The search for a new narrative...

[Discussions, Debates & Arguments]

In an article in The Ecologist Martin Palmer wrote :

.

"Until we're actually able to be honest to ourselves that the environmental movement has basically been sucked into a consumerist world view, and therefore is not terribly exciting to most people, we're going to get stuck. And that's where the Dark Mountain Project is superb. They have a superb critique of the story the environmental world is trapped in at the moment. What they lack, is that confidence, to say 'Let's tell a different overarching narrative.' And that's the next step."

.

I already commented upon that on another thread, and confidently offered my own personal very simple and concise narrative :

.

WE.ARE.FUCKED.

.

Martin Palmer has since expanded upon his theme, in another article, with a lucid outline of what he has in mind.

.

I've taken the liberty of copying it below, and started this new thread in the hope that some of our 1500 or so members here will apply themselves and help him out... Please read it and if you feel inspired, brainstorm some constructive contributions. God help us all, we desperately need some fresh thinking...

.

What might an over-arching greater narrative look like ? Or is it just vain pretentious intellectual wishful-thinking to even believe such a thing is possible ? A child is born today, what will be in their mind in 2052 ?

.

Here's Martin's piece :

.

2052 – The World to Come

 How beliefs, values, ethos and inspiration are essential  for saving  the world.

 

In 1972 the Club of Rome report “Limits to Growth” launched a new movement almost without realising it. The modern environmental and sustainable movement traces its roots back to this ground breaking report and the discussions and anxieties, which it explored.

 

It challenged a central myth – and I use that word carefully – that GDP was the only factor for quantifying success and that data was therefore the only way to measure significance. By challenging the myth of continual growth regardless of the cost to the earth and to many of its people, the report perhaps unintentionally undermined the normative value system, which had grown up post World War II.  This value system – indeed one can call it a belief system – is rooted in a particular phenomenological understanding of evolution and of human supremacy combined with any variety of other ideological supremacy models. This can be the Marxist notion of the Struggle against Nature; the capitalist view of nature as a resource and capital bank from which humans are at liberty to draw whatever they want; or the Protestant Christian model of a God-given right to dominate nature derived from the Bible.  Or it can be the Darwinist notion so often presented that humanity is the top of the evolutionary tree and that therefore, as in the anthropic cosmological principle, the whole universe has had the production of human life as its goal since the Big Bang. Rolled together these myths are very dangerous as the radical group Dark Mountain pointed out in their Manifesto of 2009:

 

The myth of progress is founded on the myth of nature. The first tells us that we are destined for greatness; the second tells us that greatness is cost-free … Both tell us that we are apart from the world; that we began grunting in the primeval swamps, as a humble part of something called ‘nature’, which we have now triumphantly subdued … [O]ur separation from it [nature] is a myth integral to the triumph of our civilisation.[1]

 

Sadly, the original challenge of “Limits to Growth” became lost in exactly the mythological world outlined above. Instead of striving for alternatives, for different stories and narratives of true meaning, the report unleashed a mass of data filled, statistically dominated reports, programmes and even organisations. The perspective on the significance of the rest of nature became limited to its economic role resulting in the creation of terms such as ‘eco-system deliverables’. This manages for example to reduce the magnificence, the diversity and the power of the Amazon to being classified as a ‘carbon sink ‘ enabling us to carry on with our myth of progress and growth unhindered.

 

And these movements, founded on data and the supremacy of the human being have largely failed. The world is in a worse state than in 1972, though there are some encouraging signs.

 

The truth is almost no-one has ever been convinced to change their lifestyle or their dominant myth by pie charts or log frames. Throughout history, as HRH the Duke of Edinburgh pointed out in 1986, only two forces have ever changed people’s basic values – the arts and religion and very often these have been one and the same thing. Which is why in 1986 The Duke of Edinburgh as International President of WWF invited five faith leaders to join him in Assisi, Italy, the birthplace of St. Frances, to see how the faiths could help to save the planet. The result is that 25 years later the religious environmental movement is the largest civil society movement on ecology worldwide yet it is largely ignored by the data believers!

