Why Stories.

Last week I wrote that President Biden’s reading list would be enriched by novels, memoirs and poetry. The current president has noticeably omitted the arts from public life. It was a lost opportunity to inspire the country. Actress and director Anna Deveare Smith explained the role of the artist in a quote from her acting teacher and vocal coach, Kristen Linklater:

The purpose of growing as a human being must be to look at and listen to the whole human condition with increased understanding and compassion and in the case of the artist, to shed an ever brighter light on the causes of humanity’s more egregious errors.

Works like Deveare Smith’s own Twilight: Los Angeles and Eve Ensler’s In the Body of the World, visceral evocations of pain and anger, have forced us to confront the “egregious errors” of racial and sexual violence.  

But the arts can also heal and elevate. In an appeal for support, Pamela Tatge, the Executive and Artistic Director of Jacob’s Pillow, began by acknowledging the suffering caused by COVID, particularly among those who have lost loved ones, those struggling in a time of social and economic distress and exhausted front-line workers. She continued, however, by saying that “I am certain we need the healing power of the arts now more than ever,” and that we must support artists because “we need them to envision our future on the other side of this crisis.”

But perhaps the greatest reason for the President of the United States to include the arts in his repertoire is what Elie Wiesel wrote about moral decision making:

The great stories are alive. They are moving, not fixed, not static. You can almost hear them breathing, and they enfold you…you are different, you have new thoughts and feelings. This is how moral evolution truly happens, not through natural selection but through stories.

Whether written, performed or visual, stories have the power to move and change us. They have been used to help medical students develop empathy in court mandated programs to help perpetrators of domestic violence understand and change their behavior. We need stories now more than ever.