Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
The writer and literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall has a new book out called The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Like other books in the pop-science field--David Brooks' The Social Animal and Robert Wright's The Moral Animal come to mind--this work is the latest in an effort to understand some facet of the human condition that seems distinctively human, and to explain it in evolutionary terms by drawing on neuroscience and Darwin.
Gottschall has made his career thinking about these issues. In 2005, he edited a volume of essays called The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (with a foreword by E. O. Wilson) and in 2008 he wrote The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer.
The evolutionary origins of stories is a theme in his latest book as well. From the cave paintings at Lascaux to the horror stories of Stephen King to our table talk at dinner, telling stories is something that is an innate part of the human experience:
Flip through the sacred scriptures of any society in the history of the world, and you will be flipping through an anthology of stories. Religion is the ultimate expression of story’s dominion over our minds. The heroes of sacred fiction swarm through the real world, exerting astonishing influence over life on earth.
In the preface to his new book, Gottschall writes:
Tens of thousands of years ago, when the human mind was young and our numbers were few, we were telling one another stories. And now, tens of thousands of years later, when our species teems across the globe, most of us still hew strongly to myths about the origins of things, and we still thrill to an astonishing multitude of fictions on pages, on stages, and on screens--murder stories, sex stories, war stories, conspiracy stories, true stories and false. We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up at night, telling itself stories.
This book is about the primate Homo Fictus (fiction man), the great ape with the storytelling mind.
The question that The Storytelling Animal asks is this: Is telling stories so innate that it is literally hard-wired into our brains? Can science explain why human beings tell stories? Gottschall argues that it can.
We all have a set of left hemisphere brain circuits that force story structure onto the chaos of our lives. When these circuits run amok we get schizophrenia, wild conspiracy theories and, sometimes, immortal works of poetry and fiction.
With that question answered (though perhaps not finally settled), he moves on to another one: Do stories make us more moral? He claims that “The only way to find out is to do the science,” and concludes, predictably, that the science confirms his hypothesis (although he does acknowledge, perhaps unwittingly, that maybe, just maybe, there's more to it than that: This book, he writes, is "about the deep mysteriousness of story. Why are humans addicted to Neverland?")
But the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik is not convinced. Gopnik picks apart Gottschall's argument:
Do entertaining stories make us more ethical? “The only way to find out is to do the science,” Gottschall says, reasonably enough, and then announces that “the constant firing of our neurons in response to fictional stimuli strengthens and refines the neural pathways that lead to skillful navigation of life’s problems” and that the studies show that therefore people who read a lot of novels have better social and empathetic abilities, are more skillful navigators, than those who don’t. He insists that storytelling is adaptive, on strictly Darwinian terms, but surely this would only have meaning if he could show that there were human-like groups who failed to compete because they didn’t trade tales—or even that tribes who told lots of stories did better than tribes that didn’t. Are societies, like that of Europe now, which has mostly rejected religious storytellers, less prosperous and peaceful than ones, like Europe back when, that didn’t? Would a human-like society that had lots of food and sex but no stories die out? When has this happened? (It’s true that there are those who think that the “symbolic” revolution among our sort of people doomed the Neanderthals, but this is, to put it mildly, a very speculative story, more “Star Trek” than “Mr. Wizard.”)
And if these claims seem almost too large to argue, the more central claim—that stories increase our empathy, and “make societies work better by encouraging us to behave ethically”—seems too absurd even to argue with. Surely if there were any truth in the notion that reading fiction greatly increased our capacity for empathy then college English departments, which have by far the densest concentration of fiction readers in human history, would be legendary for their absence of back-stabbing, competitive ill-will, factional rage, and egocentric self-promoters; they’d be the one place where disputes are most often quickly and amiably resolved by mutual empathetic engagement. It is rare to see a thesis actually falsified as it is being articulated.
I think Gopnik is missing the point. First of all, college English departments hardly read stories anymore. They read literary theory. To the extent that they do read stories--like, say, Hamlet--it's through the dark veil of theory (i.e. was Hamlet gay?). Second, stories, by definition, make us more empathetic. They have to. The dictionary defines empathy as "the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another." This is exactly what a story does: It takes us inside another person's world and help us understand how that person is feeling and why they react to certain dramatic events in the way that they do or why the take action to achieve a certain goal.
Empathy makes us more moral, then, by helping us identify and consider another person. As Gottschall writes, "Contrary to the claims of moralist and literary critics, most successful fiction—from folk tales to novels to TV dramas—is conventionally ethical. Far from degrading a culture’s moral fabric, fiction pulls us together around common values."
