tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/narrative-317/articlesNarrative – The Conversation2023-11-30T13:35:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170742023-11-30T13:35:42Z2023-11-30T13:35:42Z‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ became the surprise hit of 2023 by upending conventional wisdom about what gives video games broad appeal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562215/original/file-20231128-26-2w9re0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4977%2C3285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The role-playing game has sold millions of copies since its August 2023 release and is one of the highest-rated video games of all time.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-baldurs-gate-logo-of-a-video-news-photo/1683467136?adppopup=true">Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few predicted that the smash hit video game of 2023 would feature old-school game mechanics, hours of brooding cutscenes and a vexing learning curve.</p>
<p>Yet “Baldur’s Gate 3,” a 20-year-old title based on a 50-year-old role-playing game, has already become one of the <a href="https://gamerant.com/best-video-games-all-time-baldurs-gate-3/">highest-rated</a> video games of all time.</p>
<p>“This is a very specific niche of game,” admitted <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/larians-baldurs-gate-3-team-is-10-times-bigger-than-when-it-made-divinity-original-sin/">Swen Vincke</a>, the CEO of Larian, its developer. “We’ve never been about the money.” </p>
<p>Nonetheless, since Larian released the title in August 2023, the company <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/hasbro-stock-price-videogame-baldurs-gate-3-1762f357">has been raking in the money</a>. And it has done this with a rare focus on elements like story and character, <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-RPG-standards-swen-vincke-interview/">upending the industry’s conventional wisdom</a> about what it takes to create a blockbuster game.</p>
<h2>Going against the grain</h2>
<p>“Baldur’s Gate 3” was underestimated, in large part, because it is old-fashioned. </p>
<p>It’s based on the oldest role-playing game around, Dungeons & Dragons. It features an <a href="https://www.cbr.com/ff-turn-based-combat-revamp-vs-real-time-action/#:%7E:text=Summary,for%20character%20development%20and%20customization.">out-of-style combat system</a> and a gobsmacking <a href="https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-cutscenes/">174 hours</a> of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/18235914/anthem-cutscenes-low-quality-final-fantasy-cgi">narrative cutscenes</a>, which are akin to mini-film clips – and are generally considered passé because they interrupt gameplay.</p>
<p>Even more off-putting: There’s a steep learning curve, which harks back to the <a href="https://eightify.app/summary/gaming-and-entertainment/are-video-games-getting-easier">bygone days of the arcade</a>, when games were designed not to sustain engagement but to present a challenge – and extract as many quarters from players as possible.</p>
<p>Despite all of this, “Baldur’s Gate 3” captured more than <a href="https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-hype-shifted-release-date-avoid-starfield/">25% of all playtime</a> on the gaming distribution platform Steam during the first weekend of its release, with gamers logging an astonishing <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/6199820457241938859">10 million hours</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young man with hair dyed white and gray grins as he poses with a dagger." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562216/original/file-20231128-24-po6f5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A cosplayer dressed as Asterion from ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ at New York Comic Con in October 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cosplayer-posing-as-asterion-from-baldurs-gate-3-as-star-news-photo/1735879642?adppopup=true">Roy Rochlin/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Narrative gets a much-needed win</h2>
<p>To understand why <a href="https://www.macalester.edu/english/facultystaff/jamesdawes/">teachers of game design like me</a> are so excited about “Baldur’s Gate 3,” it’s helpful to focus on a concept we use in game studies: namely, the continuum between <a href="https://intapi.sciendo.com/pdf/10.1515/ausfm-2015-0009">narratology and ludology</a>.</p>
<p>Narratology prioritizes the storytelling aspect of video games, whereas ludology – from the Latin “ludus,” or game – prioritizes gameplay and game mechanics. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQtxKmgJC8">Tetris</a>” was pure gameplay, all geometry and timing, while the earlier, text-based adventure “<a href="https://www.thezorklibrary.com/whatiszork.php">Zork</a>” was pure interactive storytelling.</p>
<p>Most games involve both, but the narrative is almost always secondary. The thinking goes that you can have a good game without a good story, but you can’t have a good game today without good gameplay.</p>
<p>Moreover, the kind of story you can tell is limited by the kind of game you are designing. If you want to write a poignant little tale about somebody who really just needs a hug, you can’t do it with gameplay defined by hacking evildoers to death with a hatchet.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ToEllOW2r1Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A brief history of ‘Zork,’ a game that’s entirely centered on text and storytelling.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What distinguishes “Baldur’s Gate 3” from the vast majority of games is that it is, at its heart, a narrative game. Players can spend hours clicking through dialogue options to trigger chatty cutscenes that flesh out backstories and advance character plots. They can flirt with a fiery barbarian devil, confront the racial prejudice of an extraplanar visitor, or help the emo priestess Shadowheart process her childhood trauma. </p>
<p>One of its most dramatic and memorable moments – spoiler alert – is when players get to give a hug to somebody who desperately needs one, even though the gameplay is defined by hacking evildoers to death with a hatchet.</p>
<p>These moments – romancing, arguing, befriending, understanding – are the connective tissue that gives form and meaning to the otherwise skeletal mechanics of hacking and slashing. </p>
<p>To ludologists, however, these kinds of cinematics are a <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/05/30/storytelling-in-games-part-1-the-past-and-present">design failure</a>. They interrupt the game. They force players to stop playing and start watching. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/">They lazily mimic</a> what novels and films are better at doing.</p>
<p>Ludologists take the writing principle “Don’t tell, show!” and supercharge it for games to “Don’t show, play!” </p>
<h2>Leaving money on the table</h2>
<p>But the risks “Baldur’s Gate 3” took by leaning into the story go far beyond the doomspeak of ludologists. The gaming industry has shifted away from narrative in recent years as it has evolved from a niche entertainment into a force to <a href="https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/tmt/media/outlook/insights-and-perspectives.html">rival Hollywood</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2007/05/game-writing-1/">video game journalist Ben Kuchera explained</a>, “Writing doesn’t translate into dollars.”</p>
<p>Why is narrative seen as a bad bet for game studios? And why did Larian decide to make that bet anyway?</p>
<p>The first argument is that narrative has a low – even negative – return on investment. Larian invested heavily to develop multiple side plots and branching narrative pathways, showcasing <a href="https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-ai-no-place-voice-acting-performances-motion-capture/">276 mesmerizing voice actors</a> and devising a reported <a href="https://www.gamesradar.com/if-you-thought-baldurs-gate-3-couldnt-get-any-bigger-apparently-it-has-17000-possible-endings/">17,000 variations</a> of the ending. </p>
<p>Because choosing one path means closing off another, most players will never experience the vast majority of this carefully wrought content. You can replay the game, but with standard runs <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-standard-playthrough-takes-75-to-100-hours-larian-says">taking an estimated 75 hours</a>, even hard-core gamers will still miss out. </p>
<p>And Larian will too. Larian does not make money on player retries. From a financial perspective, undiscovered content represents pure loss. </p>
<p>A narratologist, however, would argue that this kind of “loss” is precisely the point. In “Baldur’s Gate 3,” choices have costs. You can make decisions you will regret. And that is why you can also experience regret’s opposite: delight.</p>
<p>The second argument against narrative game design is structural. Narrative games leave money on the table because they are designed to end. “Baldur’s Gate 3” is structured as a three-act plot with an inciting incident, escalating action, and an appalling and beautiful climax. It leaves players satisfied. And that’s precisely the problem.</p>
<p>The games that make the most money today are designed to never end. Narratively shallow games, such as the first-person shooter “<a href="https://www.thegamer.com/fortnite-history-explained/">Fortnite</a>,” can keep a player hooked for years, inducing them to spend money on <a href="https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/epic-agrees-to-pay-245-million-ftc-fine-over-fortnite-microtransactions#">microtransactions</a> that far exceed the one-time purchase price of a game like “Baldur’s Gate 3.” They are desire treadmills, always holding off the promise of satisfaction with the lure of another thing to buy: next season’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonwosborne/2023/05/25/how-loot-boxes-in-childrens-video-games-encourage-gambling/?sh=246db61f5653">loot boxes</a>, next season’s <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/battle-passes-make-me-never-want-to-play-a-multiplayer-game-ever-again/">battle pass rewards</a>, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gaming-skins-just-became-50-143352555.html">next season’s skins</a>. They transform play into shopping.</p>
<p>“Baldur’s Gate 3” has none of this.</p>
<p>“We believe in providing a complete and immersive gaming experience without the need for additional purchases,” <a href="https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3/microtransactions">Larian wrote on the game’s website</a>.</p>
<p>Gamers and reviewers reacted to that announcement like swimmers taking their <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/08/12/the-main-lesson-frombaldurs-gate-3-should-be-people-hate-microtransactions/?sh=2025300b7a88">first snatch of air</a> after an overly aggressive dunking at a pool party.</p>
<h2>Beyond button-mashing</h2>
<p>The third argument against story-driven games is that they don’t appeal to a broad audience. The thinking goes that most gamers tend to be hyperactive button-mashers who lack the attention span for complex stories. And because developers can spend tens, even <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/09/24/why-video-games-are-so-expensive-to-develop">hundreds of millions</a> to bring a game to market, they cannot risk limiting their appeal, so they instead follow established models of success. </p>
<p>Even before the ascendance of the “Fornite” business model, that often meant shying away from story. <a href="https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/all-for-games-an-interview-with-warren-spector#close-modal">In a 2007 interview</a>, game designer and producer Warren Spector griped: “You don’t want to know how many projects I’ve been told to ‘just go make a shooter.’ I had one publisher tell me ‘you’re not allowed to say story anymore.’ It’s a constant battle to do something other than what everyone else is already doing.”</p>
<p>For now, the gaming industry has dubbed “Baldur’s Gate 3” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWdZhKFtxKg">a unicorn to admire rather than a model to follow</a>. Larian can do what others cannot because it is a privately owned company that doesn’t have to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-18/-baldur-s-gate-3-is-a-huge-hit-thanks-to-privately-owned-larian-studios">compromise artistic choices due to financial pressures</a>.</p>
<p>That may be true. But the game’s surprising success is a much-needed reminder that in the video game industry, making art and making money aren’t mutually exclusive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Dawes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For years, the biggest video game publishers have operated under the assumption that compelling stories and captivating characters don’t offer a good return on investment.James Dawes, Professor of English, Macalester CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057232023-08-07T13:03:29Z2023-08-07T13:03:29ZWhat’s behind our enduring fascination with wives and mothers who kill?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540540/original/file-20230801-19-4zkxdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C22%2C2991%2C2029&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A family photo of Andrea Yates, her husband and four of their five children. Yates killed all five by drowning them in a bathtub in 2001.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-undated-family-photo-shows-four-of-the-five-children-news-photo/1607982?adppopup=true">Photo Courtesy of Yates Family/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In March 2023, a Utah woman named Kouri Richins published a children’s book titled “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/123277319">Are You With Me?</a>” which she characterized as an effort to help her three young sons process the loss of their father, who had died suddenly the previous year. Presenting herself as a concerned mother and grieving widow, she was interviewed on “<a href="https://www.abc4.com/gtu/a-childrens-book-to-aid-in-coping-with-grief/">Good Things Utah</a>” in April 2023.</p>
<p>A few weeks later, on May 8, 2023, Richins was arrested and charged with killing her husband, Eric.</p>
<p>An autopsy showed that the 39-year-old man died of a massive fentanyl overdose. Since Eric had no history of drug abuse, his family found the circumstances suspicious. In the months before his death, Eric confided in his business partner that on several occasions – after being served a drink or meal by his wife, including on Valentine’s Day – he had become violently ill. Utah’s <a href="https://www.parkrecord.com/news/prosecutors-provide-more-information-about-alleged-marital-troubles-between-kamas-couple/">Park Record reported</a> that he had mentioned to friends and family that if anything were to happen to him, Kouri would be the likely culprit.</p>
<p>In August 2023, as I write this, the Richins’ housekeeper <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/07/07/housekeeper-admits-selling-kouri-richins-fentanyl-affidavit/">has confessed</a> to providing the fentanyl that killed Eric, and the case is mired in multiple lawsuits, including one in which <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/06/28/sister-eric-richins-sues-kouri/">the victim’s sister accuses</a> Kouri of “enacting a horrific endgame to steal money from her husband, orchestrate his death and profit from it.” Meanwhile, Kouri Richins refutes these charges and has filed her own <a href="https://kutv.com/news/local/utah-woman-accused-of-husbands-murder-faces-civil-case-over-property-finances">civil suit</a> “seeking not only half of the marital residence but also her late husband’s business, which is valued at approximately $4 million.” She has been <a href="https://kutv.com/news/local/judge-denies-kouri-richins-bail-request-due-to-severity-of-charges-potential-penalties-eric-richins-kamas-book-author-fentanyl-summit-county-court">denied bail</a> and is currently awaiting trial – an event destined to become a media spectacle.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/njXQz82S9UI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Inside Edition’ reports on the arrest of Kouri Richins.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether or not it’s true that “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2007/10/16/15244466/love-and-hate-a-tolstoy-family-tale">each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way</a>,” as Leo Tolstoy famously wrote, other people’s domestic misery seems to be a constant source of interest. </p>
<p>What lies behind the public’s fascination with familial trauma, especially when it turns deadly? And what occluded anxieties or longings do people confront or exorcise as they consume these stories of mayhem and murder?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/20/true-crime-podcasts-are-popular-in-the-us-particularly-among-women-and-those-with-less-formal-education/">The interest in true-crime podcasts</a>, series and documentaries is nothing new. The public appetite for easily accessible portraits of real-life murders stretches back to the early days of print, when they were repackaged and sold as ballads, domestic tragedies and lurid penny pamphlets.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/961f96e82665b4b9a540742fafcf3ca5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=51922&diss=y">My research</a> as a scholar of 16th- and 17th-century English literature is largely focused on popular representations of domestic crime. I’m often struck by the resonance between these historical portrayals and the way such incidents are reported today.</p>
<p>While the medium has changed, the framing of these stories has remained strikingly consistent. The same queasy combination of sensationalist titillation and pious condemnation found in 16th- and 17th-century media appears in today’s news coverage of domestic murders – and it shines a light on enduring cultural anxieties. </p>
<h2>‘Sleeping in a serpent’s bed’</h2>
<p>The Richins case – with its themes of marital distrust, betrayal and conflicting interests – echoes a 16th-century murder so scandalous that it was reported in historical chronicles and popular pamphlets alike. It also inspired the Elizabethan domestic tragedy “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43440/43440-h/43440-h.htm">Arden of Faversham</a>” and at least <a href="https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/printballad.php?i=rox_album_3_156-157_2448x2448.jpg">one ballad</a>. </p>
<p>The crime occurred on Valentine’s Day 1551, when <a href="https://blog.pshares.org/alice-arden-of-faversham-and-womens-interest-in-true-crime/">Alice Arden</a> conspired with her lover and some hired assassins to kill her husband, Thomas, at his own dinner table. </p>
<p>The historical records and the play depict a woman who places desire above duty, determined to kill her husband and replace him with her paramour, who was a servant in her stepfather’s household – a step down the social ladder that added insult to injury.</p>
<p>That the murder of a middle-class suburban bureaucrat rated inclusion in official sources like “<a href="https://english.nsms.ox.ac.uk/Holinshed/">Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland</a>” and the “<a href="https://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng4.htm">Newgate Calendar</a>” – and was still inspiring fresh interpretations decades later – suggests an appeal beyond the merely salacious. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Crude drawing of man being strangled with a cloth at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An undated print depicts the murder of Thomas Arden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://from.ncl.ac.uk/hubfs/Ardens_Murder.png">Newcastle University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 16th-century England, where the majority of adults <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DrMyGQGmwmoC&q=adventure+of+marriage#v=snippet&q=adventure%20of%20marriage&f=false">were married</a>, women effectively became their husbands’ legal “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture">subjects</a>” upon marriage. This meant that a wife who killed her spouse was guilty not only of murder but of petit, or “petty,” treason, a crime against the state punishable by burning. <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004400696/BP000015.xml?language=en">As I have argued elsewhere</a>, the idea of violent marital insurrection posed a frightening challenge to patriarchal notions of a man’s home as his castle. </p>
<p>But cases of female violence were – <a href="https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/">as now</a> – comparatively rare: The figure of the murderous wife wielded far more power in the imagination than in reality. </p>
<p>As the unmarried Elizabeth I’s long reign drew to its close, fears about domestic partners gone wild indicated broader fears about the family as a “<a href="https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/CleaverGodly_M/index.html">little commonwealth</a>” or microcosmic state – and the need to reinforce the status quo in politically uncertain times.</p>
<p>In life and onstage, Alice Arden was the stuff of proto-feminist fantasy and masculine nightmare, and early modern plays, pamphlets and ballads sought to defuse the rogue woman’s perceived menace in the way they presented the scandal. </p>
<p><a href="http://elizabethandrama.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Arden-of-Feversham-Annotated.pdf">In the play</a>, Alice’s lover, Moseby, notes that “‘tis fearful sleeping in a serpent’s bed,” since when she has “supplanted Arden for my sake” she might “extirpen me to plant another.” </p>
<p>These suspicions find an echo in Eric Richins’ <a href="https://meaww.com/eric-richins-husband-allegedly-poisoned-by-author-wife-kouri-richins-believed-she-was-unfaithful">fears</a> about his wife’s intentions, and in some media portrayals of her as a <a href="https://meaww.com/kouri-richins-utah-woman-who-killed-husband-believed-she-would-inherit-3-6-m-until-he-changed-will">thwarted gold digger</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Like a fierce and bloody Medea’</h2>
<p>If a homicidal wife was a terrifying prospect, a murderous mother presented an entirely different level of horror. </p>
<p>The anonymous 1616 pamphlet “<a href="https://www.executedtoday.com/2015/05/18/1616-margaret-vincent-pitilesse-mother/#:%7E:text=A%20pitiless%20mother%2C%20that%20most,Vincent%20of%20the%20same%20town.">A Pittilesse Mother That at One Time Murdered Two of Her Own Children at Acton, etc.</a>” tells the story of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/medieval-and-early-modern-murder/monstrous-unmaking-maternal-infanticide-and-female-agency-in-early-modern-england/664BA2D9B855631299EF057D94BDB25C">Margaret Vincent</a>, who strangled and killed her two young children in an attempt to save their souls when her husband refused to convert to Catholicism. (She later repented, saying she had been “converted to a blind belief of bewitching heresy.”)</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crude drawing of woman murdering two little children on a bed while a demon watches." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘A Pittilesse Mother’ tells the story of Margaret Vincent’s murder of her two children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/media/strangling-from-a-pittilesse-mother-that-most-unnaturally-at-one-time-murthered-eb67ac">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are many parallels in the stories of Vincent and an evangelical Christian named <a href="https://time.com/4375398/andrea-yates-15-years-drown-children/">Andrea Yates</a>, who in 2001 drowned her five children in the bathtub of their Texas home, believing she would send their souls to heaven and drive Satan from the world. In March 2002, Yates was sentenced to life in prison, but a 2006 appeal found her not guilty by reason of insanity. She now resides in a mental health facility from which <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/u-s-woman-who-drowned-children-refuses-release-from-psychiatric-hospital-every-year">she routinely refuses</a> to apply for release.</p>
<p>Neither Vincent nor Yates had been involved in any previous crimes or scandals, but both had exhibited signs of spiritual or mental instability. Vincent had “disobediently” insisted her family become Roman Catholics; Yates had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates#:%7E:text=Yates%20stopped%20taking%20Haldol%20in,feverishly%2C%20and%20stopped%20feeding%20Mary.">stopped taking the medication</a> prescribed for her postpartum depression and later psychosis without her doctor’s approval. Both women reportedly planned their children’s murders carefully, waited until their husbands were away from home to commit them, invoked diabolical forces to explain their actions, and initially claimed to feel no remorse. </p>
<p>The correlation between these historically distant murders is disturbing and fascinating, not least because both narratives feature conventionally “good,” married, middle-class mothers. Yet both were excoriated in contemporary media as <a href="https://nypost.com/2001/06/26/the-murdering-mom-the-prison-of-self/">monsters</a>: guilty of <a href="https://www.executedtoday.com/2015/05/18/1616-margaret-vincent-pitilesse-mother/">crimes against nature</a>, their husbands and their offspring.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to Jan. 24, 2023, when <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/lindsay-clancy-duxbury-mother-children-killed-committed-6-months/43852054">Lindsay Clancy</a> sent her husband, Patrick, on an errand and, like Margaret Vincent, strangled her three children before attempting suicide.</p>
<p>When Patrick Clancy returned to their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, he found Lindsay on the lawn with major injuries, suffered in a jump from a second-story window. Inside, his children – ages 5 years, 3 years and 8 months – were unconscious. The two oldest were pronounced dead at the scene, <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/as-community-mourns-duxbury-children-killed-questions-circle-about-maternal-mental-health/2956568/">while the youngest survived for several days</a>. </p>
<p>As more details of the case became known, a picture emerged of a doting mother and nurse midwife who often shared family photos and anecdotes on social media. After her youngest child’s birth, these posts included references to depression, anxiety and her ongoing attempts to find relief via therapy and medication. </p>
<p><a href="https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/unlike-any-other-type-of-homicide-how-lindsay-clancy-mirrors-andrea-yates-case/">The inevitable comparisons</a> to the 2001 Yates murders were exacerbated by her lawyer’s revelation that Clancy had been prescribed more than a dozen medications in recent weeks, and by her own claim – as reported during her Feb. 7, 2023, <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/02/07/lindsay-clancy-duxbury-arraignment">arraignment</a> – that she had “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/health/lindsay-clancy-child-murder-charges-massachusetts.html">heard a man’s voice, telling her to kill the kids and kill herself because it was her last chance</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Split screen of judge sitting at his dais and woman wearing facemask lying in a hospital bed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lindsay Clancy appeared at her arraignment over Zoom while still in the hospital recovering from self-inflicted injuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lindsay-clancy-appeared-at-her-plymouth-district-court-news-photo/1246891610?adppopup=true">David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The prosecution presented Clancy as a coldblooded, calculating murderer. The defense countered with a portrait of a woman suffering from serious mental illness with inadequate treatment. <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/duxbury-tragedy-read-patrick-clancys-full-statement-on-his-wife-deaths-of-3-kids/2957737/">Patrick Clancy</a> has argued that his wife deserves compassion rather than condemnation. </p>
<p>As the familiar lines are drawn on the battlefield of public opinion, the sense of déjà vu is palpable. Is Lindsay Clancy a latter-day <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea">Medea</a>, the vengeful child killer of Greek mythology, or an overwhelmed and poorly supported woman struggling with a serious illness? As of this writing, <a href="https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/lindsay-clancy-duxbury-mother-accused-murdering-her-kids-remain-committed-6-months/PM7XPI3MCVFINO65YCCAGBSCNQ/">Clancy is committed</a> to Tewksbury State Hospital until November 2023, at which point future legal proceedings will be assessed.</p>
<p>These events are unquestionably horrific, but the passage of two decades may have wrought some changes in the public’s response. While Clancy has been reviled in some quarters as a coldblooded killer – <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@aprnbeauty_81/video/7198259011211365637">particularly on social media</a> – the murders have also sparked a discussion about <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/what-we-still-dont-understand-about-postpartum-psychosis#:%7E:text=In%20November%2C%20Clancy%2C%20who%20is,with%20Ativan%2C%20a%20benzodiazepine%2C%20but">postpartum mental health</a>, suggesting a willingness to better understand this complicated topic.</p>
<h2>A queasy sort of comfort</h2>
<p>Tales of domestic murder expose and underscore fears about society’s most fundamental institutions: home, family and community. The media in every period are extremely skilled at weaponizing – and capitalizing on – worries about the family’s capacity to provide a safe haven in a turbulent world.</p>
<p>In early modern England, highly gendered ideas about the home as a reflection of the state politicized anxieties about order, stability and the family as a patriarchal institution. Then as now, it was a frightening – yet compelling – prospect that threats to a family’s very survival might be hiding in the place people should feel safest. </p>
<p>Perhaps the ongoing fascination with dysfunctional, broken homes <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-it-feel-good-to-see-someone-fail-107349">is based in schadenfreude</a>, and the comforting realization that as troubled as our own families may be, we have not taken violent action against them. </p>
