In a recent dialog between Jordan Peterson and Angus Fletcher, who is a Professor of Story Science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, the world’s leading academic think-tank for narrative theory.
(Fletcher says he is interested in “how stories work in the brain”. He got his PhD from Yale. Apparently, according to Fletcher, all sorts of institutions are very interested in the research of his project, it is “backed” by leading neuroscientists and psychologists, doctors, nurses, social workers. Fair enough. But he also mentions as backers: big business, the US army, the special operations community, the air force. Why in the world would they be interested in “narrative theory”? I have ideas, but won’t speculate here.)
Anyway, two short statements stood out, both made by Jordan Peterson:
- Star Wars is “Christianity for atheistic nerds”. It’s “inescapable”.
- Christianity provides the narrative that forms the cultural foundation of western civilisation. (This latter is quoted from memory and may be paraphrased, as I didn’t bother writing it down at the time.)