WHY THE WORLD NEEDS STORYTELLERS

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By El Ochiis

Recently, some influential economists have made a case for why we still need English Majors.  Now that seems an odd request since English majors are down almost 26% since the Great Recession of 2008, according to data compiled by the National Center of Education Statistics.

So, why would there be more students studying code than Chaucer?  Well, the answer lies in a three-letter word: J-O-B, prospects, maybe?  Of course, the more important reason would be parents who have to foot the bill for four years of college at an average cost of about $55,000 per year.  The exception would be me; as a parent, I encouraged my offspring to major in whatever fueled his or her passion.  The fact that one of my English major/writing offspring is now in tech valley is no fault of mine, so stop judging me Misters Tolstoy and Baldwin.

“Don’t you want your children to earn a decent paycheck?” grilled a woman at high school graduation with two sons headed to MIT.  “I want them to wander the world like I did, with no direction home, completely alone, on their own.”  I resounded, feeling guiltily giddy.  “Oh, stop quoting Bob Dylan and get real,” repudiated their dad. 

But, I was serious; the world needs the humanities, and, most specifically, English/Journalism/Writing majors who use figures of speech to:

Teach a history of a culture/to entertain/educate

Endow morals and principles on young people

Distract or divert our attention from the tough realities of life

Intellectually stimulate/Inspire (as in innovation, social change, etc.)

Predict/shape the future/Shape and change social prejudices (end bigotry, promote tolerance, etc.)

Give our lives meaning; and, express beauty

One can learn and remember far more about the judicial system and legal proceedings from Bleak House, Twelve Angry Men, Inherit the Wind and To Kill a Mocking Bird than any law school. In fact, it is Nobel Prize winner, Robert Shiller, who states, in his new book: Narrative Economics, that a history class he took on the Great Depression, as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, was far more useful in understanding the period of economic and financial turmoil than anything he learned in his economic courses.  When asked if he’s essentially arguing for more English and history majors, Shiller said, “I think so,” adding: “Compartmentalization of intellectual life is bad.” Philip Lowe, head of Australia’s central bank, urged his colleagues to spend a little less time on numbers and more time on being good storytellers. The whole point is, stories matter.

  

Sinclair Lewis’ The Jungle chronicled the plight of Jurgis and Ona, Lithuanian immigrants in Chicago and the conditions of the workers in the meatpacking yards of Chicago.  After reading it, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned an investigation into Chicago’s meatpacking industry. Within a year, the Meat Inspection Act was passed, along with the Pure Food and Drug Act, which later paved the way for the Food and Drug Administration.

When Jacob Riis wanted to expose, to the upper class, who might not have known that a large group of people were living in squalid conditions in the slums of New York City, in 1890, he did so with photographs rather than words, in How the Other Half Lives – it was beautiful, heartbreaking, disturbing and groundbreaking.

Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of a Life of Frederick Douglass became one of the best-selling slave narratives of the period and continues to be probably the most widely read, first hand account of the brutality, depravity and injustice of American slavery. He became an orator whose influence played a big hand in helping to end it.

“So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War.” Was how, reportedly, Abraham Lincoln greeted its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe on:  Uncle Tom’s cabin, the second-best selling book of the 19th century and the first to sell a million copies.

Storytelling is what connects us to our humanity. It is what links us to our past, and provides a glimpse into our future. Since humans first walked the earth, they have told stories, before even the written word or oral language.

It provides a shape, so that our own lives have a beginning, middle, and an end, and we can feel like we've meant something, and left our mark on the world. If just one person can tell just one iota of our life story, then we have a narrative, and are the protagonists in our own life story. This is why we create stories, and this is why we NEED storytellers. Off you go, writers in dark, silent rooms - write on – tell us a really good story.