Narrative in the Material World

 

To a great extent this blog is dedicated to the existence and importance of narrative in our daily lives. Narrative shapes history and defines culture. In many ways the falsehoods of fiction have molded the supposed truth of reality. Fictions forged in uncertainty and myth have far outlived any accurate documents of the past. The stories of the Bible or the Vedas read more like folklore than primary sources. The controversial content of religious compositions about as much validity as the Grimm Brothers' anthology of fairy tales. A man that divides five loaves of bread and two fish to feed 5,000 people sounds a little like Hansel and Gretel to me. Or the tale of a woman who was kidnapped by a ten-headed man, only to be saved by the blue personification of a God, sounds a bit like Rumpelstiltskin somehow. By drawing these obtuse parallels, my goal is not to demean the value of religious belief, but rather to emphasize the influence of narrative on the human condition. The narrative qualities of these sacred texts have ensured their continued existence. Narratives have defined cultural norms and values for centuries, and even spawned brutal war. It is this fascinating relationship between narrative and its effect on humanity has inspired the topic of my upcoming research paper. As I continue to delve into this area of apocrypha, folklore, and narrative, the boundaries between fact and fiction have become increasingly ambiguous and illusory. While many aspects of the Bible have been supposedly verified by scholars, other events retold in the numerous books of the Bible remain too divergent to accept with any amount of confidence. Others still are too imaginative to accept as historical fact. Despite the overwhelming doubt that surrounds cultural narratives, their affect on the human mind is transparent. Some academics now believe that the creation of storytelling transpired as a result of an evolutionary need to further the species. From a political perspective, others believe that narrative served as an opiate for the masses, a tool that would unify a population while setting up the moral code that would assist authorities best. Whether the creation of narrative was initially cynical or simply necessary, its impact on humanity is undeniable.