Dr. Stibbe’s book, The Stories We Live By, and free online course are full of real-life examples: of economics textbooks that describe people as “consumers” who are driven by an insatiable need to buy; the government documents that position cows and horses as “units” as though they are as lifeless as a kitchen cupboard; and the United Nations’

as we lose languages, that loss is reflected in plant and animal extinctions. As we create an increasingly homogenous human culture, we are rapidly losing the broad diversity of knowledge necessary to our tending of the land upon which we are dependent, as well as the ability to commune with and protect the other beings who call it home.