PAVILION

Notes for a Declaration of the Rights
and Responsibilities of Story-Tellers
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PREAMBLE
by Wu Ming
Who is a story-teller and what are a
story-teller’s rights and responsibilities?
A story-teller is someone who tells stories
and re-elaborates myths, i.e. stories with
symbolic referents shared - or at least
known, or even put into question - by a
community. To tell stories is a fundamental
activity for any community. We all tell
stories, without stories we would not be
conscious of our past nor of our relations
with our neighbors. Quality of life would
not exist. But story-tellers make telling
stories their activity, their specialization; it
is like the difference between the hobby
of DIY repair and the work of a carpenter.
The story-teller recovers - or should
recover - a social function comparable
that of the griot in African villages, the
bard in Celtic culture or the poet in the
classical Greek world.
Telling stories is a peculiar work, that can
benefit the one who develops it, but it is
always a labor, as integrated into the life
of the community as putting out fires,
ploughing fields, attending to the disabled
... In other words, the story-teller is
not an artist. The story-teller is an artisan
of narration.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Story-tellers have the responsibility of not
believing themselves superior to their fellow
humans. Any concession to the obsolete
idealist and romantic image of the
story-teller as a more sensitive creature,
in contact with a more elevated dimension
of being (even when writing about
absolutely quotidian banalities) is illegitimate.
At bottom, the most ridiculous and
comical as- pects of the business of writing
are based on a degraded version of
the myth of the artist, which converts the
artist into a ’star’ because he is believed
to be somehow superior to common mortals,
less wretched, more interesting and
sincere in a certain heroic sense, since
he endures the torments of creation.
The stereotype of the tortured and tormented
artist rouses greater interest in
the media and has greater weight of opinion
than the labor of those who clean
septic tanks. This proves the degree to
which the present scale of values is distorted.
The story-teller has the responsibility to
not confuse fabulation, the story-teller’s
principle mission, with an excess of
obsessive autobiography and narcissistic
ostentation. Renouncing these attitudes
permits the story-teller to save the
authenticity of the moment, to have a life
instead of a character to interpret compulsively.
RIGHTS
A story-teller that complies with the
responsibility to refute the stereotypes
cited above has the right to be left in
peace by those that earn their daily bread
by spreading those same stereotypes
(society columnists, cultural gobetweens,
etc etc...).
Any strategy of defense against intrusions
should be based on not supporting
this logic. Whoever wants to act as a star,
posing in absurd photography sessions
or responding to questions on any issue,
has no right to lament the intrusion.
Story-tellers have the right not to appear
in the media. If a plumber decides not to
appear, no one throws it in his face or
accuse him of being a snob. Story-tellers
have the right not to convert themselves
into trained animals in a media cage,
objects of literary gossip. Story-tellers
have the right not to respond to questions
that they consider as not pertinent (private
life, sexual or gastronomic preferences...).
Story-tellers have the right not to feign
expertise on any material. Story-tellers
have the right to use civil disobedience to
oppose the pretensions of those (publishers
included) who want to de- prive them
of their rights.
Translated by Nate Holdren & WM1
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