Do Stories Make Us Human?

elijah44

I mean, humans are homo sapiens who evolved from species such as homo habalis and australopithecus afarensis. We define ourselves as humans, a species, a mammal. What makes us “human” is our intelligence, innovation, collective learning, communication, and many other factors. But art is very human, what I think is that art is what shows that we are human it shows our skill, creativity, intelligence, and much more. So yes, it does make us human.

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: What About Stories?

@elijah44
Are you saying stories have little impact?

elijah44

@JulesKorngold, no, stories have a big impact on humanity.

MayCaesar

I am skeptical of this idea. I came to the US not because of some beautiful story about the land of the free, but because I assessed certain objective metrics such as my projected income here, the laws at play here and their diversity, the presence of both gigantic cities and small villages, the beauty and diversity of nature - and decided that this was the place for me. Perhaps my decision was somewhat influenced by certain subconscious biases resulting from my exposure to the American culture beforehand, but I doubt that it was a major factor. In turn, here I act the way I do not because of some story, but because through trial and error I have learned what actions led to positive outcomes and what to negative. Perhaps I frame all of this in terms of a story, but that story is merely a convenient wrapping around my observations, not a force in itself.

This is what makes us human: our ability to look at the facts and make a decision. Stories do the opposite: they turn us into animals acting on feelings and emotions. Stories lead to things like wars and genocides, breed totalitarian governments and ideologies, cause people to fight each other over minor disagreements. If humans focused on objective facts more and on tales of gods and glory less, the world would be a much better place. There would never be wars involving millions of people if no one believed in the story of the greatness of their god, or their nation, or their land, and everyone focused on the impact a war would have on their life. You come to Jerusalem to slaughter infidels and likely die yourself in the process - you do not make anyone's life better, especially not your own.

ZeusAres42

@JulesKorngold

No, humans are what make stories.

Factfinder

ZeusAres42 said:

@JulesKorngold

No, humans are what make stories.

@ZeusAres42

 But are you sure they do not come back on us, thus making humans, at least in a philosophical way? Look at how stories are passed down by folklore. I think if we're all honest with ourselves we'd have to acknowledge we have searched in some way for our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 'Reasonable' explanations why we succeeded or failed don't come till later. Stories, whether they be of the underdog prevailing, or of untold riches to be found, stories do play a vital role in humanity. They do inspire and motivate us to action. That can not be denied.

Barnardot

@Factfinder ;But are you sure they do not come back on us, thus making humans, at least in a philosophical way?

This is quiet right really. If we look at animals all they do is look, derr another animal, hunt, eat like derr. And they see another opposite animal of the same type and its like derr mate, derr love your kids a bit and then the only other ting they do is sleep.. Humans have brains that are to big for our own good so we think about a hole heap of crap most of the time that has very little to do with basic eat sleep and procreate. We have to resort to doing this better like eating fois gras and trying to mate with any thing that takes our fancy and live in expensive condos and sniffing coke off of a Samurai sword. And then of course after we have satisfied our basic needs of knocking off a chick after a meal of fois gras and sleeping in the grand oval bed we want more to stimulate the rest of our brain cells. 

So we turn on Netflix and disappear in to a make believe world of watching David Statham and Keanu Reeves knock off as many baddies they can cram in to the movie. Other wise we would go stark raving bonkers. So what Im saying is that we need to fill the void with some thing so we make up a hole heap of stories to fill that void.

Well it all started a long time a go when they invented religion to keep the masses occupied and.............................blah blah...........

Joeseph

@Barnardot

 have brains that are to big for our own good 


Don't stress it as that's one thing your gene pool will never have to worry about.