Why Storytelling Matters with Dr. Matthew Mehan
Why Storytelling Matters with Dr. Matthew Mehan
A talk about literature, the arts, and culture with the associate dean for the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College on Capitol Hill.
Appears in this episode
Emily Dickenson wrote, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant—Success in Circuit lies.” In other words, truths, especially moral truths, are often best communicated through allegories, symbols, myths—in a word, through storytelling.
Stories shape our conceptions of right and wrong, our past and future, and our identity. They are the reservoirs of memory we draw upon to interpret life, the fertile fields of meaning to which we can always return to find a new harvest in any season. And they accomplish this by capturing our imagination to teach us things in ways indirect—slant and circuitous.
Dr. Matthew Mehan knows something about storytelling. He is the associate dean and assistant professor of government for the Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C. Mehan also contributed a lecture on ancient Rome’s influence on the Founding Fathers to the Florida Civics Seal of Excellence course, a professional development program designed specifically for certified educators in the Sunshine State.
He’s also the author of children’s books: “Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals” and “The Handsome Little Cygnet.” I own the latter. My kids love it. It’s beautifully written and gorgeously illustrated by John Folley, an artist trained in academic and impressionist painting with a pedigree that reaches back to the workshops of the Renaissance of Northern Italy.
In this episode, we discuss why storytelling matters, what culture really means, and why we shouldn’t surrender the arts or associate them with limp-wristed liberalism. Mehan takes seriously the hard work of fixing our culture. It will not happen overnight, but it is ultimately the only way out of the forest we find ourselves in today. Ernst Jünger wrote that power struggles are preceded by the verification and destruction of symbols. “This is why we need poets—they initiate the overthrow,” he argued.
Mehan will join me for another episode available exclusively to paid subscribers. This one is free—but I encourage you to pick up his books for your kids or get them as gifts for someone else.
Why Storytelling Matters with Dr. Matthew Mehan
Really understanding the greatest dozen Shakespeare plays is the key to a life of reading and loving literature in general. Each play is worth any amount of time you put into it. You can absorb the plays by reading and listening at the same time. Getting Shakespeare means loving it. You don’t know anything about beauty unless you feel it. With Shakespeare under your belt, you have the skills to go anywhere: poetry, fiction, theater, philosophy.
Reading poetry is not just picking up a poet and starting to read. The greatest poets wrote many bad poems that are not worth reading unless you’re an academic. Some of the habits of academia are antithetical to loving literature. A great poem is a coincidence of great skill and feeling in the perfect moment. A master poet may write a dozen volumes of poetry in a lifetime, and a handful of good poems, if he or she is lucky. Poetry is different from other literary art in this way. Try John Keat’s A Grecian Urn. I happen to love Ben Jonson's To Heaven.
Conservative writers are all around us because conservatism represents a tragic view of human life, which is about the limitations of human beings—and their beauty. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. (Check out Gary Saul Morson on AK. An absolutely amazing conservative literary critic.) Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi. Melville’s Moby Dick, the great American epic poem. I’m not a big fan of Hemingway or Faulkner, but Hemingway’s short story The Big Two-hearted River Pts 1&2 is heartbreaking and beautiful, a really delicate piece of art. About a soldier home from war without a single mention of it. I also love Anthony Trollope's Palliser series. Trollope understanding of human nature is amazing and not depressing, like so many are. He is good company, like Montaigne's essays.
Would love to hear more about art, Mr Gonzalez!
This was a stimulating conversation and a reminder that I’ve become way too immersed in the political side of life. It’s also a reminder that this degrading of society has been a slow drip and if there is any chance at all of a restorative process it is going to need to start with the younger generations. I hope you pick up where you left off with culture on the right. Thanks for this...an hour well spent. I did order two sets of books. I will give one to my young granddaughter and keep one to read so we can hopefully start a discussion.