STORIES CAN SHAPE THE WORLD.
Once upon a time, all it took to get my rapt attention was ‘once upon a time’. These words were usually followed by beautiful stories often laced with morals, that talked of elves, fairy godmothers and sometimes scary characters like Ayawa. Usually, I’m left in suspense alone with my thoughts, I would wonder, ‘Who gets the gingerbread? Would Cinderella make it home before midnight stroke?’. In the innocence and puerility of childhood, I skim through pictures in my book of bible stories and with childish awe I ask, who created God?
As the innocence of childhood waned, I gradually became conscious of what it meant to live in an unjust world. Again, stories played an important role in this phase of life. I remember my 9th birthday present, it was a storybook with a concise account of Dr Martin Luther King (Jr)’s life. The first chapter ended with the Kings going to bed with smiles after welcoming their son. The joy did not last all through that story, I remember the feeling anger that raged through me when I read of the assassination of Dr King at a time when his struggles were beginning to pay off. Maybe I had had prior experiences with injustice, this particular experience tied to Dr King’s story however stands out for me as the earliest realisation of the injustice that goes on in the world.
Thereafter came the thrill of adventure, the novel power of imagination enshrined in fiction made me exhilarated as I read through various editions of Gulliver’s Travels. This thrill was soon replaced by the fire of ambition which today has led me to my present pursuit of academic and professional mastery. More than I am willing to admit, Ben Carson’s story was a huge influence on my career choice. Soon after, the raging hormones of adolescence had me running through several harlequin stories mostly written by Sydney Sheldon.
Drawing from my personal experiences, stories, written and unwritten have been a major part of growth and development and it is impossible for me to talk about milestones in my life, one story on its own, without referring to a lot more other stories that influenced these stages.
Stories are at the core of human psychosocial and emotional development. In fact, paraphrasing Yuval Noah Harare [1], in his book Sapiens, he attributes the success of Homo sapiens as a species in relation to its predecessors to the ‘invention’ of fiction that came with the cognitive revolution era of evolution. Homo sapiens as social animals are able to forge complex network of relationships by collectively believing in common legends and myths. Today’s society is built around a vast number of common myths that is deeply wafted into the very fabric of our existence.
According to Yuval Noah, he attributes the existence of judicial systems to the common legal myths believed by Lawyers in the existence of laws, justice and human rights. He tries to explain that the continued existence of religion, patriotism and large business corporations can be ascribed to religious, national and legal myths that, according to him, do not exist outside of our collective imaginations. To an extent, this explains why business entities can exist independently as a separate entity from the owner and why two prior strangers are willing to risk their lives for each other because both believe in the existence of the Sovereignty of the Biafran state.
The world today is rife with ideological and counter ideological contentions. Capitalism and Socialism, Theism and Atheism, Sunni and Shias, Liberalism and Conservatism, are just few of many ideological battles going on presently. At the heart of these contentions are stories notably peddled as narratives. Terrorism today thrives not on the precision of grenades and rocket launchers but on the ability of insurgents to sell stories that connect to the dark sides of the human nature. What else can be the explanation behind suicide bombers who blow themselves up, dying believing the promise of virgins in paradise or the Christian’s fervent perseverance in the face of intense persecution. Essentially, ideologies and. religions thrive, not necessarily because of the authenticity of their stories but the ability of the proponents of such ideologies to transform their beliefs into beautifully told stories.
Discrimination and all sorts of oppression are all offshoots of warped narratives told to appeal to the propensity of humans to abhor anything with a tinge of difference. These stories peddle difference as inferiority and the effect of this seemingly simple anomaly can wreck colossal despoliation. One of these gory situations that forever would remain a dent on human history is the Jewish Holocaust that saw the inhumane destruction of over 6 million Jews. At the heart of this dastardly act was a thwarted story that was strong enough to arouse this level of hostility right under nose of the whole world. Racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and every form of discrimination, extremism and oppression today is being fuelled by narratives that do not paint the realistic pictures of situations. Narratives that consequently seeks to drown the voices that tell differing stories and dampen the intensity of any form of diversity under the stifling arms of pseudo-superiority armed with power and social capital.
Stories appeal to our humanity, they help us see a piece of ourselves in other people. This sense of connection that stories breed are the basis of today’s commercial advertisements and corporate branding. There is enough proof around to show that stories influence the mind of its proponents. For a figment of imagination, fiction that live in our collective imaginations wield so much power that it would be blatant denial not to acknowledge. Just as narratives that are injurious to our collective humanity gained enough traction ton influence history, albeit negatively, counter narratives also possess equal ability in engineering towards the path of equity and fairness.
If we would ever live in an equitable society depends on how much we are able to push the right narratives to the fore of the society’s collective consciousness. More clearly than ever, it is glaring now that the society mirrors its most told stories.
In effect, the quality of a society would be (in part) a cumulative effect of the stories it chooses to tell. Hence, the responsibility of shaping the society in this regard is entrusted in the hands of those with the platforms with direct access to the society’s consciousness – the media. Herculean as it may seem, the media directly or not gets to choose, which stories deserves to be told? Who tells these stories? How are they told?
The society we live in at any point would be a reflection of the answers to these poignant questions.
Reference
[1] Yuval Harare N., Sapiens: a brief history of mankind, Harper Collins, 2014.
