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Forced

Most stories are. At least imposed.

Education

That's what we call 'education', when the most powerful and lasting stories are put in our heads (by our parents). I often tell myself they're not necessarily about me and try to change them, but it's not that easy. Therefor I also wonder about the possibilities of 'story selection'.

I believe in structuralism and semiotics, and for me everything is a text, thus a story. So I guess if life's forced on us, everything else is. And how do you make a selection of that? You don't. You get confronted by things, only you can choose to dismiss some of them you don't like. But still they have a certain effect on you, you can't argue with that. You can hate it, but you can't argue with that.

"The want to make sense of the world."
Little rational animals that we are, we seek to matter, to make a difference, that's the purpose of our myths, the religious systems we create. F.E. the judaic tradition, one that I value very much, with its endless stories and parables. You, Arnon, have a great heritage.

"Aren’t certain stories forced upon us?"

Most certainly, it's their strenght but also their weakness.

Stories

@ Johan Zwaan
"Therefor I also wonder ..."
- Therefore
"(...) most powerful and lasting stories..."
They usually last for about a decade, at least if you're not a total git.
And not being a total git, I just educated myself...

@ Dominika S
"I believe in structuralism and semiotics...(...) everything is a text..."
Well..., if I hit you in the face, the text comes a bit later....
@ Mieke Dutoit
"...rational animals that we are,..."
We're not that rational.
You value some religious tradition very much.
It may be interesting, but I wouldn't put too much value on it.
@ jeanette p.
'...their strenght but also their weakness."
- strength
A story may be 'strong' and at the same time 'weak'?
Sure.
Whatever...
---------------------------------------
Stories may have a great and lasting influence on all of us.
Some stories you will never forget.
And some are 'forced' upon us.
Like fairy tales that were read to you before going to sleep...
And we all make some kind of 'story' of our own lives.
Bit of a moot point really.

@ bert

Well... it would come all blurry for one thing. But what a lesson it would be! Not to mention I would gladly reciprocate ;)

Bert

You can enjoy and admire the richness of myths and stories that go around in every religion without being a believer. Comparing various religious traditions is just one of my fields of interest.

Bert2

I wrote 'little rational' .

These "stories" they're also responsible for a lot of trouble. "Justice" is a story like that, and the feeling of suffering injustice can be very damaging to one’s overall happiness. Instead of accepting a particular setback, it is recognized as an “injustice” (within a certain story of “justice”) that has to be rectified, or payed back, or whatever, and instead of shrugging and saying “shit happens” it could turn into something that harms the individual for excessive periods of time.

Another thing: I think fiction is responsible for making the meaninglessness of life into a problem. Fiction provides us with a model of life (even if the individual authors do not intend to do so, they might see life as the model for fiction), life as having some sort of meaning, and in doing so confuse those subjected to the fiction. The individual asks “Why isn’t life like it is in the movies?” to put it simply. The conscious author of fiction must take this potentially disastrous effect into account, if possible try to educate his public about life being actually meaningless.

Dries

I think that we should enhance the fact that there is always a distance between a story and reality, that stories are a construction made by people. That's something which most religions lack. The fundamentalists wants the stories to be historical correct.
But I think, even a child realises that fairytales aren't realistic, that they are an invention . They don't appreciate those stories less because of it. Life might be meaningless, it still can be fun.

Bert,
You remind me of the dad of Oskar Schell...
I didn´t state stories are strong and weak, I was referring to them being forced upon us.

Dries,
you wrote `I think fiction is responsible for making the meaninglessness of life into a problem.´
Would you say we would be better off without fiction?
If there wasn't fiction the meaningless of life wouldn't be a problem?
I think fiction helps us to create, test and adapt our own story.

@ Dries
I think culture in general makes the meaninglessness of life an issue we feel we have to deal with. I wouldn't necessarily "blame" fiction for that.

@ Mieke
You think religion is not a human construct? As part of culture I think it rather is.

Dominika

Ofcourse I think religion is a human construct. Religions lack the ability to show to people that their stories, myths are invented by people. In most cases they claim that it are revelations from God to the prophet.

