Week 6 Lab: TED Talk Videos

Photo of TED Stage Logo with Julie Freeman Altered by Juliana Rotich. Source.

This week I decided to complete the Story Lab: TED Talk option.

The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Source.

When I watched Adichie's TED Talk, I was struck by how she began by introducing herself as a storyteller. Adichie explains how she wrote stories like the ones she read, including cultural differences she did not understand. She only read British and American books, and as a result, she had a single story of what made up a book.

This anecdote made me understand part of why this TED talk was picked out of the hundreds of other TED talks to view for this class.

In this class, we will read stories from all over the world. The exposure to other stories helps dissolve the single-story, which in turn prevents a lot of harm. Adichie mentions that a single-story is not necessarily incorrect, but it is incomplete. It is when we refuse to acknowledge any other story that we alienate other cultural groups as "different and "wrong" rather than noticing our similarities.

This highlight on differences is where I believe the most harm from a single story comes in. As shown in history, when one group meets another, there are cultural differences. Unfortunately, multiple groups have been stripped of their cultural identity and forced to assimilate with European culture (see the 1892 speech made by Capt. Richard H. Pratt's "Kill the Indian, and Save the Man." Source.). Westerners had a single story of what was proper and correct in many things. As a result, they did not try to understand the cultures they eventually repressed and instead simplified them as wrong and Devil-worshipping.

Imaginary friends and real-world consequences by Jennifer Barnes. Source.

I am an avid fan of multiple fictional universes. I buy merchandise, spend hours watching, reading, drawing, etc. to interact with my favorite characters. I've yelled at the TV when someone in the fictional multiverse doesn't go right for a character. When a character I love died, I could cry buckets and buckets or flat out deny canon. I'll well aware of what a parasocial relationship is. Before I watched Barnes' TED talk, I already knew first-hand why we care about fictional characters.

Something that she made me consider though was the blend our subconscious makes between fiction and reality. If we can subconsciously believe fictional universes as real, perceive actual events as fiction? In the case of fictional characters, we know they aren't real, but we still feel close to them. By contrast, we can treat real events as stories and put them away in our minds like a book on a shelf.

Barnes mentioned that we view fictional characters as part of our social circle. And like real friends, fictional characters provide comfort and grief and all the emotions in-between. I want to expand on this idea with real-world events. By treating them as fiction, we protect ourselves from going insane over every horrible thing in the world.

Sometimes this denial is on a subconscious level where we understand it is real without the emotions. However, sometimes would this expand to flat out denying that the horrible event happened? In either case, how would that affect our empathy? I suggest we become more apathetic. To counteract his effect, we must be careful not to ignore what real people go through when we do not experience their suffering ourselves.