Steve Almond covers varied ground throughout Bad Stories but at its core the book is a reckoning with how storytelling plays a decisive role in shaping the world. It isn’t as simple as telling the truth for just as an untrue story can produce a good outcome, a true story can lead to bad consequences. The important task he points out is to recognize that people in pain create the stories they need to help their inner panic settle into a functional calm. How can we acknowledge this reality to shape our stories in ways that produce good outcomes for all?
Literature is one way to help those in need. As Almond notes, literature is how we affirm the importance of other people and their struggles. The understanding granted by an empathic work helps tame their turmoil. Good literature is the opposite of propaganda, the dismissal of our shared humanity through simplification. Modern movements toward totalitarianism are powered by the angry and dislocated who’ve bought into the message that their loneliness and isolation can be blamed on a modern society that has left them behind.
Propaganda doesn’t need to support a repressive regime or dictator. It can simply prop up a status quo by diverting our attention away from the matter. In an era where public buildings are being renamed due merely to the namesake’s association with slavery, the Electoral College remains untouched despite its significant influence in helping slave states account for otherwise uncounted ‘property’ in determining their political influence. It might not be a clear-cut example of Almond’s point that trauma victims sometimes protect rather than acknowledge the abuser but it did make me think about why in a country where so many are horrified by national history there is little interest in correct this particular misstep. I suppose it is like Bad Stories reminds us – the more we hear something, the more we accept it as true, even if it does seem dubious that the system exists merely to ensure Wyoming doesn’t feel left out.
