Backstories
The Bible’s principles and whether any of its characters existed in time and place will not be discussed in this essay. Nor will it argue the degree to which the ancient book has shaped and is shaping humanity. For the word of God’s sake untold people have gone to battle, sacrificed resources (the Catholic Church currently sits on $73 billion in assets), erected buildings, explored new territory, and created art. Anyone reading this knows today’s date is determined by counting the number years after the Bible’s central figure was born and Westerners are called Westerners because they live West of the same character’s birthplace. Hebrew scriptures are foundational to our government and its justice system. It is not self-evident whatsoever that humans are created equal or that we have unalienable rights. Though not perfect, the world’s most ethical human rights policy descends directly from a biblical proposition: our rights were endowed to us by our creator. There’s no debating the Bible’s influence persists.
What I don’t hear debated is why the most influential message of our time delivered as a story? Anything capable of creating the universe could surely have sent their message as a simple song, poem, bulleted list, or image rather than complex web of characters, plots, and themes. It is quite a bizarre strategy to communicate through a massive story the first five chapters of which took over 500 years to write. As Canadian media theorist Marshall McCluhan explained in the 1950’s: the medium is the message.
McCluhan’s thesis is that the tools we invent are more important than how we use them. It’s the mediums – books, hatchets, houses, trains, Snapchats, computers or any other extension of mankind – not the content, that truly matter. Imagine introducing hatchets to a prehistoric tribe. Whether the hatchets are used for chopping trees, hunting, or murdering is less consequential than hatchet technology itself because the content created with hatchets wouldn’t exist without them. Similarly, the content transported on railcars did less to shape the industrial world than the invention of the railway. Every piece of news printed in the Washington Post wouldn’t be possible without newspapers. Therefore, the medium of stories is in some sense more important than the content of the Bible because the Bible could not be shared if stories were not first invented.
Stories Unite & Motivate
Language is not unique to humans. Many animals communicate threats, coordinate movements, and attract mates vocally. What distinguishes human language is communication about physically non-existent entities, or stories. Great Britain, for example, does not exist. The land exists and the people exist but the idea of a nation only exists in collective human consciousness. You won’t find British hens handing over a third of their eggs in exchange for weekly coupe clean up. The New York Yankees are another manmade fiction. You cannot point to “the Yankees” like you can trees, boats, or giraffes. If every rostered player, minor leaguer, and Yankee employee died and Yankee Stadium blew up today the New York Yankees would not disappear. The corporation, which society would agree still exists, would find new players and build another stadium. On the other hand, a federal judge could classify the corporation as a monopoly dissolving it from our shared reality just like China could invade Great Britain and rename it Mandarinland. The invasion would completely reorient Londoners’ identities but have no effect whatsoever on that of British hens.
Manmade stories, like Great Britain or the Yankees, acting as such effective mechanisms for coordinating strangers is counterintuitive. Why should millions of unfamiliar citizens be willing to fight for the idea of Great Britain? Yankee fans all over the globe give energy to the same cause 162 days a year. No other animal behaves this way. Biologists don’t find dolphins or monkeys or eagles - motivated by physically non-existent ideas - striving towards common goals alongside unknown members of their species. Homo Sapiens have taken over the world in large part because we treat socially constructed stories like nations, corporations, and gods with the utmost respect.
The human brain designed the Great Pyramids, helicopters, atomic weapons, and the Harry Potter universe. As the most powerful object on planet Earth, it is still not immune the chemistry altering effects of group fictions. Roman soldiers sang and chanted en route to battle because feeling part of a larger body builds courage and strengthens bonds. An individual soldier doesn’t die in vain if the voice of the army carries on. Stories, myths, nations, and corporations motivate and unite strangers across generations by transcending death. Anyone who voluntarily buys into group fictions is theoretically connected to them forever – an enticing proposition for the only Earthly creature that knows it’s going to die.
Self-Helping Stories
Elementary school students are captivated by middle school students who are captivated by high school students who are captivated by university students and the reverse does not hold. Humans pay careful attention to what is barely beyond our level of understanding. We quit on outrageously difficult crossword puzzles and are bored by insultingly easy ones. Crosswords in the Zone of Proximal Development – challenging enough to push us but within the limits of our innate ability – optimize our potential. Parents naturally behave in this zone around their children. Studies show the words they use in conversation are slightly more sophisticated than their kids’ current vocabulary. Stories captivate us in similar fashion. A certain level of randomness and unconscious influence are baked into every story about a human or God with humanlike qualities. Since we are not omnipotent, we must stretch our level of understanding to grasp what a story is all about and because we can put ourselves in the characters’ shoes, but not perfectly (we can’t even put ourselves in our own shoes perfectly), stories offer unlimited personal growth. There is always something more to learn.
A mathematical expression, song, axiom, or some simple medium could never be the conduit through which our creator communicates a cure for every anxiety. The future is unknown. Equations and hymns cannot govern changing environments where moral and ethical structures must be flexible enough to absorb the particularities of nature’s unpredictable selective pressures. No single law serves all circumstances. Do Not kill. What if a murderer is stabbing my brother? Be Humble. Performing under pressure requires total confidence. Be Confident. I don’t have all the answers. Prepare. At some point gathering information and skills is delaying action. Be Present. Maturing requires assessing past decisions and prioritizing time to wander and plan. To survive humans must be adaptable to the edges cases that universal laws don’t tolerate. Stories combine the universal and the particular.
Humans didn’t invent the technology of stories because we are different from computers and apes. Humans are different from computers and apes because we invented stories. Stories are the manmade extension through which we experience our lives. We don’t remember every step, every slice of an onion, or every bathroom break like a computer would. We remember places, feelings, scenes, and characters moving through time and we care about them beyond their physical presence. Living inside a story allows us to be resilient, to change our patterns of behavior while providing enough structure and rules for heroes to materialize. The Bible is written as the story of all stories. Its contents do matter, in the same way that what one does with a hatchet matters; but what’s arguably matters more is that the Bible is witness to the existence of stories themselves. If mediums truly are the message, then as extensions of creation humanity’s existence is more important than the contents of its lives.
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-Dev