thanks for pulling all this info into one place! I chuckled to myself reading the bit on story telling/tellers in the Agta communities.
This line is what felt humorous to me: “are largely correlational and further studies are required to conclusively demonstrate that storytelling performs a causal role in facilitating cooperative behavior.”
I appreciate their thoroughness but.....
Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Are these not blatant & already well documented examples of how story telling is used to organize cooperative behavior at massive scales?
The question that comes to me with this is how do these intact traditional cultures (read as hunter/gatherer) use storytelling differently than the the giant global players? And what can we learn from their methodology that can aid us in organizing ourselves in more sustainable ways?
Thanks for the laugh & the insightful pieces woven together here!
Hey Elden, thanks for reading. I see where you're coming from, but if you read the study, they chose the Agta hunter-gatherer as a way to "replicate" pre-agricultural times before the advent of religion. (They mention that in traditional Agta cosmology there are no moralizing or punishing high-gods.)
"...moralistic high-gods cannot be the original form of norm enforcing fiction in human societies, as phylogenetic reconstructions suggest that they only emerged after increased political complexity associated with agricultural expansion. Furthermore, hunter-gatherers display widespread cooperation... and, despite being inveterate storytellers mostly lack the belief in moralistic high-gods"
I actually think the whole premise of this study is to start the conversation around the questions you asked at the end. They even share some examples of the types of stories the Agta share amongst each other, that differ from the stories of religion.
Thank you for this reply & the reminder that consuming only “bites” often results in a lack of context.
My feeling about the idea of needing to further prove the causal relationship between storytelling & group cooperation didn’t change in reading through the study.
I found the content interesting & appreciate the effort being made to perpetuate dialogue about the importance of story telling as a developmental technology for human collaboration.
I also had sadness as I read.
I imagine that the folks doing the study had rich interactions with the Agta people. The focus on empirical data feels like it lacks this richness in transcription.
I suppose I’m communicating here from a bias in that I want to read/hear the deeper relational understanding of stories from those telling them more so than the proverbial disembodied magnifying glass I associate with empirical research.
I haven’t taken the time to watch the video on the human body as an open system. I’m looking forward to checking it out!
Anyway thanks again for putting this info together & thank you for engaging my response. I’m really enjoying the content you’re bringing forward & relish the opportunity to dialogue with you.
PS if you’re as fascinated with story telling as I am I highly recommend checking out the work of Clarissa Pinkola Estes (maybe you’re familiar with Her already?) https://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com
thanks for pulling all this info into one place! I chuckled to myself reading the bit on story telling/tellers in the Agta communities.
This line is what felt humorous to me: “are largely correlational and further studies are required to conclusively demonstrate that storytelling performs a causal role in facilitating cooperative behavior.”
I appreciate their thoroughness but.....
Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Are these not blatant & already well documented examples of how story telling is used to organize cooperative behavior at massive scales?
The question that comes to me with this is how do these intact traditional cultures (read as hunter/gatherer) use storytelling differently than the the giant global players? And what can we learn from their methodology that can aid us in organizing ourselves in more sustainable ways?
Thanks for the laugh & the insightful pieces woven together here!
Hey Elden, thanks for reading. I see where you're coming from, but if you read the study, they chose the Agta hunter-gatherer as a way to "replicate" pre-agricultural times before the advent of religion. (They mention that in traditional Agta cosmology there are no moralizing or punishing high-gods.)
"...moralistic high-gods cannot be the original form of norm enforcing fiction in human societies, as phylogenetic reconstructions suggest that they only emerged after increased political complexity associated with agricultural expansion. Furthermore, hunter-gatherers display widespread cooperation... and, despite being inveterate storytellers mostly lack the belief in moralistic high-gods"
I actually think the whole premise of this study is to start the conversation around the questions you asked at the end. They even share some examples of the types of stories the Agta share amongst each other, that differ from the stories of religion.
Here's the link to the study, itself. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02036-8.pdf
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Thank you for this reply & the reminder that consuming only “bites” often results in a lack of context.
My feeling about the idea of needing to further prove the causal relationship between storytelling & group cooperation didn’t change in reading through the study.
I found the content interesting & appreciate the effort being made to perpetuate dialogue about the importance of story telling as a developmental technology for human collaboration.
I also had sadness as I read.
I imagine that the folks doing the study had rich interactions with the Agta people. The focus on empirical data feels like it lacks this richness in transcription.
I suppose I’m communicating here from a bias in that I want to read/hear the deeper relational understanding of stories from those telling them more so than the proverbial disembodied magnifying glass I associate with empirical research.
I haven’t taken the time to watch the video on the human body as an open system. I’m looking forward to checking it out!
Anyway thanks again for putting this info together & thank you for engaging my response. I’m really enjoying the content you’re bringing forward & relish the opportunity to dialogue with you.
PS if you’re as fascinated with story telling as I am I highly recommend checking out the work of Clarissa Pinkola Estes (maybe you’re familiar with Her already?) https://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com