Question 1: First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?
I’m coming at this question from a bit of an uninformed perspective; I am not religious, and the closest thing to a creation story that I was exposed to growing up was the big bang theory. This made it particularly interesting to read these two stories; while I’ve heard versions/snippets of both in various contexts, as an individual with limited experience with creation stories, I found myself not having a problem with there being two. Perhaps it’s because I view them as “stories” – not particularly true, but not particularly false either, or, perhaps to phrase that better… I’m comfortable with the ambiguities in both stories because I didn’t grow up hearing them (at all, generally, but definitely not hearing them as truth), that enables me to see them on the same level.
King asserts that “we are suspicious of complexities, distrustful of contradictions” (25); in pairing up oppositions into rows of dichotomies, he illustrates the ineffectiveness of this way of framing things because these stories and analyses are not simple. These creation stories are layered with nuance, and I think it’s impossible to analyze them as separate from the societies that created them. As King points out, these creation stories reflect the worldviews of their people. They appear less about the specific facts and more about the values upheld and promoted by their creators. King extends this line of thinking by hypothesizing what the world might look like had “the creation story in Genesis featured a flawed deity who was understanding and sympathetic” (27).
So, while King emphasizes the believability of the Genesis story, he also makes obvious its flaws and posits how “being made in God’s image…must have gone to our heads” (28), how, as a result of our arrogance, we are now “chas[ing] progress to the grave” (28). King’s tidy analysis appears clouded in sarcasm, as if, in making obvious the inadequacies of the dichotomies and not allowing for the richness of contradiction, he exemplifies how limiting it is when we perceive the world in this way.
As a teacher, I find my reading lens is that of an educator, and I relate to the readings we do for this class in terms of what I see in the classroom. When King discusses Genesis’s authoritative voice, it brings to mind the way children learn to behave and relate to others based on how they see their parents and teachers behave. When students experience an authoritarian teaching styles (highly demanding teacher unresponsive to student needs) on a regular basis over an extended period of time, their behaviours, understandably, change to reflect their environment (Everhart et al.).
I think King wants us to think more acutely about our own creation stories, and question why there can only be one truth. In portraying the creation stories as neatly placed oppositions, he forces us to come to our own conclusions about how problematic it is to adhere to our desire to categorize and dichotomize things. King introduces us to story “The Earth Diver,” and in doing so offers us a lesser known, but arguably more holistic and fair, alternative, but he contradicts this by offering the story up as lesser than the Genesis story. This strategy compels us to take a closer look at the hierarchies we create, and how we choose to rank our beliefs as more important (or authoritative) than others.
His analysis of creation stories, and how traditionally, only one can be sacred while the other remains “only” a story, lends itself to a discussion about why we believe this, and whether or not this one-sided view is the way to move forward. You don’t even need to compare different religions to see how ineffective binary thinking is when differences in what constitutes “fact” varies within a single religion. For example, within the Christian faith, there are groups who believe in contradictory things, where Genesis is taken literally by some and figuratively by others, referenced in Thomas Purifoy, Jr.’s article that discusses the differing beliefs of those who accept the conventional view of history and those who accept the historical Genesis view as fact.
Works Cited
Conrad, Peter. “The Rise And Fall Of Adam And Eve Review – Fanfare For God’S First Couple”. The Guardian, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/03/rise-and-fall-adam-eve-stephen-greenblatt-review-fanfare-gods-first-couple. Accessed 2 Feb 2019.
Everhart Chaffee, Kathryn, Kimberly A. Noels, & Maya Sugita McEown. “Learning from authoritarian teachers: Controlling the situation or controlling yourself can sustain motivation.” Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching [Online], 4.2 (2014): 355-387. Web. Accessed 4 Feb. 2019.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003.
Purifoy, Thomas. “A Tale of Two Dichotomies.” Is Genesis History?, 5 Apr. 2018, isgenesishistory.com/tale-two-dichotomies/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2019.
Wilsey, McKinder. “Mckinder Wilsey: Mythos.” All Creation Myths Are Different. All Creation Myths Are the Same., 1 Jan. 1970, mythosz.blogspot.com/2013/09/all-creation-myths-are-different-all.html. Accessed 5 Feb. 2019.
