Why Stories Matter (and they really do!)

In Western Culture, we have forgotten the importance of stories. Throughout history (and there is a story in history, too), human beings have made sense of the world and themselves using stories. From master narratives about the origin of the world and our place in it to parables and instructive tales to family hi-stories, we have used narrative to organize and place a value on the complex world of experience. Stories have always been slippery things. How do we know what is true and what is “made up”? People tell stories that are false for many reasons, some of them helpful and some completely predatory. Myths can be used to control people’s minds and turned to the advantage of those in power. So during the Enlightenment, thinkers tried to push stories out of the picture entirely. They became novelties and curiosities at best—children’s tales—and were discredited as a source of knowledge. Unless a story could be verified by empirical evidence, it was unnecessary and probably misleading.

The problem with this approach, embodied in what most people consider “science,” is that the meaning-making function of stories was lost. “Objective” thinking was the goal of science and rational people. Stories, and poems, and unsubstantiated claims about reality had no place in the world of intellect. Of course, there can be no change without “what if” and “as if.” How can we imagine a better world, and better relationships, without stories of how things might/ought to be? Science purported to put knowledge on a factual and empirical base—or it was understood by the multitude to be doing such. In fact, science is made of stories too—stories of origin, stories of evolution, stories of human nature and social interaction. These stories are called ”theories” and are subjected to testing which might disprove them. They can never be proven, but the assumption is true until proven false. A big assumption indeed. Who could PROVE without a doubt that there are not Gods creating natural disasters and altering people’s lives for better or worse? These earlier stories were dismissed as silly, but they had their benefits as well—respect for the earth, respect for forces beyond our understanding, and more. Western Culture has enshrined the stories of science without understanding that they ARE stories. As a result, education has been re-created to focus on the skills and theories of a scientific technostructure, and real thinking about the nature of knowledge itself has been rare and academic in nature. Stories—history, philosophy, literature—have been relegated to the domain of “general education” to prepare for the real understanding of the world. They have not been given the central place in the curriculum that they deserve.

At the most basic level, we think in stories. Mark Turner’s The Literary Mind makes a convincing case that at the simplest level thinking is storying. Some have complained that his approach is too literary, and that may be true. But imagining—connecting potential causes and their likely effects, envisioning alternative courses of action, even tracking prey—all require the ability to create a meaningful story about the world around us. Poor stories fail to help us. Good, well-considered stories can save our lives. Knowing how to separate good stories from attractive, but dangerous ones, is a central human skill that cannot be taught in math and science classes. Most of the time, stories are assumed rather than considered. Neil Postman said that every subject should be taught within its own history. Not as a set of facts and theories and approaches without context, but as a developing area of knowledge with a history of its own. He was right.

In “Education by Poetry,” a monologue given at Amherst College, Robert Frost insisted that in order to understand the world we must understand the uses and limits of metaphors better. Metaphors, in Turner’s book, are projections of one story onto another domain entirely: “Life is like a game of golf” or “the world is like a machine.” Stories can operate on two levels: one immediate, and relevant to the context at hand, and one “projectible” and useful for understanding other domains. The story of picking up and throwing a ball is simple, and may not have wide use in other domains. The story of automated production and its “benefits,” however, may be projected onto many domains—sometimes with devastating results. Efficiency is good, up to a point. But human relationships and needs are not efficient in many cases, and bad stories can create bad work and unhappy lives. In the advertisement current now, “Bigger is better.” But is bigger better when you are overweight? When you have cancerous tumors? Of course not. Stupid and unconsidered projections of stories can be dangerous—even deadly. Frost challenges us to think about these issues, and to build them into our educational practices.

Metaphors, Models, Stories, Poems. Let’s talk about them here on “Expanding Minds.”