 

One problem with the overall response to the Club of Rome report was the almost total ignorance of human psychology. Other than trying to use fear tactics – often couched in quasi-religious language of sin, guilt and fear – or alternatively offering vague utopian notions of a perfect world wrapped up in bits on indigenous language – the various movements which have been inspired by the Club of Rome initiative – be that environmental or developmental – have largely failed to study how and why people change. The apotheosis of this came with the disaster of the Copenhagen COP in 2009. The attempt to build up a mass hysteria of fear, and of utopian hopes that 192 Governments would all agree to do the same thing collapsed into the shambles of that event and left many around the world disillusioned with intergovernmental agencies and programmes.

 

As a result, and chastened by this, many development and environmental groups have had to look at how they can learn from this and as a consequence have turned away from such a major focus on intergovernmental processes and instead returned to where many of them began, civil society. They are also beginning to take seriously studies in human psychology, which can help identify why people change.

 

The largest sector of civil society is the religions of the world. And they do not deal in the world of data and economics that have dominated and to a great degree destroyed the potential that the Club of Rome report unleashed 40 years ago. They, like the rest of humanity, know that we are a story telling species. When you introduce yourself to someone new, you don’t tend to tell them the data of your life – how much you weighed when you were born, not even usually the date you were born; nor how tall you are or what size shoes you wear. You tell your stories.

 

Stories are how for millennia the oldest human organisations in the world – the major faiths – have conveyed from generation to generation and across cultures and languages, their most profound truths, insights, beliefs and values. If you want to change the world – tell a good story – indeed, a good collection of stories.

 

As the Club of Rome looks forward 40 years, the exciting challenge is to follow a different path. Instead of the focus being primarily on data itself, the Club of Rome is looking at how such data and information needs a wider context. This context is what is often described as values or even ethics. Values are the basis from which data and information is assessed, either consciously or more often than not, sub-consciously. The way such values arise is from stories and from the ethos, which a culture creates. Ethics is but a small part of this because ethics is about what you aught to do. Ethos is about what you want to do because the values of your culture are all around you and part of you. Ethics can so swiftly turn into righteousness and condemnation. Many secular people want religion to be the same as ethics. It is not and in fact good religion often overturns conventional ethics because such ethics are dictatorial rather than responsive.

 

In order to create an ethos we need to tell stories. Let’s work with writers, poets, musicians and actors. Let’s use the world of imagination and of faith and have confidence to explore the great stories of the world’s religions, which have inspired and changed lives for centuries.

 

What might this mean? I believe this could be one of the most significant questions the Club of Rome could now seek to address. Let me first of clarify terms. A story is just that. A narrative is a succession of stories, which together build up to something more powerful than just a good story. To take the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament to use Christian terminology) as an example, the story of Noah and the Flood or of the Exodus are examples of stories. The narrative of the Hebrew Bible is that God cares for his people; that he is the creator of all and yet knows every one by their own name and loves them. That sin is a distortion of the natural order and brings consequences but also that redemption and salvation are real and that nations can be changed as well as individuals, for the better.

 

Currently we have many stories. The story of climate change; the story of the dying out of the tiger; the story of the recovery of the whale populations; the story of alternative energy technologies. What we lack is an overarching greater narrative which does the following.

 

First of all places ourselves as a species in a wider context which is probably the universe but must then focus down to this planet and our place on and within it.

 

Secondly gives us a sense of being part of nature not apart from nature as the current dominant ideologies and narratives we outlined above do.

 

Thirdly, makes sense of human aspirations to overcome poverty, sickness, injustice and violence but does so within the wider narrative outlined in the two issues above.

 

Fourthly, gives each community and each individual a sense of purpose, place and meaning within the greater universal narrative. This is what is usually referred to in religious narratives as salvation, liberation, enlightenment or redemption.

 

Fifthly, provides models for dealing with failure, disaster, disappointment, suffering, pain and death.

