Story as light, story as glue, story as web: Ella Saltmarche on the ways tales can help us see and fix systems
Very clear and thorough essay from 2018 from Ella Saltmarche (one of The Point People) - which we’re happy to unearth, as a tool for your toolbox. It’s on the uses of story-telling to change the systems that surround us and that we’re embedded in (sometimes without knowning) - be they economic, political or organisational.
As she opens:
In Liverpool, an exhausted homeless shelter worker puts her head in her hands at the end of another long day. The system she works in is failing the people it is supposed to serve, and she feels powerless to change it.
In Qatar, a group of migrant workers toil under a blazing sun, building the new stadium for the World Cup. Soon they will return to a filthy, overcrowded labor camp for a few hours rest. Subjected to forced labor, they are dying in record numbers.
In Singapore, a group of scientists, policymakers, and NGOs try to understand how to build a resilient agricultural system. They struggle to agree on anything.
Each of these bleak scenarios illustrates the role of story in changing a system. Stories make, prop up, and bring down systems. Stories shape how we understand the world, our place in it, and our ability to change it.
Humans have always used stories to make sense out of our chaotic world. When our ancestors had to kill animals they felt were kindred spirits to survive, they created myths to help them come to terms with it. When they invented agriculture, they created myths that glorified graft and highlighted the seasonal nature of existence.
When they began to settle, humans created myths imbuing cities with transcendence. As Yuval Noah Harari describes in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, story went on to play a vital role in building all subsequent civilizations.
Fast-forward to the volatile times we live in today, where people increasingly recognize that tackling problems like climate change, inequality, and health care requires a systems approach. The work of systems change involves seeing systemically—looking at the elements, interconnections, and wider purposes of systems—and acting systemically. Story plays a vital role in helping us do both of these things.
Story has many different qualities that make it useful for the work of systems change. It’s a direct route to our emotions, and therefore important to decision-making. It creates meaning out of patterns. It coheres communities. It engenders empathy across difference. It enables the possible to feel probable in ways our rational minds can’t comprehend. When it comes to changing the values, mindsets, rules, and goals of a system, story is foundational.
Ella’s breakdown of story’s functions for system change are briefly outlined here - but make sure you go to the Stanford article for a wealth of practical examples embedded into her prose. We’ll also include some of Ella’s very well chosen cultural quotations below:
Story As Light
ES: “Story helps illuminate the past, present, and future, thus lighting up the paths of change. Specifically, it:
Highlights the fault lines in a system and makes visceral cases for change.
Illuminates outliers and builds a cohering narrative around their work.
Shines a light on visions of the future that change the way people act in the present.”
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
—William Shakespeare
“The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
—William Gibson
Story As Glue
ES: “Story is also a tool for building community through empathy and coherence. It enables people to connect across difference and to generate narratives that hold together groups, organizations, and movements”.
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say—and to feel—‘yes, that is the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.’”
—John Steinbeck
Story As Web
EM: “Finally, we can use story to reauthor the web of narratives we live in. Specifically, we can use it to:
Change the personal narratives we have about our lives.
Change the cultural narratives that frame the issues we advocate for.
Change the mythic narratives that influence our worldview.”
“If you’re born into that situation, the nature of the trap is with your not even knowing it, acquiescing. You’ve been taught that you’re inferior so you act as though you’re inferior. And on the level that is very difficult to get at, you really believe it. And, of course, all the things you do to prove you’re not inferior only really prove you are. They boomerang … You’re playing the game according to somebody else’s rules, and you can’t win until you understand the rules and step out of that particular game, which is not, after all, worth playing.”
—James Baldwin
More (much more) here (from 2018)