Narrative

This is a very interesting topic about developing narratives about real world events. We are CONSTANTLY doing this. It is a brain function nearly all humans possess - the ability to narrativize our surroundings to make sense of a complicated and complex world and to connect series of events. It may be the MOST important thing we do cognitively. Ultimately, our life choices, the entire moral component of our being, is based upon a story we construct about ourselves.

The classic "narrative" example of this, is of course, the autobiography. And we are all our own autobiographers, telling our story to ourselves all the time.

The value and importance of narrative not only make sense of past events, but to influence the future cannot be underestimated. The above linked article addresses the issue of HOW we narrativize. We have certain structures and codes and ways in which we communicate. Common narrative forms are books and movies and television sit coms. Other forms of narrative are documentary movies and news media coverage. The narrative on Iraq is being written. If we relied solely on a news media obsessed with fitting Iraq into the Vietname quagmire narrative, it could very easily have turned into that. At the same time, we could have bought into the Saddam - Al Queda connection narrative and been bamboozled into believing something false, thereby jumping into an unjust and ill-advised war.

This stuff is super interesting and lends importance to my work as a story teller.