 

Sixthly, that gives us an understanding of the fact that the only constant is change. The oldest book still in daily use today as it has been for over three thousand years is the Chinese book called the I Ching. This means the Classic of Change. Change is the reality of this world and of our existence and yet so much of contemporary life is about trying to either stop change or deny it.

 

Finally, the narrative has to take us back out to the bigger picture. To a sense that the future, difficult, perplexing, even dangerous, is still one with the potential for meaning and not just for us but for all life.

 

It is within the context of such a greater narrative, filled with the vast array of stories which we each bring as individuals, communities, movements, Clubs of Rome, NGO’s etc, that we will begin to discern the values that can really guide and inspire us. Values, which emerge because they make narrative sense, not as a shopping list of virtues which is sometimes how they are presented.

 

This greater narrative will also be informed by the values which currently still underpin most cultures but which are in danger of being eroded away. Values such as the sanctity of human life; of the need for truth; of personal integrity and honesty; of justice for the oppressed and of both the need for rights but also duties. These values have on the whole evolved in ancient cultures where the idea that human beings were a direct threat to nature itself was unimaginable. Therefore we need the bigger narrative to help us discover, articulate and embody new values relating to the rest of nature and our place within it now that we have become that threat. Currently virtually all our language about development, technology or the environment is as outsiders, Masters of the Universe if you will. This makes the evolution of new values about the significance of the rest of nature difficult because we simply lack the language to do this. This is why story tellers are such an important part of how cultures grow and change – be those artists or religious storytellers – and often the two are the same. They can experiment, try out new ideas, use language to go beyond convention. They can be bold and they can engage us with their boldness.

 

The challenge therefore is to assist in the creation of new stories which together can shape the new narrative from which can arise the new values as well as preserve the best of the old. This will not happen overnight. It will not happen because of a campaign. It will happen when we draw upon the richness of human experience, psychology, faith, drama, music and art to begin to tell a new way of seeing ourselves and our world. That is the challenge for the next forty years and to this, the data will bring urgency, knowledge and criteria.

 

I would suggest therefore that the values programme of the Club of Rome 40^th be an invitation to the storytellers of the world to join us. Not to present just an empty page and ask them to write upon it but to take the seven points outlined above as a guideline and invite them to explore these first of all by themselves and then collectively and finally with the wider Club of Rome world of scientists, technologists and other such experts. In such an adventure the role of the media as the greatest storytelling medium of our time will be vital and I think the BBC for example would be very interested in being part of this experiment.

 

It is a very new direction for the Club of Rome but I believe it could prove to be one of the most significant it could undertake. And it would find many allies out there who will walk, talk, joke, weep, laugh and plot together with it as we narrate our way forward.

 

Together these worlds of narrative, values, belief, hope and knowledge might just enable us to literally imagine our way out of the crises.

.

[bert louis]

hahaha, good old Wolfbird commenting on his own writings. I love him very much :)

I applaud WB with his topic on the search of a new narrative.

God, how I wish for a new cultural narrative, but what should I do with my own personal narrative?

Later, after some comments of other participants, I will read the topic story in full and ponder it's meaning.

In the mean time: thanks for this new topic WB :)

[bert louis]

Six post in a row from WB

1467 members.
Roger, Annie, Fiona, Dweebus, Warren, Malcolm, Mike Roselle, Kevin, Ian, Tom, Maurice, Cathy, Simeon, Zaratrhrustra, Daniela, Douglas, Alan, Julia, Paul, Warren, Kevin, ... and others ------------------- Where the fuck are you?

Why are there so very few other voices here to question or support WB's strong, if not zealot, views?

Is it because he says it all, for all of us, except me?

[Malcolm Ramsay]

No, Bert, he certainly doesn't say it all for us.

I sometimes think about commenting on what you and he have said .... but I have other things to do and I do like to take time to think about what I say. So usually by the time I'm ready to comment there've been half a dozen more posts which have taken the discussion in a different direction (as you've remarked yourself). Life's too short, basically.

