Jonathan Gottschall Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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“In my profession more generally, it's not an exaggeration to say that masculinity is viewed as the root of all evil. If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it's really not. It's about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. And behind all these forms of oppression is a guy.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“The average daydream is about fourteen seconds long and we have about two thousand of them per day. In other words, we spend about half of our waking hours - one-third of our lives on earth - spinning fantasies.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.11, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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“My reason for arguing against abolishing these types of sports isn't some kind of lofty, philosophical rationale. It's just that I did it and I liked it. It comes down to a libertarian issue for me. I feel that if I know the risks and I want to take them, I should be allowed to do so.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
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“The brain stays up all night telling stories while we sleep. We just call them dreams.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“In an effort to civilize combat sports, authorities mandated padded gloves and instantly made the sports far more savage. Granted, putting gloves on the hands seems like a nice thing to do. If you were being punched in the brain by a powerful man, wouldn't you rather he strap a pillow around his fist? But the glove doesn't do anything to diminish your brain damage.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“In boxing, where most of the guys are from lower-class backgrounds and have darker skin than most of the fans, one might fear that the athletes are being exploited. But that narrative doesn't hold up very well in the world of MMA, where 99 percent of fighters are amateurs who will never earn a dime. They aren't seeking fame and fortune. For the most part, these guys are fighting because they want to and because it gives them an opportunity to strive for something big in their lives. It gives them a chance to become their best selves.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
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“People like head trauma. They love knockouts. The crowd is silent, silent, silent... and then a knockout happens, and everyone goes native. There would be far fewer knockouts without the gloves.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“Putting gloves on the fighters was a symbolic change that suggested that we were now making it a civilized sport, and it was no longer this crazy gladiatorial throwback to ancient Rome. It's even in our language: If you want to get serious and violent, what do you do? You "take the gloves off." Bare-fisted is supposedly a much more dangerous way to hit someone. But we've got it completely backward. The glove is a weapon. It massively accentuates the ability of the fist to do harm.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“I'm living in the heart of gun culture, but I'm not a gun guy. I didn't grow up with them; I was never a hunter; my dad was never a hunter.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“I can walk into a gun store in my town and buy military-grade weapons. You'd be shocked by the amount of firepower you can buy - 50 caliber sniper rifles and the same shotguns the Marines carry in Iraq or Afghanistan. It doesn't matter whether I know how to use these things - I can just walk into a store and buy them.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
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“If I do get a handgun, I can take it to the sheriff's department, and in about as much time as it would take me to order a value meal at Wendy's, they will give me a concealed-carry license. There will be no screening at all to see whether I'm qualified to carry a gun in public - which I absolutely am not. That's one of the reasons I haven't gotten a gun in the first place: I don't know how to use one.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“Part of why I was attracted to the idea of owning a gun was self-defense, and part of it was that I've been fascinated by guns since I was a little kid, and I want to play with them. It seems like a lot of fun.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“I think that a lot of people who like training with guns are probably drawn to it not only for practical reasons, but also in that same restless quest for physical excellence that draws people to a martial arts dojo.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“I think the proper attitude toward fighting sports is one of ambivalence. You can be drawn to them, but you should also be repelled by them.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“A boxing contest is a brain-damage contest. Who can give out more brain damage and who can absorb more of it?”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“I think what bothers us about fighting sports isn't the damage to the athlete but the fact that you win by doing more harm to your opponent than he does to you. It just seems ugly.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“Whenever I was confronted in the schoolyard, I found some way to avoid the fight. I ran for it. I backed down. Psychologically and emotionally, that isn't a low-cost course of action for most boys. You avoid a physical beating, but you pay a real social and psychological cost for it. Those moments of walking away from fights, even though I knew it was the rational and civilized thing to do, cost me tremendously.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“What you do in a fight gym is learn how to be brave. You're learning how to punch and kick in a proper way, of course, but above all else, a fighter is someone who's got courage, who's dead game in a fight. Most guys don't come into the world that way. You learn to be brave through that process of getting your fear and timidity beaten out of you night after night after night.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“It's an empirical question whether training makes one more or less likely to get in a fight outside the gym. In some ways, I'm probably more likely to get into a fight, because I feel more competent, and I know what it's cost me in the past to back down from fights, and I don't want to feel that way.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“Getting punched in the face with a padded glove doesn't really hurt your face. It doesn't hurt your skull. The only thing it hurts is your brain. You can feel the brain injury happening. It's an instant headache.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“Fighting is really, really rewarding. I truly enjoyed it. I got feelings from fighting that were bigger than those I had experienced in almost any other realm of my life. It made me feel awake in a way that I had never been awake. Those kinds of big emotions and big experiences may come with a heavy price tag.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“When you spar in boxing, the only thing that gets hurt is your brain. Everything else feels pretty good.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“The top fighters spar hard. They're really sparring for two reasons: One is to improve their technique, but the other, which is just as important, is to build endurance, toughness, and courage. They want to practice as realistically as possible so that when they go into a real fight, the transition isn't as jarring.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“I watch fights and I often feel morally compromised by it. I feel like I'm morally culpable for what's occurring because I'm the spectator and ultimately footing the bill for the spectacle.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“I don't think people are reacting primarily to the danger of the sport. There are many other activities that are truly dangerous that we have no inclination to ban.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“Bull riding is probably the most dangerous sport in the world in terms of head injuries.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : "A Talk With The Savage English Professor". Interview with Sam Harris, www.thedailybeast.com. March 5, 2015.
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“If someone breaks into your home when you're there - that is, they don't wait to be sure that the house is empty - it's a bad situation. Honor doesn't come into it at all. Anything you need to do to survive at that point becomes A-OK.”
-- Jonathan Gottschall -
“Story is where people go to practice the key skills of human social life.”
-- Jonathan GottschallSource : Jonathan Gottschall (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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