Cindy Sheehan’s quest for an interview with the president has captured the attention of a nation. For the first time in a long time, liberals have an edge on leading the national conversation. Trouble is, they don’t understand why and they don’t understand how it happened, so they are going to continue to be mired in the gibberish produced by think tanks and policy analysis, thus boring the electorate shitless and losing attention. Want to keep the advantage we’ve briefly experienced with Sheehan?
It’s very simple: We are a storytelling species. Tell some goddamned gripping stories that illustrate our world view.
This is different from “framing,” mind you (a phrase I’m coming to loathe, no matter how useful). Framing addresses how to name and slant specific policy stances and issues. Narrative illustrates the specific consequences of policy – and propel interest along through a process of plot, which encompasses characters, conflict, action, growth and ultimate outcome.
Human beings want to make sense of a chaotic and superficially meaningless universe, and our brains are consequently programmed to respond to a story arc; it’s how nearly all of our cultural information and our world views are passed on. Even when we are telling of the events of our mundane day at the dinner table, we unconsciously use the age-old structure of narrative: beginning, middle, end (or Act I, Act II, Act III), with the punch of a climax built into the end. (See David Mamet’s superb Three Uses of the Knife to learn more about the structure of daily storytelling.)
We respond to narrative the same way we respond to cocaine: We simply can’t get enough of it. We want more and more and more. That’s why there’s Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare’s plays, the Bible and the Koran, reality TV, comic books, the Academy Awards and soap operas (the latter proving quality execution doesn’t even matter … just feed us some drama. Now. Fast. We’ll take crack if cocaine ain’t arround). That’s why there’s interest in Cindy Sheehan.
That’s also why the right has gained so much traction in the national conversation: they tell a good story. Terry Schiavo, Bush the recovering alcoholic kickass cowboy, liberals are killing Christmas and on and on and on.
Good versus evil, the small versus the mighty … suspense, heroes, adventures, action – and in Sheehan’s case, the ultimate storyline of all storylines … the noble quest. Get the hang of how to use this structure, and you’ve got yourself a podium with this nation.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s still a need for liberal policy institutes and think tanks to pore over polls, spot economic trends, analyze the statistical impact of proposed legislation. But dumping the resultant reports on the public without giving it a coherent narrative is going to bind us to the “ivory tower academic” image forever – and it’s going to glaze our collective eyes over in the process.
In my view, it’s better strategy to nurture some decent middlemen (or “middlepersons” for the PC crowd) who can tell a decent story – some talented fiction writers and playwrights and screenplay writers – to write press releases and blog interesting stories into the mainstream. Creative writers have the additional advantage of being cheap; “will write for food” is pretty much the motto of anyone trying to break into the fiction/screenplay market.
I was going to use this diary to go into details about the necessary specific elements of pure story and how to use them to best advantage in the political realm, but this is already long enough. If there’s any interest, I’ll pursue it in future diaries. If not, I’ll let it die a natural death.
Yeah, natural death. Example is much better than an annotated outline [this diary is one]. More stories told here than many other places. That’s a good thing.
Brilliant! You are on the mark. We need to show our point of view with stories. We need to collect a set of real stories about real people. The real story of Cindy Sheehan has gotten some traction on the war situation: we need more stories and faces to press our point of view on other major issues. The stories are out there, but we need a coordinated effort to collect and disseminate them.
Schiavo
Hackett
Sheehan
All powerful stories.
Everone has the potential, and everyone is, a story teller. Therein lies the power, for all of us to connect with our own stories, and tell them.
Check out these stories on Dailykos: Conversations at an Oklahoma gas pump. http://www.storiesinamerica.org
man oh man did I enjoy that diary over on kos.
That last woman does seem brainwashed…I can almost bet she has been in that frame of mind since a child.
He knew how to tell a good story. Nobody knew who he was, but he was able to tell a good story about himself and the country and win over a lot of voters.
Similar to Clinton’s story … from rags to riches, from small town to bigtime, etc.
Here’s one, compliments of yet another Bush initiative that’s about to go south…
Jen came home to find her husband Ben sitting at the kitchen table, rubbing his temples from agitation.
“What is it?” He was already handing her the credit card bill.
