originally posted 14th January 2024
Narratives don’t give us reality or truth but we live by narratives because they give us meaning. And meaning, the way we interpret sequences of events, is more important to us than truth. It’s in this way that history, our own sense of our lives and who we are and what we do, is fictional. In war, for example, there may be many sides. Each side interprets the chains of cause and effect, so-called reasons for this event or that, as they will and in such ways as to present themselves to others and, more importantly, themselves, in the best light possible according to their senses of value. In domestic situations, the individuals in the drama create mental representations of events that place them in the most favourable light according to templates provided by cultural clichés such as, for example, ‘champion of justice’ or ‘victim of injustice’. Parents and their incubating young adult offspring play out their little dramas according to their self-perceived positions in the familial power hierarchy.
It’s reasonable to infer that our need for conflict is rooted in these narratives as much as our narratives are rooted in our need for conflict.
Very much part of our fictional lives is morality. Morality provides an additional layer of meaning to our narratives and, in fact, dominates (and predominates in) all our interpretations of events and actions. Without good and evil there is none of the drama to make our stories interesting and entertaining. However boring and meaningless a person’s life might be, it must not be presented as such and so justification of what was and what might be is inserted between the lines or layered over the surface of what is, in all other respects, dull. Action is deemed purposeful and always for the better, when, in fact, all progress is an imposition.
One way to appreciate the reality of the illusion is to apply the Golden Rule. Putting one’s feet in another’s shoes is tantamount to telling the story from the other’s point of view. (In this respect seeing and telling are very much the same thing). The need for conflict in humanity suggests that we either find this mental exercise extremely difficult or we choose willingly to push it to one side as a sort of inconvenience.
So, indeed, it’s more reasonable to infer that our need for conflict drives narratives and our self-justifications are rooted in the violent nature of our species. We are not a social species but antisocial in the sense that we seek not to get on with each other so much as to get on in life and we smooth over the wake of destruction with our fables.
