Why are stories important?
Wall Street may (or may not) need new storytelling. But we do as a society.
Capital Thinking • Issue #1087 • View online
“If all you offer is money, all you get are mercenaries,”
-Frederik Gieschen
Does the World Need New Storytelling?
Valerie Maltoni | Conversation Agent:
Incentives shape behavior. Wall Street may indeed need new storytelling.#
Michael Lewis says the system is stale and needs a breath of new imagination. When a story gets stale, the business attached to it is stuck.
Perhaps Wall Street’s story is stale. But “the game of markets is as interesting, challenging, and alive as it has ever been.”
The “work has become more challenging and interesting because the world is more complex and the game much more competitive.”Perhaps it’s the whole narrative that is stale.
Replace “new alpha factories” with new super-heroes, and you have society’s dilemma—the persistent focus on exceptions, the one person, the perfect individual—and you see how we’re stuck.
Because the world is indeed more complex, and we could have more interesting questions to explore.
Slaying the myth of a solitary hero
Can we retire the myth of a solitary hero already?
To Gieschen’s:
Just consider the hubris of anyone setting out to test their wit and will against the market’s collective wisdom. Imagine the odyssey of their career as they set sail. Put yourself on the deck of their vessel as they steer through storms in search of treasure. Contemplate the many ships they watched sink to the bottom of the sea. There is no way their adventure won’t spawn good stories.
I say hubris, wit and will are weak prompts. Willpower may have become the thing that distinguishes us from each other, as Kelly McGonigal says,
People who have better control of their attention, emotions, and actions are better off almost any way you look at it. They are happier and healthier. Their relationships are more satisfying and last longer. They make more money and go further in their careers. They are better able to manage stress, deal with conflict, and overcome adversity. They even live longer.
But this area of your brain is the smallest and has evolved more recently. Which is why “Organized common (or uncommon) sense — very basic knowledge — is an enormously powerful tool.”
While the capacity for creative thought and quick understanding is useful, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett counsel to go beyond that.
The market’s collective wisdom is indeed a powerful force, and it’s presumptuous to think oneself better.
Collective contribution, team effort is how’s it was done even in Ulysses’ time. Were it not for his ship mates to tie him to the mast, the Greek hero would have followed the sirens’ song to his demise.
This is what I call the paradox of our age. Each generation stands on the shoulders of the previous one.
The metaphor of “dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants” (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) expresses the meaning of “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries.”
Its most familiar expression in English is found in a 1676 letter of Isaac Newton#:
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
In modern times, Stephen Hawkins’ On the Shoulders of Giants is a curated collection of the “momentous discoveries that changed our perception of the world with this first-ever compilation of seven classic works on physics and astronomy.” It shows how each scientist built upon the work of his predecessors.
Even Marvel got there with Avengers. But the series, though an improvement on the single hero, is still promoting the myth of a few, chosen ones, over the rest of society.
What does new storytelling look like?
Wall Street may (or may not) need new storytelling. But we do as a society.
- Feature photo credit: Rain Bennett on Unsplash