… including novels, it seems:
WHY does storytelling endure across time and cultures? Perhaps the answer lies in our evolutionary roots. A study of the way that people respond to Victorian literature hints that novels act as a social glue, reinforcing the types of behaviour that benefit society.
Literature “could continually condition society so that we fight against base impulses and work in a cooperative way”, says Jonathan Gottschall of Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania.
And you thought you were reading them just because they were good stories! Sorry kids, we’re all part of the herd.
It is interesting though, that the novel became a prominent form of writing during the industrial revolution, a time of great social upheaval. So maybe there is something in the theory after all. But if it is a reasonable theory, what do today’s declining fiction sales and the rise of non-fiction say about social evolution?
