Category Archives: Narrative

Links and Comments: Secrets of Success, the 2010s, Gibson’s future, History v. Narratives

Posted on Friday 3 January 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Here are a few items from recent papers. 1) Nicholas Kristof: The Four Secrets of Success. Which are: 1. Take a class in economics and in statistics 2. Connect to a cause larger than yourself. 3. Make out. 4. Escape … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Economics, Narrative | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Secrets of Success, the 2010s, Gibson’s future, History v. Narratives

David Brooks on Myths vs. Parables

Posted on Tuesday 17 July 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times columnist David Brooks runs hot and cold with me; ostensibly a conservative, he’s too inclined to dismiss new ideas in favor of sanctified values, for my taste, yet he does read widely and responds to many new … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative, Social Progress | Comments Off on David Brooks on Myths vs. Parables

Links and Comments: Storytelling; Religious Fundamentalism and Fake News; the Attraction of Conspiracy Theories

Posted on Tuesday 15 May 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Time magazine, December 5, 2017, Jeffrey Kluger: How Telling Stories Makes Us Human [S]torytelling is a powerful means of fostering social cooperation and teaching social norms, and it pays valuable dividends to the storytellers themselves, improving their chances of being … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Storytelling; Religious Fundamentalism and Fake News; the Attraction of Conspiracy Theories

Links and Comments: Fake News and the Narrative Bias

Posted on Wednesday 25 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Tuesday’s New York Times Science Section has an article by Benedict Carey called How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media (it was posted several days ago online). Among the endless stories about fake news and books about the human mental … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Fake News and the Narrative Bias

Conservative Story-Telling

Posted on Friday 11 August 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

One of my themes here is about the nature of story-telling, how the human bias to understand things in terms of narrative is more widespread than we recognize, and how that tendency can blind us to an understanding of the … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Bannon’s historical cycles; the Myth of Main Street; Late Bloomers

Posted on Monday 10 April 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Interesting stories and essays from Sunday’s New York Times. Bannon’s Worldview: Dissecting the Message of ‘The Fourth Turning’ A news article about a book that has influence Steve Bannon’s thinking about the world, a book by two amateur historians, that … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Narrative, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Bannon’s historical cycles; the Myth of Main Street; Late Bloomers

Winter Comes to Water As Well As Land: Gene Wolfe’s “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories”

Posted on Tuesday 14 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Gene Wolfe, “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” (1970) (~15 pp) Winter comes to water as well as land, though there are no leaves to fall. The waves that were a bright, hard blue yesterday under a fading … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative, science fiction, Short Fiction | Comments Off on Winter Comes to Water As Well As Land: Gene Wolfe’s “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories”

Founding Father Thomas Paine and the Bible

Posted on Friday 8 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

I haven’t subscribed to Free Inquiry magazine for years, but I picked up the latest issue last week and was fascinated by a piece about Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, whom the modern religious … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Narrative | Comments Off on Founding Father Thomas Paine and the Bible

Links and Comments: Narrative; the Limits of Rationality

Posted on Saturday 23 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

I seem to have not yet mentioned yet another essay about how narrative is taking over the world. James Murdoch (CEO of 21st Century Fox) a couple weeks ago in Time Magazine: Storytelling—both fiction and nonfiction, for good and for … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Narrative; the Limits of Rationality

Links and Comments: Conspiracy Theories, Cognitive Biases; Changing Minds; All Stories

Posted on Friday 8 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on links and comments from this past week. First, a couple book reviews in last Sunday’s NY Times Book Review. First, a review by Adrian Chen of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, by Rob Brotherton. Subtitle: … Continue reading →

Posted in Changing One's Mind, MInd, Narrative | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Conspiracy Theories, Cognitive Biases; Changing Minds; All Stories