{"id":24723,"date":"2021-01-20T11:03:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T15:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=24723"},"modified":"2021-02-04T00:07:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T04:07:21","slug":"deep-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/deep-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deep Story: How Emotion Shapes Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is a deep story? How does a deep story work and why do people have them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A deep story is an emotional truth people hold about the world around them. They go to great lengths to confirm this deep story and their emotional truth, and then they seek to affirm the story they tell themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about the deep story and explore examples below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Deep Story and Fox News<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One example of how the deep story is promoted is Fox News. The right-wing news network powerfully shapes the emotional world of its viewers, providing them with a deep story or master narrative of the world, in which they are the brave, right-thinking heroes fending off the forces of liberalism, secularism, and political correctness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps most importantly, it validates viewers\u2019 emotional orientations, confirming their ideas about what\u2019s right and wrong and what\u2019s important or unimportant. One viewer said that she likes Fox News because it doesn\u2019t try to manipulate her emotions and make her feel guilty the way other news sources do\u2014a source of great resentment for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example: Mike Schaff and Bayou Corne <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One enthusiastic, college-educated Tea Partier from Bayou Corne named Mike Schaff sees government as the source of all his community\u2019s problems. While he disapproves of how Texas Brine handled the aftermath of the sinkhole, his emotions toward them are more based in hurt and disappointment than anger. He had genuinely believed that the company cared about the community and was surprised to see how little they did for displaced residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he rationalizes their actions on the grounds that they are a profit-maximizing corporation that has to answer to shareholders. Of course<\/em> they\u2019re going to try to cut costs by evading safety regulations and fighting the payment of legal claims to residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s the job of government officials to protect everyone<\/em>, and on this score, according to Schaff, they failed miserably\u2014only confirming his deep-seated belief in government\u2019s essential worthlessness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is despite the fact that the devastating consequences of his worldview are on display all around him. For example, Schaff\u2019s wife and grandchildren had to move away from the town, because the presence of methane gas leaks made it unsafe for them to stay. Many of his neighbors have also left under the evacuation order, decimating what was once a tight-knit and vibrant community. He is unable to even light a match in his own garage, out of concern that doing so would spark a methane explosion. His beloved community has simply been erased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Makers vs. the Takers<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Schaff\u2019s ideology is grounded in his belief that hardworking \u201cmakers\u201d like himself are victimized by lazy \u201ctakers\u201d living off the government.<\/strong> He claims (falsely) that half of Medicaid recipients in the state are not working or even attempting to find work. The foundations of this worldview are rooted in a deeply emotional conviction that there are deserving and undeserving recipients of government aid\u2014and that liberals have sided with the undeserving at the expense of the deserving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see these attitudes on display in Mike\u2019s own deep story. He admits to having personally used government programs such as federal hurricane relief, unemployment insurance, the interstate highway system, and the United States Postal Service. The difference, as he sees it, is that he is a deserving <\/em>recipient of these programs because he paid for them with his tax dollars. It is those undeserving \u201cothers\u201d who didn\u2019t pay in and are taking advantage of hardworking people like himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a deep story? How does a deep story work and why do people have them? A deep story is an emotional truth people hold about the world around them. They go to great lengths to confirm this deep story and their emotional truth, and then they seek to affirm the story they tell themselves. Read more about the deep story and explore examples below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,9],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-24723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-psychology","tag-strangers-in-their-own-land","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Deep Story: How Emotion Shapes Truth - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A deep story is a fundamental, emotional truth that informs your worldview. 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