Why do we tell stories? Hunter-gatherers shed light on the evolutionary roots of fiction
Daniel Smiththeconversation.com
Why do we tell stories? Hunter-gatherers shed light on the evolutionary roots of fiction
As the historian Yuval Harari spelt out in his seminal book Sapiens, the ability to tell stories was perhaps the major catalyst in our transformation from a relatively vulnerable savannah ape into an organism that would go on to completely rewrite the rules of the food chain. Our creation of both oral and written cultures, and the cooperative team
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... See moreStories are tribal propaganda. They control their group, manipulating its members into behaving in ways that benefit it. And it works. A recent study of eighteen hunter-gatherer tribes found almost eighty per cent of their stories contained lessons in how they should behave in their dealings with other people. The groups with the greater proportion
Ascribing meaning to anything and everything is the thread that binds us to earliest humans. Stories explain how life works and thus fulfill a need that is woven into the fabric of being human.
Deepak Chopra • Metahuman
When posed with even the deepest questions about reality, human brains tend towards story. What is a modern religion if not an elaborate neocortical ‘theory and explanation about what’s happening in the world and why’? Religion doesn’t merely seek to explain the origins of life, it’s our answer to the most profound questions of all: What is good? W
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“People are attracted to stories because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people,”4 says Johns Hopkins researcher Keith Quesenberry.