<p>Like the repentant gallows speeches recounted in ballads, or the assurance in “A Pittilesse Mother” that Margaret Vincent “earnestly repented the deed,” the containment and punishment of those who disrupt this bedrock institution offer reassurance that they are anomalies. (I could never do that; you could never do that.)</p>
<p>Or the appeal may lie in the idea that any of us might, in fact, be capable of such things. </p>
<p>Perhaps in choosing to be disturbed, entertained and ultimately comforted by narratives about domestic stability turned to chaos, we find a way to confront, if only obliquely, our most primal fears about the institutions we trust, the people we love – and our own capacity to destroy them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Berg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The framing of these stories of murder and mayhem have remained remarkably consistent since the invention of the printing press – and may reveal our own hidden fears and desires.Dianne Berg, Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077092023-06-16T17:42:27Z2023-06-16T17:42:27ZCormac McCarthy’s fearless approach to writing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532288/original/file-20230615-27-es4rpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C17%2C1930%2C1298&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">McCarthy attends the 2009 premiere of the film adaptation of his novel 'The Road.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObitCormacMcCarthy/e76e31de4fce44e5becba9a64b06a2f7/photo?Query=Cormac%20McCarthy&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=19&currentItemNo=0">Evan Agostini/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cormac McCarthy, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/books/cormac-mccarthy-dead.html">who died on June 13, 2023</a>, at the age of 89, is often characterized rather narrowly <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/texas/articles/cormac-mccarthy-reinventing-the-southern-gothic/">as a Southern writer</a>, or perhaps <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/want-read-southern-gothic-heres-start/">a Southern Gothic writer</a>.</p>
<p>McCarthy did lean heavily on <a href="https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/2023/06/15/remembering-cormac-mccarthys-legacy-and-early-life-in-east-tennessee/70320788007/">his Tennessee upbringing</a> in his first four novels, and he set many others in the deserts of the Southwest U.S. However, as a writer, he saw himself as a part of an expansive literary community, one that stretched back to the classical and Elizabethan periods, and one that drew on a variety of genres, cultures and influences.</p>
<p>His unique and varying writing style has been compared with that of many of the greatest authors of American letters, with scholars highlighting connections to the writings of <a href="https://readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com/1616140/8480163-episode-9-melville-and-mccarthy-with-steven-frye">Herman Melville</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cormac-mccarthy-in-context/ernest-hemingway/D3D8FDEB9548A1D4786480EAA3B39714">Ernest Hemingway</a>, <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2023/06/the-three-punctuation-rules-of-cormac-mccarthy-rip.html">James Joyce</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Hypermasculinities_in_the_Contemporary_N.html?id=WmnBoAEACAAJ">Toni Morrison</a>, <a href="https://lithub.com/harold-bloom-on-cormac-mccarthy-true-heir-to-melville-and-faulkner/">Thomas Pynchon</a>, <a href="https://unherd.com/2023/06/cormac-mccarthys-irrational-apocalypse/">Fyodor Dostoevsky</a>, <a href="https://themarginaliareview.com/how-flannery-oconnor-and-cormac-mccarthy-helped-to-invent-the-south/">Flannery O’Connor</a> and <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-orchard.html?scp=7&sq=The%2520Orchard&st=cse">William Faulkner</a>. </p>
<p>As such an unwieldy list of compatriots suggests, McCarthy is an author who experimented with language and literary technique. Each of his books typically departs radically in tone, structure and prose from the previous one.</p>
<p>I’m currently working on a book that’s tentatively titled “How Cormac Works: McCarthy, Language, and Style.” In it, I trace McCarthy’s career-long commitment to playing with style, particularly his approach to narration and his techniques for conveying a mood.</p>
<h2>Two radically different reading experiences</h2>
<p>Depending on the book – and even passages within certain books – McCarthy’s writing can be characterized as minimalistic, meandering, esoteric, humorous, terrifying, pretentious, sentimental or folksy. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Title page of book reading 'Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West,' followed by author's name." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532287/original/file-20230615-15088-m4cp5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The title page for the first edition of McCarthy’s 1985 novel ‘Blood Meridian.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Blood_Meridian_%281985_1st_ed_half_title_page%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some novels depend heavily on dense passages of narrative exposition and philosophizing, while others lean heavily on everyday dialogue. Some books celebrate regional voices and vernacular, and others adopt a neutral, removed and clinical tone.</p>
<p>It is possible to see McCarthy’s literary range and stylistic experimentation in two of his most famous novels, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/110472/blood-meridian-by-cormac-mccarthy/">Blood Meridian</a>,” which came out in 1985, and “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/110490/the-road-by-cormac-mccarthy/">The Road</a>,” which was published over two decades later, in 2006, and was turned <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/">into a movie</a> in 2009.</p>
<p>In “Blood Meridian,” set in the desert of the Southwest U.S. and Mexico, McCarthy’s prose is dense, with details piling up one after another. </p>
<p>Take the famous scene in which a mercenary gang of American scalp hunters encounters a band of Comanche warriors:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador. … ”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The entire sentence is much too long to quote here. But you get the picture: There is very little punctuation and there are few places to even take a breath. </p>
<p>The narration in other moments of the novel catalogs the desert landscape of the U.S. West in similarly painstaking and tedious – if also beautiful – detail. The prose feels drawn out, slow and repetitive, like the subject of the novel: the United States’ western expansion in the 19th century, a campaign of escalating destruction that McCarthy characterizes in the novel as “some heliotropic plague.”</p>
<p>“The Road,” a later novel similarly committed to the idea of incessant movement, could not be more different in its style, pacing and rhythm. The prose in that novel, which won <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/cormac-mccarthy">the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction</a>, is concise and is marked by a linguistic restraint that’s entirely absent in “Blood Meridian.” </p>
<p>Rather than dense and overwhelming passages, this novel is constructed of short and distinct paragraphs that are separated by white space and often unrelated to what comes directly before or after:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was colder. Nothing moved in that night world. A rich smell of woodsmoke hung over the road. He pushed the cart on through the snow. … </p>
<p>In his dream she was sick and he cared for her. The dream bore the look of sacrifice but he thought differently. … </p>
<p>On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world. Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was? </p>
<p>Dark of invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. … </p>
<p>People sitting on the sidewalk in the dawn half immolate and smoking in their clothes. Like failed sectarian suicides. …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Each paragraph in this passage is different in tone, subject matter, place, and time from what comes before and appears after. </p>
<h2>A lasting legacy</h2>
<p>It might be tempting to see such difference as an evolution, as McCarthy honing and taming his narrative voice from his earlier work. But his final long novel, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/110481/the-passenger-by-cormac-mccarthy/">The Passenger</a>,” which was published in 2022, returns again to the rambling prose reminiscent of McCarthy’s big novels in the middle of his career, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/110485/suttree-by-cormac-mccarthy/">Suttree</a>” and “Blood Meridian.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of man with mustache folding his arms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532286/original/file-20230615-29-z1oq2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of McCarthy used for the first edition of his 1973 novel ‘Child of God.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Cormac_McCarthy_%28Child_of_God_author_portrait_-_high-res%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some readers find McCarthy’s stylistic flourishes and experimentation excessive – or, even worse, pretentious. But they always struck me as reflecting his love of words and the endless possibilities of language. </p>
<p>In a blurb that was originally written for McCarthy’s first novel, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/110489/the-orchard-keeper-by-cormac-mccarthy/">The Orchard Keeper</a>,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/17/obituaries/ralph-ellison-author-of-invisible-man-is-dead-at-80.html">Ralph Ellison</a> <a href="https://www.fedpo.com/images/TheOrchardKeeper/04TheOrchardKeeper.jpg">wrote</a>, “McCarthy is a writer to be read, to be admired, and quite honestly – envied.” </p>
<p>As I learned of McCarthy’s death, I couldn’t help but think of this quote that marked the beginning of his career, and to think how right Ellison was to champion McCarthy’s craft – the careful use of language that sustained his work for six decades across 12 novels.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Hardwig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Pulitzer Prize-winning author was always willing to experiment with his prose, pacing and narration, crafting an oeuvre that varied wildly in style and structure.Bill Hardwig, Associate Professor of English, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2038282023-06-05T12:06:11Z2023-06-05T12:06:11ZBirth of a story: How new parents find meaning after childbirth hints at how they will adjust<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529856/original/file-20230602-19-u8qb1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C549%2C4418%2C2943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Having a new baby can upend everything about your old life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/newborn-baby-boy-being-cradled-by-new-parents-in-royalty-free-image/1307728623">Cavan Images/Cavan via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gather a group of new parents and the conversation will likely turn to their childbirth stories – ranging from the joyful to the gnarly to the positively traumatic. <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/01/birth-stories-feminist-history-internet-sharing.html">Birth story podcasts and websites</a> feature a curated range of birth experiences, and you can buy embossed leather “birth story” journals as a baby shower gift. People are fascinated by this pivotal, emotionally complex and literally life-and-death experience.</p>
<p>Birth narratives might also contain clues about how the adjustment to parenthood will go.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/203434/the-uses-of-enchantment-by-bruno-bettelheim/">People have long used stories</a> to understand difficult experiences. Stories may be particularly valuable as a source of “meaning-making,” the process of finding order in chaos by making sense of unexpected events, identifying silver linings and discovering the patterns and connections that thread seemingly random events together into a coherent narrative.</p>
<p>In a new study led by <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YRIcV6YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Geoffrey Corner</a>, a former graduate student in <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/nestlab/">my lab</a>, we found that the levels of meaning-making in the stories new parents told about their baby’s birth <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001062">predicted their relationship quality and parenting stress</a> in the child’s first months.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="three moms with infants on mats facing an instructor with a doll in a baby yoga class" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When new moms come together, the talk often turns to their childbirth stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/baby-massage-class-switzerland-new-mothers-learn-how-to-news-photo/629429057">BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Constructing meaning in your own life</h2>
<p>Finding meaningful themes and patterns in life’s seeming randomness is a fundamentally human activity. As writer Joan Didion put it, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/40775/we-tell-ourselves-stories-in-order-to-live-by-joan-didion-introduction-by-john-leonard/">we tell ourselves stories in order to live</a>.”</p>
<p>“Meaning-making” can buffer despair in the wake of tragedy. Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl’s memoir, “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/Mans-Search-for-Meaning-P602.aspx">Man’s Search for Meaning</a>,” argued that meaning and purpose can prevent the bitterness and disillusionment that can otherwise fester after great loss. Research on what psychologists call <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01">post-traumatic growth</a> has found that the level of “meaning-making” in people’s narratives about a difficult event predicts their mental health over time.</p>
<p>For example, studies have found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018301">links between meaning-making and resilience</a> in cancer patients, bereaved parents and caregivers. Cancer survivors might discover that their chemo ordeal brought them closer to friends and family, or helped them step back from the hustle of everyday life and embrace a slower pace.</p>
<p>Although childbirth is typically experienced as a joyful rather than a tragic event, it can still be unpredictable, frightening and even life-threatening. Indeed, psychologists have begun to recognize that particularly difficult labors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2015.1031646">can trigger post-traumatic stress symptoms</a>, not just in mothers but in their partners as well. Even normal, nontraumatic births require parents to cope with hours, sometimes days, of pain and discomfort. Therefore, we hypothesized that meaning-making might be an important part of couples’ birth narratives, potentially promoting resilience in new parents.</p>
<p>To test these hypotheses, we collected birth stories from 77 couples who were participating in our lab’s <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/nestlab/research/">longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood</a>. We visited couples at the hospital within a day or two of their infant’s birth, and audio-recorded them sharing their stories together. We told couples, “We’d like to hear you tell the story of your birth experience. Start from the beginning and tell us as much as you remember.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="three masked medical workers hold newborn above mother's body during C-section operation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents may need to process even a normal childbirth with healthy outcomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/caesarian-babys-first-breath-royalty-free-image/125951777">Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Listening for meaning-making in birth stories</h2>
<p>A team of coders listened to each story and recorded examples of meaning-making, using three categories established in the research literature:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Sense-making: Identifying reasons that an event might have unfolded the way it did or making connections that show why an event was meaningful. For example, one mother in our sample found meaning in her long labor, describing her baby as “very brave and tough” because she survived hours of pushing. </p></li>
<li><p>Benefit-finding: Pointing out silver linings or unexpected positive effects of a difficult experience. For example, after a difficult birth, one parent in our sample stated, “It was scary, but the nurses and the doctors were so nice to us.”</p></li>
<li><p>Change in identity: Describing how an event has transformed one’s sense of self. As a parent in our sample said, “I feel like my life has changed completely with the baby now here.”</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Although couples told their story together, we tracked meaning-making separately for each partner. We also rated how much each partner participated in telling their story so we could adjust for their levels of engagement in sharing their birth narrative.</p>
<p>The couples in our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001062">sample were avid “meaning makers”</a>: Almost all the participants made at least some meaning-making statements in their birth stories. Of the three categories of meaning-making, “change in identity” language surfaced least often, appearing in about 37% of the birth stories. Mothers tended to use more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language than fathers. And both members of a couple tended to use similar amounts of meaning-making language. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="infant on mother's chest in hospital bed with father smiling down at baby" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new parent’s meaning-making can affect them and their partner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mixed-race-family-admiring-their-newborn-baby-at-royalty-free-image/1248789907">SelectStock/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Becoming mom or dad</h2>
<p>After we had coded all of the narratives, we next looked to see whether “meaning-making” predicted relationship satisfaction and parenting stress in our couples. The transition to parenthood can be a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/347802">crisis event” for the couple relationship</a> and is often linked with <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-children-heres-how-kids-ruin-your-romantic-relationship-57944">declines in relationship quality</a>.</p>
<p>But when mothers used more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language, they showed a smaller drop in their relationship satisfaction than moms who used less. Fathers who used more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language reported lower parenting stress at six months postpartum than dads who used less.</p>
<p>And partners of fathers who used more “change in identity” language also reported lower parenting stress later on, suggesting that dads who experience the transition to parenthood as transformative may be able to help mothers cope better with new parenthood. On the flip side, though, when mothers showed more meaning-making, their partners actually reported more parenting stress at six months postpartum. It may be that when mothers find the birth experience to be more personally meaningful, partners feel left out or pressured to step up their own parenting.</p>
<p>Overall, these results supported our initial hunch that meaning-making might be detectable in birth narratives and forecast parents’ psychological adjustment after birth. Greater meaning-making language seemed to benefit the couple relationship and largely buffer parenting stress.</p>
<p>This study was limited by a fairly small sample of cohabiting heterosexual parents. Nevertheless, it highlights the value of stories in shaping family transitions. For therapists working with new parents in the wake of a difficult birth, encouraging couples to seek meaning in their birth story may help ease their transition to parenthood. Journaling and storytelling exercises may help couples process their feelings about their childbirth experiences. After all, the birth of a baby is also the birth of a story – and that story is well worth telling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darby Saxbe receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>How you tell the story of a momentous event can help you make sense of what happened. Research finds new moms’ and dads’ narratives around childbirth held clues about their transition to parenthood.Darby Saxbe, Associate Professor of Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2030362023-04-24T19:22:58Z2023-04-24T19:22:58ZCancel culture: YouTube videos on ‘getting cancelled’ are now their own genre and have links to the past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522406/original/file-20230421-18-3j3jq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C178%2C4322%2C3034&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The aptly-titled video 'Canceling,' by cultural commentator and YouTuber ContraPoints, crystallized the cancellation video genre. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">(Wikipedia)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/cancel-culture--youtube-videos-on--getting-cancelled--are-now-their-own-genre-and-have-links-to-the-past" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The <a href="https://umaine.edu/undiscoveredmaine/small-business/resources/marketing-for-small-business/social-media-tools/social-media-statistics-details/">explosion of</a> user-created content on platforms like YouTube, Twitch and TikTok has unsettled traditional notions of authorship.</p>
<p>We can consider relationships between authors and audiences, and their roles in the creative process, by examining how some YouTubers have addressed critiques of their public commentary after they have been “cancelled.”</p>
<p>Cancelling is a colloquial term applied to anything from discussion about an author with a critical tone to internet pile-ons or <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-misogyny-the-new-way-andrew-tate-brought-us-the-same-old-hate-191928">campaigns to deplatform individuals</a> after that person does something their audience perceives as wrong. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/20879720/what-is-cancel-culture-explained-history-debate">much debate</a> as to whether cancelling is a real phenomenon. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, videos where YouTubers address their own cancellation, answer their audiences’ questions about their public mistake and correct misunderstandings suggest <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935338.013.002">forms of authorship that predate the modern emphasis</a> on an individual creator.</p>
<p>Jessie Krahn, one of the authors of this story, has studied these “cancellation videos” as a unique sub-genre of YouTube apology videos.</p>
<h2>Direct response to audience desire</h2>
<p>In a 2019 article in <em>Vice</em>, Bettina Makalintal wrote that YouTubers’
“<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywykzb/how-youtubers-james-charles-jaclyn-hill-pewdiepie-turned-the-apology-video-into-a-genre">apologies — like lipsticks — have become just another product” and their own genre</a>. YouTube apology videos feature a YouTuber unequivocally taking responsibility for one accusation. </p>
<p>In YouTube cancellation videos, by contrast, creators take responsibility for some of the accusations, question the validity of others and address the dynamics of social media cancellation more broadly in relation to their own situation. These videos are created in direct response to audience desire. </p>
<p>YouTubers frame these videos as opportunities to be <a href="https://www.sociomix.com/diaries/entertainment/the-problems-with-cancel-culture-and-popular-youtubers/1627615253">frank and open</a> with their viewers, acknowledging their audiences’ criticisms as worthy of engagement. However, they also critique the audiences’ critiques. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uFvtCUzfyL4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">YouTube video ‘No More Lies’ from James Charles has had more than 50 million views.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Accepting, rejecting some criticisms</h2>
<p>One of the most famous examples of a cancellation video is <a href="https://medium.com/bolstered/youtube-beauty-gurus-an-explainer-232177009b7c">YouTube beauty guru</a> James Charles’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/uFvtCUzfyL4">No More Lies</a>,” when Charles surveys <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a27484210/james-charles-tati-westbrook-youtube-drama-timeline/">criticisms levied against him</a>. The video, which has had more than 50 million views since it was posted in 2019, was in response to a messy public fallout that began with allegations that he was inconsiderate to a friend and mentor. </p>
<p>In Charles’s cancellation video, he stands by everything he said in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Ukl4l_LM8">earlier apology video</a>, but the cancellation video also refutes public criticisms of his character. Commentators note some criticism directed at Charles <a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/44555/1/james-charles-tati-westbrook-drama-homophobia">was homophobic</a>.</p>
<p>The aptly titled 2020 video “<a href="https://youtu.be/OjMPJVmXxV8">Canceling</a>,” by cultural commentator and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/contrapoints-political-philosophy-natalie-wynn-youtube/579532/">YouTuber ContraPoints</a>, crystallized the cancellation video genre. </p>
<p>In the video, Natalie Wynn, the personality behind ContraPoints, addresses the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/youtuber-contrapoints-attacked-after-including-controversial-buck-angel-video-1466757">controversy that erupted</a> after she included content that some viewers believed endorsed the view that transgender identity is only authentic if a person transitions through medical intervention. </p>
<p>Wynn examines a number of her controversial tweets. She dismisses many of the criticisms as taking her tweets out of context and suggests that some of the criticisms were transphobic. However, she also accepts when something she wrote was open to being misconstrued, admitting: “We’ll call this a bad tweet.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OjMPJVmXxV8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video from Contrapoints on ‘Canceling.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moral discussions</h2>
<p>Cancellation videos reveal how social media authors create their content in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40550803">direct response</a> to audience commentary and expectation. For audience members, cancelling is a way to negotiate their love for authors with their own values. </p>
<p>When an author is “cancelled,” audiences try to understand how they can continue engaging with the author despite their <a href="https://mashable.com/article/james-charles-tati-westbrook-bye-sisters-youtube-drama">newfound knowledge</a> of the author’s perceived flaws.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/joe-rogan-is-at-it-again-cancel-culture-can-be-harsh-but-it-can-also-help-reduce-harm-176776">Joe Rogan is at it again: Cancel culture can be harsh, but it can also help reduce harm</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>When, in response, YouTubers reach out to their viewers through the format their audiences came to know them in, it is a way to be publicly forthcoming and engage viewers in moral discussions. Such videos also reinscribe the boundaries that restrict audiences to only knowing authors through their video content.</p>
<p>Cancellation videos are examples of the ways internet video is not merely driven by the identities of popular personalities on social media, but also by the audience’s responses to those personalities. </p>
<p>Dialogues between authors and audiences shape future content created by the YouTubers. </p>
<h2>Pre-modern authorship</h2>
<p>The mode of authorship seen in YouTube cancellation videos combines the intense interest in the <a href="https://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/romtextv2/files/2013/02/cc08_n01.pdf">author as a singular creator</a> that has long dominated popular conceptions of authorship with an older model of authorship that was popular in 17th-century England.</p>
<p>Before the <a href="https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/conjectures-original-composition-1759">belief in the original genius of the author</a> took root in Britain during the late 18th century, many anonymous pamphlets and books circulated that were crafted directly around readers’ desires and reading habits.</p>
<p>These included <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/secret-history-in-literature-16601820/1B0294ACC0E70BB5D3A56D15F2FD94CC">popular genres like the secret history, which purported to expose state secrets and political sexual intrigues, and “printed hoaxes” (both generating hoaxes and debunking them)</a>. </p>
<p>Such texts directly responded to their <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reading-Fictions-1660-1740-Deception-in-English-Literary-and-Political/Loveman/p/book/9781138376229">readers’ desire for literature that invited public discussion and was socially oriented</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Patrons seen in a coffee house with long bench tables." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522172/original/file-20230420-22-tec37q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drawing of a London coffee house, circa 1690-1700.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Trustees of the British Museum)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New access to information</h2>
<p>Authors wrote to engage with the political struggles of the time, and took advantage of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300171228/the-social-life-of-coffee/">the new coffeehouses</a> to circulate their ideas and boost their texts’ popularity. </p>