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Comments:
Apr '12
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
I don't think the question "do stories make us ethical?" is particularly interesting. Stories are so integral to the human experience that they'll inevitably be a part of both good and bad character development. (Jesus told stories, but so did Lady MacBeth.) The question is: what sort of creatures must we be, that we need stories so much? The ancients explained it in terms of the spirited virtues, courage and hope. This is one part of the human experience that has always befuddled the moderns (look at Hume's absurd passage on the "strong emotions".) Doesnt sound like this book has added anything very useful.
Nov '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Emily Esfahani Smith:
...Second, stories, by definition, make us more empathetic. They have to. The dictionary defines empathy as "the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another." This is exactly what a story does: It takes us inside another person's world and help us understand how that person is feeling and why they react to certain dramatic events in the way that they do or why the take action to achieve a certain goal.
I don't think you've proven that stories make us more empathetic. Granted, a well-written story takes us inside another person's world, that doesn't prove that, having read a story, a the reader will become more empathetic to others in their normal life. Maybe they will, maybe they won't.
Jan '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
The human mind works by association. One thought leads to another.
In formal logic, we connect premises. In other words, we see what happens when two premises have a common term (the same subject or same predicate). If so, logic tells us, we may be able to discover something interesting about the other (the unconnected) terms. Of course, this discovery only happens when one premise has the same term as the other. The common term serves as the “bridge” between premises.
We mentally build bridges between thoughts all the time. If our intellectual world was filled with random statements, unassociated in any way, we couldn’t build anything. Our mental world would be like a stack of bricks without mortar ... it couldn’t stand up.
Ideas need to be associated. Stories do the job.
A story connects ideas … not to mention emotions, feelings, facts, events, previous convictions, perceptions, and so on. Our entire mental awareness is a result of complex associations. Stories connect all of our mental contents into a manageable pattern. Stories make the world make sense.
Morality requires making sense of complex events and how they affect people. So, morality often depends on story.
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Perhaps stories instill empathy in the moment, but I'm afraid it doesn't always last as long as we'd like. I attended a church service in South Florida once. We were all encouraged to be empathetic toward our fellow man. People embraced and wished Peace on each other. The atmosphere was lovely. A short time later, the fellow who had said, "Peace be with you," only minutes earlier nearly ran over me in his haste to get out of the parking lot. Perhaps he was in a rush to go out and do good,..but I doubted it at the time.
Sep '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
If stories make us more empathetic - I'm not sure but I certainly think there is something good about them - but what are we to make of these wildly popular "porn" novels called _50 Shades of Gray_? Many of my wife's friends and the women in my office are reading them but my 19yr old daughter who has pretty good taste says there not well written in addition to being "just gross".
Apr '12
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Right, well that relates to my point. Saying that stories make us ethical is like saying that food makes us healthy. It's sort of true, in that we can't be healthy without food, but it's more helpful just to say that food is an integral part of human existence, and that health requires that we approach it in the right sort of way. Likewise with stories. Saying that humans use stories to form associations is also true, and a little bit helpful, but it leaves a lot unexplained. Why are we so fixated on that particular method of forming associations? Computers sort and access different data too, but they don't do it that way. Our need for stories says something deeper about the sort of creatures that we are.
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Emily Esfahani Smith:
The question that The Storytelling Animal asks is this: Is telling stories so innate that it is literally hard-wired into our brains? Can science explain why human beings tell stories? Gottschall argues that it can.
It's plausible that storytelling could be hardwired into us, to a certain extent, just like language is.
For most of human history, direct experience plus oral storytelling was probably the only way to learn. So what we don't learn by doing, we learn in stories. We even learn abstract topics, like science, largely in story form, and good teachers exploit that.
Storytelling is the primordial way of passing on accumulated knowledge. So storytelling is civilizing. I wouldn't call it inherently moral, though. While storytelling is an excellent way to share morality, it's by its nature an excellent way to share anything, including corruption (think of the destructive power of gossip).
Just because aspects of language are hardwired into us doesn't make all forms of language equally good. Likewise, hardwired storytelling capacity wouldn't make all kinds of story equally good.
What makes storytelling good is that good stories can be told with it.
Edited on May 22, 2012 at 10:25pmDec '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Lots of animals tell stories. Honeybees, for example, can tell a very compelling and descriptive story that informs their hivemates where to find nectar: the story consists of a stylized dance and the sharing of samples of nectar.
What distinguishes humans is that we tell stories of things that do not exist: things that are removed from our audience by time or by physical distance, or things that are simply not in our physical frame of reference.
