Books

‘The Story Paradox’: Is narrative simultaneously our best and worst tool?

An introduction to literary Darwinism.

February 13, 2022

Why do stories wield such power over the human psyche, influencing us more than facts and data? What role have stories played in human history and prehistory? And what are the societal effects today, now that the spread of stories has become turbo-charged in the internet era, no longer relying on word of mouth or printed books? When we see wild and divisive conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon inspiring real-world violence, is this effectively our own capacity for storytelling being turned against us? Does evolutionary psychology possibly have something to say about all this?

These are some of the questions that Jonathan Gottschall, a literary scholar and professor of English at Washington & Jefferson College, attempts to address in his latest book, The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down (Basic Books, 2021).

Literary Darwinism is essentially the application of evolutionary psychology to literary analysis.

Gottschall works in the field of “literary Darwinism” (AKA Darwinian literary analysis), which is essentially the application of evolutionary psychology to literary analysis. The field got its start in the 1990s with Ellen Dissanayake’s book Homo Aestheticus (1992) and Joseph Carroll’s Evolution and Literary Theory (1995), and was in part a reaction against the anti-empirical stance of the poststructuralist theorists, like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, who were dominating literary analysis at the time.

These scholars saw parallels between the stages of the human life cycle (birth, maturation, mating, child-rearing, aging, death) and the common literary templates like the “hero’s journey” catalogued by Joseph Campbell in myths around the world. Carroll became one of the most outspoken evangelists for literary Darwinism, seeing it as part of the project biologist E.O. Wilson outlined in his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), connecting biology and anthropology with the study of language and literature done in humanities departments.

Literary Darwinism was a natural fit for Gottschall, since he worked under the famous biologist David Sloan Wilson as he completed his graduate work in English at SUNY Binghamton. The two collaborated on Gottschall’s first book, The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (2005), which brought together various scholars who’d begun analyzing texts with concepts gleaned from evolutionary psychology. Gottschall collaborated with Carroll on two of his earlier books before striking off on his own with The Storytelling Animal (2012) and The Professor in the Cage (2015). While writing the latter book, Gottschall trained in mixed martial arts to get intimately in touch with the psychology of masculine violence, almost in the manner of a gonzo journalist.

In The Story Paradox, readers will learn how primatologist Robin Dunbar theorized that language evolved to tell stories, specifically to gossip about members of one’s tribe and better reinforce reciprocal altruism. We hear about some of Gottschall’s research from his 2012 book Graphing Jane Austen, which found that the agonistic structure of Victorian novels is similar to that of stories from around the world, mirroring the morality of our hunter-gatherer ancestors that valorizes sacrifice for the benefit of the community. Scholars have identified a “universal grammar” of stories that, unlike Noam Chomsky’s “universal grammar” of language, appears to hold up empirically across cultures.

On the beneficial uses of narrative, The Story Paradox tells us about historian Lynn Hunt’s theory that the human rights revolution of the Enlightenment was driven by the rise of a new form of storytelling, the novel, that got audiences to identify with the plight of the less fortunate. Gottschall talks about research that indicates Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin shifted Americans’ views on the abolition of slavery in the 1850s, and he compares this to research that suggests the TV show Will and Grace caused a significant positive shift in Americans’ views on gays and gay marriage in the 2000s.

The later chapters of The Story Paradox explore the destructive effects of “Us-vs.-Them” stories that can divide the members of a society against each other. Oddly enough, the “out-group enmity” engendered by these stories is often just the flip side of our “in-group amity.” The idea that our very ability to feel compassion for others is also tied up in our tendency to hate outsiders will probably come as an uncomfortable revelation for many, but for anyone who’s read about the dark side of Robert Putnam’s concept of “social capital,” or who heard some of the talks psychologist Paul Bloom gave after his book Against Empathy (2016) came out, this will all sound depressingly familiar.

One issue with The Story Paradox is that Gottschall might practice a bit too much of what he preaches. The introduction warns of the seductive power of narrative to mislead us, while Gottschall also acknowledges that humans are far more receptive to narratives than straightforward-but-dry statistics. He mentions a study that showed college students who were paid to participate in a psychology study were more likely to donate some of that money to charity after hearing a moving story about a parent who lost their child to cancer than after hearing statistics on cancer deaths.

Gottschall then presents the latest research on the psychological power of narratives through a series of anecdotes reminiscent of a Gladwell book, rather than trying to explain the science in more detail and cite specific studies. I was constantly left thinking, “Okay, this sounds like a neat idea, but how good is the evidence for this?” Gottschall repeatedly mentions Plato’s warnings about the dangers of artists and poets, but I was looking for more citations that weren’t 2,400 years old. To be fair, Gottschall gets to the more recent research findings later on, but it takes a while.

Sometimes The Story Paradox appears to get swept up in the rush to be “relevant” by addressing concerns from recent years about “fake news” promulgated by Russian hackers, Donald Trump spreading misinformation and “alternative facts,” and the growth of crazy conspiracy theories and various anti-vaccine beliefs that spread during the COVID pandemic. I agree this stuff is important, but these topics have been beaten to death by journalists and pundits over the last few years. The breezy way in which Gottschall’s narratives handles these things left me wondering if he was really bringing any major new insights, or just rehashing old news.

Another minor quibble is that Gottschall’s strange habit of speaking in a self-deprecating way comes through in his writing at various points in The Story Paradox, like in the introduction, which begins: “Not too long ago I went to a bar in what I suspected would be a doomed effort to simply think. I was feeling depressed about the state of the world and confused about this book.” Points for honesty, but damn. You should probably get excited about your own book if you don’t want its readers to be bored.

Sometimes 'The Story Paradox' gets swept up in the rush to be relevant.

The Story Paradox can function as a so-so introductory text for people who aren’t familiar with literary Darwinism. It’s kind of light on evolutionary theory, but its lack of technical jargon also makes it more accessible. If you’re intrigued by the idea of combining evo-pysch with literary analysis but you’re on the fence about buying this book, I’d highly recommend listening to Jonathan Gottschall’s recent interview with Michael Shermer.

Every February, to help celebrate Darwin Day, the Science section of AIPT cranks up the critical thinking for SKEPTICISM MONTH! Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies the tools of science. All month we’ll be highlighting skepticism in pop culture, and skepticism *OF* pop culture.

AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.