My impression is that Wolfbird has thought deeply in the past (with the result that the positions he's adopted can't be refuted easily) but that he now spends so much time with other people's thoughts that he no longer looks for possible holes in his own thinking. I don't know why he's been replying to you in the dismissive way he has, because the questions you've been asking mostly seem reasonable enough. The stuff he posts is sometimes very interesting, but I suspect he finds genuine engagement a bit difficult.

Reverting to topic, my view is that most of the elements for a new narrative are already present, but that they need integrating, and bringing centre-stage - which requires that redundant elements of the old narrative are moved aside. Part of that will be essentially cultural, but part of it will be pragmatic because the philosophies we live by collectively are held in place by our social structures.

When I first came to this site I made half a dozen fairly short blog posts outlining a few practical changes that I think need to be made to the way we organise ourselves as a society - changes which I think would remove the foundational flaws which allow the existing pathological social structures to flourish. As far as I'm concerned I have the outline of a new narrative, one that's good enough for me at least; I've not had much success getting it across to other people, but that's perhaps because it is only an outline. For now, though, I'm focusing on the practical aspects of establishing a resilient lifestyle for myself, so the Uncivilisation site isn't getting much of my attention.

bert louis said:

Six post in a row from WB

1467 members.
Roger, Annie, Fiona, Dweebus, Warren, Malcolm, Mike Roselle, Kevin, Ian, Tom, Maurice, Cathy, Simeon, Zaratrhrustra, Daniela, Douglas, Alan, Julia, Paul, Warren, Kevin, ... and others ------------------- Where the fuck are you?

Why are there so very few other voices here to question or support WB's strong, if not zealot, views?

Is it because he says it all, for all of us, except me?

[bert louis]

WB:  Zealot ? bollocks ! 'Better one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep'.

Wow!  Were you thinking of William Black and maybe J-L Curtis?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

...  or even dare?

I think zealot is appropriate, because for one the wolfbird quickly feels threatened when challenged on some statement. Instead of trying to understand the critique, focus on it, and engage in a genuine conversation about it, the wolfbird tends to bury the critique by expansion of his own thoughts, and by aiming for the  person with his formidable polemic powers. 

[Malcolm Ramsay]

Have you been dismissive of me, Wolfbird? I'm afraid it didn't make much impression on me if you were.

I know you tried to be, when I first posted to the forum and you jumped to a mistaken - and ridiculous - interpretation of what I'd said; but since you subsequently told me that I had 'won your considerable respect' in that exchange, I presume that's not what you're referring to. You'll have to remind me. And what 'little niggles' are you referring to?

"Look, your 'impression' of where I'm at is way, way off the mark."

It very likely is - that's why I phrased it that way - but I'd need to see a bit more depth of self-awareness in you to take your word for it, I'm afraid.

If you're looking for a new narrative that can be outlined in twenty minutes it's no surprise you can't find one that satisfies you. To be outlined that easily, it would have to be one that is clearly distinct from the old one .... but then you'd be discarding everything in the old one, including the many parts of it which have great value. As far as I'm concerned it's relatively subtle changes that are needed now - but most people find it hard to appreciate how powerful subtle changes can be, which makes it difficult to write about them.

wolfbird said:

Och, Malcolm, you're so sweet, such a tease... ;-)

Look, your 'impression' of where I'm at is way, way off the mark. 

If you really have 'an outline' find 20 minutes to write it and stick it on a new thread. How hard can that be ? Even a slow fellow like yourself must have 20 minutes to spare over the course of a few weeks. If you wonder why I'm so dismissive of you and bert, it's because you're so ready to challenge me with ridiculous tedious little niggles, but you don't contribute anything interesting yourselves, all you both want to do is to whine and complain, it's boring !

[Malcolm Ramsay]

"And what does THAT comment add to the world, or this forum, or the history of the human species, everyone's future ?"

It was primarily a question, Wolfbird - 'when were you dismissive of me?' - which I was asking for my own benefit. It wasn't intended to add value to the world.

