Letters to Ukraine – 19

What’s the story? Answer: Everything. From fable to corporate strategy, we’re immersed in stories. A skyscraper tells how we learned to mould matter to particular purposes. Our economic systems are stories too, told repeatedly until they seem as inevitable as the sinking of Titanic. Some stories encumber us, perpetuated via systems or ideas that previous generations invested in heavily. Advertisers, politicians and the media understand the value of writing (or rewriting) the story, which often becomes little more than an adult fairy tale. We hear of perpetual economic growth, for example, when we know nothing can expand forever on limited resources. Even facts become stories when selectively quoted or taken out of context. Perhaps, then, our percentage of “reality” is actually quite small? Meanwhile, in this writhing, interconnected ecology of stories, which tales are endangered? In our cities, for instance, who continues the story of a positive relationship with the soil? Just as certain stories have been silenced because of their gender or race, so the radical and alternative stories of today can struggle to be heard. We listen instead to blockbuster films, celebrity gossip… but favouring these same, few fragile storytellers increasingly cram us – materially, psychologically, politically – onto their confidently accelerating, “unsinkable” ship.

© Mario Petrucci, 2012