On Storytelling

In the first section of “The Storyteller,” Walter Benjamin immediately argues that the storyteller “has already become something remote from us and something that is getting even more distant,” and declares “that the art of storytelling is coming to an end.” Why is this happening? Benjamin thinks an obvious reason is that “experience has fallen in value.”

While the culture that we live in today is certainly not an oral culture with traditions of stories being passed down, and while our culture doesn’t really offer a career deemed “Storyteller,” I would have to disagree with some of Benjamin’s initial arguments.

Benjamin says that “more and more often there is embarrassment all around when the wish to hear a story is expressed.” I think this statement is ridiculous; the majority of the way people communicate is through telling stories, and asking somebody to tell a story is very commonplace. Now I know that people don’t just walk up to each other and say, “Please tell me a story.” But people do say “Remember that time when…” and “So this thing happened Saturday night…” and “This is what happened then, this is what needs to happen now…” etc. Even if people don’t realize it, they tell stories on a daily basis, and need to hear stories on a daily basis for more than just entertainment.

Back to Benjamin’s main argument: “experience has fallen in value.” Does Benjamin mean that what we experience is no longer valuable, or that the value of our experiences has lessened? Experience “that goes from mouth to mouth” seems to be the important kind of experience for Benjamin, but does that mean if our experiences don’t necessarily happen that way, that they are less of an experience? Is Benjamin saying that because we don’t experience something through a story, that experience loses value? Comments?