But it's certainly a good question; one that's worth asking about every post (preferably before you submit it). Did you ask it about the comment of yours that I was replying to?

I responded to Bert's post because I don't want him to give up on this site, and I wanted him to know that he wasn't alone in his view of you. At the same time, I offered an opinion on the topic of the thread; just a short one .... but the first that anybody but yourself had posted here.

There were various constructive responses you might have made. If you thought the criticism I'd made of you was unfair, you might have engaged with that in various ways - you could have asked me to justify it, for example. Or you could have let that pass and engaged with the opinion I'd offered on the topic; you might, for example, have disagreed with my suggestion that 'the philosophies we live by collectively are held in place by our social structures'; or you might have argued that the kinds of political and economic changes I've advocated would not have any significant impact on the dominant narrative. Or you could have chosen not to respond at all. Instead you posted a facetious comment which misrepresented the interactions we've had in the past.

Where was the value in that?



wolfbird said:

 

And what does THAT comment add to the world, or this forum, or the history of the human species, everyone's future ?

It's a good example of just what I meant by tedious niggles, and not contributing anything interesting of your own.

I mean, you say you're so pressed for time, and then you waste your time and mine by saying nothing positive whatsoever !

.

[Malcolm Ramsay]

I'm glad you've now posted a serious comment on Martin Palmer's piece, Wolfbird (your initial comment, with its references to the Duke of Edinburgh as an extra-terrestrial lizard, made it hard to take the thread seriously), but I don't see anything in what you've said which contradicts what he was saying.

As I read it, he's not suggesting an attempt to consciously shape what people think; he simply wants story-tellers to place themselves within a new narrative - one which fulfils the criteria he set out - and tell their stories from there: "The challenge therefore is to assist in the creation of new stories which together can shape the new narrative from which can arise the new values as well as preserve the best of the old. This will not happen overnight. It will not happen because of a campaign". I didn't get any sense that he was looking for what you suggest, 'something similar for everyone, a cultural narrative with built-in ecological and social morality tales, to guide the population toward or through a sustainable future'. As I understand it, in his vision the bird-song man and the home-brewer will have their separate stories .... but those stories will have common roots in a new over-arching narrative.

Where I think he is being unrealistic is in thinking that the story-tellers will be able to develop that new narrative, in their own minds, without first uprooting the old one. He talks about the "myth of progress and growth" as the existing narrative, but I don't think he understands why it dominates. I suspect he believes that that myth is a driving force behind our economic system, but I'd say that in fact it's the other way round; the economic system has developed the way it has as much by accident as by design, and that myth is created as an attempt to justify it. It dominates in practice primarily because it fits a system which is entrenched (and also because, as a consequence, it is a major factor in shaping people's individual narratives), but on the intellectual/emotional level I think the prevailing narrative is already fairly close to the one Martin Palmer is looking for.

wolfbird said:

Okay, a few thoughts re Martin Palmer's outline above.

.

First, what is a cultural narrative ? The way I understand it, it's an amorphous, heterogenous bundle of stories, shared by a group of people.

An example might be the Icelanders, who all learn about their folk lore and sagas as little children. This means that in everyday dealings, in social interactions, someone can mention the name of a mythic figure and it'll be immediately recognised, along with all the unstated correlations and significance attached.

.

So, what's wanted is something similar for everyone, a cultural narrative with built-in ecological and social morality tales, to guide the population toward or through a sustainable future.

.

Now, Martin's outline, his list of six or seven required points, would make sense if he was writing a film script, or a novel, or a conference agenda or a talk to a learned soceity or something. But in terms of a population - say, British, for arguments sake - it's totally absurd. Cultural narratives don't work like school essays. I mean, where do they exist ? They exist in people's heads, along with all the other stuff in people's heads, from the lowliest building site labourer who reads the Sun and gawps at young maidens titties, to the most rarified Oxford don brushing dust off cuneiform tablets.

.

