Importance of Storytelling in Human Cultures

This thread deals with themes closely linked to an online project (potentially projects) I am working on with friends. The internet is bringing people together across the globe at an ideas level in a collaborative, community environment. So how should we use this tool to build healthy storytelling cultures, one of the cornerstones of humanity?

I am a strong believer in the place and importance of stories and the storyteller in human communities. Animals, particularly mammals, are not moronic beings. They relate to each other. They have intimate personal relationships. Clan knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. Infants learn from their parents. This ability to pass on knowledge has aided many species through the evolutionary path to today – not least our own.

As with most of our inherited traits, this idea of recording and passing on information and knowledge became something rather special as our own evolutionary path became a reality. This allowed us to record first and foremost – and for more reasons than merely passing on information about where the best watering holes were. As with many other human forms of recording and communicating, we built meaning into our stories. The story being told, in whatever format, represented something. Storytelling defines humanity as much as a larger skull, straight backbone and opposable thumbs do. In all its forms, It is as basic to all human cultures as is hunting and courtship.

Within these tales lie the very soul of humanity, and that soul is evident at a very basic level. It is not just in the dome of St Paul’s or the smile of the Mona Lisa that we see the greatness of humanity. These are dramatic examples. The purity of that thing lies in the most simplistic gestures – a tribal necklace with stone beads representing the seasons has as much importance in defining human expression as the Sistine chapel. Da Vinci is merely a very gifted beneficiary of a much deeper, natural reality.

This is the basic reality, and it is a great thing in and of itself. But we are humans. We are dreamers. And as always, we have our ideals. We dream of how our societies can be more inclusive, how our legal systems can be more just, how our cities can be more beautiful, how our streets can be safer for our children and how our leaders can be more inspiring. These things are not necessary for our basic survival, but they are inherent in our basic humanity.

The ideal of a storytelling culture is one where individuals are not blocked from self expression, where the ideas emerging from that situation are shared in an organic (for want of a better word) and democratic way. For it is these ideas that make up the tapestry of that culture overall, just as each bird in flight makes up the beautiful tapestry of a soaring flock. As such, this tapestry can truly claim to represent the ideas and beliefs of the people involved. This allows for a rich storytelling culture overall.

As always, the ideal can never become even close to the reality of a particular way of life if the systems that circumscribe that way of life do not allow for it. Social, cultural and political systems that evolve in certain societies may work against the organic movement of ideas through a culture. A hierarchy may exist that dominates the marketplace of ideas and controls the institutions of ‘high culture’, as in a propaganda state or an unequal society.

There is nothing ‘unnatural’ about this, and any storytelling culture, regardless of its moral setting or political background, can produce great examples of human expression and achievement. But the culture is undesirable overall. It can, and definitely does, work as a cancer, eating away at any hope of even an attempt at the ideal.

So how do we apply the above thoughts to contemporay society?