a story we have told ourselves to explain a complicated phenomenon. When we rely upon the subject of an inquiry for its own explication, we have fallen into the consciousness trap: a subject cannot examine itself without getting in its own way. It is like taking a selfie with oneself in the foreground (obviously) and calling it, "A view of the world." The world may indeed be in the picture somewhere, but with so much of it obscured by our own unavoidable presence, how can we ever really know?
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If stories do indeed distill the complexities of the world into digestible, bite-sized pieces, how much of the world do we actually get to know by telling and listening to stories? In "The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History", Isaiah Berlin offers a rather stark answer: very little. His comprehensive analysis of "War and Peace" explains how Tolstoy employed a 19th-century battlefield as an apt, indeed brilliant, metaphor for the impossibility of deciphering the workings of society.
A general, sitting atop a horse or standing at some distance from the fighting, may have a panoramic view of the scene as it unfolds, but can have little actual idea of how the battle is progressing. There are simply too many soldiers involved, too much weaponry, too much dirt and smoke, and too much pandemonium for anyone to be able to take it all in. The infantryman in the midst of the violence is even less capable of a wider view of the confrontation. He may know if his line is moving ahead or being pushed backwards, he may see fallen comrades and enemies all about, and he may hear shouted commands, but he could not possibly have the slightest idea if his side is winning or losing at any given time. Historically, battles involving massed armies clashing in a large field — i.e., nearly all warfare prior to the 20th century — were decided usually when one side felt that the cause was lost, and abandoned the field. (Mechanized warfare since the earlier 20th century may have changed this calculus somewhat, though total annihilation of the enemy remains an elusive objective, and has seldom been the deciding factor in a battle's outcome.) There were no casualty counts in real time, no objective analysis to determine who the "actual" winner was. If you believed you had lost, then you lost, and various protocols governing the deportment of victors and vanquished came into effect. The perspective of the commander, watching his army through field glasses on a remote hilltop, was in no way relevant to the proceedings.
In peacetime, the lessons of the battlefield are no less pertinent. The web of human interaction is so enormous and disordered that the future direction of society is utterly undeterminable. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional. The dictator, like the general, knows nothing more than you nor I about what is happening today in society at large or what may happen next. Of course, this does not stop them from believing and claiming otherwise, mostly to the detriment of both subjects and soldiers. Berlin explains it this way:
"A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes." — probably not Mark Twain
Why do we believe some stories and not others? Veracity would seem to have little to do with it. It has long been observed that human consciousness does not concern itself very much with truth. Lewis Wolpert wrote, "The primary aim of human judgment is not accuracy but the avoidance of paralyzing uncertainty. We have a fundamental need to tell ourselves stories that make sense of our lives." (Note: yet another excellent scientist accepting the storytelling story.) A comforting lie may therefore be more useful than a disturbing truth. Applying the phrase "an inconvenient truth" to a fact or set of facts on which one wishes to focus attention (as Al Gore famously attempted) almost guarantees the opposite effect. People will almost reflexively turn away from any attempt to be shaken from their "comfort zones", even if ignoring the truth may ultimately cause them harm.
Those of us who consider ourselves rationalists because our world view relies entirely on reason are nonetheless susceptible to wishful thinking. How many people constantly and consistently question the assumptions upon which they predicate their beliefs and opinions? It would be too time-consuming and unsettling for almost anyone to engage in a daily exercise of total skepticism. We just cannot live that way. And so we embrace those stories that confer a sense of well-being and eschew those that give us angst. Knowing that our preferred narratives are illusions may give us a sense of smug superiority over those who do not; but this knowledge doesn't actually prevent us from accepting any number of shaky premises.
Even conspiracy theories have a useful place in the spectrum of storytelling, as they confirm one's position within a stable, if implausible, sphere of ideas and beliefs. No story is too outlandish to serve this purpose. Indeed, there are those who would argue that the entire history of religion, for example, is a vast conspiracy theory, inasmuch as faith depends on an acceptance of supernatural events that are by definition beyond the realm of evidence and proof. If you could prove the supernatural true, no faith would be required.
Science is always at a disadvantage against religion because faith is unassailable while theory, by its very nature, is subject to constant revision. We see this play out constantly, as the faithful point to new scientific discoveries that upend previously held concepts in order to "prove" that science can't be trusted. After all, religion is founded on an immutable story, a solid rock upon which we can lash ourselves in any storm, while science is merely the shifting sand under our feet. From a purely epistemological view, scientific theories can of course be proven while religious ones cannot; but from a psychological view, this is both irrelevant and delusional. People follow religions because their precepts can be neither proven nor disproven; the more impermeable to reason, the better. (...)
