Where are the stories?

Column Journalists should take back the
Becoming the storyteller of the tribe: Illuminate circumstances, the
collective project and sing the praises of tomorrow.
Night of death at Rüedisüeli. "It's time," says Master Reaper, as
it is appropriate. R. sees it differently, flatters, keeps his soul
feil (he knows the classics), negotiates. In the morning he has a
postponement. The only condition: He must never tell anyone what
he has seen, experienced and heard. A good deal, thinks R., what should
be bad about only looking forward - and by the way
to keep your mouth shut?

A few dreadful weeks later, his wife and friends
In the office, he is regarded as a bizarre oddball, even capable of running amok,
the neighbors slam doors - Rüedisüeli is out of all
fell in love with the context. His boss had initially suspected burnout:
"You were my best strength. What has changed you so much?" Too bad,
that Rüedisüeli's answer ("Everything will be better again tomorrow") is so meager
failed.

The little fairy tale, you can guess my bad intention, stands for the state of
of our society. We have forgotten how to tell stories. Happy
One philosopher called it amnesia, with a view to the
mass murderous 20th century. Certainly, but the crux of the matter
is beautiful forgetting: Only if we constantly tell each other, we create
common perception. Only the understanding of what was
reality. We have no other tool. Telling
we categorize, structure meaning and time, give ourselves duration and
Perspective. All art is narration, civilization is narration,
Society is narration. Societies that no longer
tell, disintegrate.

Somehow this elementary insight, which has been with us for a few thousand years
long taken for granted as the basis of human activity
came. The Sumerians had the Gilgamesh epic, the Greeks had myths,
the modern era its great history of discoveries - we have "Gala"
(or "The Magazine"). The joy stick in one hand, the career club in the other.
With the other hand, we journalists drive the conditions of every
context - and the words their meaning.

Chattering, we destroy distinction. We find ourselves, like Sartre
suspected, "in the midst of the catastrophe of the equivalence of all names
again and are still forced to speak..." Only what?
We can barely grasp reality. We no longer create a world. Meaning,
It doesn't last, let alone hope. A young friend sums it up like this:
"We have no past. The present is a point. And the
The future is racing towards me."

The state of this loss, beyond all cultural pessimism, is shown by
a double phenomenon. The appetite for history has never been so great
like today. Find historical novels, special editions, historical episodes
brisk sales. A futile effort: in the ambient amnesia
apparently not even fascism or the 6-Day War can be remembered anymore.
to our reality. All the more rampant these days
Storytelling (dramaturgy, creative writing, fictionalization of
reality). No university, no advertiser, no
Management consulting without storytelling. For the time being, storytelling means
as usually just a tool to better capture readers or customers.

No matter: this sudden and mass realization that behind the
episode could be a story, raises the question of how we can
narrative again. The question contains part of the
Answer: The stories that have already been told contain the narrative
Patterns that help us find a new concept of reality
and public spirit. This is more than the old rule, the future
is read in the past, more also as a story technique: From
Myths, theater patterns, history, folk tales, Hollywood and
Literature can be used as an instrument to analyze our reality.
in a new and dense way.

The journalist would then once again be the storyteller of the tribe,
that sheds light on the circumstances, recalls the collective project and
Singing about tomorrow. Media ecology in the best sense of the word. But in times of advanced
capitalist utilization of base instincts and excitement also
a rather subversive undertaking.   

Oliver Fahrni is a freelance journalist, was deputy editor-in-chief of Weltwoche until 2001 and most recently foreign editor of the Hamburger Woche.