Having strong narrative capability insulates

[applegrove]

one from being manipulated. Do you think a storytelling forum would fit in well with the DU? Or would it be better at a completely different website? Because we need to capture what is left of the oral tradition and make it available for generations to come.

[NYC_SKP]

1. DU is not exclusively political. I think a storytelling forum would be splendid!

We collectively have hundreds of thousands of stories to tell, each one unique.

I'd just as soon have it here rather than at some other website.

Excellent idea!

[applegrove]

2. Thanks.

[HiPointDem]

3. not clear what oral tradition you mean.

[applegrove]

4. My grandmother used to tell the stories

of her conmunity. She was a doctor's wife & nurse. Her husband was born in 1882 and had stories from before his tine. I've forgotten them all. I do think we wrote some of them down and likely have a tape of her telling them. Stories with a beginning, middle and end. Stories that have the effect on people like Charles Ramsey's telling of his rescue of Amanda Berry. Many cultures in the world still tell stories today. But as people move into the middle class they read, watch movies and tv, and are too busy to sit around telling stories. Why not a place where you can go and share the best ten stories you got. There could be a video link option if you want to tell the story in person rather than writing it down. Stories could be long or short and zippy. At the forum if you particularly enjoy on person's tales you could follow that person whenever they post a new story. Think of the forum like a dinner party where you could walk around the table and comment on the stories most interesting to you.. And the best stories in each and every category could be voted up.

[Igel]

5. There's story-telling and then there's telling stories.

One kind of stories help maintain a community's cohesiveness and define its core character and values. They pass along to the young the values that the older members hold to be important, defining moments of history. They're malleable, of course--they often get revised, so they're not guarantees and they're not always history itself, but sometimes they do contain nuggets of accuracy over the generations. They also entertain.

Then there are just stories that kill time and entertain.

Much of American academics have been devoted to trashing traditional American stories. Stories must be 100% historically accurate or they're lies.

Another group of American academics have been devoted to promoting "your" stories. That means "my" stories must be about the Irish in America and how they were treated, if I want "authentic" stories. This means that Americans have pretty much no common stories, no shared interpretations of history or of culture. What's weird is that *these* stories don't have to be 100% historically accurate. Nor do they have to be traditional--you can create them and pass them off as "authentic" and "traditional," copyright 2012. Post-Soviet scholarship shows that stories can bind a people or they can divide them. Binding people creates good-will, social trust, mutual help, and collaboration. Dividing them creates distrust, ill-will, foils collaboration, and can even foster violence.

Stories are great. Anthropologists, not so much.