What's Good About Stories?

In the book a i again, the story telling animal. The book i wrote about ten years ago was mainly celebration of the role, the positive role, that story plays in life. And this book is more a look at the darker side of it. Research shows stories are really good generating ympathy. We hate the villain of the story who's oppressing t the victims and making life hard for the protagonists. When villains are spared or forgiven at the end of the story, a people protest. A scholar i like, a philosopher, named fritz brighthopt, and he came up with this term for this. He calls it impathetic sadism.