On Narratives

This one is for you, Chris Titan:

"...By narrative, I mean a story of human history that gives meaning to the past, explains the present, and provides guidance for the future. It is a story whose principles help a culture to organize its institutions, to develop ideals, and to find authority for its actions. At the risk of repitition, I must point out that again that the source of the world's greatest narratives has been religions, as found, for example, in Genesis or the Bhagavad-Gita or the Koran. There are those who believe--as did the great historian Arnold Toynbee--that without a comprehensive religious narrative at its center a culture must decline. Perhaps. There are, after all, other sources--mythology, politics, philosophy, and science, for example--but it is certain that no culture can flourish without narritives of transcendent origin and power."

-Neil Postman (Technopoly)