{"id":10306,"date":"2023-03-06T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T12:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10306"},"modified":"2023-03-05T21:13:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T02:13:51","slug":"the-power-of-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10306","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Howard Gordon, executive producer and showrunner for American television shows like Homeland<\/em> and 24<\/em> was the guest on a recent podcast produced by The Cipher Brief<\/a>, a think tank focused on national security issues. It\u2019s part of the site\u2019s dip into the way national security is portrayed in popular media\u2014television, movies, and books. And it reflects a truth that Gordon says is found in Richard Powers\u2019s book, The Overstory<\/em>, \u201cThe best arguments in the world won\u2019t change a person\u2019s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what does it take to make a Hollywood hit \u201cin an age of geopolitical turmoil?\u201d as Suzanne Kelly, head of The Cipher Brief termed it. You don\u2019t have to look far to see that turmoil. Today\u2019s news headlines include the Russia-Ukraine war, China\u2019s world role, a new generation of Palestinian fighters, and repression in Iran and Afghanistan, for starters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gordon maintains that his new crime show, Accused<\/em>, which addresses current social issues, is also germane to national security, because society\u2019s strength is affected by how and how well it functions. Accused<\/em>, which airs on the Fox network, challenges audiences to understand why a crime was committed. The plot lines are drawn from contemporary issues: violence, race, identity and, as what Gordon called \u201ca vital accelerant to the drama,\u201d social media. He says the show is \u201ca new game every week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C\u2019mon, this is tv. Is it just wishful thinking to believe fictional television is \u201cimportant\u201d in a world where so much serious stuff seems out of whack? We\u2019re so polarized along numerous fault lines there seems no good way for people to come together. Stories, culture, food, are all \u201cTrojan horses for empathy,\u201d Gordon believes. If you show someone other types of people in the context of a story, maybe they will come to look differently at people they encounter in real life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, how do these \u201cculture wars\u201d affect national security? Kelly noted that the age of interpretation and context is gone\u2014people seem too eager \u201cto line up on sides.\u201d As retired four-star General Michael Hayden<\/a>, a frequent contributor to The Cipher Brief has said, society is not suffering so much from a need to find truth, what we have lost is much more important\u2014a desire and critical capacity to want<\/em> to find the truth. We\u2019ve lost the desire to respectfully disagree, to negotiate. It\u2019s a loss that affects national security because it makes the job of our enemies so much easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Howard Gordon, executive producer and showrunner for American television shows like Homeland and 24 was the guest on a recent podcast produced by The Cipher Brief, a think tank focused on national security issues. It\u2019s part of the site\u2019s dip … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"It's an age of geopolitical turmoil. What's the niche for popular media in public understanding of national security?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,60,67],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-10306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-storytelling","category-television","tag-wars-and-conflicts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Ge","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10308,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306\/revisions\/10308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}