Stories etc

@ Mieke Dutoit
"I wrote 'little rational'. "
Yes, so?
"little rational animals" - sorry, but that means: 'little ... animals': 'little' happens to be an adjective dear...meaning 'small animals'...
If you want this word 'little' to refer/apply to 'rational' you will have to rethink your language and use of words!
Or start brushing up your English...
'it' - they (the stories)
---------------------------------------------

"I think that we should enhance the fact that there is always a distance between a story and reality, that stories are a construction made by people. That's something which most religions lack. The fundamentalists wants the stories to be historical correct.
But I think, even a child realises that fairytales aren't realistic, that they are an invention . They don't appreciate those stories less because of it. Life might be meaningless, it still can be fun."

Religions don't have stories?
Jesus, you're really dumb: religions are made up of stories.

"The fundamentalists wants the stories to be historical correct. "....
- fundamentalists wanT .... A fundamentalist wantS...
- to be historicalLY correct.

This statement ('fundamentalists want stories to be historically correct' !?) is a fine example of
what might be called 'perfect/correct bullshit'...
Never mind, let them rant and rave....

@ Dominika S
Bully for you & all power to you as well.

Bert

"You can admire the richness of myths and stories that go around in every religion without being a believer."
Wich part of the sentence didn't you understand?
Maybe you should sharpen your reading skills.

I liked the quote, so I read the article with high hopes. Unfortunately (was that intentional?) the quote is the only interesting thing about the article. The rest is complete and utter BS.

It continues like this:

"But over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged.

That narrative has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so."

Past decades? Christianity used "malevolent narratives" already over a 1000 years ago to convince people to travel thousands of miles to kill muslims. Judaism is itself based on the belief that the jews are the chosen people and some extremist see that as a good enough excuse to go and murder people. Small groups of people have abused religion all through history. This is nothing new.

The illusion of free will

I would suggest that the "conscious say" is largely an illusion. Perhaps the only way to guarantee a "conscious say" is not somehow predictable and thus (pre)determined is to base a choice on, for example, the rolling of dice (see "The Dice Man" by Luke Rhinehart). But then you don't have a "conscious say" but only an influence on the choices determined by a random event. (i.e. what question is decided by rolling the dice.)

Sandy

I hate to tell you this but I’m the only Jew who is chosen.
The claim that there is no Muslim terrorism is as ignorant as the claim that all Muslims are terrorists.

@Sandy I recommend the novel Samarkand by Amin Maalouf. It will change your perspective. But above all, it is a wonderfully poetic book.

Mieke

["You can admire the richness of myths and stories that go around in every religion without being a believer."
Wich part of the sentence didn't you understand?
Maybe you should sharpen your reading skills.]

1. [ - It's 'wHich, wHich, wHich' part..]
2. I didn't discuss that sentence. You can admire anything you like.
3. My reading skills are such that I detect a non-sequitur here...

Yasha

Honey, I once had a strong premonition you would become incredible famous. If I remember correctly it was at the time you were still in the pursuit of an acting career. Apparently even I couldn't grasp the correct meaning of it then.

Incredibly famous

:))

The only Jew who is chosen...

Nacht op de \Kale berg Karel van het Reve

meneer Grunberg,
Zag dat u een groot kenner van \Karel van het Reve bent,
Wist u dat nadat van her Reve het boek de nacht op de Kale berg geschreven had, hij enige jaren achtereen, meest op oudejaars avond, een telefoontje kreeg waarbij de zoons van de dorpsdokter Fock van Coppenaal hem een goed nieuwjaar wesnten??
Trouwens van het Reve heeft om zijn personages een naam te geven, domweg het telefoonboek van Dedemsvaart opengeslagen en daar alle namen uitgehaald, zoals de garaghouder Mars, de bankiet Walchien en nog anderen.
T'' is maar een weetje en was toevallig op het internet naar onze naam er zijn er nog maar vier op deze waereld, te zoeken.
Daar zag ik dat ene Zeniker (hoop dat ik de naam goed spel) die van Het Reve daarover een vraag stelde .
Wel dat was het, wilt u meer weten, u heeft mijn email adres, mijn mobiel nummer is 0651113658.
Vriendelijke groet,
Anton Fock van Coppenaal