Currently there is a lot of international discussion about the current political environment, particularly in the U.K. and the U.S.A. There is a lot of witching about.
In a brilliant TED talk, George Monbiot suggests that to change the current political environment a new narrative is needed. Political failure, he says, is at part a ‘failure of imagination’. Without a new restoration story to counter the prevailing Neo-liberal ideology, the political environment will never change. This new restoration story will need to be ‘simple, intelligible and grounded in reality’.
These are the same aspects of story that I discuss in my book How the Brain Thinks. In my book I discuss how presenting information using story and narrative produces a bigger emotional response than giving the same information as facts and figures. Telling of story can easily transmit important cultural knowledge of history and myths and lessons in life and knowledge.
From the time we awake to the time we go to sleep, there is voice within that guides us and talks to us throughout our day. This internal narrative or the ‘default mode network’ may be the substrate of consciousness. It is interesting to speculate whether this is why telling of story has such powerful effects on us. Recent articles discussing the neural correlates of this network will be discussed in my next blog.
Meantime, enjoy the TED talk.
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Dr Graham Desborough is a general practitioner, writer, mountaineer and photographer. If you like this post, you can join his mailing list at drgrahamdesborough.com or check out his book How the Brain Thinks.