Kirsten,
First of all, this is an excellent blog post that opens up a lot of questions and discussion possibilities. I appreciate the way you unpack a rich but highly complex and (often) obscure argument by King. One of the things that I take away from your post, if I understand you correctly, is that King is questioning dichotomies by throwing the reader head first (without a helmet) into one. We are being asked to question the legitimacy of one truth by juxtaposing two stories of creation. Yet, at the same time, King targets the Genesis story with a sarcasm he spares “The Earth Diver ” story. From your reading, I hear that this lopsided approach might be a way for the author to try and recalibrate the scales of legitimacy (or sacredness) that had dipped in favour of the bible for many of his, assumed, readers.
The second half of your blog brought up a whole lot of emotions for me. I did not grow up particularly religious but , as an adult, I have returned quite strongly to the beliefs of my Jewish tradition. This act of believing, however was not something I immediately acquired. it was hard work. It was a choice. However, in making that choice I have had to forgo other alternatives. While it is possible to accept paradox and contradiction on an intellectual (theoretical) level, practically one needs to choose an option and move forward with it.
This being said, having your chosen story should not and does not mean one denigrates or diminishes the stories of others. On the contrary, I think that believing in something yourself can make you more understanding of the legitimacy of other people’s stories (however different they may be). Yet, I am not sure it is possible grow in your own tradition if you are simultaneously hedging your bets in other camps…
Hey Laen,
Thanks for your post. It was interesting to hear about you returning to the beliefs of your Jewish tradition, and I admire the work it sounds like you’ve put in. I understand what you’re saying about a person perhaps needing to choose one option for themselves, personally, but I think that the choosing of one option naturally makes it difficult not to view things hierarchially, with yours at the top (or else you would have chosen another…) and I think that’s what has historically caused a lot of problems between groups of peoples. So, I wholeheartedly respect everyone’s right and choice to follow their own tradition, but I do think it’s necessary to look at one’s choices and beliefs through a critical eye and see the contradictions within and between different traditions and religions.
Hi Kirsten,
As someone who wasn’t raised religious, I had many of the same feelings and thoughts that you did while reading King. I think being further removed from the sacredness of these stories makes it easier to see the validity in both.
At the end of your post, you state, “…I think that believing in something yourself can make you more understanding of the legitimacy of other people’s stories (however different they may be). I think this is an optimistic and empathetic way of looking at belief systems. While it would be true in some cases, in many cases, it is not (which we can see by all the wars and prejudice in the world). I think you would enjoy the documentary Flight From Death. The documentary shows us that the fear of death is imperative to why many religions came into being. The documentary forces us to think about how does the fear of death lead to intolerance and violence towards culturally different others? Why does cultural difference become a psychological threat? If you are interested in answering these questions, I would love to read what you think.
Another point that I think is interesting is when “King extends this line of thinking by hypothesizing what the world might look like had “the creation story in Genesis featured a flawed deity who was understanding and sympathetic” (27).” A book that you might enjoy is “Big God” by Norenzayan. The book makes the argument that societies were able to grow to such great sizes and complexities because of the believe in punishing, omnipresent, monotheistic Gods. Norenzayan uses both qualitative and controlled, replicated studies to make his point. I think that if King were to have read this book, he would have a very good idea of what would have happened if the Christian God were flawed, understanding, and sympathetic–Christianity would have never had the power and influence it does now. If you can think of reasons against this, please let me know!
Hey Nolan,
Thanks for your comment! I think your first paragraph is a comment about Laen’s comment on my blog (about “I think that believing in something yourself can make you more understanding of the legitimacy of other people’s stories (however different they may be)” because I agree with you. I think it’s the line of thinking that one’s own religion, traditions or ideologies are the more important and most “true” that has caused many, if not most of the major wars and problems in our word historically. You bring up some really interesting questions and I’d be super curious to check the documentary out (when classes are finally over and free time is a thing exists in life again 🙂 )
Yeah, it’s definitely interesting to sit back and daydream about what the world could be like if everyone exercised more tolerance.