Shared stories help to seal the bonds within a culture, but what if the stories are false? From el gato malo at boriquagato.substack.com:
i have long been fascinated by ideas of inhabited stories. “true” stories. stories that reflect and encapsulate and extend us.
these are the stories that bind us into our society and its salients, its virtues, and its values.
we read, we experience, and we find consonance, we find rightness which brings us both comfort and community.
the sharing of stories is the fiber and fabric that holds us together.
this is how it was supposed to be, how it emerged and evolved to be, how it persisted. how it thrived.
we learned by doing.
but what if our stories are false?
Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.
Dante Alighieri