I agree that we create stories to impose a certain order on existence in our own minds. I have seen far too many examples of the contrary to believe that stories are inherently "moral." Stories may be inherently inspirational, but what is inspired can range from the divinely sublime to the simply emotional to the downright evil.
Mar '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
The earliest storytelling was probably Og letting the rest of the tribe know that he saw some antelope on the other side of the hill. Later, the stories got more involved; the antelope are fond of the water hole on the other side of the hill, so maybe we should check there first. Eventually, the stories included planning; Og and I will stand by the draw, and everybody else in the tribe drive the antelope past us so we can hit them with the pointy sticks.
The tribe that could pull it all together got antelope meat.
Dec '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Nobody has to teach a spider how to spin a web. It is born with the ability and the "knowledge" it needs to spin a web that catches its food -- indeed, it is born with the "knowledge" that if it wants to survive, it must spin a web and catch food.
Human babies are born barely even knowing what hunger is. Everything a human individual needs to know to survive on its own, it must learn.
Thus, spiders need no storytellers, and humans do. Once a species becomes fully dependent on learning from peers for survival, evolution drives innovation in the means of learning and of teaching. And with human storytelling, the ability to practice with abstract concepts and fiction sharpens the skills needed for survival (not least the skills of social interaction).
Oct '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Family and cultural histories have been passed on through verbal means to provide import to the message is conveyed . This creates lasting effect. Lets not forget The Selfish Gene model.
Dec '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
It seems to me that the title is backward. We are human because we tell stories, and understand the stories told by others. Walker Percy makes this claim in his essay, “The Delta Factor,” about the way that humans communicate using signs to represent object to someone. These deltas, are three-way relationships that can’t be understood as combinations of two-way relations. And this is different from the way that any other species communicates (so far as anyone knows).
Dec '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Percy tells the story of Helen Keller in the well-house, understanding that W-A-T-E-R (or sign) is Water (the liquid, the object) to Helen (the interpreter). Percy then imagines that the first story must have some relation to the origin of man as a species.
Man becomes man when the spark jumps the gap and understands the difference between the real bison and the symbolic bison, and discovers language.
Dec '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
I would like to see a series of experiments with various species along these lines:
Keep a group of the animals in a communal living space. Take one individual out and teach it a certain behavioral routine with a food treat as a reward. Then take the other individuals out of the group one at a time and see whether any of them do the routine in order to earn a food reward. If they do, that indicates that the animals can teach each other abstract concepts.
It's not all that far-fetched. Ravens have been shown to understand the concept of deception and how to "lie" to other ravens in order to distract them from food treats.
Aug '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Stuart Creque:
I would like to see a series of experiments with various species along these lines:
Keep a group of the animals in a communal living space. Take one individual out and teach it a certain behavioral routine with a food treat as a reward. Then take the other individuals out of the group one at a time and see whether any of them do the routine in order to earn a food reward. If they do, that indicates that the animals can teach each other abstract concepts.
It's not all that far-fetched. Ravens have been shown to understand the concept of deception and how to "lie" to other ravens in order to distract them from food treats.
No doubt you're right.
Of course, what makes us human isn't the same as what makes us different from animals. A lot of our humanity comes from being animals, although animals of a most peculiar sort.
Edited on May 23, 2012 at 7:51amDec '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
I'm not sure that would provide the proof needed. Percy's argument requires going beyond a stimulus-response or energy transfer model. One example he gives somewhere is the ability of a young child just learning language to understand that the word for a round, red, rubbery thing that a parent just named "balloon" can be applied to a blue, sausage-shaped thing, or even the Good-Year blimp, without having to have the word applied to each instance of balloon.
Dec '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
Muleskinner, the experiment I propose would demonstrate that a given species could transmit the abstract concept, "There is a food treat to be had from the human if you show him this behavior." It would not demonstrate the kind of generalized symbolic thinking you're describing, but there are other experiments that can test for that. In the context of this discussion, I'm more interested in whether other species can communicate abstract ideas to their peers than in how a given individual forms and holds those ideas.
Dec '11
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
I don't disagree that other species can communicate abstract ideas, or that it can be tested. It's more of what do we count as abstract. I knew an experimental economist who proved that psychotics can demonstrate rational economic behavior. Apparently rational economic behavior isn't a very high bar.
Dec '10
Re: Why Do Humans Tell Stories?
My wife is a telephone triage nurse (an "advice nurse") and she marvels that patients with severe psychiatric diagnoses, who take a myriad of psychotropic drugs and need assistance with the basic navigation of ordinary life challenges, still somehow manage to remember the number for her service.