According to Cmdr.
David G. Smith[1], the U.S. military has begun
changing gears in training recruits. In accordance with advances in behavioral
science, instead of promoting cohesion by dehumanizing individuals, they are
teaching recruits about the history of their service. Thus far it is a measurably
more effective means of increasing their camaraderie and ability to attach and
commit to their unit.[2]
That story would be more
powerful than force in creating real, measurable change in the values and
commitments of a people should not be surprising. As Peter Forbes[3]
said, “You cannot demand a different world, you have to inspire it.”[4]
Indeed, it is increasingly apparent that what constitutes the
culture of any group or civilization is the story that they share and the
values inherent therein. Harold Goddard
said, “The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost
and won than by the stories it loves and believes in.”[5]
Forbes seemed especially concerned about what happens when
intentional and value based stories are replaced in our culture by “inauthentic”
stories used in advertising. He relayed
a strong argument for valuing story more prominently as a culture, and using it
to more virtuous ends.
Forbes quoted Ben Okri as saying, “Stories are the secret
reservoir of our values.” Okri has also
said, “A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell
themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would
go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation….Stories can conquer fear,
you know. They can make the heart larger.”
There needs to be a cultural revolution in recognizing that
story is an inextricable part of the human experience. That humans require
stories to function is evidenced by the effectiveness of narrative-based
advertising. “You’re not selling product
x, you’re selling a story.” That we keep buying these stories (by buying
the products that promise those stories to us), is evidence for the role of
story in human development. Unfortunately, as Forbes expressed, the consumption
of such stories leads to disconnection, rather than the connection that we need
from our stories. In Crow and Weasel,
Barry Lopez[6]
says, “If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where
they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay
alive. “
Forbes strongly promoted the use of story as an impetus for
constructive social change. He says that
stories should be about relationships and communities, not about products or
consumerist appetites. Leslie Marmon Silko[7]
agrees, stating, “I will tell you something about stories …They aren’t just
entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, All we have to
fight off illness and death.” Forbes points out that in order to create
positive social change, the culture has to be re-storied. Legislative
action is inadequate because “laws codify values – they don’t create them,” and
the culture will not maintain a law that is not in-line with the collective
story and values of its people.
The
Co-Intelligence Institute has said, in The Story Paradigm[8],
“Story can help us deal with causation, comparison, function, implications and
context, as well. But it goes beyond understanding, description and control
into the realm of mutual involvement, a realm where analytical reason becomes
reductionist, inadequate to the task. The more nuanced, subjective, interactive
and non-measurable a relationship is, the more story surpasses analysis in
dealing with it.” This is congruent with
Forbes’ argument that story can be more potent than rhetoric. “Stories help us imagine the future
differently… a new story that helps people find their way out of the old
story.”
Forbes indicated that authentic stories will define wealth as
being about relationships, and not money.
Story itself is a powerful binder for catalyzing and maintaining healthy
relationships. In a 2013 New York Times
article[9],
Dr. Marshall Duke said that in studying children after 9/11,
“[Those] who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient,
meaning they could [better] moderate the effects of stress.” He indicates that those who have a strong
sense of the story of their family and community, beyond their own experience,
had a stronger relationship with their families and a better resiliency toward
life experience. Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence
have what he … call[s] a strong “intergenerational self.” “They know they
belong to something bigger than themselves.”
Stories frame the way we see ourselves, our relationships,
and the world we interact with. Robert McKee has said, “Stories are the
creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more
meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.”
Stories are valuable both on an individual level and
collectively. The experience of
encountering and processing or internalizing a story is definitive. But so is the experience of crafting a
story. The digitally connected age in
which we live has the potential to give voice to many more stories, but it also
alters the author/audience paradigm. If
more people view themselves as contributors to an overarching community of
story, the authority and exclusivity of authorship may be diminished, but the
invested community grows.
In his interview with Henry Jenkins[10],
David Gauntlett said that “Through making things, you feel more of a
participant in the world, and you feel more a part of it, more embedded because
you are contributing, not just consuming, so you’re more actively engaged with
the world, and so, more connected.” He
emphasized that the value of creativity is not necessarily the output or
product of creation, but the unquantifiable “happiness” associated with the
process of creating.
This
certainly applies to authorship and story, as well as to any facet of
participating in a creative act. This unquantifiable happiness is described by
Deiter F. Uchtdorf[11]:
“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education,
backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something
that did not exist before
The
process of participating in creation, even the broadly-defined “everyday
creativity” described by Gauntlett, fulfills Joseph Campbell’s[12] experience of being alive: “People say
that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're
really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on
the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and
reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
By broadening the definition of “creativity” to include
anyone joyfully making something they have not made before, Gauntlett creates a
paradigm that allows for the voice, experience, and perspective of any willing
storyteller to be valuable, when constructed into a narrative creation. This democratic definition invites the
statement by Karen
von Blixen-Finecke (pen name Isak Dinesen), “To be a person is to have a story to tell.”
There was concern, however, coming from Amy Ogata’s interview
with Jenkins[13]
that promoting the creativity of everyone, especially children, has in the past
become a commercial construction that aims to “overlook difference while
simultaneously selling exclusivity.” She
said it is “hard to escape the rhetoric of creativity used to sell items for
kids.” Indeed, when creativity itself
becomes a story used by advertisers to promote consumer culture, then the value
of the individual voice becomes a double-edged sword.
It may be helpful to revisit Forbes’ insistence that story,
and possibly creativity, should be about relationships and communities, rather
than commodities. There is certainly rich potential for enriching use of
creative story-building here. The
creation of narrative can serve as an exploration of one’s own experiences and
identity. The process can accomplish
finding the meaning and clarity that Robert McKee mentioned.
There has been much made of the psychological and physiological
benefits of composing one’s own story, and giving voice to one’s own
perspective, even if the result is never shared with a separate audience. Dr. James Pennebaker[14]
has explored this concept extensively and his research shows that the process
of organizing one’s thoughts and experiences into a story has manifold benefits
for the creator, regardless of whether their creation is ever shared. Even those who immediately burned their
narratives saw benefits. The creative
process of organizing and constructing a story is universally beneficial, as
Gauntlett may have suspected.
[1]
http://www.usna.edu/LEAD/Division%20Staff/David-Smith.php?iframe=true&width=770&height=620
[2]
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/fashion/the-family-stories-that-bind-us-this-life.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
[3]
http://www.wholecommunities.org/pdf/publications/Power%20of%20Story%202008.pdf
[4]
http://www.wholecommunities.org/pdf/publications/Power%20of%20Story%202008.pdf
[6] http://www.barrylopez.com/
[7]
http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/hhr93_2.html
[8]
http://www.co-intelligence.org/PowerOfStoryLong.html
[10]
http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/studying_creativity_in_the_age.html#sthash.ipn5vuoZ.dpuff
[11]
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/happiness-your-heritage?lang=eng
[13]
http://henryjenkins.org/2013/05/the-creative-child-meets-the-digital-native-an-interview-with-amy-ogata-part-one.html
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