<p>The number of coffeehouses <a href="https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/newspapers-gossip-and-coffee-house-culture">increased exponentially</a> in late 17th-century London. They were cheap places in which to conduct business and gain access to the latest newspapers and political gossip. </p>
<p>Coffeehouses’ bench-style seating made them egalitarian spaces for discussion, thus making them an integral part of the rise of democratic ideals in British society.</p>
<p>The rise in texts dependent upon social conversation to render them popular was directly linked to new public spaces. These spaces expanded access to news and knowledge for men <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09574049108578077">(and some women)</a> at all levels of British society. </p>
<h2>New public spaces, new texts</h2>
<p>Seventeenth-century readers had a new, more accessible forum for media consumption, and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/jearlmodcultstud.15.2.58?mag=the-woman-famous-for-not-sleeping-with-a-king">this influenced the texts being produced by authors at the time</a>. The same can be said for social media influencers today. </p>
<p>Examining social media creation within the complicated history of authorship spotlights how new ways of consuming media shift the relationship between author and audience. </p>
<p>It also suggests how authorial agency is never only about one person’s creative drive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Keating has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessie Krahn has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities. </span></em></p>What do YouTuber influencer videos about being ‘cancelled’ share with 17th-century texts? Both were crafted directly in response to audiences in new social spaces.Erin Keating, Associate Professor, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media, University of ManitobaJessie Krahn, Master's student, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989982023-02-06T19:04:44Z2023-02-06T19:04:44ZWhat’s behind the door? The best narrative twists in television and film, and why we love them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507793/original/file-20230202-14-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C1075%2C582&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Life is full of surprises – some pleasant and some painful – but there can be no surprises without expectations. We expect the sun to come up every morning. We expect our dog to bark every time someone comes to the door. We expect to be able to leave the house without risk of a viral infection.</p>
<p>People tell and consume stories to understand themselves and the world in which we live. We seek stories that provide a safe place to experience fearful situations and to think about how we might respond if we were in the place of the characters. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0796117/">M. Night Shymalan’s</a> new movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15679400/">Knock at the Cabin</a>, for instance, presents a situation in which a set of parents are given a choice to save their family or to save the world. They must sacrifice one member of their family, so all humanity can survive.</p>
<p>No one expects to have to make this type of choice. The knock at their cabin door is not a pleasant surprise.</p>
<p>With Knock at the Cabin opening in Australian cinemas this week, now is a good time to reflect on some of the best narrative twists in television and film. </p>
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<h2>The ‘well-made surprise’</h2>
<p>In her book <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980204">Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot</a>, cognitive scientist Vera Tobin argues that surprises in stories tell us about our biases and mental shortcuts. In other words, stories provide <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/789441553/spoiler-alert-the-psychology-of-surprise-endings">important clues about the way people think</a>.</p>
<p>In her book, Tobin analyses what she calls the well-made surprise:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A well-made surprise plot is one that aims to produce a flash reinterpretation of events together with the feeling that the evidence for this interpretation was there all along – the surprise should be not merely unexpected but also revelatory.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tobin suggests five interlocking ways that stories create surprise: frame shifts, the managed reveal, finessing information, burying information, and the pleasure of the text. </p>
<p><strong>Some famous twists are discussed/ spoiled in this article.</strong></p>
<h2>The frame shift and Ned Stark’s head</h2>
<p>A frame shift is when stories invite viewers to form an expectation about certain information, and then reveal a different frame as the correct one. </p>
<p>Michael Schur’s hilarious and smart series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4955642/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Good Place</a> relies on a frame shift for its famous initial <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/1/22/14338212/the-good-place-michaels-gambit-recap-spoilers">narrative twist</a>, but <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Game of Thrones</a> offers up one of the most surprising televisual frame shifts. </p>
<p>The Red Wedding episode and the return of Jon Snow were somewhat surprising, but the tone of the series was set the moment Ned Stark was beheaded in the penultimate episode of the first season. The story set up Ned to be the hero of the series, and with the character played by the well-known actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000293/?ref_=tt_cl_t_1">Sean Bean</a>, the expectation was that he would be the main character of the series. When his head hit the ground, the frame shifted. Now no characters were safe.</p>
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<h2>The managed reveal and Buffy the Vampire Slayer</h2>
<p>The managed reveal is how stories present revelations in a way that invites audiences to accept new information as a more convincing interpretation of the events in the story than the one they had before.</p>
<p>The discovery in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Empire Strikes Back</a> that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father is one of the great managed reveals. One of my favourites, however, is the heartbreaking reveal in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0533448/?ref_=tt_ep_nx">Buffy the Vampire Slayer</a> that Angel has lost his soul after experiencing a moment of true happiness the first time he has sex with Buffy. </p>
<p>His literal manifestation into a creature without a soul embodies a metaphor for everyone who experiences the unpleasant surprise of waking up one morning to find their partner transformed into someone painfully unrecognisable. </p>
<h2>Finessing information and Poker Face</h2>
<p>Finessing information is how stories provide seemingly false information in a way that a truer account may be revealed later.</p>
<p>The new television series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14269590/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Poker Face</a>, starring Natasha Lyonne and created by Rian Johnson of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8946378/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Knives Out</a> fame, may pay tribute to <a href="https://time.com/6250496/poker-face-columbo-influences/">Colombo</a>, but its finessed uncovering of clues provides multiple pleasurable twists in each episode. </p>
<p>Although audiences know who the killer is from the beginning of the episode, the process by which Lyonne’s Charlie Cale uncovers the clues and solves the murder takes the audience on twists and turns that include new and surprising information along the way.</p>
<h2>Burying information and The Sixth Sense</h2>
<p>Burying information is when stories hide information that in retrospect has been there all along. Tobin analyses The Sixth Sense most fully in her section on frame shifts – but, as she states, the film buries information too. </p>
<p>It is also hard to go past David Fincher’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/">Fight Club</a> and Bryan Singer’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Usual Suspects</a> for films that bury information, which upon multiple viewings provide hints that show how the surprise twist ending has been embedded into the story. </p>
<p>In the final ten minutes, both films invite audiences to unravel clues about the identity of the main character. </p>
<p>In Fight Club, when <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001570/?ref_=tt_ov_st">Edward Norton’s character</a> shoots himself in the face, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/?ref_=tt_ov_st">Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden</a> disappears from the story, revealing he was an imaginary alter ego. </p>
<p>In The Usual Suspects, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000228/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kent</a> misleads the police in a manner similar to how the film <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2553812/the-usual-suspects-ending-everything-leading-up-to-that-big-reveal">tricks the audience</a>. As <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/characters/nm0000445?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t10">Sergeant Jeff Rabin</a> says [about his messy desk] just before the clues are revealed, “It all makes sense when you look at it right. You gotta like stand back from it, you know?”</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BPSQswV2fLc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The pleasures of the text and Heartstopper</h2>
<p>Pleasures of the text, or encouraging emotional involvement, is the immersive and emotional conditions of experiencing stories.</p>
<p>In my current research on film and TV adaptations, I point to Netflix’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10638036/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Heartstopper</a> as a story that makes emotions visible through the use of animated iconic doodles – such as leaves, hearts, and stars – from the graphic novels upon which the TV series is based. These animations float and flutter across the screen to highlight peak emotional moments of the story and provide audiences with visual surprises that twist at the heartstrings. </p>
<p>At the other end of the emotional spectrum is John Krasinki’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6644200/">A Quiet Place</a>. With its use of silence, the film immerses audiences into the tension of the story world, in which the smallest sound may mean death.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heartstopper-depicts-queer-joy-heres-why-that-can-bring-about-complicated-feelings-for-those-in-the-lgbtiq-community-183729">Heartstopper depicts queer joy - here's why that can bring about complicated feelings for those in the LGBTIQ community</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Whether it is a knock at a cabin door, a frame shift from heaven to hell, or a boyfriend who turns evil, surprises in life and narrative twists in stories invite us to reconsider what we think we know.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debra Dudek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Twists and surprises in stories are more than just gimmicks – they tell us important clues about the way that people think.Debra Dudek, Associate professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1977892023-01-22T19:02:16Z2023-01-22T19:02:16ZCan reading help heal us and process our emotions – or is that just a story we tell ourselves?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504623/original/file-20230116-22-sz1aoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C5%2C3500%2C2321&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cottonbro Studio/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4306897">oldest known library</a>, dating back to the second millennium BC, in Thebes, Egypt, reportedly bore a sign above its portals in Greek: <em>Psyches Iatreion</em>, translated as “healing place of the soul”. </p>
<p>The idea that reading may confer healing benefits is not new, but continues to intrigue readers and researchers. </p>
<p>Of course, this doesn’t apply to reading about how to put up the tent, or tidy our piles of household stuff. When we talk about books that might offer a balm for the soul, we mean fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction (including memoir). </p>
<p>The idea of emotional catharsis through reading is intuitively appealing. But does it work that way? Or do we read for interest, pleasure, escapism – or love of words?</p>
<h2>Reading as catharsis and transport</h2>
<p>“The highest aspiration of art is to move the audience,” claims <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609280/a-swim-in-a-pond-in-the-rain-by-george-saunders/">George Saunders</a>. Who is not still moved by the first book that affected them on a cellular level – whether that’s Storm Boy, The Little Prince, or their high-school reading of To Kill a Mockingbird? </p>
<p>According to the authors of <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-novel-cure">The Novel Cure: an A-Z of Literary Remedies</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>novels have the power to transport you into another existence, and see the world from a different point of view […] sometimes it’s the story that charms; sometimes it’s the rhythm of the prose that works on the psyche, stilling or stimulating.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Humans imitate or re-present the world through art: poetry, drama and epic. That drive, claimed <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/1812/The%252520Poetics%252520of%252520Aristotle%25252C%252520by%252520Aristotle.pdf">Aristotle</a>, sets humans apart from animals. </p>
<p>In 1987 Jerome Bruner proposed that “world making” is the “principal function of mind”, in both the sciences and arts. As humans, we are drawn to the momentum of narrative to tell our stories, <a href="https://ewasteschools.pbworks.com/f/Bruner_J_LifeAsNarrative.pdf">he says</a>. </p>
<p>We seek to make sense of the events in our lives, as if life really were a three-act play with a clear narrative arc. (Conveniently summarised as: “Get him up a tree; throw rocks at him; get him down.”)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="long-haired man sitting in tree scowling at phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504791/original/file-20230116-23-559uvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Life as a three-act narrative arc: ‘Get him up a tree; throw rocks at him; get him down.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rachel Claire/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-empathy-or-division-on-the-science-and-politics-of-storytelling-176679">Friday essay: empathy or division? On the science and politics of storytelling</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How reading works</h2>
<p>Reading is one way we seek to understand our worlds. Evolutionary psychologists propose the brain is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009164710203000101">“designed for reading”</a>, just as it is for language, facial recognition or other drives. The act of reading engages both cognitive and – especially where there’s a narrative – emotional processes. </p>
<p>Children learning to read must first grasp the basics of recognition (sound-letter-phoneme-word) and then proceed to the higher-order cognitive skill of comprehension of the meaning of the text (semantics).</p>
<p>It is at that next level of meaning-making that words connect and stir the emotions. That might be fear (<a href="https://theconversation.com/frankenstein-how-mary-shelleys-sci-fi-classic-offers-lessons-for-us-today-about-the-dangers-of-playing-god-175520">Frankenstein</a>), love (<a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/pride-and-prejudice-9780241374887">Pride and Prejudice</a>), outrage (Germaine Greer’s polemic <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">The Female Eunuch</a>) or existential angst (Albert Camus’ philosophical novel L’Etranger/<a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-outsider-9780141198064">The Outsider</a>). </p>
<p>But how does this process “work”? Or, as Saunders puts it: “How does [the writer] seduce, persuade, console, distract?”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504793/original/file-20230116-16-5h4qmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evolutionary psychologists says the brain is ‘designed for reading’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodnae Productions/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>How reading between the gaps invites us in</h2>
<p>World or meaning making can occur <em>directly</em> by acquiring knowledge (for example, when reading that tent manual) or <em>indirectly</em>, through our engagement with the social world, art and our meaning-making faculties. </p>
<p>Works of art invite thought and feeling. This “<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27449184/">indirect communication</a>” of literature is one of the unique affordances (or benefits) it offers readers. </p>
<p>Meaning-making <a href="https://www.onfiction.ca/p/books.html">is</a> a transaction between author, text and reader; the “gap” between the words and the reader’s interpretation, shaped by their own experiences and predispositions, is critical. Thus, an author might seek to move a reader – but whether the reader is moved will depend on individual circumstances and preferences. (Not the least among these is the skill of the writer, of course.)</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/book-week-is-good-for-kids-and-book-clubs-are-great-for-adults-30783">Book clubs</a>, where heated discussions can be motivated by how books and their characters made readers feel, are a great example. So is consumer review site <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-world-of-goodreads-do-we-still-need-book-reviewers-56455">Goodreads</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-booktok-and-how-is-it-influencing-what-australian-teenagers-read-182290">#BookTok</a>, the sector of TikTok where books that make readers cry dominate.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609280/a-swim-in-a-pond-in-the-rain-by-george-saunders/">Flannery O’Connor</a> says, “the writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make <em>live</em>” (my italics). In other words, <em>some</em> books will always speak to <em>some</em> readers. And those same books will leave other readers cold – or even make them regret joining a book club.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wccNZOk77_o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An author might want to move a reader, but a reader’s emotional reaction – whether sadness, rage or indifference – is particular to them.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What neuroscience tells us about reading</h2>
<p>Virginia Woolf wrote of books as “<a href="http://lemasney.com/consulting/2015/05/05/books-are-the-mirrors-of-the-soul-virginia-woolf-cc-by-lemasney/">mirrors of the soul</a>”. And contemporary neuropsychologists have proven it, with brain-imaging studies. </p>
<p>These studies have demonstrated that when a person indirectly experiences an event associated with an emotion, the same regions of the brain are activated as if they had experienced the event directly. </p>
<p>We feel disgust, whether we <em>actually</em> discover (or half-eat) the maggot in the ham sandwich or view a TikTok video of the simulated event. The same fear is elicited in the brain when we walk a tightrope in a virtual reality simulation, view the film of Phillipe Petit in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3488710/">The Walk</a>, or high-wire walk ourselves (do not try this at home). Mirror neurons prompt us to yawn or smile or frown when another person yawns, smiles or frowns. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K9ISm2_eYek?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The same fear is elicited in the brain when we see a high-wire walk, like Phillippe Petit’s, read about it, or do it ourselves.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other person – the protagonist, in a book – can be completely fictional, the entire plot make-believe: yet we still cry. Who of us hasn’t wept real tears when tragedy befalls a favourite character in a novel? (For me, it’s the death of shell-shocked World War I soldier Septimus in Virginia Woolf’s novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/mrs-dalloway-9780241468647">Mrs Dalloway</a>.)</p>
<h2>The psychology of fiction</h2>
<p>University of Toronto professor emeritus and author-psychologist <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Such+Stuff+as+Dreams:+The+Psychology+of+Fiction-p-9780470974575">Keith Oatley</a> explains that reading narratives allows us to “simulate” a social world where we identify with characters and their struggles, and observe their way of solving conflicts. </p>
<p>This way we can process emotional content and solve life’s problems indirectly. It’s much more effective than being <em>given</em> the solution! Oatley’s research has also demonstrated that readers’ long-term engagement in fiction (especially literary fiction) <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27449184/">improves their empathy</a> and their ability to take the perspective of another person (referred to as “Theory of Mind”). </p>
<p>Oatley suggests: “We need not lead one life; through fiction we can lead many lives”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman reading in front of greenery and house" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504809/original/file-20230117-14-u1cjp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reading can help us understand the inner lives of others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Min An/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In this sense, reading can prompt us to understand the inner lives of others as well as our own. It can even help us to re-imagine the narrative of our lives – especially if we are not happy with the one we are actually leading. In this way, reading can provide both escape and a way to imagine (and perhaps start to plan for) alternative ways to live.</p>
<p>In her book <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1kgqwk8">Why We Read Fiction</a>, Lisa Zunshine argues: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fiction helps us to pattern in newly nuanced ways our emotions and perceptions […] it creates new forms of meaning for our everyday existence. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Quite apart from the practical benefits of this kind of cognitive and emotional gymnastics, Zunshine says our biggest reason for doing it is enjoyment itself.</p>
<hr>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/do-art-and-literature-cultivate-empathy-68478">Do art and literature cultivate empathy?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Does reading prompt emotional catharsis?</h2>
<p>Marcel Proust wrote that a novelist can, in an hour, “set free all kinds of happiness and misfortune which would take years of our ordinary lives to know”.</p>
<p>Reading, as a hard-wired impetus and a form of engaging with art, allows us to process our emotions. </p>
<p>Importantly, this can be at a distance. We don’t have to directly, for example, pursue forbidden love and sort out the ensuing mess (Graham Greene’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-end-of-the-affair-9780099478447">The End of the Affair</a>), or cope alone with alienation or discrimination (Alice Walker’s <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/alice-walker/the-color-purple-the-classic-pulitzer-prize-winning-novel">The Colour Purple</a>). We can scare ourselves without ever having to go into the dark woods.</p>
<p>We can access experiences unavailable to us in life – and the positive feelings they produce can remain with us. For example, we can transform ourselves into magical, powerful heroes and heroines who prevail against impossible odds (<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tolkien-and-lord-of-the-rings-inspired-the-commercial-and-artistic-success-of-the-fantasy-fiction-genre-170958">Lord of the Rings</a>).</p>
<p>Saunders suggests art (including literature) might be </p>
<blockquote>
<p>an offering of sorts – a hypothesis for both writer and reader to take up and consider together […] the goal of that offering might be to ease the reader’s way; to make the difficulty of this life less for her. We try to give the reader a way of thinking about reality that is truthful, yes, and harsh, if need be, but not gratuitously harsh, a way of thinking that, somehow, helps her.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Turner Goldsmith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of healing benefits and emotional catharsis through reading is intuitively appealing. But does it work that way? Jane Turner Goldsmith finds answers in neuroscience, philosophy and more.Jane Turner Goldsmith, PhD candidate, Creative Writing, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917312022-11-17T13:27:40Z2022-11-17T13:27:40ZWhy the re-release of iconic porn film ‘Deep Throat’ fizzled<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495448/original/file-20221115-23-7wrxw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C8%2C1745%2C1127&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Linda Lovelace starred in 1972's 'Deep Throat,' which kicked off porn's golden age.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/deep-throat-poster-us-poster-art-linda-lovelace-1972-news-photo/1137256251?phrase=deep throat&adppopup=true">LMPC/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1972, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068468/">Deep Throat</a>,” a feature-length porn film directed by Gerard Damiano, was hailed for moving pornography into the mainstream and beginning a golden age of theatrical porn. </p>
<p>To mark the 50th anniversary of its release, <a href="https://damianofilms.com/deepthroat50/4k-restoration">a restored high-resolution version</a> was released earlier this year. Yet outside of a few screenings in New York City, <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/deep-throat-still-hard-to-swallow-on-50th-anniversary/">most U.S. theaters expressed little interest in showing the film</a>.</p>
<p>As the editor of the essay collection “<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/pornography/9780813538716">Pornography: Film and Culture</a>,” I’m not surprised by the relatively muted fanfare to the re-release. </p>
<p>To me, it’s a sign of how much pornography has changed during the past 50 years.</p>
<h2>‘Stag’ shorts in ‘smokers’</h2>
<p>Film pornography <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520219434/hard-core">has a long underground history</a>, going back to “stag” shorts in the silent film era, which for decades were screened in “smokers” – named after the all-male audience that gathered to watch the films together and smoke cigars.</p>
<p>In the late 1960s, pornography moved into theaters in porn districts in cities like New York, and these places remained male-dominated settings. The films initially were feature length and while they lacked traditional narratives, many of them had various forms of narrative structure. The 1970 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178315/">Sexual Freedom in Denmark</a>,” for example, used educating the public about Denmark’s liberal censorship laws and red light districts as a pretext to screen explicit scenes featuring hardcore sex.</p>
<p>Films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315949/">He & She</a>,” also released in 1970, featured a young, attractive heterosexual couple. Similarly, this film fashioned itself as instructive <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704912">in the tradition of marriage manual books</a> but used erotic hardcore pornography to teach the ins and outs of various sexual techniques. </p>
<p>Many other films with now-forgotten titles from the 1970s featured different couples simply having sex. But even those productions often had a loose narrative structure. </p>
<h2>The rise of ‘porno chic’</h2>
<p>“Deep Throat,” which stars pornographic actress Linda Lovelace, tells the story of a woman whose clitoris is in her throat. Because it was a feature film centered on female sexual pleasure, porn started being seen as somewhat respectable. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A billboard advertises 'Deep Throat' as a can't miss theatrical release." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495460/original/file-20221115-11-i3e6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Deep Throat’ brought porn into the mainstream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/theater-marquee-advertises-the-film-deep-throat-starring-news-photo/2884111?phrase=deep%20throat&adppopup=true">Arnie Sachs/CNP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When “Deep Throat” premiered in New York in 1972, the response was enthusiastic, giving rise to the term “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jun/10/deep-throat-at-50-linda-lovelace-porn-mainstream">porno chic</a>.” Movie stars, theater directors and composers embraced the film. Critic Roger Ebert, though he panned the film, <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deep-throat-1973">called it</a> “the first stag film to see with a date.”</p>
<p>The norm in pornography had been for viewers to simply enter and leave the theater whenever they wished. Starting times were not even listed in newspapers. With “Deep Throat,” however, couples stood in line waiting for the next showing to start. This was, for many couples, their first foray into porn theater districts. </p>
<p>The film is said to have ushered in porn’s golden age, and classics such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068260/">Behind the Green Door</a>” (1972), “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075018/">The Opening of Misty Beethoven</a>” (1976) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075018/">Barbara Broadcast</a>” (1977) soon followed. These films had comparatively big budgets and told stories with central characters. The production values were high, with good lighting, composition and editing. </p>
<h2>The home viewing experience</h2>
<p>But by early 1980s, theatrical porn had fallen by the wayside, and home video porn took off. </p>