Readers may bristle at the idea that an unquestioning belief in the supernatural is comparable to a faith in scientific inquiry, but the psychological benefits are largely the same: they help us make sense of a seemingly random world. Besides, science is hardly immune from dogma. This isn't an argument for equivalence between religion and science: in their essences and methodologies, they are not remotely the same. However, the question here is whether, in the practice of just living our lives, a true story is any better for us than an untrue one. And if not, perhaps the story is not the basic building block of human thought that we currently think it is. (...)
People still put flowers on Stalin's grave. One of history's cruelest and most prolific mass murderers is held in high esteem by millions of Russians to this day. As recently as a decade ago, a poll found that nearly half of the Russian people viewed Stalin's rule as mostly positive. Say what you will about the dictator and his legacy: that is some kind of storytelling.
Similarly, Napoleon's military campaigns brought ruin upon his own country and laid waste to a large swath of Europe; but even as the French emperor was eviscerated by Tolstoy, he is still regarded by many as a figure of veneration. More books were written about him in the 19th century than about any other historical figure. Tolstoy's compelling truth was no match for the great embedded lie that Napoleon was in fact the legendary genius that he declared himself to be. (...)
King, priest, doctor, teacher — we believe them according to our needs and desires, truth be damned. Once upon a time, Walter Cronkite ended his nightly broadcast with the phrase, "And that's the way it is." It is a bit shocking now to realize that many of his viewers took his word as the literal truth. Cronkite was in fact a serious newsman in an era of unusually serious journalism, and he certainly didn't set out to deceive anyone or to air stories without subjecting them first to a high standard of verification. But the notion that a 30-minute newscast — with commercials — represented "the truth" about the world strikes us now as frightfully naive.
The events of 1960s and 1970s effectively and permanently eroded our trust in institutions generally, news reporting included; but a long, subsequent era of skepticism and rebelliousness did nothing to diminish our need for the comfort of a warm story. The much-bemoaned bifurcation of society along ideological lines may have split our preferred stories onto divergent paths, but hasn't rendered us any less credulous. Millions of people who don't believe a word of what is reported in newspapers or on broadcast television will nonetheless believe the word of unknown or, worse, disreputable voices on the internet. We wonder how, in a world overflowing with easily verifiable information, we are so vulnerable to lies and innuendo. But perhaps what we dismiss as naivetë in generations past was in fact merely our eternal craving for reassurance. There is hardly an instance in which the question, "How could they have believed such nonsense?", applied to our ancestors, cannot be countered with innumerable comparable examples of our own gullibility.
In peacetime, the lessons of the battlefield are no less pertinent. The web of human interaction is so enormous and disordered that the future direction of society is utterly undeterminable. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional. The dictator, like the general, knows nothing more than you nor I about what is happening today in society at large or what may happen next. Of course, this does not stop them from believing and claiming otherwise, mostly to the detriment of both subjects and soldiers. Berlin explains it this way:
"The harshest judgment is accordingly reserved for the master theorist himself, the great Napoleon, who acts upon, and has hypnotized others into believing, the assumption that he understands and controls events by his superior intellect, or by flashes of intuition, or by otherwise succeeding in answering correctly the problems posed by history. The greater the claim the greater the lie: Napoleon is consequently the most pitiable, the most contemptible of all the actors in the great tragedy. This, then, is the great illusion which Tolstoy sets himself to expose: that individuals can, by the use of their own resources, understand and control the course of events. Those who believe this turn out to be dreadfully mistaken."How ironic that Tolstoy, in the course of writing one of the greatest stories ever told, casts an enormous shadow on the entire human storytelling enterprise. His vast, sprawling tale, rather than offering guidance and comfort, stirs unease and concern. If no one can truly know anything for certain, of what use is the story except to deceive and confuse the reader? We read literature, like all the other stories we create and consume, to learn truths about ourselves. But Tolstoy appears to be undermining the very idea that our stories can teach us anything of value, because the world is too complex ever to be understood. Perhaps in "War and Peace" we can find the roots of the religious mysticism that dominated the author's later years, when he seemed to surrender himself to the ultimate mysteries of existence, without hope of ever finding answers in the sorry little stories that we tell ourselves.
