Why does storytelling endure across time and cultures Perhaps the answer lies in our evolutionary roots. A study of the way that people respond to Victorian literature hints that novels act as a social glue, reinforcing the types of behaviour that benefit society.Literature "could continually condition society so that we fight against base impulses and work in a cooperative way", says Jonathan Gottschall of Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania. He and co-author Joseph Carroll at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, study how Darwin"s theories of evolution apply to literature. Along with John Johnson, an evolutionary psychologist at Pennsylvania State University in DuBois, the researchers asked 500 people to fill in a questionnaire about 200 classic Victorian novels. The respondents were asked to define characters as protagonists or antagonists and then to describe their personality and motives, such as whether they were conscientious or power hungry.The team found that the characters fell into groups that mirrored the egalitarian dynamics of a society in which individual dominance is suppressed for the greater good (Evolutionary Psychology. vol 4, p 716). Protagonists, such as Elizabeth Bennett in Jane Austen"s Pride and Prejudice, for example, scored highly on conscientiousness and nurturing, while antagonists like Bram Stoker"s Count Dracula scored highly on status-seeking and social dominance. In the novels, dominant behaviour is "powerfully stigmatized", says Gottschall "Bad guys and girls are just dominance machines; they are obsessed with getting ahead, they rarely have pro-social behaviours."While few in today"s world live in hunter-gatherer societies, "the political dynamic at work in these novels, the basic opposition between communitarianism and dominance behaviour, is a universal theme", says Carroll. Christopher Boehm, a cultural anthropologist whose work Carroll acknowledges was an important influence on the study, agrees. "Modem democracies, with their formal checks and balances, are carrying forward an egalitarian ideal".A few characters were judged to be both good and bad, such as Heathcliff in Emily Bronte"s Wuthering Heights or Austen"s Mr.Darcy. "They reveal the pressure being exercised on maintaining the total social order," says Carroll.Boehm and Carroll believe novels have the same effect as the cautionary tales told in older societies. "Novels have a function that continues to contribute to the quality and structure of group life," says Boehm. "Maybe storytelling--from TV to folk tales- actually serves some specific evolutionary adaptation," says Gottschall. They"re not just products of evolutionary adaptation. In the political dynamic of literature, to what is dominant behavior set opposed
A. The universal theme of power
B. The egalitarian ideal
C. Modern democracies
D. Formal checks and balances of a traditional society
waking Up from the American DreamThere has been much talk recently about the phenomenon of "Wal-Martization" of America, which refers to the attempt of America"s giant Wal-Mart chain store company to keep its cost at rock-bottom levels. For years, many American companies have embraced Wal-Mart-like stratagems to control labor costs, such as hiring temps (temporary workers) and part-timers, fighting unions, dismantling internal career ladders and outsourcing to lower paying contractors at home and abroad.While these tactics have the admirable outcome of holding down consumer prices, they"re costly in other ways. More than a quarter of the labor force, about 34 million workers, is trapped in low-wage, often dead-end jobs. Many middle-income and highs killed employees face fewer opportunities, too, as companies shift work to subcontractors and temps agencies and move white-collar jobs to China and India.The result has been an erosion of one of America"s most cherished value: giving its people the ability to move up the economic ladder over their lifetimes. Historically, most Americans, even lows killed ones, were able to find poorly paid janitorial or factory jobs, then gradually climbed into the middle class as they gained experience and moved up the wage curve. But the number of workers progressing upward began to slip in 1970s. Upward mobility diminished even more in the 1980s as globalization and technology slammed blue-collar wages.Restoring American mobility is less a question of knowing what to do than of making it happen. Experts have decried schools" inadequacy for years, but fixing them is a long, arduous struggle. Similarly, there have been plenty of warnings about declining college access, but finding funds was difficult even in eras of large surpluses. Wal-Mart strategy, according to this passage, is to ______.
A. hire temps and part-timers to reduce its cost
B. outsource its contracts to lower price agencies at home and abroad
C. hold down its consumer price by controlling its labor costs
D. dismantle the career ladder and stop people"s mobility upward