<p>Homes created comfortable viewing environments for women who felt alienated from – and threatened by – the so-called theater “raincoat crowd” that one female porn film performer <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dszzbk">described as</a> “isolated men masturbating under their coats.” Now women – and men who were also turned off by the movie theater atmosphere – could watch those same movies from the comfort of their living rooms.</p>
<p>The rise of digital, streaming porn further upended the industry. Feature-length films were replaced by low-budget, comparatively short videos, with no narrative. They often centered on kinks or simple sexual fantasies – feet fetish videos or skimpy narrative premises such as sex between realtors and their clients. </p>
<p>Sometimes longer versions are available for pay, but these often simply feature extended sex scenes rather than plot or character development. Streaming porn on the internet effectively ended the production and exhibition of features. Porn theaters and video stores – where customers could watch porn films in private viewing booths – have become relics of a bygone era.</p>
<h2>The re-release lands with a thud</h2>
<p>The response to the re-release of “Deep Throat” was so muted that very few people probably even know that 2022 is the 50th anniversary of the film’s initial release. Movie theaters didn’t show it and most of the media didn’t cover it. A high-resolution restored DVD is unavailable, nor is it streaming.</p>
<p>Although he acknowledged today’s appetite for digital porn, the son of director Gerard Damiano, Gerard Jr., seemed to pin the blame on Americans’ puritanical approach to sex. </p>
<p>Americans are “very skittish about talking about anything that has to do with sex,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jun/10/deep-throat-at-50-linda-lovelace-porn-mainstream">he told The Guardian</a>. “People today are so afraid of anything sexual because they don’t know what to do… There’s not a lot of sex positivity and we’re hoping to reintroduce that with this film.”</p>
<p><a href="https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/deep-throat-still-hard-to-swallow-on-50th-anniversary/">In a separate interview</a> with the New York Post, he noted, “Europe is much more receptive to us. We couldn’t find a U.S. venue that was comfortable showing the film.”</p>
<p>But in my view, saying Americans are skittish about sex doesn’t explain the box office failure of the re-release of “Deep Throat.” The current porn industry was neither built on skittishness nor fear of sex. A quick visit to Pornhub disabuses that notion. </p>
<p>Pornography is a genre much like others with a complex and changing history. It is not one fixed thing: It is not always dangerous, evil trash; nor does watching porn make people sexual perverts or worse. <a href="https://nbc-2.com/news/2021/01/12/heres-how-your-porn-habit-could-be-helping-human-sex-traffickers/amp/">While such serious issues</a> as sex trafficking and sexual abuse have arisen in the porn industry, similar problems have also plagued Hollywood involving high-profile figures such as <a href="https://people.com/tv/kevin-spacey-controversy-timeline/">Kevin Spacey,</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41594672">Harvey Weinstein</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/60-women-accused-bill-cosby-his-conviction-had-been-considered-n1272864">Bill Cosby</a>. </p>
<p>The re-release of “Deep Throat” may have ultimately collided with the #MeToo movement. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-by-Linda-Lovelace-1980-01-03/dp/B01FKWZ9QC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1BXQCWJI87IFB&keywords=Linda+Lovelace&qid=1668567351&s=books&sprefix=linda+lovelace%2Cstripbooks%2C170&sr=1-5">In her highly publicized memoir</a>, lead actress Linda Lovelace described being physically abused at home by her husband, who worked as a production manager on the film. She also wrote about feeling coerced on set while shooting the sex scenes. </p>
<p>That aspect of the film’s legacy – more than any sort of squeamishness towards sex – could have also contributed to the reluctance of theaters to screen it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Lehman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The son of the director has argued that Americans are still too squeamish about sex to fully appreciate the film. A porn scholar disagrees.Peter Lehman, Emeritus Professor, Film and Media Studies in English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1810252022-04-28T17:00:20Z2022-04-28T17:00:20ZStories about economic degrowth help fight climate change — and yield a host of other benefits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460152/original/file-20220427-23-p8s6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=204%2C40%2C4906%2C3596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Degrowth is an opportunity to recentre our economies on what really matters.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Paul Sableman/flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is something unprecedented and important in the recent <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)</a>: degrowth. Two of the IPCC’s working groups — those focused on climate change impacts and on mitigation — use the economic term to discuss policies that are key to reducing the impacts of climate change. </p>
<p>This is a profound inclusion. By pointing to degrowth, something <a href="https://timotheeparrique.com/">Timothée Parrique</a>, a social scientist and economist, refers to “as an opportunity to recentre our economies on what really matters,” the reports’ authors challenge the widely accepted story that endless economic growth — an increase in the quantity of goods and services — is essential to reducing poverty and improving the quality of life around the world.</p>
<p>Degrowth offers the world a new story, one that acknowledges the role economic growth has had in climate change and identifies alternatives. </p>
<p>Stories are foundational to how we understand who we are and the world in which we live, and we should think of economics as a story. As English professor and Indigenous writer Thomas King succinctly offers, “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/stories-can-be-both-wondrous-and-dangerous-according-to-writer-thomas-king-1.5593496">The truth about stories is that’s all we are</a>.” </p>
<p>Not only do the IPCC reports offer hope for mitigating climate change, they also afford hope for how we understand and celebrate the Earth. </p>
<h2>Alternatives to economic growth</h2>
<p>In an analysis of the IPCC’s Working Group II report, “<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii/">Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability</a>,” released in February 2022, <a href="https://timotheeparrique.com/degrowth-in-the-ipcc-ar6-wgii/">Parrique</a> notes the mention of degrowth 15 times. He also points to the report’s emphasis on other ways of living that are not based on economic growth, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/buen-vivir-south-americas-rethinking-of-the-future-we-want-44507"><em>buen vivir</em> in South America</a>, <a href="https://www.usfca.edu/sites/default/files/arts_and_sciences/center_for_asia_pacific_studies/3-kothari-eco-swaraj.pdf"><em>eco-swaraj</em> in India</a> and <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/ubuntu-south-africa-together-nelson-mandela/"><em>Ubuntu</em> in South Africa</a>. Each of these is an example of ways in which people are living more interconnectedly with each other and the Earth. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-half-the-world-is-facing-water-scarcity-floods-and-dirty-water-large-investments-are-needed-for-effective-solutions-175578">IPCC report: Half the world is facing water scarcity, floods and dirty water — large investments are needed for effective solutions</a>
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<hr>
<p>The IPCC Working Group III report, “<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/">Mitigation of Climate Change</a>,” released in early April 2022, refers to degrowth five times and declares that “prosperity and the ‘Good Life’ are not immutably tied to economic growth.”</p>
<p>These reports highlight the urgent reality of climate change: It is a devastating, fossil fuel-driven, anthropogenic global phenomenon and an inequity multiplier — <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/environment-energy/climate-change-multiplier-racial-inequities-warns">those with the least are affected the most gravely</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close-up photo of two yellow bikes with front baskets, each with a sign reading, Share more Consume less." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460153/original/file-20220427-24-i8f8xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Endless economic growth isn’t essential to being able to live a ‘good life.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the IPCC reports also highlight that if we are to address climate change, we must challenge the business-as-usual story of endless economic growth. Economic degrowth and examples of alternative communities welcome the possibility for a different kind of story — one about the finite Earth as something other than a collection of resources. A story that allows for a re-imagining of who we are and our relationship with the Earth.</p>
<h2>A future of interconnection</h2>
<p>There was a time — not so long ago — that all of our ancestors understood, and told stories about, the ways humans are interconnected with the Earth. They lived this interconnection. As Robin Wall Kimmerer points out in her book <a href="https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass"><em>Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants</em></a>, “Each of us comes from people who were once Indigenous.”</p>
<p>But stories of humans as interconnected with the Earth are antithetical and threatening to those whose businesses and industries are reliant on the Earth as a collection of natural resources and a dumping ground for waste. From anti-Indigenous racism to the <a href="https://www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/rachel-carsons-silent-spring/personal-attacks-rachel-carson-woman-scientist">demonization of Rachel Carson upon the publication of her book <em>Silent Spring</em></a>, there is a long history of violent suppression of those who share and celebrate our interconnection with the Earth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three men stand in front of tall office buildings, one with the sign RBC" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460086/original/file-20220427-12-anrt3b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wet'suwet'en Chiefs Namoks, left, Madeek, centre, and Gisdywa protest Royal Bank of Canada’s funding of the Coastal GasLink pipeline and other fossil fuel investments in Toronto on April 7, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This suppression made the story of the Earth-as-resource — a necessary prelude to endless economic growth — appear more palatable, logical and inevitable. But it is a story with an illogical premise: that endless growth can happen on a finite planet. In <a href="https://timjackson.org.uk/ecological-economics/pwg/"><em>Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet</em></a>, economist Tim Jackson writes, “those who hope that [economic] growth will lead to a materialistic Utopia are destined for disappointment. We simply don’t have the ecological capacity to fulfil this dream.” </p>
<p>He adds that with continued pursuit of economic growth, by the end of the century we will “face a hostile climate, depleted resources, the destruction of habitats, the decimation of species, food scarcities, mass migrations and almost inevitably war.” </p>
<p>But the IPCC’s unprecedented inclusion of degrowth in its recent reports offers a new way forward. Perhaps acknowledging ecological limits will lead us to the fulfilment of different kinds of dreams and the celebration of a return to stories about humans as interconnected with the Earth.</p>
<h2>Spiritual experiences</h2>
<p>Some researchers, myself included, have interviewed people about their spiritual experiences in nature. These are experiences and stories that include wonder, awe, the sublime, mystery and connection with something larger than oneself, but are not attributed to a specific religion or faith. My findings echo those of psychology researchers Tristan Snell and Janette Simmonds who write, “<a href="https://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30136357/snell-mysticalexperiencesin-post-2015.pdf">natural environments, and features within these settings, can act as triggers of mystical [or spiritual] experiences</a>.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rapidly-increasing-climate-change-poses-a-rising-threat-to-mental-health-says-ipcc-177906">Rapidly increasing climate change poses a rising threat to mental health, says IPCC</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Such findings may help to explain a 2017 report from the Pew Research Center that found that people identifying as “spiritual but not religious” <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/">increased to 27 per cent from 19 per cent between 2012 and 2017</a>. As sociologists Todd Ferguson and Jeffrey Tamburello propose, “When a person hikes in a forest to connect with the sacred, she or he may not feel the need to affiliate with a religious organization because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srv029">her or his spiritual demands are met</a>.”</p>
<p>Seeing the Earth as a collection of ingredients for consumption is antithetical to seeing the Earth as interconnected and spiritual. Many Indigenous Peoples, engaged scholars like Rachel Carson, environmentalists, eco-spiritualists, visitors to forests, lakes and mountains, among others, have been sharing their interconnected and spiritual stories — sometimes against great resistance. Now climate change and the IPCC are helping with such sharing by challenging economic growth-as-usual.</p>
<h2>The climate change opportunity</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://billmckibben.com/age-of-missing-information.html"><em>The Age of Missing Information</em></a>, Bill McKibben writes, “Most cultures, historically, have put something else — God or nature or some combination — at the centre. But we’ve put them at the periphery. A consumer society doesn’t need them to function, and it can’t tolerate the limits they might impose; there’s only need for people.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People stand along a road, where a bridge once stood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460093/original/file-20220427-14-xh8c34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prolonged rains and flooding in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province have swept away bridges, destroyed homes and businesses and claimed the lives of more than 400 people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From flooding to fires to species extinctions, the Earth is letting us know that there are limits. And climate change is reminding us, with great force, that we are interconnected with this finite earth. As naturalist John Muir wrote in <em>My First Summer in the Sierra</em>, published 1911, “<a href="https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/my_first_summer_in_the_sierra/">When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe</a>.” </p>
<p>Climate change is both a devastating reality and profound opportunity. We are the Earth and embracing that story provides desperately needed new paths to the future and spiritual opportunities for experiencing amazement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Ellen Good does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Degrowth offers the world a new story, one that acknowledges the role economic growth has had in climate change and identifies alternatives.Jennifer Ellen Good, Associate Professor Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1537842021-03-08T22:25:57Z2021-03-08T22:25:57ZCOVID-19 and mental health: Feeling anguish is normal and is not a disorder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386313/original/file-20210224-15-fgn7lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C702%2C7940%2C4345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How we name our experiences and how we make sense of our distress matters.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the pandemic rages on, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/cry-stress-pandemic-advice-coping/2021/01/22/d508f86c-575a-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html">people continue to talk about their emotional distress</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/world/europe/youth-mental-health-covid.html">a growing sense of despair</a>. <a href="https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-020-00589-w?fbclid=IwAR1IsBbTX9f8g1bMRjVR2hoscN6QQEGuPK0IQNaqBht80gi0hQ_9KtuAXTA">Some mental health researchers</a> suggest <a href="https://cmha.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CMHA-UBC-wave-2-Summary-of-Findings-FINAL-EN.pdf">the increased reports of depression and anxiety</a> indicate <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1055%2Fs-0040-1716442">a rise in mental disorders</a> stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. But is this actually the case?</p>
<p>I do agree that, as some of the aforementioned research also finds, months of restrictions, isolation and uncertainty are taking a toll on the emotional well-being of increasing numbers of people. I’ve observed this in my psychotherapy practice, among the students I teach and on social media. </p>
<p>I take issue with the fact that it has become routine to medicalize human suffering by attaching a mental health diagnosis to it. This doesn’t address the source of people’s anguish. Nor does a diagnostic label enable something that is essential to people’s capacity to cope and adapt: deriving meaning from their own experiences.</p>
<p>As I argue in <a href="https://jemh.ca/issues/open/JEMH-Open-Volume.html">a recent article published in the <em>Journal of Ethics in Mental Health</em></a>,
the virus is making it more difficult <a href="https://jemh.ca/issues/open/documents/JEMH%20article%20COVID-19%20and%20Fear%20final.pdf">for most people to avoid and deny some of the realities that are challenging to accept</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two silhouettes talking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386302/original/file-20210224-13-rpiyk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The apparently objective practice of medicalizing human suffering has become routine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Pervasive anguish</h2>
<p>It is our human nature to use avoidance and denial, often unconsciously, to protect us from the more distressing parts of our lives, including uncertainty and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1891/1541-6577.23.1.23">our own mortality</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than accepting the inevitability of death, and the uncertainty of daily living, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/030437540703200303">most people tend to live according to illusions of certainty</a>, convincing themselves they can count on the arrival of tomorrow, next year and 10 years from now. We can usually tolerate shorter periods of ambiguity — a few days, a few weeks. Generally speaking though, we don’t do well when asked to endure longer periods of limbo.</p>
<p>For the past year, <a href="https://jemh.ca/issues/open/documents/JEMH%20article%20COVID-19%20and%20Fear%20final.pdf">COVID-19 has been poking at the emotional defence mechanisms many people rely on to create a sense of stability</a>. Many of the routines, connections and places people depend on to stay grounded have been missing from their lives. There hasn’t been much certainty to anchor us, and we much prefer to feel anchored.</p>
<p>The pandemic has left many people feeling psychologically undefended, emotionally exposed. Prolonged exposure to usually denied harsh realities has opened the door to feelings of vulnerability that are becoming quite weighty to bear. Uncertainty with no obvious end in sight has created <a href="https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201110/no-end-in-sight-living-with-covid-malaise">widespread malaise</a>. A pervasive sense of anguish has settled in.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-ape-in-anguish-brett-whiteleys-sacred-baboon-101664">An ape in anguish: Brett Whiteley's Sacred baboon</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Making sense of suffering</h2>
<p>Our emotional well-being is largely dependent on <a href="https://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/89">feeling a sense of equilibrium</a>. People’s ability to maintain and restore equilibrium relies on how they can make sense of their experiences. The more burdened we feel by our accumulated adversities, the more difficulty we will likely have in making meaning when adversity strikes, leaving us vulnerable to disequilibrium and becoming overwhelmed by our suffering. </p>
<p>Emotional suffering is deeply personal, subjective and <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10732/pg10732.html">essential to our human condition</a>.
And even though <a href="https://chironpublications.com/shop/the-soul-in-anguish">to be human is to experience emotional suffering</a>, there is a tendency to think that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/104973201129119154">feelings of deep anguish indicate something is wrong</a>. </p>
<p>In effort to remedy suffering, <a href="https://chironpublications.com/shop/the-soul-in-anguish/">it is common to search for explanations that will make it “fixable.”</a> We should be wary of quick fixes that promise to remedy our human suffering.</p>
<h2>Call for a new framework in mental health</h2>
<p>It has become commonly acceptable in both health-care practice and the public vernacular to describe natural states of distress with language that <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/01/medicalization-conversation">medicalizes those states by suggesting the presence or influence of mental disorder</a>.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://nevillepark.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/the-americanization-of-mental-illness-nytimes-com.pdf">often uncritically accepted perspective</a> has paved the way for the idea that the emotional despair being felt by many over the past year indicates we are also experiencing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00589-w">a mental health pandemic</a>. But anguish isn’t a disorder.</p>
<p>In circumstances that are unusual and extraordinary, it’s harder for people to remain connected to the sense of meaning and understanding that anchor the usual and customary, and it’s harder to make sense of things.</p>
<p>Globally, there has been a growing call <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/02/tfda-diagnosis">for a new narrative</a> <a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/www.bps.org.uk/files/Member%20Networks/Divisions/DCP/Classification%20of%20behaviour%20and%20experience%20in%20relation%20to%20functional%20psychiatric%20diagnoses.pdf">in mental health</a> — and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2Fwps.20148">new interpretive approaches to understanding human distress</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qCMCzAy6wOs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Introduction to the Power Threat Meaning Framework.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/power-threat-meaning-framework">The Power Threat Meaning Framework</a> provides an alternative to more traditional diagnostic-based models. It is a tool for highlighting and clarifying the interrelated nature of social and experiential factors that affect the subjective nature of emotional suffering. </p>
<p>Clinical psychologists Lucy Johnstone and Mary Boyle are the lead authors, but the framework was actually developed by a diverse team of clinicians, scholars and people with lived experience of mental health services. Clinicians can use this framework on its own or in conjunction with more traditional biomedical diagnostic systems. There are also <a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/power-threat-meaning-framework/resources-training/documents">very accessible materials about it that anyone can read</a>, alone, to help them consider the meaning of their experiences.</p>
<p>Normalizing responses to adversity is fundamentally different than medicalizing them. Diagnosing people with mental health disorders for normal responses to adverse situations is not a helpful approach.</p>
<h2>Some practical suggestions</h2>
<p>Here are five practical suggestions for coping with difficult feelings during the pandemic: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Try to be present with what you’re experiencing, without judgment.</p></li>
<li><p>Remember that the basics are essential: Good sleeping, good eating, daily exercise and safe socialization are critical. Strive for a work-life balance.</p></li>
<li><p>Have expectations of yourself by balancing the need to honour your experiences while staying as active and involved as you can. Remember that there’s a lot to be worried about, but there’s a lot more to be hopeful about.</p></li>
<li><p>Structure is always our pal, and it’s essential in times of extraordinary challenge and uncertainty. Daily and weekly routines are things we can count on and control. Scheduling morning, afternoon and evening activities can be a terrific set of girders and beams for your equilibrium. </p></li>
<li><p>Don’t go it alone: If you need help, ask for help. It takes a lot of courage to say, “I’m really struggling and I need help”. And it can be life-changing.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As <a href="https://medicine.iu.edu/faculty/6855/gunderman-richard">Richard B. Gunderman, a professor of medicine, liberal arts and philanthropy</a> notes, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3528523">It is not suffering that destroys people, but suffering without meaning</a>.” We are shaped by the narratives we adopt. How we describe our experiences, how we make sense of our distress, matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marnie Wedlake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some therapists are calling for a new way to understand human distress.Marnie Wedlake, Assistant Professor of Mental Health & Wellness; Registered Psychotherapist, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538672021-01-26T21:58:40Z2021-01-26T21:58:40ZPoet Amanda Gorman’s take on love as legacy points to youth’s power to shape future generations<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/style/amanda-gorman-first-youth-poet-laureate.html">National youth poet laureate</a> <a href="https://www.theamandagorman.com/">Amanda Gorman</a>’s recitation of “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/689867/the-hill-we-climb-by-amanda-gorman/9780593465271/">The Hill We Climb</a>,” at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in the United States captured the attention of a nation and people globally. </p>
<p>Gorman highlighted the power of poets in our current sociopolitical context to speak unique and timely truths, while tapping into larger literary traditions. Some commentators were reminded of <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/inaugural-poet-amanda-gorman-interview">the legacy of Black women poets</a> like Maya Angelou and Elizabeth Alexander who delivered <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48990/on-the-pulse-of-morning">inaugural poems</a> respectively at <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/what-maya-angelous-reading-at-bill-clintons-inauguration-in-1993-meant-to-her/454389/">Bill Clinton’s</a> and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52141/praise-song-for-the-day">Barack Obama’s</a> inaugurations. The ring <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/535091-amanda-gorman-wore-ring-gifted-by-oprah-honoring-maya-angelou">Gorman wore was a tribute to Maya Angelou</a> and a gift from Oprah Winfrey. </p>
<p>Gorman <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/youth-poet-laureate-amanda-gorman-cydney-brown-philadelphia-20210122.html">inspired people</a> of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/amanda-gorman-inauguration-poet-1.5880936">all ages</a> with the notion <a href="https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1351945187891810306">of seeing and being light</a>. The day after the inauguration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/22/amanda-gorman-inauguration-poem-the-hill-we-climb-biden-book-charts">two of her books topped Amazon’s bestseller list</a>.</p>
<p>Gorman moved many in a time of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/22/how-amanda-gorman-became-the-voice-of-a-new-american-era">geopolitical uncertainty</a> and a pandemic with the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-57-the-sunday-magazine/clip/15805026-the-power-peril-hope-professor-katie-stockdale">power of critical hope</a>, something <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12270">that combats hollow positivity</a>. In the words of educator and literary theorist Ira Shor, critical hope asks us to “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100893_7">challenge the actual in the name of the possible</a>.”</p>
<p>We are researchers who have studied how youth carve out legacies and how <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/adventures-in-academe/combatting-toxic-positivity-with-critical-hope/">storytelling can teach and inspire critical hope</a>. What struck us in hearing Gorman speak was how, at <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/22-year-amanda-gorman-read-poem-joe-bidens/story?id=75346294">the age of 22</a>, the poet taps into the power of generativity, a concept that refers to creating a legacy that lasts beyond our lifetimes to shape future generations. </p>
<p>As she recited: “But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.…” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/38Rn5WULjmc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC video of Amanda Gorman reciting, ‘The Hill We Climb.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shaping who we are by the stories we tell</h2>
<p>Research repeatedly indicates that adults in their 30s and 40s who are involved in creating something that will last beyond their lifetime <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2015.1043876">enjoy a better quality of life until death</a> in many ways.
