Stories and Community

Thanks to AJ Lopez for sharing this quote with me.

Instead of telling our vulnerable stories, we seek safety in abstractions, speaking to each other about our opinions, ideas and beliefs rather than about our lives. Academic culture blesses this practice by insisting that the more abstract our speech, the more likely we are to touch the universal truths that unite us. But what happens is exactly the reverse: as our discourse becomes more abstract, the less connected we feel. There is less sense community among intellectuals than in the most “primitive” society of storytellers.

— Parker Palmer