4 ms·

Storytelling – Mamet’s Conflict Airing Theory

53 points by jger15 5y ago

hirundo 5y ago
> Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama—which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form. Our sundown play/ film/ gossip is the day’s last exercise of that survival mechanism. In it we attempt to discharge any residual perceptive energies in order to sleep. I've often heard dreams described in the same terms, that they are a sort of garbage collection / filing system that orders our day into a comprehensible form. But this is the first time I've made the connection between dreams and to "create or witness drama." When I watch a movie or chat online or play a video game, in a significant way I'm living a waking dream, meta to the essential business of life. But if drama and dreams do overlapping work, do people who engage in drama need less REM sleep? It doesn't seem so. Maybe they need even more, to process the drama. Maybe the additional processing pays off with additional growth. Experiencing a thousand dramas gives one more social insight, flexibility and resilience than otherwise. A thousand dreams could do the same. It's fair to describe fiction, or even art, as technology for sharing dreams.
- spython 5y ago
  I'd expand that storytelling is not only sharing dreams, but also acts in a way as a collective psychotherapy. You let go of the events of the past day and re-align with the hero of the story. Whatever you experienced that day, the hero (mostly) has it worse. The bad guys in stories are punished, or will be punished in the afterlife. The evening sitcoms are so popular exactly because they are safe in their predictability but offer slight variations to cover a variety of topics. At the same time, if the narrative is incomplete or stirs up emotions, it will not let you sleep well and will leave an imprint over time. If the bad guys in the stories are not punished, it remains up to you, the individual, to punish them. If you are born in a society that suffers war and you see that your people were not able to protect themselves, it would feel natural to you as a child to step in and punish the bad guys. If you hear stories of unmitigated injustice carried out against your people, you will find yourself preparing to fight. This is how radicalization works, through stories of unmitigated injustice. This is why echo chambers are so dangerous – they never offer stories of protection and redress for the perceived injustices, but only heighten the sense of danger and defenselessness, up to the point where conspiracy theories begin to seem plausible. This is why we should be mindful of what information and 'news' we consume. And this why we need stories of justice, of 'evil' being punished, now more than ever.
yesenadam 5y ago
Fascinating article, thanks. I've been watching quite a bit of Mamet recently. My favourite so far has been Oleanna (1994)—which certainly airs a conflict! I and the SO thought it's amazing. The story of a university professor and a female student, ..and post-modernism, feminism, and the nature of teaching and the university. Very highly recommended.
Kent45 5y ago
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wombatmobile 5y ago
I found TFA difficult to understand. Can anyone translate this into something simpler or more accessible to non-authors? I don't watch TV or go to the theatre or the movies very often. I do read a lot of books - mostly non-fiction. > A reasonable paraphrase here is that we use survival surplus to reinforce adaptive worldviews that help us survive better. By this theory, if you (like me) tend to consume or produce nihilistic satire in the evenings with your surplus dramaturgical energy, presumably that reinforces a posture that helps you, personally, survive better at other times.
- cgio 5y ago
  You start your day with a balance of drama, open your eyes in the morning with a silent contract with yourself; “this is the amount of drama I can take today”. At the end of the day, if you are lucky, and still alive, you consume the remaining balance, either by making up some sympathetic drama in the form of gossip or by consuming some empathetic drama on Netflix. Only with zero balance can you go to sleep. Only by exhausting your balance can you gradually increase it.
Smith785 5y ago
I definitely enjoy every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff of your blog a must read blog! https://www.mycardstatement.me/ https://www.mycardstatement.me/

53 points by jger15 5y ago

> Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama—which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form. Our sundown play/ film/ gossip is the day’s last exercise of that survival mechanism. In it we attempt to discharge any residual perceptive energies in order to sleep. I've often heard dreams described in the same terms, that they are a sort of garbage collection / filing system that orders our day into a comprehensible form. But this is the first time I've made the connection between dreams and to "create or witness drama." When I watch a movie or chat online or play a video game, in a significant way I'm living a waking dream, meta to the essential business of life. But if drama and dreams do overlapping work, do people who engage in drama need less REM sleep? It doesn't seem so. Maybe they need even more, to process the drama. Maybe the additional processing pays off with additional growth. Experiencing a thousand dramas gives one more social insight, flexibility and resilience than otherwise. A thousand dreams could do the same. It's fair to describe fiction, or even art, as technology for sharing dreams.

spython 5y ago
I'd expand that storytelling is not only sharing dreams, but also acts in a way as a collective psychotherapy. You let go of the events of the past day and re-align with the hero of the story. Whatever you experienced that day, the hero (mostly) has it worse. The bad guys in stories are punished, or will be punished in the afterlife. The evening sitcoms are so popular exactly because they are safe in their predictability but offer slight variations to cover a variety of topics. At the same time, if the narrative is incomplete or stirs up emotions, it will not let you sleep well and will leave an imprint over time. If the bad guys in the stories are not punished, it remains up to you, the individual, to punish them. If you are born in a society that suffers war and you see that your people were not able to protect themselves, it would feel natural to you as a child to step in and punish the bad guys. If you hear stories of unmitigated injustice carried out against your people, you will find yourself preparing to fight. This is how radicalization works, through stories of unmitigated injustice. This is why echo chambers are so dangerous – they never offer stories of protection and redress for the perceived injustices, but only heighten the sense of danger and defenselessness, up to the point where conspiracy theories begin to seem plausible. This is why we should be mindful of what information and 'news' we consume. And this why we need stories of justice, of 'evil' being punished, now more than ever.

yesenadam 5y ago

Fascinating article, thanks. I've been watching quite a bit of Mamet recently. My favourite so far has been Oleanna (1994)—which certainly airs a conflict! I and the SO thought it's amazing. The story of a university professor and a female student, ..and post-modernism, feminism, and the nature of teaching and the university. Very highly recommended.

Kent45 5y ago

WOW! That’s a really cool list! https://www.dgcustomerfirst.page/ https://www.dgcustomerfirst.page/

wombatmobile 5y ago

I found TFA difficult to understand. Can anyone translate this into something simpler or more accessible to non-authors? I don't watch TV or go to the theatre or the movies very often. I do read a lot of books - mostly non-fiction. > A reasonable paraphrase here is that we use survival surplus to reinforce adaptive worldviews that help us survive better. By this theory, if you (like me) tend to consume or produce nihilistic satire in the evenings with your surplus dramaturgical energy, presumably that reinforces a posture that helps you, personally, survive better at other times.

cgio 5y ago
You start your day with a balance of drama, open your eyes in the morning with a silent contract with yourself; “this is the amount of drama I can take today”. At the end of the day, if you are lucky, and still alive, you consume the remaining balance, either by making up some sympathetic drama in the form of gossip or by consuming some empathetic drama on Netflix. Only with zero balance can you go to sleep. Only by exhausting your balance can you gradually increase it.

Smith785 5y ago

I definitely enjoy every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff of your blog a must read blog! https://www.mycardstatement.me/ https://www.mycardstatement.me/