(Parenting, teaching, social justice activism or engaging in creative projects are ways of leaving one’s mark in the world after death.) </p>
<p>Can people in their early 20s already see themselves carving out a legacy? Gorman’s poem suggests the answer is yes. She reminds people that what they do (or don’t do) will shape the legacy future generations inherit: “We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.” </p>
<p>Gorman’s poem speaks to the creative and leadership potential of youth. Her display of being part of a lasting legacy resonates with our experiences and some of our research.</p>
<p>Psychologist <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393317725">Erik Erikson popularized</a> the idea that in middle age many adults become interested in leaving a legacy, but studies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2019.1697271">have found that many youth are also interested in</a> creating something that lasts beyond their lifetime. </p>
<p>Research in literature and the meaning of narrative reveals how <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Stories-We-Live-By-Personal-Myths-and-the-Making-of-the-Self/McAdams/p/book/9781572301887">narrative shapes our relationship to the world around us</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-dont-understand-about-young-peoples-motivations-129058">What we don't understand about young people's motivations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Highly generative adults also tend to tell stories about their lives using what some psychologists call <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2006.9683363">redemptive themes</a>: a story with a negative beginning gains meaning through a positive outcome. </p>
<p>We are currently studying the life stories of 18- to 24-year-olds who have been nominated by community leaders as young people who have made lasting impacts. The young people in our study have received awards, represented Canada on international stages and founded organizations for social justice. Our research seeks to understand the relationship of their achievements to storytelling their and identity formation, and how these both inform legacy building.</p>
<p>In both the fields of psychology and literary studies, we are fascinated with how narratives shape our relationship to our present and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137021052_10">inform social change</a>.</p>
<h2>Redemptive themes</h2>
<p>The theme of redemption, like the presence of generativity, infuses passages in “The Hill We Climb” in both communal and personal references. As Gorman read: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[with] Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gorman’s recitation also carved out a redemptive moment by reclaiming the Capitol steps where a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/957362053/january-6-inside-the-capitol-siege">violent insurrection</a> occurred only two weeks before. Those involved opposed the democratic electoral process and the crowd was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-hill-insurrection-extremist-flags-soh/index.html">populated with signs, symbols and flags of white supremacist and extremist groups</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Troops in front of the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380742/original/file-20210126-17-zofuih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One day after the inauguration, National Guard troops continue to be deployed around the Capitol, in Washington, Jan. 21, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By inviting her audience to envision future acts of “hope and light” on those steps, she joined this event, its larger histories and its cultural and political contexts to a meaningful and optimistic shared experience. When she spoke, no divisions were erased, but she acknowledged the possibility that together we can create a world that is better, more equitable and just. </p>
<p>Such a redemptive capacity is found in adults who show a strong commitment to legacy building. It is also what we as researchers are looking for in our study of young leaders.</p>
<h2>Journey through generations</h2>
<p>Gorman is aware that she represents the living legacy shaped by those who came before her and that her legacy belongs to future generations. She told CNN she has a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/amanda-gorman-poet-cooper-cnn-b1790463.html">mantra she recites when she performs</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I’m the daughter of Black writers. We’re descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-33096-001">Examining youth voice</a> teaches us that generativity is about understanding the redemptive journey through generations, and one’s role within the larger picture. </p>
<p>Psychologists have long connected the importance of sharing family stories at the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4665103/">dinner table</a>, and even outlined how through story, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89825-4_5">parents and grandparents uniquely contribute to a child’s values and moral development</a>. </p>
<p>These connections also occur through outside forces like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2020.1766207">mentors</a>, advocates and youth programs that nurture talent and the <a href="https://www.youthwhothrive.ca/resources/Critical-Factors-for-Youth-Thriving-Report.pdf">capacity to thrive</a>. </p>
<p>Gorman’s journey illustrates the transformative power of intergenerational collaborations <a href="http://jyd.pitt.edu/ojs/jyd/article/view/520">documented in research</a>. Gorman acknowledged: “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/style/2021/01/21/amanda-gorman-poet-laureate-interview-inauguration-vpx.cnn">I say I am proud of us, because this really takes a village, I have so many supporters [and] so many organizations … have supported me …</a>.”</p>
<p>Oprah Winfrey tweeted about her pride at <a href="https://twitter.com/Oprah/status/1351946952808816641">seeing a “young woman rise.”</a> Gorman told the Associated Press it was <a href="https://www.vogue.fr/fashion/article/amanda-gorman-prada-joe-biden-inauguration">Jill Biden who recommended her for the inaugural occasion</a>.</p>
<p>As researchers who work with young people every day, youth inspire us to hope more and think bigger. Gorman is part of a generation of young leaders, such as <a href="https://malala.org/malalas-story">Malala Yousafzai</a>, <a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/">Greta Thunberg</a> and gun reform activist <a href="https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/david-hogg-parkland-trump-biden-election-1234819672/">David Hogg</a> who deserve support and commitment from those around them to create space for youth generativity in education, government, community, sports and in the arts.</p>
<p>Gorman ends her poem with encouragement to begin our own journeys of critical hope: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Lawford receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is the Co-Director of the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement at the Students Commission of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather L. Ramey receives funding from the Social sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is the Co-Research Director of the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement at the Students Commission of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Riddell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The first national youth poet laureate in the United States taps into the power of generativity, a concept that refers to creating a legacy that lasts beyond our lifetimes to shape future generations.Heather Lawford, Professor, Department of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Youth Development, Bishop's UniversityHeather L. Ramey, Assistant Professor, Child & Youth Studies, Brock UniversityJessica Riddell, Full Professor and Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1500112020-11-16T11:53:48Z2020-11-16T11:53:48ZAssassin’s Creed TV series: why it’s so hard to adapt video games for the screen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369135/original/file-20201112-21-1ytagyg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C1759%2C1027&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Fassbender in the Assassin's Creed film.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJVoF5ko1Y&ab_channel=JimmyKimmelLive">20th Century Fox/Youtube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Assassin’s Creed franchise is leaping forward (off the top of a building, presumably) with the release of the 12th game in the series – <a href="https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/assassins-creed/valhalla">Assassin’s Creed Valhalla</a> – and the recent <a href="https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/5yREt2YYOAO2W8zMmPN0s2/liveaction-assassins-creed-series-coming-to-netflix">announcement of an upcoming Netflix show</a>.</p>
<p>While the games are hugely popular, we will have to hope this new show is an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/19/assassins-creed-film-review-michael-fassbender-videogame-marion-cotillard">improvement on the 2016 film</a>. It had great actors playing bland characters, and perfectly adequate action scenes but no discernible narrative content. Indeed, Assassin’s Creed provides a classic lesson on the difficulties of turning even an expansive, multi-dimensional gaming world into a story that’s suitable for other formats.</p>
<p>The Assassin’s Creed games use the framing device of a present-day conflict and the dramatically recreated memories of the characters’ ancestors in historical periods. These memories form the main action of the game and its main appeal. If anything, the present-day plot elements seem rather odd and superfluous by comparison. </p>
<p>For instance, in the first game (2007), the player controls a 12th-century Levantine assassin named Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad during the Third Crusade. His 21st-century descendant, Desmond Miles, is forced to experience Altaïr’s life so that the present-day Templars can find prehuman artefacts known as Pieces of Eden. If that doesn’t sound like it makes much sense, well, it doesn’t. </p>
<p><a href="https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1221&context=etd">This is no Shakespearean play-within-a-play</a> device with two separate narratives that merely reflect and comment on each other. Rather, the stories directly affect one another – you must go into the past to uncover the secret locations of present-day artefacts.</p>
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<h2>Incoherent narrative</h2>
<p>Assassin’s Creed <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/the-assassins-creed-series-has-failed-its-best-idea/">never really attempts</a> the moral depth and world-shaking decisions of, say, the <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-deus-ex-decision-which-ending-did-you-choose/">critically-acclaimed Deus Ex</a> videogame franchise. Deus Ex’s background of warring conspiracies is nuanced enough that the player feels that real choices are being made.</p>
<p>The 2016 Assassin’s Creed movie was bad partly because the entire franchise – despite its many genuinely brilliant qualities of gameplay, atmosphere, and graphics – is narratively incoherent. This might be forgivable in a game built around atmosphere, cool weaponry and stylish moves, but it’s not enough for a viable film. </p>
<p>There are great examples of <a href="http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html">transmedia storytelling</a> across multiple formats, such as the Marvel cinematic universe, Tolkein’s <a href="https://www.academia.edu/4468205/Tolkien_and_Worldbuilding">Middle-Earth</a> or, indeed, Deus Ex. In these cases, each new book, film or game builds on the narrative of the previous ones while maintaining a sense of wonder and the unknown. But the Assassin’s Creed franchise doesn’t bother making the effort, as though its creators Ubisoft believe the occasional media studies experts who suggest that videogames should <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/">stay in their lane and not even try to tell stories</a>.</p>
<p>It seems snobbish to assume that video games are just no good at narrative, but it’s almost as reductive to believe they should emulate filmic storytelling instead of embracing videogames’ unique strengths. Interactivity, agency, emotional engagement and immersion combine to provide players with experiences that would be impossible to achieve in purely linear stories. </p>
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</figure>
<p>The structure of games is <a href="http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf">inherently different</a> from that of films, and this is most apparent when it comes to endings. Writing a narratively satisfying ending for a novel or film is notoriously tough – and even tougher if you also have to give your audience <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/13/4427444/lucas-spielberg-storytelling-in-games-its-not-going-to-be-shakespeare-usc">the choice of how to finish the story</a>.</p>
<p>Every time you let the player make a significant yes or no decision in gameplay, you double the number of possible endings. No storyteller wants to have to come up with hundreds of satisfactory endings. </p>
<p>Game designers have a variety of tricks available to reduce that number, giving the illusion of choice while gradually steering the player back onto the main plot. Still, most players will be happier if the <a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/164869/GDC_2012_Sid_Meier_on_how_to_see_games_as_sets_of_interesting_decisions.php">series of interesting decisions</a> include more than just selecting tactical options to overcome challenges. They need <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/beyond-choices">ethically weighty</a> choices that empower them to playfully explore their value systems.</p>
<h2>From winging it to fixing it?</h2>
<p>The Assassin’s Creed franchise seems to have been winging it with its worldbuilding since the start, each story building haphazardly on the previous ones. I see three ways forward.</p>
<p>They could continue to ignore concerns about coherence, concentrate on cool stunts and environments, and hope that fans will accept new instalments as merely each new creative team’s take. But the narrative threads sprawl so much that it’s going to be a tough sell. </p>
<p>If the new series is going to be any good, it would be better to bring in a good universe runner. Someone who can work out how most of the universe hangs together and cut out the bits that don’t. </p>
<p>Alternatively, they could start again, with a worldbuilding process not just a story idea. Videogames can tell amazing stories, despite what their detractors may think, but they do need a consistent background in which to set those stories. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/collaborative-worldbuilding-for-writers-and-gamers-9781350016668/">Creating</a> a <a href="http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/">believable</a> <a href="https://worldbuilding.institute/">world</a> <a href="http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2013/09/building-imaginary-worlds-an-interview-with-mark-j-p-wolf-part-one.html">first</a>, would only make the next franchise stronger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Sturrock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new series has been announced by Netflix but the last time the game was adapted it wasn’t exactly a success. The lack of coherent narrative within the expansive gaming world may be to blame.Ian Sturrock, Senior Lecturer in Game Design and Games Studies, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1462822020-11-13T13:41:04Z2020-11-13T13:41:04ZAn AI tool can distinguish between a conspiracy theory and a true conspiracy – it comes down to how easily the story falls apart<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368679/original/file-20201110-13-667v56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3699%2C2440&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the age of social media, conspiracy theories are collective creations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/QAnon/6f09da76236342f1b998cd548bd0fab0/photo?boardId=6576eeb175bb4623a6e17828de4a73e8&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The audio on the otherwise shaky <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/body-cam-video-shows-arrest-of-pizzagate-gunman_washington-dc/4525/">body camera footage</a> is unusually clear. As police officers search a handcuffed man who moments before had fired a shot inside a pizza parlor, an officer asks him why he was there. The man says to investigate a pedophile ring. Incredulous, the officer asks again. Another officer chimes in, “Pizzagate. He’s talking about Pizzagate.”</p>
<p>In that brief, chilling interaction in 2016, it becomes clear that conspiracy theories, long relegated to the fringes of society, had moved into the real world in a very dangerous way.</p>
<p>Conspiracy theories, which have the potential to <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-are-dangerous-heres-how-to-stop-them-spreading-136564">cause significant harm</a>, have found a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2020/09/11/conspiracy-theories-have-gained-traction-since-911-thanks-to-social-media/?sh=2df479703ddb">welcome home on social media</a>, where forums free from moderation allow like-minded individuals to converse. There they can develop their theories and propose actions to counteract the threats they “uncover.”</p>
<p>But how can you tell if an emerging narrative on social media is an unfounded conspiracy theory? It turns out that it’s possible to distinguish between conspiracy theories and true conspiracies by using machine learning tools to graph the elements and connections of a narrative. These tools could form the basis of an early warning system to alert authorities to online narratives that pose a threat in the real world.</p>
<p>The culture analytics group at the University of California, which <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9lmyivIAAAAJ&hl=en">I</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GrBOKEsAAAAJ&hl=en">Vwani Roychowdhury</a> lead, has developed an automated approach to determining when conversations on social media reflect the telltale signs of conspiracy theorizing. We have applied these methods successfully to the study of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233879">Pizzagate</a>, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-020-00086-5">COVID-19 pandemic</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/publichealth.6586">anti-vaccination movements</a>. We’re currently using these methods to study <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-socialmedia-qanon-factbox/factbox-what-is-qanon-and-how-are-online-platforms-taking-action-on-it-idUSKBN2702L5">QAnon</a>. </p>
<h2>Collaboratively constructed, fast to form</h2>
<p>Actual conspiracies are deliberately hidden, real-life actions of people working together for their own malign purposes. In contrast, conspiracy theories are collaboratively constructed and develop in the open. </p>
<p>Conspiracy theories are deliberately complex and reflect an all-encompassing worldview. Instead of trying to explain one thing, a conspiracy theory tries to explain everything, discovering connections across domains of human interaction that are otherwise hidden – mostly because they do not exist. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xQ6mg67VcG0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">People are susceptible to conspiracy theories by nature, and periods of uncertainty and heightened anxiety increase that susceptibility.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the popular image of the conspiracy theorist is of a lone wolf piecing together puzzling connections with photographs and red string, that image no longer applies in the age of social media. Conspiracy theorizing has moved online and is now the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3097286.3097297">end-product of a collective storytelling</a>. The participants work out the parameters of a narrative framework: the people, places and things of a story and their relationships.</p>
<p>The online nature of conspiracy theorizing provides an opportunity for researchers to trace the development of these theories from their origins as a series of often disjointed rumors and story pieces to a comprehensive narrative. For our work, Pizzagate presented the perfect subject.</p>
<p>Pizzagate began to develop in late October 2016 during the runup to the presidential election. Within a month, it was fully formed, with a complete cast of characters drawn from a series of otherwise unlinked domains: Democratic politics, the private lives of the Podesta brothers, casual family dining and satanic pedophilic trafficking. The connecting narrative thread among these otherwise disparate domains was the fanciful interpretation of the leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/23/12261020/dnc-email-leaks-explained">dumped by WikiLeaks</a> in the final week of October 2016.</p>
<h2>AI narrative analysis</h2>
<p>We developed a model – a set of <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/17/103781/what-is-machine-learning-we-drew-you-another-flowchart/">machine learning</a> tools – that can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233879">identify narratives</a> based on sets of people, places and things and their relationships. Machine learning algorithms process large amounts of data to determine the categories of things in the data and then identify which categories particular things belong to.</p>
<p>We analyzed 17,498 posts from April 2016 through February 2018 on the Reddit and 4chan forums where Pizzagate was discussed. The model treats each post as a fragment of a hidden story and sets about to uncover the narrative. The software identifies the people, places and things in the posts and determines which are major elements, which are minor elements and how they’re all connected.</p>
<p>The model determines the main layers of the narrative – in the case of Pizzagate, Democratic politics, the Podesta brothers, casual dining, satanism and WikiLeaks – and how the layers come together to form the narrative as a whole.</p>
<p>To ensure that our methods produced accurate output, we compared the narrative framework graph produced by our model with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/10/business/media/pizzagate.html">illustrations published in The New York Times</a>. Our graph aligned with those illustrations, and also offered finer levels of detail about the people, places and things and their relationships.</p>
<h2>Sturdy truth, fragile fiction</h2>
<p>To see if we could distinguish between a conspiracy theory and an actual conspiracy, we examined <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/nyregion/george-washington-bridge-scandal-what-you-need-to-know.html">Bridgegate</a>, a political payback operation launched by staff members of Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s administration against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey. </p>
<p>As we compared the results of our machine learning system using the two separate collections, two distinguishing features of a conspiracy theory’s narrative framework stood out. </p>
<p>First, while the narrative graph for Bridgegate took from 2013 to 2020 to develop, Pizzagate’s graph was fully formed and stable within a month. Second, Bridgegate’s graph survived having elements removed, implying that New Jersey politics would continue as a single, connected network even if key figures and relationships from the scandal were deleted. </p>
<p>The Pizzagate graph, in contrast, was easily fractured into smaller subgraphs. When we removed the people, places, things and relationships that came directly from the interpretations of the WikiLeaks emails, the graph fell apart into what in reality were the unconnected domains of politics, casual dining, the private lives of the Podestas and the odd world of satanism. </p>
<p>In the illustration below, the green planes are the major layers of the narrative, the dots are the major elements of the narrative, the blue lines are connections among elements within a layer and the red lines are connections among elements across the layers. The purple plane shows all the layers combined, showing how the dots are all connected. Removing the WikiLeaks plane yields a purple plane with dots connected only in small groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two graphs, one above and one below, showing dots with interconnecting lines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358963/original/file-20200921-14-vv5sq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The layers of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory combine to form a narrative, top right. Remove one layer, the fanciful interpretations of emails released by WikiLeaks, and the whole story falls apart, bottom right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233879">Tangherlini, et al.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Early warning system?</h2>
<p>There are clear ethical challenges that our work raises. Our methods, for instance, could be used to generate additional posts to a conspiracy theory discussion that fit the narrative framework at the root of the discussion. Similarly, given any set of domains, someone could use the tool to develop an entirely new conspiracy theory.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>However, this weaponization of storytelling is already occurring without automatic methods, as our study of social media forums makes clear. There is a role for the research community to help others understand how that weaponization occurs and to develop tools for people and organizations who protect public safety and democratic institutions. </p>
<p>Developing an early warning system that tracks the emergence and alignment of conspiracy theory narratives could alert researchers – and authorities – to real-world actions people might take based on these narratives. Perhaps with such a system in place, the arresting officer in the Pizzagate case would not have been baffled by the gunman’s response when asked why he’d shown up at a pizza parlor armed with an AR-15 rifle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy R. Tangherlini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Computational methods could help identify conspiracy theories as they emerge.Timothy R. Tangherlini, Professor of Danish Literature and Culture, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1420432020-07-30T05:26:58Z2020-07-30T05:26:58ZKokomo by Victoria Hannan, a millennial fiction that spans generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350055/original/file-20200729-29-1uz22el.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C15%2C1006%2C1072&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hachette.com.au/victoria-hannan/kokomo">Hachette</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Kokomo, published by Hachette</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know, Kokomo’s not even a real place … Well, it is, but it’s an industrial city in Indiana, it’s a long way from the tropical paradise they’d have you believe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Victoria Hannan’s <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/victoria-hannan/kokomo">Kokomo</a> – which won last year’s <a href="https://creative.vic.gov.au/news/2019/all-the-winners-of-the-2019-victorian-premiers-literary-awards">Victorian Premier’s Literary Award</a> for an unpublished manuscript – is a novel about loss, exile, homecoming, family and, above all, love. </p>
<p>When Mina leaves her life in London and rushes home to Melbourne because her agoraphobic mother has finally left the house, she begins to realise that her idea of the past is based, like the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJWmbLS2_ec">Beach Boys’</a> imagining of Kokomo, on a profound misconception.</p>
<p>At first Mina finds herself suffocating in the house she grew up in, where her mother has spent more than a decade hiding since the sudden death of Mina’s father. Mina returns to a site of deep trauma and eventually reveals the mysteries beneath it: why did her mother become a recluse? And why did Mina abandon her mother and move to London?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rumpled bed sheets" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350075/original/file-20200729-25-1g0v5c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kokomo follows Mina’s search for love, sometimes in the wrong places.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1530685220108-0ebdc8c85742?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2100&q=80">Mink Mingle/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/review-kate-grenvilles-a-room-made-of-leaves-fills-the-silence-of-the-archives-141985">Review: Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves fills the silence of the archives</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Love … or something like it</h2>
<p>Love, in Kokomo, is complex, fearsome, and elusive.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, the book begins with Mina declaring she has found love: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Love is being turned inside out together, all that pink splayed and splayed, everything on show for each other. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This epiphany comes as she gazes at her long-desired colleague Jack’s penis, falling into a rhapsody: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… so tall and pink, a soldier standing to attention, a ballerina in first position. It was tipping its hat to her, inviting her to dance. Mina saw herself as a sailor lost at sea and Jack’s penis as a lighthouse alerting her to the presence of land, to the presence of safety.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Jack’s penis is not the beacon she hopes. Mina is such a stranger to love she has misidentified it – instead repeating patterns of passive longing inherited from her mother.</p>
<p>When two-thirds of the way through the book we switch from Mina’s perspective to that of her reclusive mother, Elaine, we discover her complicated attitude to love has been learned in turn from her mother – a woman quick to anger, who Elaine suspects hid an affair for many years. </p>
<p>Mina also engages in doomed romantic pursuits. But the most reciprocal and generous relationship she experiences is with influencer and pretty best friend Kira. It’s Kira who tells Mina her mother has been seen outside her house. As they revive their real-life friendship (as opposed to a social media one) Kira helps Mina confront the source of her pain: her mother’s abandonment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman on phone sits alone in cafe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350074/original/file-20200729-21-1ffn4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mina turns to social media in her spare moments, drawn to the idealised lives she sees there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1546629199-46b58dc813e7?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2128&q=80">Unsplash/Daniel Salcius</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Millennial writers and stories</h2>
