ountless other religious historians and philosophers from
Maimonides to Freud have begged us to understand, the ancients didn't
believe that the wind or rain were gods. They invented characters
whose personalities reflected the properties of these elements. The
characters and their stories served more as ways of remembering that
it would be cold for four months before spring returns than as
genuinely accepted explanations for nature's changes. The people were
actively, and quite self-consciously, anthropomorphizing the forces of
nature.

As different people and groups competed for authority, narratives
began to be used to gain advantage. Stories were no longer being used
simply to predict the patterns of nature, but to describe and
influence the courses of politics, economics and power. In such a
world, stories compete solely on the basis of their ability to win
believers; to be understood as real. When the Pharaoh or King is
treated as if he were a god, his subjects are actively participating
in the conceit. But he still needed to prove his potency in real ways,
and at regular intervals, in order to ensure their continued
participation. However, if the ruler could somehow get his followers
to accept the story of his divine authority as historical fact, then
he need prove nothing. The story justifies itself and is accepted as a
reality.

In a sense, early civilisation was really just the process through
which older, weaker people used stories to keep younger, stronger
people from vying for their power. By the time the young were old
enough to know what was going on, they were too invested in the
system, or too physically weak themselves, to risk exposing the
stories as myths. More positively, these stories provided enough
societal continuity for some developments that spanned generations to
take root.

The Old Testament, for example, is basically the repeated story of how
younger sons attempt to outwit their fathers for an inherited birth
right. Of course, this is simply allegory for the Israelites'
supplanting of the first-born civilisation, Egypt. But even those who
understood the story as metaphor rather than historical fact continued
to pass it on for the ethical tradition it contained: one of a people
attempting to enact social justice rather than simply receive it.

Storytelling: communication and media

Since Biblical times we have been living in a world where the stories
we use to describe and predict o