We live in a post-modern soceity, meaning that it's fractured into countless sub-cultures, an individualistic soceity. One guy is crazy about AC/DC and Led Zep, and the guy next door is crazy about recording bird song, and the guy next door is obsessed with home brewing, and so on and on. There's absolutely zero chance of getting any of these guys to agree on any specific cultural values, let alone some obscure agenda to overcome poverty, sickness, injustice in places they've never even heard of.

.

Even if you could convey those ideas to them, - like a Jehovah's Witness visit ? or a government junk mail shot ? or advice on the Terry Wogan show or it's equivalent - and be well-received, which is unlikely - none of it's going to stick.... and if you start talking about the Club of Rome and the Duke of Edinburgh, you'll likely get shown the door, as some sort of dangerous maniac.

.

Post-modern cultural narratives have a life of their own, they're beyond any sort of control, they work like irrational urban legend. Newspapers and tv used to be a dominant influence, but now, with many tv channels, and DVDs, and the internet, there is no coherent wide scale shared story line, and even when everybody shares a common moment, say, the death of Princess Diana, it doesn't mean people change their behaviour or personal choices or values. In fact, every time I've heard anyone refering to that event, it's been to argue over whether Prince Phillip had her bumped off, or whether it was MI5 or Charles or some other version..

.

I favour scientific archaeology. You try convincing someone who believes in Von Daniken's space aliens, or that the account in Genesis is literally true, that they are wrong. It's a total waste of time. 

.

So, IMHO, Martin Palmer's approach is a non-starter. Doomed. The most successful approach that I can think of, was Monty Python. Almost everybody has seen a Monty Python sketch and laughed, and had new ideas introduced into their head which have had some effect. But it's hardly an influence that changes the overall cultural narrative, is it ?

.

It would be good if British culture had some ancient rooted eco-figures to refer to, in the way that names like Dick Turpin or Robin Hood or King Arthur or Santa Claus are well known. But we have not had any, nobody to compare to St. Francis or Thoreau or Aldo Leopold. Perhaps the best bet is a broad, loose, popularisation of Arne Naess's Deep Ecology. But how are you going to get that over to the building site labourer or even the Oxford don ? I don't know.

.

[bert louis]

Good grieve. I thought Malcolm was being to the point and not to the person, still the wolfbird manages to make it personal.

It is very very hard - not to say impossible - to stay focused on a particular subject and discuss it with other minds than the wolfbird mind.  This forum is practically the sole domain of the Wolfbird and his vision of the world - his narrative. The Wolfbird dominates this forum by flooding it with posts, and subduing all opposition - not with arguments to questions raised but with argumentum ad hominem .

I wonder why the Wolfbird so quickly takes a comment on his text  as an attack on his person.  To me one's  view and ones person are two different 'things.'

I read with the intent to discover the meaning of his (or anyone else's)  words, but trying to discover wolfbirds meaning, and how his views may be significance to me, I get quickly derailed and eventually set aside as plain stupid.

I think that's ashame, not because my feeling are hurt by his ad hominem, but because I think  the Wolfbird mind is an amazing place because he seems able to balance the wonders of the world with the horrors. However, the way he reacts to opposition and questioning does not at all help to clarify his views, and shuns people away. 

I wondering ... am I dealing with some sort of an autistic disorder, maybe a mild Asperger's ? 

[Malcolm Ramsay]

"You dispute that D. of E. is an extra-terrestrial lizard ? And you Malcolm, who have declared your belief in fairies and astrology, are in a strong position to attack a belief in reptilians ? I don't think so. "

I've never declared a belief in fairies, Wolfbird. Nor did I 'attack a belief in reptilians'.

I did once say, in the 'Pseudo-science and prejudice' thread, that: "Logos (trying to think about physics from first principles) led me into taking seriously the idea of Otherworld - the Underworld of classical myth, or the Fairy realm of the British tradition" .... but taking something seriously isn't the same as believing it. And it's very, very different from believing a popular misconception of it. I spend a lot of time thinking about things which people in the mainstream deride without knowing anything about, but I avoid bringing those things into discussions about mainstream subjects, because I know they will put other people off.

