Storytelling for the Planet - According to Jane Goodall

Early last year, at the same World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where Greta Thunberg ignited a powerful social movement, Dr. Jane Goodall made an important speech. When asked how to speak effectively on the subject of climate change with political and business leaders, she said, “What you have to do is to get into the heart. And how do you get into the heart? With stories.”

Dr. Goodall’s statement reveals something of crucial importance, not simply about climate change, but the role of storytelling in all our lives. Stories attract us. They warm us up, so that we’re more likely to listen. This turns out to have major consequences both at home and on the global stage.

But how do stories, as Goodall suggests, get into the heart? In his book On the Origin of Stories, Dr. Brian Boyd offers an answer. Storytelling is not just for fun. It is a social and cognitive tool. Over the achingly slow course of evolution, homo sapiens developed and refined it as an efficient way to share information, retain attention, and build trust – critical skills for social creatures like you and me.

Boyd isn’t alone. Dozens of neurologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and cognitive scientists have started to piece this picture together for us. Put in modern words, storytelling is an information technology, a piece of cognitive software built on top of the neural architecture of the brain.

In his book The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall writes that fiction, “will make you more empathic and better able to navigate life’s dilemmas.” Stories, he says, are like dress rehearsals for real life. He quotes Marco Iacoboni, a pioneering neuroscientist at UCLA who studies mirror neurons: “We have empathy for fictional characters…because we literally experience the same feelings ourselves.” Storytelling is not an evolutionary glitch, Gottschall concludes, “fiction is…good for us.”

Stories help us remember information – as much as 600% more. They help us assess the trustworthiness of a speaker. They help us focus, allowing us to learn skills more rapidly. The list goes on and on. Stories are so effective in fact, that their role in our cognitive development is almost invisible. We frequently see them as entertainment, something for which we’ll pay.

Stories are entertaining, but that entertainment explodes with meaning once we grasp that our minds were literally designed (in part) to comprehend the world through storytelling. It is a central element of every social grouping on the planet – our religions, our nations, our schools, our neighborhoods, and our families. Stories are what bring us together, perhaps more than anything else.

Most of us wince at the thought of an afternoon lecture, but naturally give our attention to a good story. Central characters, emotional gravity, unusual plot twists, and descriptive language help us stay focused. They also give us a third-party character from which we can discern our own true feelings and actions. It takes the pressure off. We mostly don’t like instructions or finger-pointing. We love a good story. Put the same instructions in a story and you’ve got a winning recipe. That’s why we see a 600% increase in data retention.

“So often,” said Goodall in Davos, “I see activists and they come face-to-face with a CEO…and they immediately become very aggressive. So, the person that they’re attacking is immediately defensive… It’s no good when you meet somebody like that.”

Sound like someone you know?

This is not an article about climate change. But no matter where we stand on that issue, it’s clear to many of us that our children are going to face critical challenges of some sort in the future, be they political, environmental, or economic. And they’re likely challenges we ourselves won’t face. As a father, I want my daughter to make good choices, but I also want her to talk to people she doesn’t agree with. I want her to listen to their point of view, and compromise when it’s in everyone’s best interest.

It’s time for us to wake up to the fact that our children, even if we’ve raised them perfectly, are going to meet people who disagree with them. Anger, righteousness, and brute force are very crude tools in those circumstances. As Goodall says, it puts our opponent on the defensive. This might work in the short run if you don’t give a damn about the other person. But if we’re looking at the issues from a global perspective, then it matters what our opponents think and feel. Storytelling is a more sophisticated tool in those circumstances. Why? Because of that achingly slow process of evolution that worked out this cognitive method for us. All animals can bite and shout. We’re the only ones that can tell stories and form social, political, and economic groups that number in the billions.

I believe our children will do best if they are able to face those looming challenges – and each other – with sobriety, gentleness and empathy. And gosh, just a little bit of fun. This is as relevant for senators, indigenous cultures, activists, CEO’s, and foreign diplomats as it is for two-year-olds and parents. It’s a skill we all need, and have.

But how do we raise a nation of storytellers? The best way to do that is by telling children – all children – plenty of stories from a young age. In many ways, our culture already does this. But in the modern era, much of our storytelling is outsourced to publishers and animators. In other words, we’re all getting the same stories and they’re increasingly coming from professionals.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but I would argue that a healthy dose of diversified parent-child storytelling is still a crucial link in the health of our families, and therefore our nations and our planet. Why? Because storytelling fosters the parental bond, which we know to be the number one predictor of a child’s success. Storytelling builds empathy, a critical tool in the complex decisions and compromises needed for global stability.

This is exactly what Jane Goodall is getting at when she raises the issue of storytelling. It’s not a matter of priming activists for conversations with CEO’s, it’s about reconnecting all of us to the heart of the matter – storytelling is how homo sapiens make meaning of their world. It’s as ancient and reliable as walking, and it’s free. It’s a skill that everyone has.

Some people walk faster than others. Some people are marathon runners. But just because there are professional athletes doesn’t mean we stop walking to the corner store. Everyone can walk, and we all do it a little differently – but the less you do it the more immobilized your joints will become. That’s not because walking is better than swimming or moving on four legs. It’s because human bodies evolved to walk on two feet. Storytelling has a similar position in our evolutionary development. It’s not better than birdsong, just like walking isn’t better than flying. It’s just what we have. Use it.

“What you have to do is to get into the heart. And how do you get into the heart? With stories.”

The Storytelling Loop is a newsletter bringing you tips, science, and real-life examples of how storytelling builds the connection between parent and child. It is a joint project of Silke Rose West and Joseph Sarosy, authors of How to Tell Stories to Children. Originally published in August of 2019, a new edition is due out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2021. You can find more from Joseph Sarosy at Fatherly.

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