The Power of Stories
Jan. 22nd, 2021 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis video talks about how stories can influence people. Stories can actually change a reader's brain. Consider some ways this can happen ...
For instance, stories can make people more open-minded about magic. That matters, because most magic requires an open mind in order to work. You won't get water out of a hose if you're standing on it. If you want to broaden your worldview and become more open to the unexpected or unusual, then read stories with diverse examples of those things.
Now apply this idea to enlightenment, equanimity, ethics -- any of the higher functions of mind and spirit become more accessible by thinking about them. As Hawaiian tradition puts it: "Makia -- Energy flows where attention goes." So you should pay attention to things you want more of, and try to imagine how you could manifest them. Conversely, minimize attention to things you want less of.
Basically, storytelling creates a bridge between fantasy and reality. We can carry things over that bridge. It is better if we know what we are doing than if we do not. If we're mindful about it, we can choose good things to carry over that will improve our lives and our world. If we're careless, well ... lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. People can pick up things that they didn't intend to which are bad for them and/or others.
Assimilation happens when readers absorb traits from a fictional group. So think about the groups you read about. Are they good or bad? Healthy or toxic? How do the members treat each other? Often a story has good groups and bad groups in conflict, although in contemporary entertainment, it often devolves into gray-and-gray morality. Most importantly, are these people you wish to emulate? If all the groups in play are kind of crummy, or if there are diverse options but you grativate toward the more negative ones, then that could cause problems. Because the more time you spend with them, the more likely you are to be influenced by them.
This works a lot like our facetime relationships. You tend to become a combination of the people you spend the most time with. This is not always true, but let's say it's a path of least resistance. Humans tend to be highly contextual creatures, who try to fit in with those around them, hence cultural relativism. There are always rebels, and society needs them too, but most of the time most people stick together. So if you hang out with a bad crowd -- in this dimension or any other -- that may have consequences you don't like.
Transportation happens when readers lose themselves in the setting of a story. What kind of a setting is it? If it's a forest, and you don't have much experience with forests, then you might learn something useful about how to get along in one. If it's outer space, you're less likely to go there; but there are a lot of other places where "the environment is trying to kill you" is useful situational awareness that could save your ass. The ocean is like that, for instance, and so are jungles. If your own environment sucks, then reading about somewhere nicer might relieve some of the stress. But if you make a habit of visiting shitty places, that might not be such a good thing -- unless you're practicing how to analyze what makes them so bad or how to spot ways of improving them.
Identification occurs as readers take on the perspective and identity of a character. It can happen with movie characters too. Most often, people identify with characters who resemble them or have traits they aspire to. That matters because readers don't always identify with the protagonist. They usually do, because the protagonist tends to be shown in the best light and most people prefer to thing well of themselves; but if someone has more in common with a villain or side character, they may identify with that one instead. This is particularly an issue with under-represented identities whose only parallels may be with villainous or minor characters. The identification can still work, though. This type of experience-taking can produce real, if temporary, changes in a reader's life. If a reader gravitates to the same kind of content and identifies with similar characters, then the effects may be renewed enough to continue -- or might even become permanent. So it is vitally important for everyone to have characters who resemble them enough to identify with, and for at least a significant number of those characters to be positive and successful. If there are no portrayals, or only bad ones, that undermines mental health.
Transportation and identification may relate to the ability to empathize with others. In this way, stories can improve empathy and make the reader a better person. Higher-quality fiction, with more detailed characters and description, tends to work better than lower-quality fiction with less detail. Here some books suggested for this purpose.