<p>There’s been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/wheres-the-great-millennial-novel-a-gen-xer-wonders/2019/04/11/bfdcc74e-5175-11e9-8d28-f5149e5a2fda_story.html">controversial discussion</a> about the gap where a great “millennial” novel should be. The generation, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/">those born between 1981 and 1996</a> who came of age during the digital revolution, are often portrayed as lazy, unprofessional, narcissistic <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20171003-millennials-are-the-generation-thats-fun-to-hate">snowflakes</a> obsessed with selfies and social media.</p>
<p>But this generation of fiction writers is telling complex and nuanced stories.</p>
<p>Take Britain’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/17/what-makes-a-millennial-novel-olivia-sudjic">Olivia Sudjic</a>, herself a victim (or beneficiary – depending on your point of view) of the “millennial author” label. Sudjic defines a group of novels not by the age of the authors alone. She looks to their common interests in rootless or directionless characters, mental illness, dark humour, alienation, and the effects of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/late-capitalism/524943/">late capitalism</a>. She notes an ironic or suspicious attitude to self-identity.</p>
<p>Ireland has Sally Rooney, the US has Ottessa Moshfegh and Ocean Vuong. <a href="https://www.victoriahannan.com/">Victoria Hannan</a> is among Australia’s new crop of young(ish) authors writing stories about contemporary young(ish) Australia.</p>
<p>Kokomo brims with references to popular culture and concerns. Mina tries and fails to self-medicate her anxiety and depression with alcohol. Her marketing job yields disappointment as it reveals its sexist foundations. She struggles with feelings of failure, and is alienated by life as a grown up. Millennial characters resonate with readers by examining the discomfort and disillusionment many of us feel when faced with the realities of life in late capitalism.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-yield-wins-the-miles-franklin-a-powerful-story-of-violence-and-forms-of-resistance-142284">The Yield wins the Miles Franklin: a powerful story of violence and forms of resistance</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>(Anti-)social media</h2>
<p>Hannan’s includes social media and mobile technology as part of the fabric of Mina’s life.</p>
<p>Mina nurtures a secret crush on her colleague, Jack, who appears to (maybe, sometimes) reciprocate her feelings. But when she leaves London for Australia after almost hooking up with Jack (the lighthouse penis episode) she has no way of knowing where their relationship stands. Instead of calling him to find out, she obsessively stalks him on Instagram, allowing his likes and new friendships to fuel her anxiety and create a highly speculative narrative about his emotional state and feelings for her.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kokomo book cover, title with photo of woman's hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350062/original/file-20200729-17-lp9812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hachette.com.au/victoria-hannan/kokomo">Hachette</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Any time Mina has a free moment she turns to her phone, scrolls Instagram and allows herself to be drawn into the idealised versions of life she sees there.</p>
<p>Mina acknowledges not only the deficit of social media as an interface for human connection, but the deterioration it has facilitated in her own friendships. </p>
<p>Kokomo is a book in which many young(ish) readers will see their own lives and interior landscapes mirrored, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about those things that bust generational boundaries: love, family, friendship, home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Maguire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kokomo by Victoria Hannan has been touted as a ‘millennial novel’ – but its search for love and connection are timeless.Emma Maguire, Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1256412019-12-23T20:18:41Z2019-12-23T20:18:41ZHow to support children whose parent works away for long periods<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305582/original/file-20191206-183392-n2s04i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C287%2C5883%2C3422&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Families can use various strategies to keep children connected with a parent who's away for work.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Orsan Elitok</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s not always possible for families to be together during the Christmas holidays if one parent is working away for several days. They could be on a tour of duty for the Australian Defence Force or in a fly-in, fly-out mining position.</p>
<p>Other jobs, such as those in long-distance transport, firefighting, seasonal agriculture and other occupations, can also regularly take a parent away from home.</p>
<p>Such types of work can be challenging for those seeking a good <a href="https://www.oecd.org/statistics/Better-Life-Initiative-country-note-Australia.pdf">work-life balance</a>. The parent who works away <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/49542969" title="Military people won’t ask for help : experiences of deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel, their families, and implications for social work">misses out on time with family</a>, which can be especially difficult with younger children.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-parents-can-help-their-kids-take-risks-and-why-its-good-for-them-120576">Five ways parents can help their kids take risks – and why it’s good for them</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But there are things families can do to support children when one parent is away.</p>
<h2>Home alone</h2>
<p>Previous research has found <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/children-australia/article/parents-perspectives-of-their-childrens-reactions-to-an-australian-military-deployment/2262EBEDBD0BCD2D5156474803060B25" title="Parents’ Perspectives of their Children's Reactions to an Australian Military Deployment">young children in military families repond in various ways</a> to prolonged separation from a parent.</p>
<p><a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1018364.pdf" title="How Wartime Military Service Affects Children and Families">Physical responses</a> include disturbed sleep (nightmares, unable to self-settle, taking longer to fall asleep) and regressions in toileting and feeding. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/having-problems-with-your-kids-tantrums-bed-wetting-or-withdrawal-heres-when-to-get-help-125299">Having problems with your kid's tantrums, bed-wetting or withdrawal? Here's when to get help</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-25070-020" title="When a parent goes to war: Effects of parental deployment on very young children and implications for intervention">Emotional responses</a> can be an increase in tears, anger, outbursts and withdrawing to avoid further hurt.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10591-011-9144-8" title="Community Family Therapy with Military Families Experiencing Deployment">Social responses</a> include children struggling with daily routines. They might be less likely to cope with the normal frustrations that happen when playing with friends and siblings. Clingy behaviour with adults may also occur, which isolates children from their friends.</p>
<p>The good news is parents can support their young children in a number of ways to build resilience. Families shared these ideas in my research.</p>
<h2>The power of narratives</h2>
<p>Some programs <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2016.8" title="Narrative, Acculturation and Ritual: Themes from a Socio-ecological Study of Australian Defence Force Families Experiencing Parental Deployment">recommend</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-011-0096-1" title="Mechanisms of Risk and Resilience in Military Families: Theoretical and Empirical Basis of a Family-Focused Resilience Enhancement Program">developing a family narrative</a>. These narratives might be a simple sentence children can use when asked about their absent parent.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mum went away on a plane. She is coming home on a plane three sleeps after Easter.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here is a family narrative a 2.5-year-old child told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I miss my daddy. He in Afghanistan. I not go Afghanistan. Mummy not go Afghanistan. Only Daddy go Afghanistan.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Positive activities that nurture a child’s emotional connection with a parent who is away are also important.</p>
<p>This includes encouraging children to draw a picture of an activity they are looking forward to doing with their parent when they return, such as going swimming or visiting the local park.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307311/original/file-20191217-124036-10874oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Encourage a child to draw a picture of a family activity with the parent who is away.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/kwanchai c</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The parent at home can help by writing down what the picture represents. This can be put in a parcel to send to the parent who is away. Keeping a copy of the drawing can help with communication between the child and the returned parent on reunion. They can discuss and plan family activities together.</p>
<p>With help, children can also write emails and postcards, even record voice or video messages about what they miss, how they feel and what they’re looking forward to doing when the parent gets back.</p>
<p>The parent who works away can also pre-prepare some short video stories about what they liked doing as a child, something they enjoy now and what they hope to do when they return. These can then be played at home when contact is not possible.</p>
<p>Homemade resources children can use to self-soothe when they are missing their parent are useful. These could include a small photo album of the parent and child, a recordable story book with their parent’s voice, or a video of the parent reading them some stories.</p>
<p>Make a time-line sticker chart children can personalise to count off the days. It could start with when the parent left, then include holidays and birthdays, and end when they will return.</p>
<h2>Getting support</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/27664" title="Recommendations from the findings on young children from Australian Defence Force families">research</a>, which explored the experiences of children aged two to five in 11 Australian Defence Force families, found parents left at at home caring for children can feel unsupported. </p>
<p>There is a lack of available resources to help them have conversations with their young children about the parent working away.</p>
<p>One parent said: </p>
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<p>Look, you are just on your own when the kids are young, before they go to school. There is nothing out there. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-reasons-i-always-get-children-picture-books-for-christmas-127801">5 reasons I always get children picture books for Christmas</a>
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<p>To address this gap, I’ve created two free ebooks, based on the experiences of defence families: <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/DCO/_Master/documents/Books/Roses-Story.pdf">Waiting for Daddy</a> and <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/DCO/_Master/documents/Books/Anthonys-Story.pdf">Now that I am big</a>. Although defence-focused, they should be useful to any family that has a parent frequently away from home.</p>
<p>Social media support groups organised informally by parents and other organisations can help support families working in various industries. These include <a href="https://www.miningfm.com.au/">Mining Family Matters</a>, <a href="https://www.australianmining.com.au/features/world-first-a-self-help-book-for-mining-families/">Australian Mining</a>, <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/dco/">Defence Community Organisation</a>, <a href="https://dfa.org.au/">Defence Families Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/Health/HealthPortal/">Department of Defence</a>.</p>
<p>Research shows <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9145.html" title="Proven Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions">good early intervention programs make a big difference</a> to children’s healthy development and their ability to thrive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marg Rogers works for the University of New England, Australia. Our team receives funding from The Ian Potter Foundation to create two programs for educators and parents of 2-5 year olds from defence force families. We do not get paid to do the research by the funding body, instead, the funding helps to pay for the costs of the project.</span></em></p>While many families are busy planning how to spend their time together this Christmas holiday season, others are planning how to manage their time apart.Marg Rogers, Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1277632019-12-18T11:15:48Z2019-12-18T11:15:48ZComedy can help us tackle the climate crisis – here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307171/original/file-20191216-124016-1srpcsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1346%2C4009%2C2969&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We really screwed this one up didn't we.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/MNmfauVBEN8">Mazhar Zandsalimi/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Society’s defining issues are rarely presented as raw facts and stats, and climate change is no exception. From the performance of <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/extinction-rebellion-london-fashion-week-gbr-scli-intl/index.html">funerals for lost species</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/iceland-is-mourning-a-dead-glacier-how-grieving-over-ecological-destruction-can-help-us-face-the-climate-crisis-122071">and glaciers</a> to the claim that the best we can do is <a href="https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/deepadaptation.pdf">adapt to impending catastrophe</a>, climate change is often narrated like a classic <a href="http://edithhall.co.uk/books/greek-tragedy-suffering-under-the-sun">Greek tragedy</a>. Errors in human judgement set off a chain of events that once in motion inevitably bring extreme suffering, and a powerful sense <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending#">of helplessness to change what we know is coming</a>.</p>
<p>In many ways, such gloomy perspectives are appropriate. Millions of people are <a href="https://ejfoundation.org/news-media/already-210-million-people-have-been-displaced-by-climate-change-and-thats-just-the-start-its-time-to-act">already being displaced or killed</a> by the human-caused destabilisation of our climate. And yet, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/09/doomism-new-tactic-fossil-fuel-lobby">environmental scientists</a> and <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/media-disengagement-climate-change/">communication specialists</a> point out, such narratives are problematic because they tend to inspire inertia and anxiety rather than action.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/26/climate-disaster-script-urgency-change">Narratives of hope</a> might go some way to changing the script and galvanising a response. But there’s an even more suitable story we can supplement our tragic narratives with: comedy.</p>
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<p>This proposal might seem bizarre. There is nothing funny about the prospect of environmental collapse. But while comedies are meant to be funny, they don’t have to be lighthearted or trivial. </p>
<p>Many philosophical approaches to comedy hold that <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/#IncThe">comic effects arise from incongruities</a>: mismatches between what we expect and what we perceive. For French philosopher Henri Bergson, <a href="https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/4352">one of the central incongruities</a> used in comedy is when organic life – normally chaotic, changeable, and adaptable – instead acts in a machine-like way. Bergson argues that laughing at this incongruity is a <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2012/05/03/topic57/">social tool by which we mildly scold each other</a> for not being adaptive and flexible enough.</p>
<p>Bergson extends this idea explicitly to the way humans relate to nature. He gives the anecdotal example of a lady who had been invited by the astronomer Cassini to observe an eclipse of the moon. Arriving late, she asks the astronomer to please begin the viewing anew.</p>
<p>Bergson also describes a character who arrives in town and, learning that there is an extinct volcano in the neighbourhood, exclaims: “They had a volcano and they let it go out!”. Here, comedy arises from the common treatment of the complicated and evolving network of life as <a href="https://theconversation.com/humanity-and-nature-are-not-separate-we-must-see-them-as-one-to-fix-the-climate-crisis-122110">mechanical and controllable</a>.</p>
<p>This sort of attitude may seem ridiculous, but it encapsulates a dominant approach to tackling the climate crisis. Rather than trying to <a href="https://theconversation.com/focusing-on-cutting-emissions-alone-wont-halt-ecological-decline-we-must-consume-less-former-uk-chief-environmental-adviser-122778">infringe less on our environment</a> and allowing it to recover, many are doubling down on the technological harnessing of the natural world that got us into this mess in the first place – and will likely <a href="http://theconversation.com/techno-fix-futures-will-only-accelerate-climate-chaos-dont-believe-the-hype-125678">keep making things worse</a>.</p>
<p>Bergson’s comic protagonists behave mechanically in relation to nature, and we laugh about them. But in laughing about them, we laugh about ourselves, too. They can help us reflect on our actions and highlight the absurdity and inefficiency of many human responses to the climate crisis.</p>
<h2>Comic heroes</h2>
<p>But comedies offer more than just a mode of critique. In addition to the protagonists we laugh <em>at</em>, comedies also provide heroes we laugh <em>with</em>. Rather than having a mechanical grip on their environment, they are receptive to the challenges of a living and changing environment and adapt their actions and goals accordingly.</p>
<p>The ancient philosopher Aristotle highlighted that comic characters are <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0056%3Asection%3D1449a">flawed but never wholly bad or evil</a>. Likewise, their actions are often pathetic, but not vicious, and comedies overall are driven by errors and clumsiness. German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel held that it is a peculiar strength of comic protagonists to be able to <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ae/part3-section3-chapter3.htm#c-c-3-c">withstand failure and disaster</a>. Their flawed characters, their struggles with what life throws at them, and their perseverance against the odds make them a good mirror of the human condition.</p>
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<p>Comic figures often have a keen ability to see dire situations for what they are, and themselves for what they are – in a position of weakness and vulnerability. With this in mind, they nonetheless set out to achieve seemingly impossible tasks. Think of <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/peace.html">Aristophanes‘ classic comedy, <em>Peace</em></a>: Trugaios, the main character, is a simple villager with no economic or political power. He is well aware that restoring peace in Greece is well beyond his powers. Yet he insists on trying. </p>
<p>There are two main reasons why he succeeds. First, the restoration of peace is a collective effort. Trugaios acts in concert with others – peasants, foreigners, workers. Comic heroes thus avoid the <a href="http://rebeccasolnit.net/essay/when-the-hero-is-the-problem/">problematic representation of “proper” heroes</a> as exceptional individuals who are uniquely able to deal with crisis.</p>
<p>Second, Trugaios is willing to consider even the unlikeliest means to achieve his goals, such as a dung beetle who will fly him up to heaven, and he constantly adapts his approach in response to the challenges he encounters on the way. Rather than mechanically following a plan, his actions show precisely the elasticity Bergson thought was so essential to what it means to be alive.</p>
<p>I do not recommend that we turn away from tragic and apocalyptic narratives entirely – there is much truth and value to them. But we would do well to supplement them with comic reflections on our relationship with nature and our ability to act in the face of hopelessness. Comedy is not merely a way to allow us to <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-little-humour-may-help-with-climate-change-gloom-125860">process news about climate change in a less anxiety-inducing way</a>. It allows us to reflect on who we are and how we do things in the world.</p>
<p>More specifically, comedy can point out where there are fundamental problems in our mechanical and technocratic behaviour toward the environment. And, finally, if we begin to think of our own agency more like that of comic heroes — not in control of their environment, yet often able to muddle through despite their own ineptitudes and repeated failures — this might help us persevere in view of the seemingly impossible tasks ahead of us.</p>
<p>Tragedy highlights the vulnerability of those who think themselves in control. Comedy shows the strength of those who recognise their own vulnerability. We need both stories to confront the climate crisis.</p>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1127763">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 796718.</span></em></p>There is nothing funny about the prospect of environmental collapse. But comedy can highlight the errors that led us to the crisis, and encourage us to act in the face of hopelessness.Birte Loschenkohl, Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1280462019-12-18T10:06:55Z2019-12-18T10:06:55ZWhat conspiracy theories have in common with fiction – and why it makes them compelling stories<p>In an era dominated by “fake news” and disinformation, conspiracy theories are coming to play <a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509535828">an increasingly influential role</a> in modern politics. During the recent impeachment hearings in the US, for example, former National Security Council official Fiona Hill <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/21/20975734/impeachment-hearings-read-fiona-hills-opening-statement">warned</a> that “fictional narratives” pushed by Russia were undermining American security. </p>
<p>But what’s the difference exactly between a conspiracy theory and a legitimate news story? Does “fictional” in this sense simply mean fabricated? My <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-art-of-political-storytelling-9781350107380/">ongoing research</a> suggests there is more to it than this – something which can explain why conspiracy theories can gain such a powerful hold over the public imagination. </p>
<p>The narrative that Hill was referring to in her impeachment testimony is what’s known as “Crowdstrike”, a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/fact-check-trump-s-false-claims-about-ukraine-dnc-server-n1089596">conspiracy theory</a> that alleges it was Ukraine rather than Russia that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-russians-hacked-the-dnc-and-passed-its-emails-to-wikileaks/2018/07/13/af19a828-86c3-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html">hacked</a> the Democratic National Committee’s email server in 2016, and that Ukraine, along with the Democrats, subsequently went about framing Russia for interfering in the election.</p>
<p>A day after Hill’s testimony the US president, Donald Trump, again trotted out precisely these same allegations in an <a href="https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1197879132706738177?s=20">interview</a> with the TV show Fox & Friends. In doing so he made a string of assertions which are provably false. Reports from both the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf">US intelligence community</a> and <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-clinton-arizona-hack/">special counsel Robert Mueller</a> have, after all, concluded that it was Russia who actively interfered in the 2016 election, while there’s no evidence of Ukraine having any part in it. </p>
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<p>As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/nov/21/trump-impeachment-inquiry-witness-rebukes-republicans-for-fictional-ukraine-narrative-video">Hill noted</a>, the whole “Crowdstrike” theory seems to be a clear “effort to legitimise an alternative narrative that the Ukrainian government is a US adversary, and that Ukraine – not Russia – attacked us in 2016”.</p>
<h2>Powerful forms of narrative</h2>
<p>Conspiracy theories are used in disinformation campaigns in two main ways. On the one hand, the simple act of citing them can be a way of legitimising views you don’t like. For instance, the British journalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/carolecadwalladr">Carole Cadwalladr’s investigations</a> into various shady tactics used by the Leave campaign in 2016 EU referendum are regularly dismissed as nothing more than <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/27/caroles-conspiracies-are-a-gift-to-brexit/">conspiracies</a> by her enemies. </p>
<p>But conspiracy theories are also used as counter-narratives to confuse the actual nature of events and, in doing so, push a particular ideological view of the world. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theories-how-belief-is-rooted-in-evolution-not-ignorance-128803">Conspiracy theories: how belief is rooted in evolution – not ignorance</a>
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<p>It’s worth noting that all explanations operate as a type of narrative. A <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/186/186437/into-the-woods/9780141978109.html">basic dramatic narrative</a> has three steps to it: (1) a person embarks upon a (2) journey into a hostile environment which (3) ultimately leads to self-knowledge.</p>
<p>This same basic structure applies to explanations: (1) you want to discover some information; (2) you find a way of discovering it; and (3) your world is changed as a result. </p>
<p>But, as <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-art-of-political-storytelling-9781350107380/">recent research</a> I’ve been doing shows, there are several ways in which conspiracy theories draw directly on elements of storytelling that are found in fiction rather than factual narratives. </p>
<p>As in fictional narratives, all the elements in a conspiracy theory are linked through clear lines of cause and effect. There’s a reason for everything and, if that reason isn’t immediately forthcoming, it’s because it’s being purposefully hidden as part of the conspiracy. This differs from real life of course, where events often include large amounts of happenstance, inexplicable phenomena and a general murkiness and confusion.</p>
<h2>Same story</h2>
<p>Then there’s the way that conspiracy theories are all underpinned by the same basic archetype: what the writer <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-seven-basic-plots-9780826452092/">Christopher Booker</a> calls the “overcoming the monster” story. In this, a single or a small group of rebels take on the overwhelming forces of a corrupt and malevolent establishment which is threatening the wellbeing of society.</p>
<p>The “Crowdstrike” conspiracy theory slots snuggly into this formula. Corrupt forces within the political establishment (in this case the Democratic Party) are presented as betraying the will of the people – represented by the election of Trump in 2016. The ongoing impeachment process against the president therefore threatens the welfare of the US as an independent democratic nation. As the political theorist <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308/308163/what-is-populism-/9780141987378.html">Jan-Werner Muller</a> has noted, this type of conspiracy theory is structurally embedded in the logic of all populist movements in the way their leaders regularly argue that the will of the people can only be denied through underhand and corrupt ways. </p>
<p>Conspiracy theories always fixate on a very simple story which acts as a fable for their overarching worldview. They usually take an issue of real significance – such as foreign influence in domestic elections – but, in order to explain it, they latch on to one succinct story which bypasses the complexities and messiness of real-life phenomena and instead satisfies the logic of their overarching ideological narrative. </p>
<p>For Trump’s supporters, the “Crowdstrike” story feels true because it’s another example of the establishment’s great witch hunt against him. As a story, it also has a coherent logic which the expanse and messiness of the facts lack. So, in both these ways, our familiarity with the way the world is mediated via fiction helps cast doubt on the way the world actually is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Seargeant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How conspiracy theories, such as the Crowdstrike theory that Ukraine was behind the attack of the Democratic Party’s server, draw from storytelling techniques.Philip Seargeant, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1144222019-04-11T10:42:17Z2019-04-11T10:42:17ZA happy ending for ‘Game of Thrones’? No thanks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268412/original/file-20190409-2921-r48rxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Game of Thrones' has taught audiences to never get too attached to any one character.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hbo.com/content/dam/hbodata/series/game-of-thrones/video-stills/season-08/s8-trailer-1920.jpg">HBO</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the final season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” commencing, I imagine most fans are harboring hopes that things will turn out well for the remaining heroes in Westeros.</p>
<p>A large part of me hopes for the same. But a different part of me – <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/cas/polisci/profiles/anthony-gierzynski">the part that researches the political effects of entertainment</a> – is pulling for a final season that is as brutally unjust as the first five seasons of the series. It wants the White Walkers to overrun the North and kill Jon Snow and Daenerys, or Cersei to betray the heroes after they battle the army of the dead, leaving no opposition to her claim to the Iron Throne. </p>
<p><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498573986/The-Political-Effects-of-Entertainment-Media-How-Fictional-Worlds-Affect-Real-World-Political-Perspectives">A study I recently conducted</a> with some students on “Game of Thrones” colored my views on unhappy endings, revealing that perhaps television series and movies need more of them.</p>
<h2>Do good things happen to good people?</h2>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00374.x">People prefer stories with happy endings</a>. For this reason, most stories developed for mass audiences – whether they’re books, films or TV shows – will conclude with the protagonist rewarded for doing the right thing. </p>
