What is so compelling about stories for humans?
In advertising, a key mantra to market a product successfully is to sell not just the product but the 'experience' of using that product. For example, a good detergent ad is designed not to say the product works well but it shows that it does through a 'story'. We as a species are addicted to stories. It is like a drug we use to escape boredom and brutality of life.
But why?
Stories gave us an edge to survive when humans were hunters and gatherers, they kept group cohesion and lead to development of languages. But a chief principle of evolution is that nature only passes on the utilitarian traits to next generations, so why are we still fascinated by stories? What purpose do they serve or is it just a useless side effect of evolution that’s been left behind just to entertain us for our pleasure?
The author's reasoning goes like this, “Story is where people go to practice the key skills of human social life. We seek story because we enjoy it. But nature designed us to enjoy stories so we would get the benefit of practice. Fiction is an ancient virtual reality technology that specializes in simulating human problems. Just like a singer practices her songs at home in her private setting, where the stakes are low before appearing in front of hundreds of people on stage, where the stakes are very high. Fiction allows our brain to practice reacting to the kinds of challenges that are and always were most crucial to our success as species”.
Sometime ago after watching a movie with a story that failed to impress me because I saw some bits of the story as a threat to the society's moral values and wrote this below post on Facebook
Dear south Indian movies (well, predominantly)
We have put up with superpowers of your heros and insensible heroism for so long but I cannot tolerate your recent developments in the area of your expertise anymore!
Your heros couldn't take 'no' from a girl because rejection is considered 'unmanly' so they tortured them by stalking around and did anything until they heard yes, this fuelled some of the recent violence against women in society. You glorified evils and criminals for a long time and now you show our teenagers that alcoholism and addiction to drugs are so cool and the direct positive correlation between success in life and drugs is most shocking and disgusting above all!!
So what's next you have in store? Corruption is meritorious, rape is human?
Unfortunately, like it or not, we still live in a society that is influenced greatly by cinemas so please if you don't have social responsibility in making movies, then don't make one!! We have enough psychos on loose in the country!
What happened to me that day? Why did I feel to voice out my opinion?
Some people argued with me that the artists’ imagination should be let free, it is a creative form of art and it is the people that should decide what to be consumed, the message to take and leave behind.
I agree and respect the opinion, but let's see this from a psychological point of view:
The super power of stories is the way they spell bind our brains. Just because we know that fiction is fiction doesn't stop the emotional brain from processing it as real. Scientists observed in lab experiments that we have neural networks that activate (fire) when we perform an action or experience an emotion and also the same neurons activate when we observe someone else performing an action or experiencing an emotion.Thanks to the 'mirror neurons'!
Psychology has done some serious studies of story’s effects on human mind. Fiction does mold our minds. People’s deepest moral beliefs and values are modified by the fiction they consume. The author says, "Moralistic impulse is a part of human nature. Stories not only reflect this impulse and also reinforce it. Stories make societies work better by encouraging us to behave ethically. They relentlessly stigmatize antisocial behavior and just relentlessly celebrate pro-social behavior. Fiction has positive effects on readers moral development and sense of empathy".
Stories can shape individuals and histories, sometimes disastrously (Hitler who owed his political career to the artist Richard Wagner, a German nationalist for his strong views and his music) sometimes for greater good ('Uncle Tom’s Cabin' story which fueled the american civil war) with other few examples that are shown in the book.
In Jonathan's words, "Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. For example, if we watch a sexual encounter gone wrong our own sexual ethics will change. We will be more critical of the sexual choices.If, however, the show portrays a positive sexual encounter our sexual attitudes will move toward the permissive end of the spectrum. The same applies to violence too, it is consuming lots of violence lead to aggressive behavior".
So it does seem plausible to expect a little bit of social responsibility from the storytellers, especially when the digital medium is so powerful and touches many lives like never before!
Nevertheless, we always were and will be a storytelling animal!
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