The New Campfire Stories
For thousands of years humans have sat around camp fires and told stories.
In this glowing, flickering light elders of the tribe told stories that were passed down to them as they sat around similar camp fires when they were young. These stories were passed down this way from generation to generation for hundreds and even thousands of years.
Sometimes new stories were added in – stories of a hunt or a battle, a fond memory, a cautionary tale, or a story that would make everyone roll with laughter; even though they might have heard it told a dozen times.
Something special was happening in these moments. It wasn’t just a way to pass the time in a low-tech world. As communities of people gathered around the flickering light and told stories, culture was being formed, values shaped, bonds strengthened, history remembered, judgment and wisdom grown in the young and honed in the not-so-young.
Campfire stories were the wellspring of life, community, and identity for nearly all of human existence.
All of a sudden – in the historical sense – we don’t do this anymore. At least we think we don’t.
In reality, this deeply ingrained and shaping tradition lives on. We simply gather around a different glowing, flickering light to learn who we are, what is important, how to navigate life well, to gain wisdom, to learn values, and to remember history.
This new campfire is, of course our screens.
Often we think it is “just” entertainment or “just” a distraction or even “just” information, but it is far more than that, far more powerful than that – and always has been.
As we gather around these flickering lights with our communities, our families, or in isolation our very being is being shaped. The narratives we take in by the glowing light shape our identity, our sense of place in the world, our understanding of history and how life works, our values, our culture, and how we relate to others.
We minimize and disregard this timeless power at our own peril. Campfire stories – old and new – are a shaping power in our lives – for good or for bad – whether we acknowledge them or not.
The power of life and culture shaping storytelling that was once the honored role of our community elders has now been outsourced for decades to mass media conglomerates, big corporations, and big tech firms.
What effect is this having? How is this shaping and changing us?
How is an hours-long, daily, year-after-year diet of video games shaping the life and being of your children or spouse? How is a constant diet of “your regularly scheduled programming” from Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN shaping your attitude, perspective, and understanding of how life works? How does a lifetime of movies and sitcoms shape your values, your sense of what is normal, good, and wise?
What are the values, beliefs, and agendas of these new community elders? Are they wise and good? Do they know the power they wield to shape culture and public opinion?
What does it mean that the Andy Griffith Show was the top rated television program fifty years ago and today the top rated show is Game of Thrones? Surely not nothing? What will the top rated show be like fifty years from today?
Campfire stories were the wellspring of life, community, and identity for nearly all of human existence – and they still are. The source of the light and the source of stories have simply changed.
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