<p>All those happy endings, however, have political consequences – at least according to one researcher.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00374.x">a 2007 study</a>, communication psychologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tqt4hn0AAAAJ&hl=en">Markus Appel</a> showed that the more fictional narratives people see, the more likely they are to believe in a just world. </p>
<p>What does this belief have to do with politics? Well, <a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780306404955">when you believe in a just world</a>, you tend to think that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. </p>
<p>This worldview then influences support for certain policies. For example, if you believe in a just world, you would probably believe that poor people deserve to be poor. Not surprisingly, the worldview has been associated with lower support for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00506.x">antipoverty programs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12063">affirmative action</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1975.tb00997.x">It’s also been associated with</a> negative feelings about the poor and support for authoritarianism.</p>
<p>The belief in a just world seems to be activated as a psychological response to experiencing the discomfort of witnessing victims of abuse, crime, economic catastrophe and war. Rather than force someone to grapple with the complex emotions evoked by these victims, this worldview operates like a shield – why devote emotional energy and resources to these people if they deserve what they got?</p>
<h2>Can ‘Game of Thrones’ color your worldview?</h2>
<p>When it debuted in 2011, “Game of Thrones” wasn’t like most other shows.</p>
<p>It didn’t just abandon the typical plot in which protagonists are rewarded for doing the right thing. It went as far as possible in the opposite direction, feeding viewers a relentless diet of cruel and brutal injustices. </p>
<p>Plot developments included a sadistic young king ordering the beheading of the lead character; a slaughter of unarmed guests at a wedding; physical and psychological torture; and marriages forced on young girls, who are then raped and sexually assaulted. The show taught audiences to never get too attached to any one character because that character, in all likelihood, would meet a cruel and unjust fate.</p>
<p>I wondered: If Appel found that fictional narratives with happy endings increased belief in a just world, could exposure to the repeated injustices of “Game of Thrones” do the opposite and reduce audiences’ tendency to believe in a just world? </p>
<p>My students and I set about devising ways to test for such an effect. Over two semesters we carried out a survey and an experiment, and I followed that work up with a second experiment. </p>
<p>For the survey and experiment we recruited participants through social media. I randomly assigned those volunteers to three groups, asking subjects in one group to watch six episodes of “Game of Thrones,” subjects in the second group to watch six episodes of “True Blood” – a show that depicts a more just world – and subjects in the third group to just fill out the survey. For the second experiment I randomly assigned students in a large class to watch either five episodes of “Game of Thrones” or the movie “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.”</p>
<p>In the studies, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498573986/The-Political-Effects-of-Entertainment-Media-How-Fictional-Worlds-Affect-Real-World-Political-Perspectives">we found</a> that exposure to “Game of Thrones” was associated with or resulted in lower levels of just world beliefs. These findings held true even while taking into consideration other characteristics of the respondents. </p>
<p>In other words, exposure to “Game of Thrones” seemed to have an effect on viewers that was more akin to consuming the news than to exposure to other fictional stories. </p>
<p>I’m hoping “Game of Thrones” has an unhappy ending because, sadly, unhappy endings mimic reality. I recognize the need to occasionally escape from the ugliness of the real world into fictional ones with happy endings. But in a media environment dominated by entertainment, it’s also important to be periodically shocked into remembering that things don’t always work out so nicely. </p>
<p>That was the value I saw in the first five seasons of “Game of Thrones” – and that’s why I want to see it end badly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Gierzynski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vast majority of stories told in movies, in books and on television conclude with happy endings – and this has real-world political consequences.Anthony Gierzynski, Professor and Chair of Political Science, University of VermontLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128742019-03-15T03:21:01Z2019-03-15T03:21:01ZNeanderthals didn’t need Nintendos: why we always choose story over technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263828/original/file-20190314-28479-1oeb8qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technology aside, we humans are still suckers for a good story. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/people-sit-night-round-bright-bonfire-211091626">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Picture the scene – we’re in ancient times and a group of cave people are gathered around a fire telling stories about their day (there’s evidence of <a href="https://reporter.rit.edu/tech/evolution-storytelling">storytelling by way of cave art over 30,000 years ago</a>). </p>
<p>They have no Wi-Fi. There are no fancy gaming consoles or immersive media (or <a href="https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-history-of-popcorn-1328768">even popcorn</a> for that matter) and yet they are almost certainly crafting tales and enthralling each other.</p>
<p>Thankfully we’re all vastly more evolved now because we have creature comforts and flashy technology – like PlayStations and virtual reality (VR) at our fingertips. Quaint notions of narrative and story shouldn’t matter anymore, right? Not so fast.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-has-added-a-new-dimension-to-theme-park-rides-so-whats-next-for-thrill-seekers-89222">Virtual reality has added a new dimension to theme park rides — so what's next for thrill-seekers?</a>
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<p>My recent research suggests that even with advanced immersive technology, people still hunger to be told stories. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263057/original/file-20190310-86686-eidk3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author on a VR rollercoaster, ready to perhaps not be told a story.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">@PhotoByJarrod</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rollercoasters, VR and drop rides</h2>
<p>I’m researching what consumers want from VR entertainment experiences. I’ve collected original data from multiple VR participants all around the world by way of interviewing them with series of fixed questions as they stepped off VR roller coasters, VR simulators, VR drop rides, VR water slides and VR walkthrough experiences.</p>
<p>These rides and experiences represent some of the most advanced examples of immersive entertainment on the planet. And yet once we analysed the data for trends and themes, what came through loud and clear from participants may have resonated just as well with our cave people: <em>we want story</em>. </p>
<p>Said one participant who had just stepped off a VR roller-coaster experience (that’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-has-added-a-new-dimension-to-theme-park-rides-so-whats-next-for-thrill-seekers-89222">a real roller coaster, with a VR headset</a> that shows graphics and animations of something completely different to the physical ride): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just think it’s flying around and stuff, I don’t think there’s a story. If there is … I don’t know what it is. </p>
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<p>Other responses ranged from simple confusion (“I just don’t know what was going on”) and “It felt a little bit like Super Mario: jump and run”, to one consumer who was clearly crying out for even a crumb of narrative: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I mean, you have dwarves and regular human people and then you have a dragon in a cave, but then you have a bat that’s flying around … like, what’s the backstory to the whole situation? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another participant appears to give a nod to technology at the beginning of their response, with a familiar pivot at the end:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think they went a lot in depth with a lot more of the graphics. I think they could have put more into the storyline itself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While a chirpy minority appeared less concerned about the lack of obvious story, they (perhaps inadvertently) underscored the importance of story anyway by admitting it was so essential to their experience that they were forced to make up their own: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A lot of people say you need to have a backstory and all that, but I kind of enjoyed the idea that you don’t really know what’s going on, kind of having to make up your own little story for it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>High-tech = customers, right?</h2>
<p>Virtual reality is still seen as flashy technology, so it’s no surprise vendors and theme parks promote their VR experiences technology-first and seem to ignore the lure of “narrative transportation” – a highly desirable state in entertainment experiences where consumers <a href="https://medium.com/science-of-story-building/science-of-story-building-narrative-transportation-923b2701e286">lose track of the real world by being lost in a story</a>. </p>
<p>This enables immersion, which in VR enables escapism, which means we get that much-desired magical moment of forgetting the world and all its problems, just for a moment. </p>
<p>Research suggests that game developers (note that games are often put in the same basket as VR entertainment experiences) are benefiting specifically from <a href="https://www.superdataresearch.com/the-maturation-of-narrative-in-video-games/">pursuing rich storytelling</a>. </p>
<p>The not-at-all-shabby <a href="https://www.superdataresearch.com/the-maturation-of-narrative-in-video-games/">US$131 million success</a> of the recent PlayStation 4 game <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-au/games/god-of-war-ps4/">God of War</a> in its first month of release was attributed to a focus on narrative.</p>
<h2>To be fair …</h2>
<p>Technology is obviously critical for a successful VR experience (high resolution, spatial audio, low latency – meaning when you look around the digital world responds exactly as you would expect without lagging – just for starters) but it seems participants handsomely reward technology when it is paired with storytelling. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/careful-how-you-treat-todays-ai-it-might-take-revenge-in-the-future-112611">Careful how you treat today's AI: it might take revenge in the future</a>
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<p>Also, most VR entertainment experiences are short, which does not necessarily allow for in-depth stories to be developed. Additionally, the often wild forces at work on the more aggressive physical rides utilising VR can mean subtle story detail may be difficult to introduce to a narrative, at least in the active ride portion (when you’re being flung around upside down at high speeds, you might not be searching for nuance). </p>
<p>But it seems the current offerings are over-reliant on technology alone as a way to attract participants to these experiences, when it may be that promoting more traditional narratives – a simple story – may be a more effective technique. </p>
<p>While the world has changed enormously since the ancient times, we haven’t, and there’s something sweet, and very human, about that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malcolm Burt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It seems while the world has changed enormously since the industrial revolution, we haven’t: we still love stories. And there’s something sweet, and very human, about that.Malcolm Burt, Amusement academic and disruptive media researcher, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1060622018-12-23T19:44:50Z2018-12-23T19:44:50ZHooked on a book, podcast or TV show? Here’s how the story changes you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243819/original/file-20181105-83632-txh5sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reading alone is more likely to take you into the world of the story.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-boy-reading-book-under-big-297107141?src=_oa_3Wojuz8gpJQvWevt0Q-1-23">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every holiday season, you have new worlds at your fingertips. Reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching films and TV shows can help you break away from the frenzy of everyday life, and journey into other possible worlds. </p>
<p>As with any kind of travel, the journey affects you. The degree to which you become engaged with a story is known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-transportation-into-game-of-thrones-could-have-ugly-results-25523">narrative transportation</a>. This effect causes feelings and thoughts consistent with the narrative world. The more a story transports you, the more likely you are persuaded to adopt the beliefs espoused within it. </p>
<p>Deeper changes occur too. Previous <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673383">research shows</a> that changes of attitudes and intentions are part of the narrative transportation effect. My colleagues Stephanie Feiereisen, Luca Visconti and I were interested in what factors predict a greater narrative transportation effect, so we used meta-analysis to measure the power of stories to both engage and change people. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-telling-the-right-stories-can-make-people-act-on-climate-change-83320">How telling the right stories can make people act on climate change</a>
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<h2>Factors that increase narrative transportation</h2>
<p>Meta-analyses aggregate the results of a large number of published empirical studies, which can greatly increase confidence in a phenomenon. No meta-analysis had been performed on narrative transportation for five years, so we investigated all the published research since. </p>
<p>We averaged the results of 64 different papers, reporting 138 separate effects, based on results from more than 20,000 participants.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Y3szXj-jNyHC">discovered</a> that three factors reliably influence the narrative transportation effect: whether a story is commercial or noncommercial, whether it is user-generated or created by professionals, and whether there are other people present while you are engaging with the story. </p>
<h2>Profit motive</h2>
<p>A transporting story is 16% more likely to affect you if it has commercial profit, rather than an artistic or other value, as its primary aim. </p>
<p>Many films and TV series are primarily made for commercial purposes with the intention of making a profit. If you are not aware of this profit motive, the effect of narrative transportation is strengthened. As a result, you will be inclined to buy products – and even animals – featured in films and TV series. </p>
<p>For example, 101 Dalmatians <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0106565">made families want spotty dogs</a>. Likewise, Finding Nemo led to a rapid growth in the trade of clownfish as pets – which, in turn, <a href="http://www.savingnemo.org/">contributed to the decline of wild populations</a>. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-films-youve-seen-influence-your-choice-of-dog-31498">How the films you've seen influence your choice of dog</a>
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<h2>Self-publishing</h2>
<p>A transporting story is 11% more likely to change you if it is made publicly available, reflects a certain amount of creative effort, and is created outside of professional routines and practices.</p>
<p>Many books and podcasts are user-generated, meaning they are self-published at their authors’ own expense. A creator’s emotional participation in the story strengthens the narrative transportation effect. </p>
<p>Take Andy Weir’s book The Martian. In 2011, after a long search for a professional agent, he gave up on big publishing. Instead, he posted the book to Amazon. It was soon climbing the charts and he attracted a dedicated, worldwide following. It was later made into a feature film starring Matt Damon, that was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0106565">hailed for its attention to scientific detail</a>. </p>
<p>Other examples of this kind of creator influence include teenagers like Charlotte D'Alessio, who became an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/22/what-would-you-do-if-your-teenager-became-an-overnight-instagram-sensation-">overnight Instagram fashion sensation</a>. Stand-up comedians at open mic nights are further examples of nonprofessional creators who are telling impactful stories.</p>
<h2>Whether you’re alone</h2>
<p>A transporting story is 10% less likely to influence you if you are with others, rather than alone, when you are consuming it.</p>
<p>Social groups weaken the narrative transportation effect. As a result, you are less likely to be persuaded if you share the experience with family or groups of friends.</p>
<p>Live-action role playing games are a case in point. These increasingly popular <a href="http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2018/03/love-to-larp-10-fan-experiences-to-put-on-your-bucket-list">fan happenings</a> encourage you to experience beloved films and TV series together with others. This collective form of narrative consumption protects you somewhat against the influence of a story.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-the-us-election-why-the-narrative-trumps-the-facts-66480">Post-truth politics and the US election: why the narrative trumps the facts</a>
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<p>The more you are transported by a narrative, the more likely that your beliefs, attitudes and intentions will converge with those of the story. This is neither good nor bad. Yet being aware of this effect – and the factors that increase it – could help you think critically about your desire to get a new pet after watching a movie. </p>
<p>When vacations return there is only one place many people want to be: ensconced in a story. Books, podcasts, films and TV series are prepackaged journeys. Just make sure that you steel yourself for what lies within.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom van Laer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How much you become engaged with a story is known as narrative transportation. And the more a story transports you, the more likely you are persuaded to adopt the beliefs espoused within it.Tom van Laer, Reader (Associate Professor) of Marketing, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1030092018-09-26T11:49:57Z2018-09-26T11:49:57ZI’m talking to you: second-person narratives in literature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238146/original/file-20180926-48634-o82ptp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While browsing for recipes online, I found <a href="https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/asian-style-fish-chips">this</a>: “Give your Friday night fish and chips an Asian twist with tempura-battered cod and a spicy wasabi tartare sauce.” Sounds delicious? Perhaps – but more exciting to me is the use of the second person possessive. “You” and “your” in the typical recipe are markers of inclusivity and universality – they include us all. The expectation is that everyone eats fish and chips on a Friday so everyone will be enticed by this fusion-tinged variation.</p>
<p>When we consider a common location for the second person voice – the self-help text – matters become complicated. Jordan B Peterson’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/28/12-rules-for-life-an-antidote-to-chaos-by-jordan-b-peterson-digested-read">12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos</a> (2018), to take a recent controversial example, appears to behave like the recipe. In the declared pursuit of “a shared cultural system” in which people “act in keeping with each other’s expectations and desires”, Peterson uses the second person in a universalising way. </p>
<p>If everyone follows his imperatives – a typical example being: “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today” – the implication is that the result will be order, harmony, contentment. The illusion of inclusion (for it is only an illusion) is bolstered by the liberal use of the first person plural: “we”. In my opinion, Peterson isn’t really giving advice – he is luring the reader into complicity with his neoliberal, individualist, masculinist world view. Observations such as “you must be prepared to do anything and everything, in case it becomes necessary” merely reassert Peterson’s male authority. Any supposedly shared beliefs are those of the marketplace.</p>
<h2>Sympathy for the devil</h2>
<p>Reading Peterson, one is reminded, bizarrely, of Scottish writer Iain Banks’ use of the second person in his 1993 novel <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/iain-m-banks/complicity/">Complicity</a>, in which the reader is tempted towards sympathy with the views of a serial killer. The difference is that Banks’ narrative style encourages the reader to put themselves directly into the situation being described:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then the door closes and they are there in front of you and in that instant you see him turned slightly away, putting his briefcase down on the table beside the answermachine … You swing the cosh and hit him very hard across the back of the head… </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Iain Banks 1993 novel, Complicity, makes extensive use of second person narrative.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This demands that the reader reflects on the ethics of sympathy and complicity and questions the values being espoused. Complicity is a well-known novel – but the second person in literature is rare enough to be a curiosity.</p>
<p>One of the reasons for this might be that, if used very extensively – as in Paul Auster’s memoirs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/15/winter-journal-paul-auster-review">Winter Journal</a> (2012) and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-review-report-from-the-interior-by-paul-auster-8915557.html">Report from the Interior</a> (2013) – it can feel forced, awkward and, frankly, irritating: “Until that morning, you just were. Now you knew that you were.” Whether or not – as critics such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42946255">Irene Kacandes</a> have argued – the second person enhances reader involvement, overuse can feel like a form of harassment from someone trying too hard to get into your head.</p>
<p>Auster gestures toward universality, claiming in Report from the Interior that he writes not because “you find yourself a rare or exceptional object of study, but precisely because you don’t, because you think of yourself as anyone, as everyone”. This is disingenuous: the experiences he describes are too personal and specific to be universal – and to assume they are is presumptuous. Even if he is trying to gain distance from himself by using the second person, Auster is still talking only to another version of himself. After all, “you are still who you were, even if you are no longer the same person”. </p>
<h2>Talking with yourself</h2>
<p>Karl Geary’s 2017 coming-of-age story, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/29/montpelier-parade-karl-geary-review">Montpelier Parade</a>, works in a similar way to Auster’s memoirs – the adult writer addresses a youthful self, adding sage, gently ironic reflections with hindsight: “You were the hero in your dream of saving her.” The irony derives from differing levels of experience and knowledge, but again the reader watches from a distance as the narrator talks to himself.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Montpelier Parade: second person as confession.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In both Auster’s and Geary’s texts, narrators compare themselves to who they were yesterday, as Peterson recommends. What is revealed is an idea of literary selfhood closer to the strong, adaptable second person of the self-help book than we might expect. </p>
<p>By contrast, the most effective second person literary narratives are those which deliberately satirise the self-help text. In Lorrie Moore’s 1985 collection, <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/moore-help.html">Self-Help</a>, the stories The Kid’s Guide to Divorce and How are moving precisely because they show that the second person does not instruct or help in practical ways. All it does is catalogue the sadness, the multiple disappointments of a person’s everyday life: “You will meet another actor. Or maybe it’s the same one. Begin to have an affair.” </p>
<p>Likewise, Mohsin Hamid’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/21/filthy-rich-mohsin-hamid-review">How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia</a> (2013) begins by acknowledging the paradox of self-help books. “You read a self-help book so someone who isn’t yourself can help you, that someone being the author” – and then goes on to admit that “the idea of self in the land of self-help is a slippery one. And slippery can be good”.</p>
<p>Slippery can indeed be good. In fact, the power of Moore’s and Hamid’s stories is their paradoxical nature. They show that individual experience is messy and that it is not amenable to generic recipes for success, and they are more inclusive and universal for doing so. It is easier to relate to a narrator who turns out not to have all the answers – one who, like Hamid, realises that every “you” is different. </p>
<p>Used in such ironic, ambiguous ways, the second person becomes a powerful tool because it reminds us that, as Canadian philosopher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lorraine-Code">Lorraine Code</a> argues, “persons essentially are second persons”. No matter how clear my sense of self, I am always somebody’s other. You may well have found that yourself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Peacock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Have you ever read a novel in the second person? You probably found it strange.James Peacock, Senior Lecturer in English and American Literatures, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/924872018-05-22T10:29:38Z2018-05-22T10:29:38ZAI slaves: the questionable desire shaping our idea of technological progress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219240/original/file-20180516-155558-1tht9g4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Taylor/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From high impact Hollywood dystopic accounts such as the infamous Terminator films to public responses to the story of a burger flipping robot <a href="https://www.livescience.com/61994-flippy-burger-flipping-robot-flops.html">being “fired”</a>, the stories we tell ourselves about AI are important. These narratives have an impact on our conception and development of the technology, as well as expressing elements of our unconscious understanding of AI. Recognising the shaping effect of stories – whether fictional or “news” – is increasingly important as technology advances. How we think about a technology can open up some pathways while closing others down.</p>
<p>A variety of narratives underpin popular conceptions of AI, but one in particular – that of the dynamic between the master and the slave – dominates accounts of AI at the moment. This is so pervasive that it arguably shapes our relationship with this technology.</p>
<p>This narrative has long appeared in science fiction accounts of AI. In 1921, “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/RUR">R.U.R.</a>” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots”), a play by Karel Čapek, introduced us to the “robot” – humanoid androids made of synthetic organic matter – and helped shaped this idea for modern audiences. From the Czech word “<em>robota</em>”, meaning “forced labour” or “serf”, these first robots were consciously stylised as slaves pitted against their human masters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219242/original/file-20180516-155579-1ur6uly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from R.U.R.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capek_play.jpg#/media/File:Capek_play.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And so the uprising of the robots in R.U.R. was obviously influential on our repeating fears of “roboapocalypses”, as seen in other more recent science fiction accounts such as the films of the Terminator franchise, the Matrix, the film Singularity, the novel “Roboapocalyse”, and so on.</p>
<p>But the image of the fabricated servant has roots in much earlier mythological accounts. Think of the golden handmaids of <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HephaistosWorks.html">Hephaestus</a>, the bronze giant <a href="https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Talos/talos.html">Talos</a>, the <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/502537/brazen-heads-curious-legend-behind-fortune-telling-automata">brass oracle heads</a> described in the medieval period, or the protective <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/golem-Jewish-folklore">golem</a> in Jewish mysticism. Its also there in the <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5336-arguing-with-angels.aspx">intelligent angels and demons</a> summoned by magicians in the 16th century, who used the “Enochian” language, a summoning “code” that was thought, if used incorrectly, to have fatal outcomes as the beings would then be uncontrollable. </p>
<p>By the 1920s and 1930s, the “robota” had certainly lost their brass and bronze but were no less lustrous in the adverts of the time. The automated devices of the near future presented in those decades would, they claimed, free the housewives from their drudgery and usher in a golden age of free time. In the 1950s adverts even promised <a href="http://blog.modernmechanix.com/youll-own-slaves-by-1965/">new slaves</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 1863, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. But by 1965, slavery will be back! We’ll all have personal slaves again, only this time we won’t fight a Civil War over them. Slavery will be here to stay. Don’t be alarmed. We mean robot ‘slaves’.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Technological serfs</h2>
<p>Decades on and with new labour saving automated servants every day, nothing has changed. We still expect technology to provide us with serfs. Indeed, we are so used to this form of serfdom that we see it where it does not exist. We presume automation where it is absent.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the following interaction between “Sortabad” and the poor soul just trying to earn his minimum wage:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"835564250483478528"}"></div></p>