It's not just the reader who's affected by the story. Experiential crossing is when a fictional character seems to 'visit' a reader in real life, narrating or making observations. The most interesting things about this to me, as a reader, a writer, and a worldwalker, is that only a tiny percentage of characters do this. Most of them don't seem to notice the fourth wall or that there are people beyond it; or if they do, they don't do anything about it. But a rare few will wander over and yammer at you or exclaim over your world's weirdness or give you sage (or salty) advice. Another fascinating point is that some characters will notice things that the reader wouldn't, or use skills that the reader doesn't have. In my case, I had just gotten out of bed when one of my desertfolk said, "It seems to be raining feathers." What?? I looked around, trying to flog my still-asleep brain into action. (It takes about an hour for my brain to boot up in the morning, so that is not a time when I notice details.) Eventually I figured out that it was snowing. And to a person who lived in a desert, "raining feathers" was actually a pretty good description of the weather that day: big fat fluffy white flakes drifting slowly down. A further iteration is fictive personalities in a multiple system.
Remember that bit about energy and attention? An egregore is a thought construct, literally made out of the attention that people pay to it. This can be intentional or unintentional, and like a lot of accidental things, the unintentional ones can be dangerous. Case in point: The Joker. He is a favorite supervillain, a lot of people adore him, and he is an utter nutjob. This is the kind of entity who is alert enough to notice attention, smart enough to use it, and psychotic enough to do evil with it. Which is kind of a problem considering how much attention he's getting in this dimension. The Joker has a tendency to mess with actors if he can get through to them enough -- and he is an accomplished earwig, often using words to manipulate people in canon. There was also a shooting at a Batman movie showing. Now most of the time, characters stay home and don't cause trouble, but when one comes over here and starts killing people for the lulz? Miiiiiight be a good idea to quit giving him any more invitations.
It can also be observed that reading is not passive entertainment, it's active entertainment -- the reader participates in creating a world and characters and action. The writer provides the script, but the reader puts on the play. Second-person literature (and first-person video gaming) especially invites this. It's what brings a story to life. A reader-centered approach to literature offers interesting insights.
Reading words engages not just the imagination, but the parts of the brain that would be involved in performing the same action. One possible explanation for this is mirror neurons, which create connections between people that facilitate prosocial interactions. Mirror neurons support the experience of storytelling. The mindreading of psychology relates to more concrete magical or superpowers like Empathy and Telepathy. Possibly more mirror neurons, or other things that grow out of them, support these more powerful abilities. Since reading improves ordinary empathy, reading about the magical versions -- how they work, how characters use them -- may give more of a boost.
Connecting with fictional characters can feel a lot like connecting with people face-to-face. This is called a parasocial relationship. It can improve mood and self-esteem. It can also help relieve loneliness -- in my observation, especially if the parasocial relationships are healthier and/or safer than the meatspace relationships. Considering that loneliness is as lethal as smoking or obesity, that's an important point. So one way to treat loneliness that would not require close contact with kind and compatible humans (who can be in short supply) would be to provide lonely people with books about nice characters in healthy relationships.
If you're trying to promote social or political change, storytelling is thus a highly effective method. I have observed this myself. I've done pickets, demonstrations, letter writing, vigils, petitions, fundraisers -- all the usual stuff. But the thing that has by far the highest throughput, where someone comes back to me and says "I did the thing" or "This taught me something that I used in real life" is storytelling. It measurably works better. Weird, but true.
As an interesting example, reading Harry Potter can increase tolerance of immigrants -- but only if the reader identifies with Harry. If they identify with another character, like the blood purists, readers might come away with very different discoveries. So it's important to choose wisely, not just what to read, but who to follow within a given story.
For a real-life example, consider the path to gay marriage. I honestly believe that fanfic, specifically starting with Kirk/Spock, played a major role in this accomplishment. Because that is what turned "the love that dare not speak its name" into "aww, da kyoot!"
So when you read, aim to read widely, from authors of different cultures, in a variety of settings. Especially, read about characters who resemble you and ones who don't, but primarily decent characters who are more likely to give you good habits than bad ones. What constitutes "decent" is up to you; just try to find characters you admire. This is a key reason why I watch so little television: I observe most modern characters to be assholes, I don't enjoy the company of assholes, and I definitely don't need encouragement to be any more of an asshole than I already am. This is why we need heroes. Look for literary role models.
