There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are “nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations.” But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my “defense mechanisms,” nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my “reaction formations.” Man, however, is able to live and even die for the sake of his ideals and values!
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (2006 [1959], p. 99)
Of course, reason has power, people can think sensibly and minds can change. It’s relatively rare, though, for people to shift significantly on the beliefs around which they form their identity.
Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling (2020, p. 98)
A very frequently repeated story tells us that women, innately unadventurous and conservative, are the great upholders of traditional values. Is that true? May it be a story men tell in order to be able to see themselves as the innovators, the movers and shakers, the ones who get to change society’s ways, the teachers of what is new and important?
I don’t know. I think it is worth thinking about.
Ursula K. Le Guin, “What Women Know” (2010) in Words Are My Matter (2019, p. 84)
Values, the positive/negative charges of life, are the soul of our art. The writer shapes story around a perception of what’s worth living for, what’s worth dying for. …This erosion of values has brought with it a corresponding erosion of story.
Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (2010, p. 17)
In life such [goal-directed] emotions tell us what’s of value. They guide us, letting us know who we ought to be and what we should go after. When we’re behaving heroically, we feel we’re doing so because our actions are being soundtracked by positive emotions.
Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling (2020, p. 186)