Jen blinked. “$530 minimum payment? This can’t be right.” The Ables normally paid $250 a month, a hair more than the minimum, on a large consolidated balance. It was all they could afford, now that the IT division at the bank had been relocated to Madras, India; the unemployment checks went exclusively to paying the mortgage. The family had managed to stay off of food stamps and seeking assistance from church, charities, friends and relatives, but all bets were off now.
“I’m sure it’s not, and the bank says it’s probably not…but we’ve got to pay it on time, at least this time, else we go to default rates and we’re really screwed.”
“How did this happen?” Where are we going to find another $280 a month? It’s got to be a mistake. “This can be cleared up soon?”
“That’s what they said, but they say we have to pay up, else we’re going to be hit with 30% interest right away.”
Jen thought quickly. “We might have to file bankruptcy, then.”
“They’ll take everything, just like they did to Frank and Melissa.” The Henrys had been neighbors. Their ARM — adjustable-rate mortgage — had buried them. Having to choose between falling behind on house payments or on credit cards, they choose the latter, the punitive default rates kicked in, and the Henrys inside of four months the Henrys were squeezed out of the middle class entirely. Frank Henry had lost his job; a question ‘reputation risk’, his firm had said. Their two daughters were wards of the state now.
“Then let them have it! We’ll move, go dark…”
“…and they’ll find us, toss us in jail, take the kids, and they’ll have to pay the debt.”
Jen and Ben were silent for a time, barely fighting back tears of frustration. They had taken a hit with Ben’s unemployment, but they had skimped, they had saved, they had paid their bills on time, every time. Everything but groceries — Jen had been adamant that there be no penny-pinching on good, healthy food, because it’s more expensive not to eat well. She had been proven right; the boys were significantly more lean and active and healthy than their tend-to-pudgy peers, taller, stronger, beautiful teeth and hair. Poster boys for the middle class.
Or were.
At length, Jen dared the question. “Well, if it’s an error, will we get the money back?”
“I doubt it. After all, we owe them quite a bit of money to begin with.”
“But it’s short term, right?” It must be, surely. A blip. They’d been dutiful customers, good on their debts. This would ruin them, otherwise.
Ben grunted, noncommittal. “Perhaps. We should ask around, see if anyone else we know has this problem.”
It did not take long. Harlan Crowe from the church worked at a branch bank.
“It’s a change in the consumer credit laws; the idea was to make it easier for you to repay your debts, and do so faster, thus you wind up paying less interest overall. The banks didn’t want that at all, as it would damage our business.”
“I can see that,” Jen said, both she and her husband on the phone line. “So what’s with the larger minimum balance?”
“You have to pay down faster. It depends on how the creditors calculated the minimum balance — 20 or 30 years was the usual. Now it’s 10 years…plus charges, of course.”
“Of course…” Ben added.
Jen was less sardonic. This was horrible news. The change in cash flow would kill them. “We could…put more on the consolidated credit balance. The car, groceries, things we pay separately now.”
“That would work,” Harlan agreed. “A lot of folks are moving their debts around, there’s talk it could give the credit card industry a huge boost…once all the defaults are over.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, a lot of folks aren’t going to have knowledge of their options..that they can consolidate not just their cards, but all their debts, and just pay it down faster with the same cash…they’re going to slog it out as best they can…then crash. Or cut and run right away. We’re expecting a nasty hit, here in the banking industry.”
“So, we can consolidate further?” It would be at higher rates, but at least they’d be able to continue as before, a bit more belt-tightening, that was all.
“Actually, we can’t” Ben said at length. “The subject came up earlier on the phone; the creditors said no, but not to worry. Just send in the minimum and it will all get straightened out.”
“They didn’t tell you about the change in the laws?”
Ben smacked his lips. “It never seemed to occur to the nice lady with the accent. I think, perhaps, she was receiving the call from overseas someplace.”
“You should have been told.”
“I doubt there’s much value in pursuing legal action.” Deadbeats against decent, God-fearing, well-connected corporation that had extended credit and trust to the Ables to be, well, able to pay. And what thanks did they get? Ben could see it now. No, no use.
“I don’t know what to tell you, but if you can get more debt onto as few sources as possible at rates you can afford to pay, please do.”
“What about your bank?” Jen Able asked. “Can you help us, please, Harlan?”
Harlan paused. “We’ve…been told not to offer consolidations to anyone. I guess the company figures it has more to gain in the form of double minimum payments on as many lines as possible.”
Soon after the conversation ended, and the Ables gathered together. Soon the boys would be home from, supposedly, usually, studying with the Powells next door.