From my writing, there are a number of characters that make my readers say "What would he do?" or "I wish I had someone like her in my life." That's what you want to aim for -- characters who help you figure things out, give you good ideas, and make your life better.
Uncle Phil, Steve Rogers, and JARVIS (roughly in that order) from Love Is For Children
Ansel Nicholson from Polychrome Heroics: Officer Pink
Stalwart Stan from Polychrome Heroics: Antimatter and Stalwart Stan
Victor Frankenstein from Frankenstein's Family
Some groups my readers have found appealing:
The Avengers from Love Is For Children
The Lacuna from An Army of One: The Autistic Secession in Space
Monster House from Monster House
Shaeth's church from One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis
Kraken from Polychrome Heroics
This is the highest-rated supervillain group among my audience. As it is now outperforming all the other countries in terms of meeting member needs, this is a well-reasoned choice. See also their exceptional teambuilding efforts.
The Blueshift Troupers from The Blueshift Troupers
Schrodinger's Heroes from Schrodinger's Heroes
EDIT 1/23/21:cornerofmadness has boosted the signal for the story power study on Twitter.
.
For instance, stories can make people more open-minded about magic. That matters, because most magic requires an open mind in order to work. You won't get water out of a hose if you're standing on it. If you want to broaden your worldview and become more open to the unexpected or unusual, then read stories with diverse examples of those things.
Now apply this idea to enlightenment, equanimity, ethics -- any of the higher functions of mind and spirit become more accessible by thinking about them. As Hawaiian tradition puts it: "Makia -- Energy flows where attention goes." So you should pay attention to things you want more of, and try to imagine how you could manifest them. Conversely, minimize attention to things you want less of.
Basically, storytelling creates a bridge between fantasy and reality. We can carry things over that bridge. It is better if we know what we are doing than if we do not. If we're mindful about it, we can choose good things to carry over that will improve our lives and our world. If we're careless, well ... lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. People can pick up things that they didn't intend to which are bad for them and/or others.
Assimilation happens when readers absorb traits from a fictional group. So think about the groups you read about. Are they good or bad? Healthy or toxic? How do the members treat each other? Often a story has good groups and bad groups in conflict, although in contemporary entertainment, it often devolves into gray-and-gray morality. Most importantly, are these people you wish to emulate? If all the groups in play are kind of crummy, or if there are diverse options but you grativate toward the more negative ones, then that could cause problems. Because the more time you spend with them, the more likely you are to be influenced by them.
This works a lot like our facetime relationships. You tend to become a combination of the people you spend the most time with. This is not always true, but let's say it's a path of least resistance. Humans tend to be highly contextual creatures, who try to fit in with those around them, hence cultural relativism. There are always rebels, and society needs them too, but most of the time most people stick together. So if you hang out with a bad crowd -- in this dimension or any other -- that may have consequences you don't like.
Transportation happens when readers lose themselves in the setting of a story. What kind of a setting is it? If it's a forest, and you don't have much experience with forests, then you might learn something useful about how to get along in one. If it's outer space, you're less likely to go there; but there are a lot of other places where "the environment is trying to kill you" is useful situational awareness that could save your ass. The ocean is like that, for instance, and so are jungles. If your own environment sucks, then reading about somewhere nicer might relieve some of the stress. But if you make a habit of visiting shitty places, that might not be such a good thing -- unless you're practicing how to analyze what makes them so bad or how to spot ways of improving them.
Identification occurs as readers take on the perspective and identity of a character. It can happen with movie characters too. Most often, people identify with characters who resemble them or have traits they aspire to. That matters because readers don't always identify with the protagonist. They usually do, because the protagonist tends to be shown in the best light and most people prefer to thing well of themselves; but if someone has more in common with a villain or side character, they may identify with that one instead. This is particularly an issue with under-represented identities whose only parallels may be with villainous or minor characters. The identification can still work, though. This type of experience-taking can produce real, if temporary, changes in a reader's life. If a reader gravitates to the same kind of content and identifies with similar characters, then the effects may be renewed enough to continue -- or might even become permanent. So it is vitally important for everyone to have characters who resemble them enough to identify with, and for at least a significant number of those characters to be positive and successful. If there are no portrayals, or only bad ones, that undermines mental health.
