Socrates

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

Chapter 5: The Importance of Story

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” Patrick Rothfuss

Stories are not just stories. Stories matter. Because, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, if one has a sufficiently strong “why” one can endure any “how.” And the “why” comes not from facts or events. It comes from the story we attach to them. This desire to meaning is secondary only to the desire to survive: as soon as survival is not at stake, meaning becomes the primary motivation. But sometimes, even when survival is at stake, meaning can provide motivation for survival. That’s how important story is.

For example, if one is suffering greatly one can decide that it is meaningless to go on and give up on life. Or, like Viktor Frankl, one can choose a story that attaches positive meaning to their suffering and thus be motivated to endure even the living hell of Auschwitz. And this is true for individuals, or larger groups of people, such as corporations, religions or nations. As Frankl said:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

So, we are free to choose the story even when we are not free to choose our circumstances. Thus, the story is our “why” while the circumstances are merely our “how.” And the story is what ultimately makes the difference. Because a story is something that helps us feel connected to a reason and, more importantly, to a purpose.

For example, in the case of larger groups of people – such as corporations, story is the glue that brings everyone together and motivates them to cooperate and overcome obstacles. And so, in the past couple of decades, the most successful organizations have come up with what has been called a Massively Transformative Purpose [MTP]. [Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations, page 53]

An MTP is the distilled essence of a story that captures who this organization is for and what’s its mission or purpose. For example, Google’s MTP is “organize the world’s information.” TED’s MTP is “ideas worth spreading.” Deep Mind’s MTP is “Solve intelligence. Use it to make the world a better place.” Calico’s MTP is “solve death.” Mark Zuckerberg’s new charity foundation’s MTP is “cure all disease.” Doctors Without Borders’ MTP is “medical aid where it is needed most.” [Having an MTP is particularly important for Millennials for whom the story of money is often not a sufficient “why.”]

Larger groupings of people such as religions and nations also utilize the power of story to forge their respective religious or national identity. Thus Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism all tell their own mythical stories. And the more we believe in those stories, the more we identify ourselves as Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Hindu. But nations or ideologies such as Liberalism, Humanism, Feminism, and Capitalism do it too. So, a Japanese identifies with the story that Japan – i.e., Nippon, is the “land of the rising Sun” – i.e., “the land of the Gods.” An American identifies with the story of “the land of opportunity” where everyone is free to pursue the “American dream.” A capitalist identifies with the “invisible hand” of the “free market”. A humanist identifies with the story that humanity is “the pinnacle of evolution”, “the supreme intelligence” and “the ultimate authority.”

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

Chapter 4: The Power of the Storyteller

“Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.” Howard Gardner

Before we have a story, any story, we must first have a storyteller. And that storyteller is a god, because within their narrative they are all-powerful, almighty and omnipotent. That’s why religion is among the most powerful stories of our civilization. And, naturally, the storyteller of such a popular story is, of course, a god. Or the son of God. Or the prophet of God. Or in the image of God. And he sets the rules and the laws, what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, what is and what is not possible. He tells us how to dress, what to eat, how to live, how to relate to each other, who must marry whom, where we are coming from, why we are here, what is the purpose of life and where we go after death. If we believe his story, we are going to not only listen to but also obey his “commandments.”

It is for this reason that nations and even corporations are also made by mythical stories. Because myth-making is team-building is nation-building is world-making – stories told on a different scale. The myth helps us make sense of the world as well as establish our proper place in it – whether as individuals, corporations or nations. It gives us both meaning and purpose. So, as long as we all believe in the same story, we will cooperate. And we are likely to obey the people who tell those stories. This is true not only in religion and politics but also in business, entertainment, music, art, science, etc. Because those who tell the most popular stories are the most powerful people. And ultimate success in telling a story grants access to ultimate power.

Up until now, it was humans who told stories. Naturally, those stories end up with humans being the central entity. But let us examine how our place in the story has changed through time.

Historically, we started with the story of animism where the world around us was imbued with feelings, and everything had a soul. There was no barrier between humans, animals, trees, stones, and rivers, and we were not above them in any way. One day we killed a wild animal to feed and clothe ourselves. The next day an animal could kill us to feed itself and its offspring. We had respect for all living things and considered them as equals in the great web of life.

Then the story of Theism brought hierarchy, and centralization of power, in the hands of one or many Gods. Since we humans – the storytellers, were naturally in the image of God [or God was in the image of us ;-] we placed ourselves just a step below Him, and all other animals got pushed down the ladder. The world became our “garden,” and everything in it was ours for the taking, including all “soulless” animals.

