capitalism to communism to Protestantism to republicanism to utopianism to messianism—depended on big stories to keep them going. None of them were supposed to be so effective in the short term or the present. They all promised something better in the future for having suffered through something not so great today. (Or at least they offered something better today than whatever pain and suffering supposedly went on back in the day.) The ends justified the means. Today’s war was tomorrow’s liberation. Today’s suffering was tomorrow’s salvation. Today’s work was tomorrow’s reward.
These stories functioned for quite a while. In the United States, in particular, optimism and a focus on the future seemed to define our national character. Immigrants committed to a better tomorrow risked their lives to sail the ocean to settle a wilderness. The New World called for a new story to be written, and that story provided us with the forward momentum required to live for the future. The Protestant work ethic of striving now for a better tomorrow took hold in America more powerfully than elsewhere, in part because of the continent’s ample untapped resources and sense of boundless horizon. While Europe maintained the museums and cultures of the past, America thought of itself as forging the new frontier.
By the end of World War II, this became quite true. Only, America’s frontier was less about finding new territory to exploit than it was about inventing new technologies, new businesses, and new ideas to keep the economy expanding and the story unfolding. Just as Mormonism continued the ancient story of the Bible into the American present, technologies, from rocket ships to computer chips, would carry the story of America’s manifest destiny into the future. The American Dream, varied though it may have been, was almost universally depending on the same greater shape, the same kind of story to carry us along. We were sustained economically, politically, and even spiritually, by stories.
Together these stories helped us construct a narrative experience of our lives, our nation, our culture, and our faith. We adopted an entirely storylike way of experiencing and talking about the world. Through the lens of narrative, America isn’t just a place where we live but is a journey of a people through time. Apple isn’t a smart phone manufacturer, but two guys in a garage who had a dream about how creative people may someday gain command over technology. Democracy is not a methodology for governing, but the force that will liberate humanity. Pollution is not an ongoing responsibility of industry, but the impending catastrophic climax of human civilization.
Storytelling became an acknowledged cultural value in itself. In front of millions of rapt television viewers, mythologist Joseph Campbell taught PBS’s Bill Moyers how stories provide the fundamental architecture for human civilization. These broadcasts on
The Power of Myth
inspired filmmakers, admen, and management theorists alike to incorporate the tenets of good storytelling into their most basic frameworks. Even brain scientists came to agree that narrativity amounted to an essential component of cognitive organization. As Case Western Reserve University researcher Mark Turner concluded: “Narrative imagining—story—is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.” 1 Or as science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin observed, “The story—from Rapunzel to
War and Peace
—is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” 2
Experiencing the world as a series of stories helps create a sense of context. It is comforting and orienting. It helps smooth out obstacles and
These stories functioned for quite a while. In the United States, in particular, optimism and a focus on the future seemed to define our national character. Immigrants committed to a better tomorrow risked their lives to sail the ocean to settle a wilderness. The New World called for a new story to be written, and that story provided us with the forward momentum required to live for the future. The Protestant work ethic of striving now for a better tomorrow took hold in America more powerfully than elsewhere, in part because of the continent’s ample untapped resources and sense of boundless horizon. While Europe maintained the museums and cultures of the past, America thought of itself as forging the new frontier.
By the end of World War II, this became quite true. Only, America’s frontier was less about finding new territory to exploit than it was about inventing new technologies, new businesses, and new ideas to keep the economy expanding and the story unfolding. Just as Mormonism continued the ancient story of the Bible into the American present, technologies, from rocket ships to computer chips, would carry the story of America’s manifest destiny into the future. The American Dream, varied though it may have been, was almost universally depending on the same greater shape, the same kind of story to carry us along. We were sustained economically, politically, and even spiritually, by stories.
Together these stories helped us construct a narrative experience of our lives, our nation, our culture, and our faith. We adopted an entirely storylike way of experiencing and talking about the world. Through the lens of narrative, America isn’t just a place where we live but is a journey of a people through time. Apple isn’t a smart phone manufacturer, but two guys in a garage who had a dream about how creative people may someday gain command over technology. Democracy is not a methodology for governing, but the force that will liberate humanity. Pollution is not an ongoing responsibility of industry, but the impending catastrophic climax of human civilization.
Storytelling became an acknowledged cultural value in itself. In front of millions of rapt television viewers, mythologist Joseph Campbell taught PBS’s Bill Moyers how stories provide the fundamental architecture for human civilization. These broadcasts on
The Power of Myth
inspired filmmakers, admen, and management theorists alike to incorporate the tenets of good storytelling into their most basic frameworks. Even brain scientists came to agree that narrativity amounted to an essential component of cognitive organization. As Case Western Reserve University researcher Mark Turner concluded: “Narrative imagining—story—is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.” 1 Or as science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin observed, “The story—from Rapunzel to
War and Peace
—is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” 2
Experiencing the world as a series of stories helps create a sense of context. It is comforting and orienting. It helps smooth out obstacles and
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