“We have to get rid of that debt, somehow. It’s going to kill us!” Jen said. “Or reduce it significantly, enough that we can handle the minimum.”
“What do we have of value, that we can do without?”
“We could sell the house and move to somewhere more affordable.”
“We don’t have enough equity. We’d be killed by closing costs.” Ben paused, asked “How about one of the cars?”
“The Escort might get us $1500. We owe more on the Sienna than it’s worth. We lose that way, too.”
Jen gathered herself, said the words to herself, then said them aloud. “My ring.”
Ben shook his head, less in rejection of the proposal, more in denial that this choice had been forced on the family.
remember Harry and Louise – we just didn’t counter it correctly with a story of our own. Probably because we weren’t a drug or health insurance company with that kind of budget to lay out.
I agree, a nice story will get the point across better than slogans and mindless political drivel.
One not on your great story tho:
First rule of political stories — make the audience identify with the good, and make the bad clearly something the audience doesn’t have any sympathy for.
With that in mind, the paragraph about the credit card debt being due to food punctures that nice illusion of the story. Its kinda saying anyone who doesn’t have great hair, or who has pudgy kids isn’t feeding them right. This isn’t the right story to push another agenda with. Stick to the finances, make the audience feel like they or their friends (people they claim as “their kind of people”) could be the “good guys” in the story.
By pushing another agenda on them, and one without widespread popularity, you remind the audience they don’t put that much thought into food, and therefore they start to look for other differences between themselves and these “snooty academic health-freaks”… and the effectiveness is lost.
Harry and Louise worked because there wasn’t much in those commercials that folks couldn’t identify or sympathize with. They were also very short — less real substance, less to find differences with.
Exactly right, Susan. Neuroscientists are among those who believe that story is so basic to how humans function that it is what organizes all knowledge and memory. Certainly most cultural memory is stored in story.
But story doesn’t just mean personal anecdotes or a personal story. Stories combine levels of thought and feeling. They include metaphor, fable, allegory, irony, paradox. They are concrete and physical, yet they can suggest cosmic truths.
Old time politicans used to tell story jokes that their audiences related to. But stories can be dangerous. Today the rabid right tells stories that reinforce their ideas– racism, their own righteousness…
I’m with you in my skepticism of “framing”, at least as Lakeoff uses it and others adopt it. I believe we need to be clearer, not so abstract, and find ways of talking about issues that resonate. Story is one way that people can absorb and understand, without a lot of explanation.
Story tells of the effects of policy, or the lack of policy. Just putting a name and a face on it can be powerful, but it rapidly loses its power if that’s all there is to it. (Like nobody cares anymore who the President points to during his state of the union address.) Cindy Sheehan’s story is compelling because it is complex, unusual, yet lots of people relate to it.
I think also it’s not just collected stories of individuals that have power; it’s more complex than that, although the simplest way to find resonance with a story may be to grab an individual and recount their tale.
Sometimes it can be “institutions” that have a story … such as “Ghost Wars,” which relates the CIA’s relationship with Bin Laden (terrific storytelling there). Or Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickled and Dimed,” in which she tries to live through working a variety of minimum wage jobs.
Sometimes there’s an ensemble cast.
“Fahrenheit 911” certainly captured storytelling at its finest without using only individual stories (although Lila Liscomb certainly gave it a depth it otherwise would not have had). That movie was a great example of tying policy to individual lives, in what I think of as something of an epic fashion.
I don’t advocate ONLY individual stories. We can be creative here, we can find what works through hit and miss — and I wouldn’t neglect such things as music videos or music itself (Springsteen is a master of telling a five-minute story … think of the words to “The River” and you’ve got all you need to know about a perfectly told life).
We can try different nuances on the old themes, and try to find new and refreshing ways to tell our progressive story.
like Green Day’s latest video “Wake me up when September ends” …
and why it will always exceed “framing power” is that we can compare ourselves to the hero/heroine of the story.
But we can not compare ourselves to the “stance” of the frame.
It is through comparison of “self” to “other” that we identify (or not) with a cause, precept, or value that is directly associated with the hero/heroine, or is symbolized by that person.