Transportation and identification may relate to the ability to empathize with others. In this way, stories can improve empathy and make the reader a better person. Higher-quality fiction, with more detailed characters and description, tends to work better than lower-quality fiction with less detail. Here some books suggested for this purpose.
It's not just the reader who's affected by the story. Experiential crossing is when a fictional character seems to 'visit' a reader in real life, narrating or making observations. The most interesting things about this to me, as a reader, a writer, and a worldwalker, is that only a tiny percentage of characters do this. Most of them don't seem to notice the fourth wall or that there are people beyond it; or if they do, they don't do anything about it. But a rare few will wander over and yammer at you or exclaim over your world's weirdness or give you sage (or salty) advice. Another fascinating point is that some characters will notice things that the reader wouldn't, or use skills that the reader doesn't have. In my case, I had just gotten out of bed when one of my desertfolk said, "It seems to be raining feathers." What?? I looked around, trying to flog my still-asleep brain into action. (It takes about an hour for my brain to boot up in the morning, so that is not a time when I notice details.) Eventually I figured out that it was snowing. And to a person who lived in a desert, "raining feathers" was actually a pretty good description of the weather that day: big fat fluffy white flakes drifting slowly down. A further iteration is fictive personalities in a multiple system.
Remember that bit about energy and attention? An egregore is a thought construct, literally made out of the attention that people pay to it. This can be intentional or unintentional, and like a lot of accidental things, the unintentional ones can be dangerous. Case in point: The Joker. He is a favorite supervillain, a lot of people adore him, and he is an utter nutjob. This is the kind of entity who is alert enough to notice attention, smart enough to use it, and psychotic enough to do evil with it. Which is kind of a problem considering how much attention he's getting in this dimension. The Joker has a tendency to mess with actors if he can get through to them enough -- and he is an accomplished earwig, often using words to manipulate people in canon. There was also a shooting at a Batman movie showing. Now most of the time, characters stay home and don't cause trouble, but when one comes over here and starts killing people for the lulz? Miiiiiight be a good idea to quit giving him any more invitations.
It can also be observed that reading is not passive entertainment, it's active entertainment -- the reader participates in creating a world and characters and action. The writer provides the script, but the reader puts on the play. Second-person literature (and first-person video gaming) especially invites this. It's what brings a story to life. A reader-centered approach to literature offers interesting insights.
Reading words engages not just the imagination, but the parts of the brain that would be involved in performing the same action. One possible explanation for this is mirror neurons, which create connections between people that facilitate prosocial interactions. Mirror neurons support the experience of storytelling. The mindreading of psychology relates to more concrete magical or superpowers like Empathy and Telepathy. Possibly more mirror neurons, or other things that grow out of them, support these more powerful abilities. Since reading improves ordinary empathy, reading about the magical versions -- how they work, how characters use them -- may give more of a boost.
Connecting with fictional characters can feel a lot like connecting with people face-to-face. This is called a parasocial relationship. It can improve mood and self-esteem. It can also help relieve loneliness -- in my observation, especially if the parasocial relationships are healthier and/or safer than the meatspace relationships. Considering that loneliness is as lethal as smoking or obesity, that's an important point. So one way to treat loneliness that would not require close contact with kind and compatible humans (who can be in short supply) would be to provide lonely people with books about nice characters in healthy relationships.
If you're trying to promote social or political change, storytelling is thus a highly effective method. I have observed this myself. I've done pickets, demonstrations, letter writing, vigils, petitions, fundraisers -- all the usual stuff. But the thing that has by far the highest throughput, where someone comes back to me and says "I did the thing" or "This taught me something that I used in real life" is storytelling. It measurably works better. Weird, but true.
