Storytelling and the Human Condition

by Alexandra Hudson

Lenght: 6 hours 20 minutes

The stories we tell ourselves are central to how we engage with the world around us. Stories help us make sense of the world, tell us who we are and why we’re here, and define our purpose for existence. Stories empower us to learn from the experiences, successes, and failures of others, and can guide us as we make difficult choices in our own lives. They can entertain us; instruct us; and, above all, connect us—to the world, to people in other times and places, to each other, and to our innermost selves. Stories remind us of the remarkable constancy in human nature and the human experience, while simultaneously helping us to learn and grow.

We are perpetually interested in questions related to the human condition: What does it mean to be human? Why are we here? What is the best way to live? These stories comprise

“The Great Conversation”—the iterative dialogue between thoughtful people across time and place about questions of origin, purpose, and destiny. Studying stories from The Great Conversation across media, across history, and across culture allows us insight into how people have answered these questions for themselves. Doing so helps us become better able to understand who we are and how we can live life richly and, well, in the here and now.

To examine the connection between the storytelling impulse and our implicit desire to understand our lives and our place in the world, you will go on a globe-spanning, time-travelling, media-traversing tour in the 12 lectures of Storytelling and the Human Condition. Your guide is award-winning journalist, author, and storyteller Alexandra Hudson, founder of Civic Renaissance, a community of lifelong learners, which she invites you to join at. In this course, she will illuminate the many ways stories shape our lives throughout history and across cultures.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing

Audiobook

Published February 24, 2023

About the author

ALEXANDRA HUDSON is a writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition, now available for streaming. She lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and children.

Reviews

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

gave me a lot of food for thought, which I guess is the point :)

These are my half-hearted notes:
- Every story and work of art is a part of the Great Conversation—the iterative dialogue among great minds throughout history about important questions related to the universe and the human condition.
- vita contemplativa vs active -> “contemplative life,” vs “active life,” (labor, work, action) neither is better than the other—both part of what it means to be human.
- ideas are for the mind, stories are for the heart
- physical needs vs intellectual needs
- philosophy and stories interact throughout human history: Homer <- Socrates
- Greatness in knowing one is wretched
- the world is there for humans to protect and nurture; stewardship, responsibility
- humans are sometimes content with answers that defy, and circumvent reason.
~ why is suffering the price we have to pay for knowledge when learning and curiosity are two of the most human qualities
- suffering shatters the ego and the myth of our own invincibility -> suffering cultivates our humanity and our empathy
- suffering is not necessarily linked to causality, causal vs orthogonal
- moralising tragedy makes that tragedy worse --> suffering is endemic to the human condition
- a society is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable (with dignity and autonomy) -> that is what makes a society civilised or barbaric; civilisation is a fragile thing
- displacement of guilt and shame to avoid accountability and our problems
-different types of truth: evidentiary, mythic and moral -> last two found through stories -> stories are fiction in the service of non-fictional truth (maxims, parables)
- we begin to learn when we begin to live
- the idea of "disordered loves", i.e. to love in the right or wrong (in excess or lack) proportions leading to suffering. Priorities are out of order, wrongly ordered loves, e.g., love for the material is bigger than love for familial or friend relationships.
-Said of Abelard about Eloise: "all his passion was lost in his passion for her"/ "wrote verses to soothe his passions"
- epimythium : A moral appended to the end of a story; an aftertale.
- soothing of appetites -> modern casual love; we are trapped and hindered by our bodies; we mistakenly elevate the flesh over the soul
- when we make gods out of human beings we're bound to get disappointed; we crush affection with the weight of our expectations & disillusionment; no human relationship can bear the burden of god(hood)
-> We elevate our beloved to godhood to rid ourselves of our faults and give significance to our existence
- modern relationships are commodified through the lens of self-interest
- "Wanting never ends"
- we displace the meaning of love for love of things and ourselves -> a love in servitude of things (materialism)
- being disconnected from evil makes it easier to commit said evil (e.g. Nazis and concentration camps)
- "A person with a strong 'why' can endure any 'how'"

[meg b · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is technically a course but it’s basically a book. Really enjoyed this!

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Storytelling and the Human Condition by Alexandra Hudson is an enjoyable survey into the material. I enjoyed the forays into different stories and how they related to a theme of what it means to be human. Hudson does a good job in this course, as she has a way of making a small course feel substantive. She takes seriously the quest to use art and philosophy to tell a convincing story. The content is good, Hudson runs the gamut of classical philosophy to contemporary literature and television, relating everything to a common theme. She engages with multiple perspectives and does well. She reminds me a bit of Rufus Fears, though still in the early phase of developing her role as a storyteller and educator. I look forward to seeing what she'll do with meatier material when she's in a few years.

If there are two criticisms I have, it is that there is little effort to connect the realm of art to the physical nature of human beings. Every now and then i look into human cognition and the ways in which we use stories for explanatory power. Its built into us. I thought there could have been more of that here, rather than just taking it for granted as a starting point. The second complaint is her reference to her website. While there is a free component, it is something you're expected to pay for. I didn't buy this course to listen to an ad to buy a membership to another community. She doesn't do it a lot, but it is noticeable. As for the content warning, I'd encourage the teaching company to do it once at the start of the course. Having it every 20-30 minutes was tiresome, especially given how tame most of the content is.

[Alberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weak. And the trigger warnings at the start of each lecture were ridiculous.

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

With intellectual strength only suited for a third grader in a Sunday school.