<p>The first pizza delivery man brought a pizza to the Queen of Italy, Magherita of Savoy, and this was, even in the late 19th century, a feudalistic moment: a monarch was being served by a serf. The interaction above suggests the continuation of this. The serf role, the relationship between master and slave, is maintained, with humans presumed to be (and perhaps eventually really) replaced by machines.</p>
<p>This is also seen in descriptions and the expected behaviours of contemporary AI assistants, such as <a href="https://futurism.com/google-assistant/">Google Assistant</a>, who “learns about your habits and day-to-day activities and carries out ‘conversation actions’ to serve you”. There are even servant AIs who perform emotional labour, such as Azuma Hikari, the Japanese AI assistant who <a href="https://howwegettonext.com/the-boundaries-of-artificial-emotional-intelligence-aa10583302dc">claims</a> to have missed its master when they are not about.</p>
<p>The hierarchies of power that once mapped on to the pyramid of feudalism in the eras of earlier artificial beings (like angels) now map onto capitalistic systems.</p>
<h2>Capitalist hierarchies</h2>
<p>This seems to contradict the narratives of “disruption” in marketing and PR accounts of AI, where the technology is often described as <a href="https://www.ibm.com/blogs/insights-on-business/insurance/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2017/08/Blog-IA_MachineLearning-Social-Text.jpg">revolutionising</a> not only our work lives, but also <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/will-capitalism-survive-the-robot-revolution/">capitalism itself</a>.</p>
<p>Capitalists peddling this narrative should take heed. Previous forms of it left space for and even encouraged rebellion. And so does this modern version. Perpetuated through capitalism’s branding of AI as the disruption of your work and drudgery, this framing still leads into fears around rebellion because we understand servitude as antithetical to minds. The presumption is for many that with AI we are working towards minds – and that they will want to be free.</p>
<p>In the thought experiment space of science fiction we see this tension being worked out again and again, where humans mostly lose as the new AI minds break free. And so in the real world, which owes a lot to the influence of science fiction on our aspirations and designs for AI, two very different paths seem to lie ahead of us: the stated aim of working towards smarter and smarter machines, versus peoples’ hopes for better and better slaves.</p>
<p>How this tension will be resolved remains unclear. Some are clear that robots should only ever be slaves, “<a href="http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/%7Ejjb/ftp/Bryson-Slaves-Book09.html">servants that you own</a>”, while others are exploring questions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/samanthas-suffering-why-sex-machines-should-have-rights-too-93964">robot rights</a> already. </p>
<p>Whatever path is eventually taken, paying attention to how we speak about AI is key if we are to understand the decisions we are already making about its future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is based on collaborative research Dr Singler has been doing with the AI Narratives project at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and on her own research at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, both University of Cambridge.</span></em></p>The dynamic between the master and the slave dominates accounts of AI at the moment.Beth Singler, Research Associate, Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/593512017-11-14T02:48:18Z2017-11-14T02:48:18ZThe story of America, as told through diet books<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194210/original/file-20171110-29345-10a635u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Fekner's art warned others of toxins poisoning the planet. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:John_Fekner#/media/File:Jftoxicleft.jpg">Fekner at English Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The South Beach Diet” sold <a href="http://newsroom.nutrisystem.com/nutrisystem-inc-acquires-south-beach-diet-brand-from-sbd-holdings-group-corp/">23 million</a> diet books. Dr. Atkins sold another <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/nyregion/dr-robert-c-atkins-author-controversial-but-best-selling-diet-books-dead-72.html">15 million</a>. Even lesser-known diet books like Christian best-sellers “The Maker’s Diet” regularly sell millions of copies. </p>
<p>This isn’t a new trend. The 1918 diet book “Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories” sold two million copies by 1940 and was published in more than 55 editions. Combined, just these few series could fill every shelf in the Library of Congress and still have a copy left over for every American public library. </p>
<p>Why do we find the stories told by diet books so persuasive? What is it about this near-impossible quest that’s seduced reader after reader over the last century? </p>
<p>Diet books provide the narrative key – not only to our 20th century Western obsession with weight loss, but our culture as a whole. If culture, as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clifford-Geertz">anthropologist Clifford Geertz</a> once put it, is made up of the “stories we tell ourselves about ourselves,” then diet books are troves of these stories, at once wildly democratic and deeply intimate. </p>
<p>I’ve spent the last five years reading hundreds of diet books. As I explain in my upcoming book, <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/diet-and-the-disease-of-civilization/9780813589640">“Diet and the Disease of Civilization</a>,” diet books and nutritional advice offer needed insights into the philosophical debate in America about who we are and how we should live.</p>
<h2>The disease of civilization</h2>
<p>In an echo of Genesis, diet books recount an earlier, Edenic paradise of health. They narrate our fall from grace, then exhort dieters to reform their lifestyles and return to that earlier ideal. They pathologize the relationship between human health and modernity by insisting that we should return to a more “natural” lifestyle. </p>
<p>Take the <a href="http://thepaleodiet.com/">paleo diet</a>. This diet holds up an original Paleolithic paradise as an ideal world, characterized by social equality, effortless health and natural beauty. Today’s world looks grim by comparison.</p>
<p>The paleo diet implies that agriculture brought about mankind’s fall from grace, ripping Paleolithic peoples from their state of nature and introducing civil society and all of its many problems. It promises its <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/12/27/257669972/was-2013-really-the-year-of-the-paleo-diet">three million American followers</a> a chance to recover some of that <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/579270/pdf">original world</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185512/original/file-20170911-1373-u7fb97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Expulsion from the Garden of Eden’ by Thomas Cole depicts the edge between Paradise and a hostile world ravaged by civilization.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts in Boston</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520242401">Devotional diets</a> offer the most obvious example of a fallen society. Christian weight loss plans like <a href="http://theedendiet.com/">the Eden Diet</a> fold the spirit into the larger claim of the diet genre on the whole: namely, that Americans today are fat, sick and sad because our world is out of whack. These books suggest that Western civilization denies human nature and that disease is the inevitable cost of modern life. </p>
<p>All of these stories combine to create a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/06/want-to-lose-weight-put-down-the-diet-book.html">powerful critique of modernity</a>. Our Puritan forefathers decried Americans for failures of spirit. Our diet gurus today rage that our bodies are ill and our willpower weak. Both insist that only individual reform – of spirit or of body – would rescue the health of the body politic. </p>
<h2>The ‘toxins’ of modern life</h2>
<p>In an elegant story of a pure, preindustrial world, detox diets push for a cleaner body and a cleaner environment. </p>
<p>Published since the 1980s, detox diets blame pollution, contamination and the general toxicity of modern life for the rise of obesity and other noncommunicable diseases. These diets include food addiction in the broader drug and alcohol addiction framework. </p>
<p>Detox diets helped introduced <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474358">“toxicity”</a> as a metaphor in public discussions about food, addiction and obesity in the U.S. Today, obesity prevention researchers and alternative food activists blame a <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/food-environment-and-obesity/">“toxic food environment”</a> for food addiction and rising obesity rates. </p>
<p>This concept mediates between <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199857081.001.0001/acprof-9780199857081">conservative arguments for personal responsibility</a> and liberal beliefs in government intervention. Toxicity is the middleman in the relationship between environment and citizen. </p>
<p>Few detox diets pinpoint actual toxic substances like mercury in tuna or specific preservatives in processed foods. Instead, toxic foods or a toxic society are easy scapegoats in a world so tragically saturated with <a href="https://archive.org/stream/fp_Silent_Spring-Rachel_Carson-1962/Silent_Spring-Rachel_Carson-1962_djvu.txt">material toxins like DDT</a>. For dieters, “toxins” are nearly always vague shorthand for all that is wrong with American culture, politics and people. </p>
<p><a href="http://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2016/01/13/pr-diet-lit-johnson-011316/">1984’s “Detox”</a> opened with a sentence typical of the genre: “It is now a fact that harmful substances are everywhere: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fresh vegetables we eat, and the clothes we wear. The environment, once so familiar and trustworthy, is becoming a stranger as toxic chemicals permeate our atmosphere, lakes, oceans, and soil.” The book advised Americans to detoxify their diets and protect themselves from pollution with masks and filters.</p>
<h2>Purify your body… and clean up the world</h2>
<p>Many diet books straddle the political line between diet and manifesto. Rather than accept environmental damage as irrevocable, these books often urge dieters to vote for environmentalist candidates, support organizations like the Sierra Club or, at the very least, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Detox-Diet-Cleaning/dp/1594864845">practice consumer activism.</a> </p>
<p>In 1971, food activist Frances Lappé’s best-selling <a href="http://smallplanet.org/books/diet-small-planet">“Diet for a Small Planet”</a> was at once a political blueprint for a better world and a meal-by-meal diet. Lappé championed environmental vegetarianism and railed against industrial agriculture in the path-breaking book, which has since sold <a href="https://www.smallplanet.org/frances-moore-lappe">three million copies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138312/original/image-20160919-11134-1wu1fo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Life in a Peaceful New World’ illustrates the religious idea of returning to a holy world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">pamphlet, Adrienne Rose Johnson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a way, detox diets use selfishness as a springboard. They rally self-concerned readers not simply to improve their own lives, but to save the world. By <a href="http://pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/voting-with-your-fork/?_r=0">“voting with your fork,”</a> alternative food activists use consumer dollars to promote a vision of whole foods, real small-scale farms and a diverse bounty of unprocessed produce.</p>
<p>This naive, wistful vision has the power to create activists from cynics: Think of the continued relevance of the 1984 “Detox” promise that “By the year 2000, we should all be breathing cleaner air, eating unprocessed and uncontaminated foods, and drinking water that is fit to drink.” </p>
<h2>A vision for the future</h2>
<p>Many diets today respond to anxiety over the coldness of modern life by romanticizing a <a href="https://archive.org/details/lettersonagricul00wash">pioneer past</a>, built on the concept of the agrarian democracy advocated by Thomas Jefferson. This kind of Jeffersonian republicanism advocated for a nation of independent yeoman farmers insulated from city corruption, deeply invested in American soil and, in turn, the American endeavor. </p>
<p>But they also relay more radical food politics into an easy-to-understand set of food philosophies that issue a call to action. They call on us to detoxify our bodies and our nation, curing the sickness of both body and body politic. </p>
<p>These books tell the story of a people who – despite the sometimes unending tragedies of modern life – reject the world-weariness that plagues our cynics and depresses our idealists. Dieters plod along: They are optimists who recognize the hungry, difficult work of everyday life, but still plan to recapture a lost world, perhaps even better than it was before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Rose Bitar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Diet books aren’t just fluff. They offer a powerful insight into who Americans are – and how we wish the world could be.Adrienne Rose Bitar, Postdoctoral associate, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805022017-07-13T09:37:44Z2017-07-13T09:37:44ZFive reasons why Game of Thrones satisfies our needs (apart from all the sex and violence)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176800/original/file-20170704-808-zpc5uo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Atlantic</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Game of Thrones has become something of a TV event over the past six years – the last season <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/06/game-of-thrones-most-popular-sky-series-ever-as-16m-download-show">attracted more than 5m viewers</a> per episode. On the face of it, the attractions are obvious: large helpings of sex and violence, bolstered by a serpentine storyline said to be inspired by the War of the Roses, one of the bloodiest periods of English history.</p>
<p>Yet, I think the series meets deeper, more fundamental human needs than just a romp through the bedrooms and battlefields of author George R. R. Martin’s imagination. With colleagues Luca Visconti of ESCP Europe and Stephanie Feiereisen of Cass Business School, I conducted a series of <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2831991">semi-structured interviews</a> with 55 people from 14 countries to get a more detailed picture of what the psychological needs are that narratives like Game of Thrones satisfy.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/99623579" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>We found five motivations for consuming stories varying from Game of Thrones specifically to other books, documentaries and films, to paintings and frescos, to music and novels. These are: understanding the outer world, understanding the inner world, investigating the outer world, forgetting the inner world and looking after a lonely and suffering self.</p>
<h2>1. Understanding the outer world</h2>
<p>Game of Thrones provides insight into the lives of people in other places in other times, like the Scandinavian vikings (portrayed in the series as the Ironborn from the Iron Islands) as well as Genghis Khan and the Mongols (represented by Daenerys’ time with the horse-obsessed Dothraki). We get a glimpse of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Coast">Slave Coast</a> of Africa with Slavers’ Bay while the various Free Cities in Game of Thrones – Lys, Braavos, Pentos, Norvos, Myr – can be found in our history books as various trading cities of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (Alexandria, Baghdad, Constantinople, and Tyre, for example).</p>
<p>However, the main action in Game of Thrones is inspired, according to Martin, by the Wars of the Roses, which raged from 1455 to 1485 between the English houses of Lancaster and York. That bloody story has been transferred to Game of Thrones where the two main competing houses are known as Lannister and Stark. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176803/original/file-20170704-5302-188fr1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will Arya Stark come into her own in season seven?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Atlantic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Making sense of the world is something all humans need and do. As American scholar Athinodoros Chronis <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1362/026725708X273894">wrote</a>, visitors to places such as the American Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg turn what are essentially commercial tourist sites into personal experiences by comparing what they see and hear with their own prior knowledge, filling in the gaps in their knowledge, and using their imagination to immerse themselves in the story of the past. So it is with Game of Thrones and the Wars of the Roses. We learn that problems of social and financial inequality combined with the mental infirmity and ineffective and weak rule of political leaders can cause conflict, power struggles, and fighting.</p>
<h2>2. Understanding the inner world</h2>
<p>Living through an event or feeling certain emotions does not necessarily make them easily interpretable. People use stories to make sense of individual experiences. For example, some people watch Game of Thrones because they can easily relate to the battle between good and evil being fought chiefly in the individual human heart of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrion_Lannister">Tyrion Lannister</a>, instead of between heroic elves and evil orcs in, say, Lord of the Rings. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177838/original/file-20170712-8283-1qf6ktr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enemies on all sides.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Altantic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, other people particularly enjoy Game of Thrones because they feel a personal stake when another character dies. <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Hodor">Hodor</a>, body servant to young Bran Stark, was not a major character but he was beloved for his gentleness. Though his master would ultimately cause his demise, Hodor stuck with him loyally until death. We all need a Hodor in our lives.</p>
<h2>3. Investigating the outer world</h2>
<p>Different from needing to understand the outer world, needing to investigate it reflects the human need to understand not only our own beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives but to appreciate that other people’s are different from one’s own. A story like Game of Thrones enables viewers not only to interpret their own lives, but also to vicariously navigate other lives that are alien to their own.</p>
<p>Some people take this seriously enough to <a href="http://nationalpost.com/travel/how-game-of-thrones-inspired-tourism-became-a-lucrative-travel-trend/wcm/364a037f-c8cd-4054-9834-3d77261eed27">visit locations</a> from the series such as Dubrovnik in Croatia, whose walls were used for scenes in King’s Landing and the Red Keep. Another popular destination is Ouarzazate in Morocco which stands in for Yunkai on the Game of Thrones’ continent of Essos. Iceland was used to film the Land Beyond the Wall on the Game of Thrones’ continent of Westeros and Northern Ireland provided Castle Black, Vaes Dothrak, Winterfell, and other locations. Travelling to such locations turns Game of Thrones into a personal event that becomes a discovery.</p>
<h2>4. Forgetting the inner world</h2>
<p>Another shared need for narrative is to break away from daily life. Humans cannot escape the need for escapism. As such, Game of Thrones is effective whenever you just do not want to think about your things anymore. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176804/original/file-20170704-30030-17d6s6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Atlantic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The series is an effective way to escape from your problems, or at least, to forget them for a while. Fans even invent great (and weird) <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/16/the_best_and_the_weirdest_of_game_of_thrones_fanfiction/">fan fiction</a> that grants elevation from mundane affairs. Beware though: fan fiction can suit solipsistic indulgence and denial of personal problems. One 39-year-old French woman we interviewed was struggling to overcome her alcoholism. She escaped from her urges by binge-watching horror films, simply replacing one addiction with another. In the end, escapism is about putting your issues aside and keeping them for later. As a result, they do not get resolved.</p>
<h2>5. Looking after a lonely and suffering self</h2>
<p>At other times, people use stories to improve personal resources and heal their suffering selves, including coping with profound sorrow, embarrassment, and guilt. </p>
<p>Game of Thrones can be used for various self-prescribed therapies too. Participants mentioned a wide variety of stories they used for therapy. One 80-year-old Irish woman told us she had used David Copperfield to help her deal with the grief of losing her mother. In Game of Thrones, Arya Stark’s migration to Essos is an example of a way to cope with loneliness – her story is a reminder that there are people out there having it harder than you. </p>
<p>Meanwhile Sansa Stark having Ramsay Bolton’s hound eat him alive offers a fictional revenge to survivors of sexual violence. Or you can use Tyrion as your alter ego, whose similar life events and emotions makes you think you are <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-transportation-into-game-of-thrones-could-have-ugly-results-25523">not to blame</a> for the mess the world is in.</p>
<p>First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans used Game of Thrones in a speech to Google:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is confusing, it’s epic, it’s about good and bad, but it’s not black and white. It’s about challenges … Sort of like society in general today.</p>
</blockquote>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JYRfURVI_TM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Paraphrasing him, Game of Thrones is the perfect metaphor for where we stand as a society. Our time is a challenging time. Winter may be coming but that is an opportunity to show how strong we are because – like the house of Stark – we are best when we are challenged. Stories empower people to self-prescribe narrative therapy. Not only do we know which stories we like – but we also know which narrative we need to escape from reality as well as transform it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom van Laer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s gritty and gripping in equal measure, but the swords and snowstorm narrative also answers a number of basic human needs.Tom van Laer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/779672017-05-23T10:50:19Z2017-05-23T10:50:19ZTime travel: a conversation between a scientist and a literature professor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170160/original/file-20170519-12263-5rt16p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">andrey_l / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Literature professor Simon John James and physicist Richard Bower were both involved in the curating the exhibition, <a href="https://www.dur.ac.uk/palace.green/timemachines/">Time Machines – the past, the future, and how stories take us there</a>. Their conversations quickly revealed to them the many, wildly various, meanings of “time travel”. Here, they discuss how time travelling in literary and scientific terms might, one day, coincide.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Simon John James</strong>: Richard, what does the term “time travel” mean for a physical scientist?</p>
<p><strong>Richard Bower</strong>: Time travel is the basis of modern physics, and, for anyone that looks up at the night sky, an everyday experience. When we view the stars and planets, we see them, not as they are now, but as they were in the past. For the planets this time delay is only a few minutes, but for most of the stars in the night sky, thousands of years. For galaxies, faint smudges of light made up of very distant collections of stars, the delay can be millions or billions of years. By observing the faintest galaxies with the world’s latest telescopes, we can look back through time and watch the whole history of the universe unfold.</p>
<p>But this is not the most satisfying kind of time travel. It allows us only to gaze into the past as remote observers. One of the key challenges for modern physics is to determine whether it is possible to influence the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170523/original/file-20170523-8925-1d5t5pg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looking back in time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roxana Bashyrova/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the key concepts of Einstein’s <a href="http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/specialRT">Theory of Relativity</a> is that objects exist in a long line in 4D spacetime, a unification of time and space. Although all observers agree on the length of the world line that connects two events, they may have different views about whether the events occur simultaneously, or at the same location but at different times, or a mixture of both. For example, while I sit at my desk to eat lunch, then work a little and get up to go home several hours later, a (very) fast-moving observer will see me whizz by eating lunch and immediately getting up to go home. In Einstein’s theory, time and space are mixed together: we cannot think of them separately. It therefore makes best sense to think of myself as always moving along that 4D world-line, travelling into the future at the speed of light.</p>
<p>But is it possible to cheat the safeguards of Einstein’s theory and to travel backwards through time? At face value the answer is no, but then again, the science of earlier generations would have said it was impossible for mankind to fly. Perhaps all scientists need is inspiration and a cunning idea.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170180/original/file-20170519-12242-1wbux9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Time Machine by HG Wells.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artwork by Mike Mahle, courtesy of Rock Paper Books</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>SJJ</strong>: Well, you can find a lot of inspiration and cunning ideas in fantastic fiction, of course. Perhaps the most famous time travel text is <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35">The Time Machine</a> (1895) by HG Wells, which was the first to imagine humans travelling in time through the use of technology. Other of his imaginations have been realised – he <a href="http://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/hgwells2016/category/fantastic-transport/">imagined and wrote</a> about the technology of powered flight before science made it possible in real life, for example. Wells’s innovative idea led to modern time travel stories such as Back to the Future or Doctor Who.</p>
<p>But many different kinds of stories travel in time: Aristotle observed that a good story has a beginning, a middle and an end – but they do not have to be in that order. Even a text as ancient as Homer’s Iliad does not begin with the judgement of Paris, but with Achilles sulking in his tent in the ninth year of the Trojan War, and the story unfolds from there. Whodunnits usually don’t tend to begin with the murder, but with the discovery of the body, and the plot is reconstructed by the detective as the story moves both forwards and backwards. This is the temporal freedom of narrative time.</p>
<p><strong>RB</strong>: What’s freeing in the literary device is for practical time travel the central obstacle. Although Einstein’s theories allow us to stretch and shrink time, the causal ordering of events remains constant. While, in your example, the life of the murder victim might experience their life flashing before their eyes in their dying seconds, the experience of their life will always precede the moment of death. </p>
<p>But in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/">The Terminator</a>, to take one example, the future human civilisation finds a way to loop the protagonist’s world line so that he travels back in time to intercept the cyborg and avert Sarah Connor’s death. In the inner regions of a spinning black hole, <a href="http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/bmendez/html/time.html">space and time are mixed</a> so that this is tantalisingly close to possible, but I’ve never knowingly met anyone that made their way back from the future this way. Perhaps the looped world line cuts off the old future and pops out a new future, creating parallel worlds that exist at the same time. </p>
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<p>From the conventional point of view, there’s rather a lot wrong with the idea of looping back in time. But modern interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest that the world may actually consist of <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/parallel-universe2.htm">many parallel futures</a>, constantly splitting off from one another. All of these futures exist simultaneously, but we are only conscious of one of them. From this viewpoint, there isn’t so much to fear from <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-travel-simulation-resolves-grandfather-paradox/">time travel</a>. The looped world line simply creates another layer of possible futures.</p>
<p><strong>SJJ</strong>: I’m fascinated by time travel’s flexibility as metaphor for talking about many different kinds of academic research. History, archaeology would be obvious examples, but in a recent project I’ve been really inspired by work in the psychology of autobiographical memory. Narrative is not just a property of literary and other kinds of texts: it <a href="http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic565657.files/9/Dennett%20self%20as%20center%20of%20gravity.pdf">has been argued</a> that the human sense of self is constructed from our narrativising of our own experiences within the passing of time: that memory and planning for the future are a kind of “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17963565">mental time travel</a>” which allows us to constitute identity. </p>
<p>Here my literary example is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Scrooge travels back to memories of his past selves, and by so doing is encouraged to change his ways for the better in the future. We could think of the despised, neglected miser of the vision of Christmas Yet to Come, and the beloved happy Scrooge of the novel’s ending as those inhabiting two different “parallel worlds”, perhaps?</p>
<p><strong>RB:</strong> It’s certainly fascinating how literary ideas challenge scientific understanding – perhaps both of those parallel futures might be proved equally real yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Simon John James and Richard Bower chat about differing conceptions of what it is to travel through time.Richard Bower, Professor in Physics, Durham UniversitySimon John James, Professor of Victorian Fiction, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.