The Gothschall book was an amazing read and even better experience after the first FAMS class.  The title, ” The storytelling animal how stories make us human” could not have been a better title as over the course Gottschall proved his humanity with his storytelling ability perverting everyday experiences and making them into extravagant experiences. All the while, approaching the very anthropological  theme of storytelling and mythmaking in su ch an interdisciplinary manner all the while making it extremely entertaining and thought provoking. When bringing into the argument the likes of schizophrenics, epileptics, and other forms of mental disorders often othered as social deviants as they come to be seen as mentally dysfunctional, seem to me to be hyper-functional human beings. Their minds allow them to navigate to “Neverland” and never return which seems to be the point of human existence, at least in optimal experience. This is why Peter Pan isn’t seen negatively rather children love him and adults envy his experience. Another thing it forced me to think about (which I often find myself doing due to my major) is analyzing how much we undervalue the oral narrative. While time has indeed transformed the concept of technology and reading has been made available (mass literacy and whatnot) , oral narratives have become somewhat extinct in the social interactive setting and there roles in  history have been belittled. Ironically conservative academia is at the basis of this as it has a lot to do with the belittling of Eastern and continental African culture as primitive so it works better to the maintenance of the status quo to enforce a firm distrust of the storyteller. This alludes to my next point, there is an immense amount of power in storytelling, i’ll give two examples, one from the book and one from personal thought.  The first being that of the Hitler story where he was influenced by Wagner, this is a clear example where the wrong story falls into the wrong hands, where a story of nation-building and purity was resurrected in the form of mass mayhem and the genocide of several ethnic groups. Even within the story of the Holocaust you can see the reception of the news of this mass genocide in conjunction was distorted across the globe as it is replicated time and time again it is portrayed as the Jewish Holocaust when so many other ethnicities were decimated as well.

Political violence is often diluted, censoring the peoples from the harsh realities of the truth. History is thus storytelling . Storytelling is intrinsic to nation-building.

-Remember the Alamo

-The American Dream

-Our Last Night’s Dream

-Manifest Destiny

The second scenario is under the realm of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, no need to explain it here as everyone knows what exactly happened as a result of the trade. However, American textbooks try to dilute its harsh realities and everlasting impact by in some cases not even addressing it. Storytelling is thus manifested in everything constructed about us, if there is one universal truth of humans is that we lie to cover our own. It’s evident in the political processes, in the idea of the American ethos “land of the free, home of the brave”, its evident in self-reflections, college essays etc its a mechanism to unite, create conflict, engage and entertain.