Finally, we came up with the story of the centrality of the human being – of how we are the pinnacle of evolution, the supreme intelligence – i.e. the sole measure, beginning and end of everything, and the masters of nature. So we made quick work of God and replaced him with us. Then we downgraded the animals even further down to the rank of mere Cartesian automata – machines unable to think, feel or suffer. [Or “resources” to be “harvested.”] Consequently, we could enslave and kill them for our pleasure, food or sport, by the billions, and without guilt. [Every year we kill over 70 billion animals and 1.3 trillion fish and other aquatic organisms.]

The idea that humans are or will be gods is a natural consequence of the power of the storyteller. Given that we are the storyteller, we are, by default, the heroes. Because no one is the villain in their own story. And that is why those who write the story [or history] are always good, benevolent, generous, right and wise. [It is also why we called ourselves Homo Sapiens – i.e., wise man.] But now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, that may change again. And the day a computer can tell a sophisticated story – one that can make others laugh, cry and [most of all] believe, is the day humanity may lose control of the story. Because, as we already saw above, the storyteller inevitably ends up not merely as the hero but also as the most powerful species. [And if that turns out to be the case, can we blame the Godlike AI’s if they come up with the story of AI-ism and end up treating humans the same way we “human-ists” treat animals?!]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

Chapter 1: The Definition of Story

We started our thought experiment with Kenneth Burke’s definition of story as “equipment for living.” Burke offers a great start but it is Jeff DeChambeau who really brings all the essential elements together in defining story as “information processing technology.” And, whether we realize it or not, it is among the oldest, most powerful and longest lasting technologies we have. But let’s break it apart and take a closer look to see how and why DeChambeau’s definition works so well.

The first thing we ought to note is that story is about information. It started around the Cognitive Revolution 70,000 years ago when we had no writing and story was the vehicle which carried information from one generation to the next. Then we invented writing and moved from the oral to the written word. But story got even more powerful because we could suddenly send information both across space and time. Even today, in the age of 24-hour-news, social media, YouTube videos, and audio podcasts, the most popular and powerful memes still come wrapped in some kind of story. Because story was and continues to be the best vehicle for capturing, carrying and transmitting information.

The second is that story is about processing – i.e. organizing said information in a way that provides new insight we did not have before. In other words, a story can take data and make sense of it. So it turns information into knowledge. Because there is a point to using story, a lesson to be learned.

The third part is that it is technology because story is a conceptual tool created by homo sapiens to make sense of the world. That’s why Robert McKee notes: “Story is about trying to make sense out of the confusion, chaos, and terror of being a human being.” And as any good tool, we can apply story to many a problem to help us understand, make sense of and deal with it. No story, no way to organize information, no way to process it, no way to make sense of, remember or understand. Because story is ultimately about understanding. [More on that in Chapter 4 and 7.]

Story also has very specific features, characteristics, and structure that make it both powerful and unique. And it is neither simple narrative nor mere propaganda.

For example, story is different from narrative just like chronicles are different from history. Because chronicles and annals are but a sequence of often random chronological occurrences, without any connection, common theme or thread. Which is why they are so boring, tedious, hard to follow and hard to remember. Unfortunately, even today, too many mistake narrative for story and then wonder why they fail to connect with people and get support for their goals. To turn a narrative into a story we need a unifying theme, a greater point of view, a moral or a lesson that will allow us to not only remember and organize but also process and understand what has occurred, why, and what might be next.

That is why Hayden White argued that the moment we brought story to narrative is the moment we gave birth to history. In the words of David Campbell “history proper requires the narration of events so that they are ‘revealed as possessing a structure, an order of meaning, that they do not possess as a mere sequence.” For both White and Campbell, it is only after embracing a meaningful structure that history proper breaks from the ranks of the ancient annals and chronicles, and claims its modern day place among the other sciences.

Story is also different from propaganda because story is about the audience, not about the storyteller. This is a critical point to understand. A story is not about the storyteller’s ego or agenda. It is about the audience – informing, entertaining, enriching and teaching them something worthwhile. That is why your press release is not a story. Neither are your latest news, greatest achievements, biggest product launch, volunteer work and charity donations. Those are all about you. Those are all propaganda.

A story also has a particular structure – i.e. it has a beginning, middle and end. So, while the characters, places or even the objectives can change, the structure remains mostly the same:

Beginning: Shit happens.

The beginning sets the problem and creates intrigue – i.e. it hooks the audience to the plot and whets their curiosity as per how the problem might be resolved. Who, what, why, when and where?

Middle: Shit happens to [good] people like us.

This is the struggle – where all the drama of the story unfolds, while our protagonists – who are in some important ways very much like us, struggle to overcome the problem. What was the struggle? What was done to overcome it?

End: What we learn from shit.

This is the resolution – what did we learn from this particular story.

In short, the structure of a story is basically a roller coaster where we go down and up and down and up again. As David Sloly noted in his TEDx talk:

“Stories are like roller coasters – they’re only any good if they’re coming up and down.”