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"A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes." — probably not Mark Twain
Why do we believe some stories and not others? Veracity would seem to have little to do with it. It has long been observed that human consciousness does not concern itself very much with truth. Lewis Wolpert wrote, "The primary aim of human judgment is not accuracy but the avoidance of paralyzing uncertainty. We have a fundamental need to tell ourselves stories that make sense of our lives." (Note: yet another excellent scientist accepting the storytelling story.) A comforting lie may therefore be more useful than a disturbing truth. Applying the phrase "an inconvenient truth" to a fact or set of facts on which one wishes to focus attention (as Al Gore famously attempted) almost guarantees the opposite effect. People will almost reflexively turn away from any attempt to be shaken from their "comfort zones", even if ignoring the truth may ultimately cause them harm.
Those of us who consider ourselves rationalists because our world view relies entirely on reason are nonetheless susceptible to wishful thinking. How many people constantly and consistently question the assumptions upon which they predicate their beliefs and opinions? It would be too time-consuming and unsettling for almost anyone to engage in a daily exercise of total skepticism. We just cannot live that way. And so we embrace those stories that confer a sense of well-being and eschew those that give us angst. Knowing that our preferred narratives are illusions may give us a sense of smug superiority over those who do not; but this knowledge doesn't actually prevent us from accepting any number of shaky premises.
Even conspiracy theories have a useful place in the spectrum of storytelling, as they confirm one's position within a stable, if implausible, sphere of ideas and beliefs. No story is too outlandish to serve this purpose. Indeed, there are those who would argue that the entire history of religion, for example, is a vast conspiracy theory, inasmuch as faith depends on an acceptance of supernatural events that are by definition beyond the realm of evidence and proof. If you could prove the supernatural true, no faith would be required.
Science is always at a disadvantage against religion because faith is unassailable while theory, by its very nature, is subject to constant revision. We see this play out constantly, as the faithful point to new scientific discoveries that upend previously held concepts in order to "prove" that science can't be trusted. After all, religion is founded on an immutable story, a solid rock upon which we can lash ourselves in any storm, while science is merely the shifting sand under our feet. From a purely epistemological view, scientific theories can of course be proven while religious ones cannot; but from a psychological view, this is both irrelevant and delusional. People follow religions because their precepts can be neither proven nor disproven; the more impermeable to reason, the better. (...)
Readers may bristle at the idea that an unquestioning belief in the supernatural is comparable to a faith in scientific inquiry, but the psychological benefits are largely the same: they help us make sense of a seemingly random world. Besides, science is hardly immune from dogma. This isn't an argument for equivalence between religion and science: in their essences and methodologies, they are not remotely the same. However, the question here is whether, in the practice of just living our lives, a true story is any better for us than an untrue one. And if not, perhaps the story is not the basic building block of human thought that we currently think it is. (...)
People still put flowers on Stalin's grave. One of history's cruelest and most prolific mass murderers is held in high esteem by millions of Russians to this day. As recently as a decade ago, a poll found that nearly half of the Russian people viewed Stalin's rule as mostly positive. Say what you will about the dictator and his legacy: that is some kind of storytelling.
Similarly, Napoleon's military campaigns brought ruin upon his own country and laid waste to a large swath of Europe; but even as the French emperor was eviscerated by Tolstoy, he is still regarded by many as a figure of veneration. More books were written about him in the 19th century than about any other historical figure. Tolstoy's compelling truth was no match for the great embedded lie that Napoleon was in fact the legendary genius that he declared himself to be. (...)
King, priest, doctor, teacher — we believe them according to our needs and desires, truth be damned. Once upon a time, Walter Cronkite ended his nightly broadcast with the phrase, "And that's the way it is." It is a bit shocking now to realize that many of his viewers took his word as the literal truth. Cronkite was in fact a serious newsman in an era of unusually serious journalism, and he certainly didn't set out to deceive anyone or to air stories without subjecting them first to a high standard of verification. But the notion that a 30-minute newscast — with commercials — represented "the truth" about the world strikes us now as frightfully naive.
The events of 1960s and 1970s effectively and permanently eroded our trust in institutions generally, news reporting included; but a long, subsequent era of skepticism and rebelliousness did nothing to diminish our need for the comfort of a warm story. The much-bemoaned bifurcation of society along ideological lines may have split our preferred stories onto divergent paths, but hasn't rendered us any less credulous. Millions of people who don't believe a word of what is reported in newspapers or on broadcast television will nonetheless believe the word of unknown or, worse, disreputable voices on the internet. We wonder how, in a world overflowing with easily verifiable information, we are so vulnerable to lies and innuendo. But perhaps what we dismiss as naivetë in generations past was in fact merely our eternal craving for reassurance. There is hardly an instance in which the question, "How could they have believed such nonsense?", applied to our ancestors, cannot be countered with innumerable comparable examples of our own gullibility.
by Barry Edelson, The Pursuit of Worldliness | Read more:
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