What is a stroke?

So far, it would seem that we are taking stroking as a common commodity, not only in general developmental terms but also in terms potentially useful to the art of storytelling. One teller may try to stroke the audience for some good reason; another one may try to get the audience to do the stroking. A third may understand that stroking is more or less continuously reciprocal—always going back and forth. But what is it? Is stroking any stimulus that gets response? Is it any condition that receives attention? Is it more or less a rational response as one might expect from giving to feel good personally. Or is it also relational response as one might think from giving to sustain a good group feeling? [See Kat’s comments and questions on the Haiti piece.]

David writes that “a stroke may be used as the fundamental unit of social action. An exchange of strokes constitutes a transaction, which is the unit of social intercourse.” This makes perfect sense to me at the same time it opens the door to a bit of a puzzle. What exactly is a “stroke”? What is the range of action and reaction that defines stroking behavior? Let us say a child knows only guilt, shame and violent rejection from the mother or some of the others. In turn, he turns out to enraged and rejecting toward women and others. He begins to operate from the old “I’m not OK: you’re not OK” kind of social intercourse typical of the criminal attitude and the socially misfit. As “the good guys” who understand that “everybody is OK,” we may feel tempted to define a stroke as “whatever makes us feels good, “what makes others feel good” or even “what makes us all feel good.” But is it ever really valid to assume stroking a common commodity? Is it ever really the same for everybody?

Is stroking wanted and needed by the marginalized or criminalized companion likely to be the same as for the more normal and moral majority? Apparently, rape, killing and violence are also part of social intercourse even if, as good guys, we choose to call it clearly pathological. Football players often say they “love the contact.” Urban police say they “need the action.” Soldiers sometimes accept needs to both “bring the pain” and “feel the pain.” Is this not part of the social intercourse even if it resembles “hitting,” “hurting” and “striking” to the rest of us? I once heard a big time football coach say that what people really desire in the world of sports entertainment is brutality. Of course, all the evidence he really needs to confirm this statement is a stadium filled with screaming fans.

In the more sedate world of storytelling, some tellers seem to stroke their audiences a little too softly or sweetly and so leave them hungering for recognition of a more urgent kind. Accordingly, they may decide themselves better off watching violence on television, porn on the internet or drugs and thugs out in the street. Other storytellers appear to stroke their audiences in a way that seems rough or vulgar and so turn them away toward another more satisfactory venue. Some storytellers apparently think that continuous laughter on their part tends to stroke the audience and so turn every tale into a big joke. Other storytellers appear to think that sadness and anger is the better part of social intercourse and higher consciousness. They then think that driving points home and pounding on the facts makes a better story. One common stroke is to make it all end with a big bang—to nail it for all time.

If one defines a stroke as any form of social contact that functions to relieve hunger for attention, recognition and acceptance, then we may as well open the range to include pathological behavior and gratuitous violence. Some people would rather be attacked than ignored. Others would rather be ignored than attacked. In the eighties, Annie Lennox explained “Sweet dreams are made of this/ who am I to disagree?” Can what appears to one as stroking and grooming appear to others as stalking and assault? “Avatar” is clearly a smack in the face of those of us who enjoy safe passage (via military presence) and who defend creature comfort (via limited liability). As storytellers, can we approve of the racial conflicts and social struggles in “Avatar” without accepting a need to smack some of the audience in the face?