Emotion is powerful currency in the media economy. It drives engagement, which in turn drives ad revenue. News outlets, in their perpetual state of existential and financial crisis, have a vested interest in making us feel viscerally bad about the news.
But negative feelings don't drive civic and social engagement. They're more likely to make us feel stressed, anti-social, and ineffective.
Getting Mad Isn't Civic Engagement
Native American storyteller Dovie Thomason talks about how, at performances and panels, or just in life, people expect her to be aggrieved. The content of her work is often about historical atrocities, so audiences assume the work will have a certain tone.
"When I started telling stories, people couldn't believe that Native people could be funny," she says. "We couldn't be funny because we were just too darn tragic. We were just victims. All the time, people expect me to be angry."
But when Dovie tells a story about a bad thing that happened, it's not with the goal of making her audience feel guilty or angry. It's in the service of collaborating on a better future.
"I'm not a missionary," she says. "That's the key thing. Perhaps because my family and my people have such a long history of colonial assimilation and missionaries and things like that, I'm not here to convince anybody of anything. I end with a question, not an answer." And that question is typically about how we can build a better future.
""I end with a question, not an answer."
— Dovie Thomason
The Past Should Propel, Not Paralyze
In the United States, the rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum is focused on negative messaging. The result is that a lot of people feel stuck. The way to become unstuck, according to storyteller Donna Washington, is simple, if not easy: "You have to tell better stories." That's how progress can occur.
Moving past our least productive emotions (however authentic and heartfelt) about the state of our world doesn't mean avoiding discomfort altogether. "People have to feel uncomfortable," says storyteller Sheila Arnold. "When a kid feels uncomfortable, they make changes in their behavior. The same is true with adults. When you realize what you've done, can you make a change?"