Stories to Live By

Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths. But during the twentieth century the global elites in New York, London, Berlin, and Moscow formulated three grand stories that claimed to explain the whole past and to predict the f

Before Carl, the world was changing fast, and many people had already lost their solid grip on how they fit into the world, but most folks were still in a story that made some sense. But when Carl came and we were all suddenly in a new story, that was jarring. And then we hit another twist to the roller coaster: They were gone, and now it seemed li

Stories function like the streetlight in a moral as well as a practical sense. The light illuminates those who are good, who count, who should be thought of as ‘us’; it leaves in the darkness those who are bad, who don’t matter, who can be dismissed as ‘them.’ American linguist and political scientist George Lakoff calls this effect ‘framing,’ and

We experience our day-to-day lives in story mode.