Stories.....

I was at the public library where I work over the summer. I help with the summer reading program and with the various activities. It's fun. We were having a post-holiday dinner where all the volunteers, library staff, and board get together for some food, trivia, and shoulder rubbing.

That got me thinking to the other day in school when I heard a student talking about Ayn Rand's philosophy. He wasn't talking philosophy per se – he was talking about her books: Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and others. He was relating her philosophy by the stores she wrote.

If there is one brilliant thing that she did – and I use that term very generously – it was that she never really wrote her philosophy down directly. She wrote it out in stories that people could remember.

I hear the same things with the Christians and holy rollers in my school. They don't talk about the outright idea that they are promoting. They talk about the story from the Bible.

People remember stories the brain and memory is hard wired for it. It all helps and works together.

And what do we socialists have? Theories that explain everything. I am asked about how I see various news events as a socialist and I can give them a pretty decent interpretation (in my own mind)of what happened and why.

They don't really remember that too well.

But they can tell you the latest Hollywood news with ease because of the story.

Are we missing something here?

I have students that really like Ender's Game and think that our society should be run like that. It would be better in their eyes. Things would work better to them.

That is until I tell them that the underlying philosophy of the novel series is fascism. But they enjoy the stories and I see the books floating off the shelf and students saying how great they are.

On the right side of the blog I have a good number of resources that socialists can use to help build up their understanding of socialism and help them interpret what is going on and how to formulate a plan to get to where we want to be. To me that's great.

I have no stories that relate socialism to people in a way that they can relate to it and remember it.

The Jungle is great about the conditions in the factories and in the food industry. Should I have it up there?

It's only one book and on a slim slice of what we as socialists believe and want to do.

What other books should I have up there?

Classics that relay and relate our ideas?

Are there new books that we need to have on that list?

What of movies?

What stories can we use to help advocate for our position?

That people can relate to and remember?

I think it will help us grow as an organization.

I'm open to suggestions.