The Misuse of Stories
How anecdotes and story telling can be weaponized against us.
This essay might be a bit contentious with many people for many different reasons, so I will lay out my foundational points in this piece before I dig further.
I am going to speak a bit about the recent story of Nex Benedict, whose death unfortunately coincided with their state’s (Oklahoma) ban on gender-inclusive bathrooms. Nex was bullied for being transgender and was attacked in a bathroom, they died not so long after the attack. The cause of death is still up for investigation at the time of my writing this.
Update: The cause of Nex’s death was officially reported to be suicide.
This story is important in the advent of numerous anti-trans bills being proposed in the United States and with a large amount of anti-trans sentiments in the country.
However, it’s important to note how our reliance on stories and anecdotes can often be weaponized against us.
While I am not disputing violence against trans folks or discrimination against them either, I become highly skeptical when we rely on stories of individual instances to make our points.
An example comes to mind…
Remember when the Trump campaign misused a story of a young woman being murdered by an illegal immigrant to support anti-immigrant policies?
That was the story of then-20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts who was brutally stabbed by someone who had an illegal immigration status.
Both Nex and Mollie had terrible horrific deaths and justice should be sought. Still, just as Nex can be the face of issues with hate crimes and transgenderism, Mollie was used as the face of anti-immigrant sentiment.
Does this mean one story is equivalent to the other and I am trying to insinuate leftists are misusing Nex’s story? Well, no I am not.
What I AM saying is we need to be cautious with our reliance on stories for shaping our views and decision-making.
The Power of Storytelling
Psychologists have known about the power of storytelling for a while now.
Stories can have a profound effect on our comprehension, memory, communication, and behavior.
Stories of personal triumph, failure, valor, etc. are super powerful for shaping our understanding of the world.
Stories can persuade us and dissuade us. They can inspire us and demoralize us.
Many marketers know to rely on the power of stories and storytelling to get people to buy their products and services. Books like “StoryBranding” by Jim Signorelli exemplify this point.
Why do you think businesses rely on testimonials more often than not rather than statistics and other forms of data?
It’s easier for the human mind to digest the concepts and points within a story than it is to think in terms of averages and numbers.
While statistics can certainly be persuasive, anecdotes are exceedingly so.
Story themes are powered by our involvement with them. We decide for ourselves what the idea behind the story is and whether or not we agree with it. Truths that are awakened inside of us can create a loud ring.
StoryBranding by Jim Signorelli
Stories can speak to our subjective experiences that cannot be fully captured by quantitative data. Stories speak about the quality and details of our lives.
This is why the weaponization of stories is so dangerous and people often cannot see past their individual stories.
The Problem with Stories
While stories are powerful, their power can be misused in many ways.
One of my favorite podcasts is If Books Could Kill by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri. In one of their episodes, they covered the book “Identity Trap” by Yascha Mounk.
Michael and Peter call to attention that Yascha Mounk’s first anecdote concerning his fear of “identity politics” and “wokeness” is flat-out misconstrued.
Mounk uses the story of Sharyn Briscoe, a Black principal in Georgia who was accused in 2021 of sorting students into Black and white classrooms. Mounk then uses this story (which was taken out of context) to claim that this is part of a wider trend for schools to have “race-segregated affinity groups” yet he provides no data to show that this trend was or is indeed the case.
The attempt by Briscoe to group black students in a predominately white school was possibly to help them thrive in the classroom setting. This is probably based on some of the psychological research that points to possible improved learning environments for minorities when they’re grouped in racial affinity groups.
However, we can point to some research on the contrary. But from reading this story and taking in some of the considerations, it doesn’t seem like Briscoe was some racist bad actor. She seems more like a well-intentioned but misguided principle.
Misguided attempts at creating a better learning environment for black students shouldn’t translate to a moral panic.
This is the problem with anecdotes and stories.
Stories take hold of our understanding of issues and have us mistakenly think the risk of a certain outcome happening is more likely than it is.
We often universalize stories and our own experiences, but they by their nature cannot be universalizable.
What should we use instead of stories?
We must get rid of the false dichotomy between stories and statistics. Stories are important for gauging our understanding of the details of complex issues.
Currently, stories are helping many of us understand the gravity of geopolitical issues like we are seeing in Gaza and the Congo.
Stories are important for bringing these important topics to life and not putting the onus of human life into an equation. Simultaneously, stories can and often are weaponized by others to sell a certain point of view that may or may not be the case.
This is where statistics and data come into the picture.
Statistics help us understand the risks of certain events happening, the average of events, and a broader description of what is most likely going on.
Understanding and appreciating statistics brings into perspective the likelihood that an event or situation is going on.
For example, without statistical data, we cannot tell if the trend of racial affinity groups is even a trend at all.
The fact of the matter is, there are no statistics showing a meaningful rise in this kind of behavior (at least none that I’ve seen), which is why Mounk has to rely on a handful of isolated incidents.
Isolated incidents of poor planning, bad actions, and bad actors do not indicate an overall trend or problem.
This is something I want to especially stress to fellow leftists. While we poke fun at certain tweets or ridiculous claims by right-wingers it’s essential to not universalize or problematize a single incident without reference to a trend of those incidences.
Our anecdotal experience is powerful and can certainly be informative but it should not be the end all be all of our analysis.
Final Thoughts
Stories and statistics aren’t the only methods of inquiry for societal, sociopolitical, or geopolitical issues. We need an analysis rooted in some form of theory.
Theory informs science, all scientific disciples have some form of theory that helps to explain the connection between observations. I will explore the implications of theory in a later post, but for now, accept that relying on stories and statistics is only part of the issue.
Stories are powerful for helping us understand something complex more easily and they help us uncover the details of a situation.
Statistics help us make sense of an event in a broader context and to see overall trends.
However, both stories and statistics are limited.
Stories are limited by their generalizability and universality. Stories (especially our own) are littered with our own biases, fallibilities, and limitations in perception.
Statistics are limited in many methodological and explanatory ways. Sampling, statistical testing, measurement, etc. all limit the application and understanding of statistics.
Statistics cannot help us make sense of the numbers we get unless we have theoretical assumptions.
This is more philosophical but necessary for further discussion.
Nevertheless, fellow leftists need to understand and accept the limitations of stories in particular and not be swayed by one story so easily.