Kings and Queens

Kings and Queens used storytelling to stay in power. For example, for many years France was ruled by kings because people were told stories about a great god had said that France must be ruled by a king, and all the French people must do what the king says. A god probably didn’t say this, but if French people believed this story, they obeyed their king. The king liked this a lot.

Who chose who would be the next king?

People made stories for that too. According to this story, the Great God would choose one warrior to be the first king. The god preformed a miracle to show this choice. He sent a dove from heaven carrying a small bottle of oil. No one saw this happen, but a priest showed everyone a bottle of oil and said it came from heaven, people kind of believed it. They crowned the king, the priest poured the sky oil on the new king. From then on, whenever one king died, and people crowned his son as the new king of France they poured the sky oil on him.

Kings made stories like that one to get people to do what he wanted and to take advantage of the people. Now the French don’t have a king, they elect who they want to be in charge. But kings and queens also made stories because ‘people need stories to cooperate, and they can change the way they cooperate by changing the stories they believe in.’

p.65-70 Unstoppable Us, Yuval Noah Harari.