Storylines

J. Edward Chamberlin draws together anecdotes and insights from a celebrated career in this timely exploration of the power of stories and songs—from both the distant past and today’s news, countering despair and disillusionment with hope and possibility.

Stories are our first and last survival strategy; for millions of years, more or less, they told humanity what we know, and what we don’t know; what to wonder about, and what to watch out for. These days many of us feel that we need all the help we can get, for survival sometimes seems like a long shot. The great myths of the world bring us comfort by assuring us that however bad things are, they have all happened before and will one day pass; and however good, they will not last forever.

Storytelling, whether of religion, the arts or even science, can be an important form of resistance, offering an alternative to the overpowering pressures of everyday enabling our imaginations. This may offer an escape from reality, which has an appeal to all of us some of the time. But they can be a hazard. The environment is destroyed because of storylines about growth and development. Cultures embrace hallucinations of civilized progress as we slip into a dangerously uncivil social and economic free-for-all. And some claim homes for themselves and drive out others on the basis of self-serving histories about modern constitutions. More than that, we are disconnected from each other by our commitment to the stories and songs that promote these illusions, and make us numb to the value of difference and defiance.

But it is also within storytelling that we can find a way to bring sympathy and judgement back into the centre of our conversations about what we can––and what we must––do. Stories and songs, ours and those of others, can help us. They can save us.