And it’s quite revealing, when you think about it, in terms of what it tells us about those who react viciously or violently, or not at all to the story of Cindy Sheehan, for instance. And many other stories as well; MLK, Jr. in Birmingham jail; Gandhi at his spinning wheel; those who leapt to their deaths from the burning Twin Towers, or Tamika Huston’s murder, etc.
well said Susan. I heartedly agree … it’s a particular obsession of mine. I hope you don’t mind a little blog whoring, but back in January I posted at Liberal Street Fighter:
Writing the future in Letters of Fire
Thanks so much for highlighting this vital need.
(This is crossposted from the same diary on European Tribune. Hope no one minds.)
You may be right, Susan, that narrative (in the sense you’re using it here, which isn’t the narrative of literature, though you draw parallels from there), may be a fully-fledged story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But often, in public life, I think it’s just the outline of a dramatic situation, and above all a suggestion of character.
For example, in Cindy Sheehan’s case, the situation is (as you say) a quest, the characters a king in his castle and a grieving mother. People will build their own story out of this; all kinds of episodes are possible.
A more unfortunate narrative that grips America is that Repubs are the tough guys who will defend you; Dems are girly men who get sand kicked in their faces. Again, it’s a sketch of character in a basic dramatic situation, that people can apply to current events in such a way as to believe they are getting some kind of handle on them.
Another narrative that concerns us here at EuroTrib casts US/UK economic forces as young, supple entrepreneurs, and “old” Europeans as out-of-touch, sclerotic bureaucrats. The situation is that of “progressives” confronting “reactionaries” who, it’s clear, will have to resign themselves sooner or later to being pushed aside.
Once they’re rooted in people’s imaginations, these narratives have immense power. They hold within them the leading lines of force that decide lesser issues such as framing (of the terms of debate, of vocabulary, etc). And they are not easily shaken off. People rely on them to help them bring order to their perceptions of a chaotic world, and they just hate it if you challenge them.
That’s why it’s so good to be on the right side of a narrative for once, as with Cindy Sheehan, and why it sucks to be on the wrong side, like with the two others I suggested. How to do something about this, I don’t know. It’s a bit like framing really. The entire left blogosphere has been brainstorming on framing for it feels like ages, but even if some genius could decide what were the best ideas, there’s an enabler in all this we don’t control, the MSM. Whatever we come up with, it has to withstand the media test. It has to go through that filter. Otherwise no one is going to know anything about it at all.
(a probably weak attempt to drive traffic).
X-posted at ET
Our culture (EU + US specifically) is full of stories. Books, movies, articles, newspapers, magazines etc etc. There is no shortage of stories.
What we are short of is stories that motivate people to take action – even if that action is just thinking. What we need is stories which shake people out of their apathy.
Live Aid, Live 8 were stories of suffering and hope that motivated millions. I have my doubts whether they solve any long term problems, but that is yet another story.
What is needed is for everybody to share their own personal stories. To show how ordinary lives can be lived with purpose, joy and love. And coping with struggles, pain and sadness.
Obsessed by celebrity, made to feel inadequate by marketing and politics, confused by information overload, many good people have given up. They do their jobs, get their money as consumers, and then sit down on a sofa and absorb media for 27 hours every week. Their lives have been programmed with one simple thought ‘Don’t Rock The Boat’ – sit quietly, look at this to pass the time away as we drift aimlessly, and one day we will be rescued.
Nobody is coming to rescue us!
We are both the victims and the search party. We are all in it together and only by sharing what we know and who we are, will we ever be able to rescue ourselves.
Each small personal deed, each small personal story – these are the contributions which, over time, can change the mindscape of the 21st century. There is no quick fix. It’s drip, drip, drip – just as water can carve mountains, so we can carve anything – as long as we are in motion.
Susan — excellent diary. As a fiction writer myself I agree with you about the power of narrative.
Couple of quick comments:
I think one of the main reasons we’ve lacked compelling stories in the past few years is that good stories require dramatic tension and conflict and our Dem leaders have been afraid of those things. So they’re not going to tell, or possibly even recognize, the stories with the audience-capturing potential. They would be terrible heroes or heroines for a novel, unwilling to mix it up, unwilling to stand up, unwilling to be take the chance of losing everything.
It’s no wonder we are so attracted to Paul Hackett, Rocky Anderson (the mayor of SLC) and the gov. of Montana. Those guys seem cheerfully, muscularly unafraid of “dramatic tension.”
Tension and conflict are necessary, even if subtle.
And Dems seem to avoid it like the plague.