As an interesting example, reading Harry Potter can increase tolerance of immigrants -- but only if the reader identifies with Harry. If they identify with another character, like the blood purists, readers might come away with very different discoveries. So it's important to choose wisely, not just what to read, but who to follow within a given story.
For a real-life example, consider the path to gay marriage. I honestly believe that fanfic, specifically starting with Kirk/Spock, played a major role in this accomplishment. Because that is what turned "the love that dare not speak its name" into "aww, da kyoot!"
So when you read, aim to read widely, from authors of different cultures, in a variety of settings. Especially, read about characters who resemble you and ones who don't, but primarily decent characters who are more likely to give you good habits than bad ones. What constitutes "decent" is up to you; just try to find characters you admire. This is a key reason why I watch so little television: I observe most modern characters to be assholes, I don't enjoy the company of assholes, and I definitely don't need encouragement to be any more of an asshole than I already am. This is why we need heroes. Look for literary role models.
From my writing, there are a number of characters that make my readers say "What would he do?" or "I wish I had someone like her in my life." That's what you want to aim for -- characters who help you figure things out, give you good ideas, and make your life better.
Uncle Phil, Steve Rogers, and JARVIS (roughly in that order) from Love Is For Children
Ansel Nicholson from Polychrome Heroics: Officer Pink
Stalwart Stan from Polychrome Heroics: Antimatter and Stalwart Stan
Victor Frankenstein from Frankenstein's Family
Some groups my readers have found appealing:
The Avengers from Love Is For Children
The Lacuna from An Army of One: The Autistic Secession in Space
Monster House from Monster House
Shaeth's church from One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis
Kraken from Polychrome Heroics
This is the highest-rated supervillain group among my audience. As it is now outperforming all the other countries in terms of meeting member needs, this is a well-reasoned choice. See also their exceptional teambuilding efforts.
The Blueshift Troupers from The Blueshift Troupers
Schrodinger's Heroes from Schrodinger's Heroes
EDIT 1/23/21:
cornerofmadness has boosted the signal for the story power study on Twitter..
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-23 06:45 am (UTC)And Danso and Ansel are my favorite superheroes.
Yes ...
Date: 2021-01-23 07:32 am (UTC)I think it depends a lot on the villain. You might learn that you care more about solving problems than following rules. You might learn that hurt people hurt people. You might learn that sometimes there's no good solution, just more or less bad ones. Some villains are nutjobs, but others are sorta decent people who don't like rules, or are trying to survive a shithole society, or whatever.
Then you've got people like Dr. Infanta. Supervillain? Superhera? It depends who you ask. There's no shortage of concrete examples on either side of the scale. That, I think, can be very illuminating.
>>And Danso and Ansel are my favorite superheroes.<<
Yay! I'm happy to hear that. I don't think we have enough superheroes nowadays, not real ones.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2021-01-23 07:47 am (UTC)We need /different/ stories. We need ones where pacifism works realistically, or maybe sorta works, or is a No Sell. We need ones with reformed bad guys, or genuinely decent bad guys who don't want to reform, and pragmatic villains who do many horrible things but won't shoot themselves in the foot. We need to know how to make alliances, in all sorts of forms, with all sorts of people. Etc, etc.
And we need to know a million different ways to save the world too.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2021-01-23 07:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-23 08:56 pm (UTC)Yes, please!
Date: 2021-01-23 09:07 pm (UTC)Re: Yes, please!
Date: 2021-01-23 09:42 pm (UTC)on my twitter because some of my police procedural fandoms are acting like jerks about them including BLM themes and I thought they needed to see WHY story lines like that are needed. I'll link back to you here when I post this in my blog
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-27 12:21 am (UTC)The droid’s photoreceptor winked off and on. Finally, it said, “There is no prohibition against that. A story cannot do damage.”
Anakin’s scarred face stretched in a wide, painful grin. “Is that what he thinks?” he murmured. “Good.”
(from Fialleril’s Double Agent Vader series)
Thoughts
Date: 2021-01-27 02:40 am (UTC)One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
-- Ode