When I said that your initial comments made it hard to take the thread seriously, I didn't mean it from my own point of view particularly; I meant that it would probably put off the majority of people who might be inclined to contribute to a discussion of this kind. However I am certainly sceptical, because I'm not aware of any coherent reasons for believing that the Duke of Edinburgh is an extra-terrestrial lizard. But if you can offer some, I'd be interested to hear them (preferably in a different thread).

"Yeah, well neither he nor you seem to have any depth of understanding as to how cultural narratives are formed, originated, altered, how they evolve. IMO, your social structuralism is bollocks."

As I see it, people's material circumstances have a profound impact on the kind of 'stories' they embrace, because it's through those stories that they either reconcile themselves to the world and their position within it, or find escape from it. As long as there are laws and institutions which encourage inequality and injustice, people will have a need to create stories which try and explain or justify it; when they're replaced with laws and institutions which allow everybody a fair share of the world's resources, and allow them to feel empowered, that need will dissolve. It won't necessarily cause people to let go of myths they've already embraced, but it will significantly change the kinds of stories that new generations relate to.

Concepts like inheritance, and commodity money, and hierarchy, are deeply entrenched, and they are present in the stories we absorb as children. I can't believe that changing the way those things operate would not profoundly affect the image of the world that we create in our minds. If you believe it wouldn't perhaps you could explain why.

"This mechanistic notion as to how people work is naive, to be polite. It envisages people as being like buckets of apples, you've got to take one out to make room to put another one in, you've got to forget something before you can remember something new."

You've misunderstood, Wolfbird. It's not a question of making room for something else, it's a question of narrative cohesion. We create our view of the world largely by building on the image of it that we already have, but we can only add on what is consistent with what is already there. If the old narrative is based on a certain set of assumptions, and the new narrative requires a different set of assumptions, we have to start by reframing the old narrative in terms which are consistent both with what is already there and with the new image we want to establish.

"You think the present mythology has happened by accident not design ? "

That's not what I said. I said "the economic system has developed the way it has as much by accident as by design, and [the] myth is created as an attempt to justify it". I think the problems caused by inheritance and commodity money are both clear examples of that accidental development.

The question of what should happen with a dead person's property would have been an issue which small societies originally had to resolve as an issue of the moment - an issue which would have been decided on the basis of what was appropriate at that particular time. As I suggested in Passing On, I believe that "the basic principle of property passing by family inheritance is undoubtedly sound, and [....] it can have clear merits even in political dominion". It's no surprise that that was what ancient societies came up with, nor that it developed into a custom. Nor is it a surprise that, as societies grew, the custom was applied at a higher level. The dangers inherent in the practice only emerge when societies grow too large for their leaders to be held accountable informally, and that custom would have been deeply entrenched long before that happened. That's the sort of thing I meant when I said that it developed as much by accident as by design.

The problems of hoardable money, which I wrote about in The Root of Much Evil, became apparent very early on, I think .... but the property of money which is at the root of many of the problems it causes (its durability) was probably an essential feature of its development; money developed with the flaws it has because there was no practical possibility of it emerging any other way. That's a different kind of accident of history, but that's what it is nonetheless. And unless we look at the system in that light it's easy to create narratives which (from one perspective) treat it as a product of nature, rather than something man-made, or (from another side) attribute all it's flaws to human wickedness.

"Yes I gathered that from your previous remarks that all that's needed are a few subtle tweeks."

Some of the changes I'm advocating are fairly subtle, but I don't think something can reasonably be called a tweak if it would catalyse major transformations. I can understand why you might think that it won't happen, but I don't see how anyone can think that such fundamental features of our society can be reformed without triggering radical changes in the way the world operates, and the way we see it.

wolfbird said:

You dispute that D. of E. is an extra-terrestrial lizard ? And you Malcolm, who have declared your belief in fairies and astrology, are in a strong position to attack a belief in reptilians ? I don't think so. 

.

Yeah, well neither he nor you seem to have any depth of understanding as to how cultural narratives are formed, originated, altered, how they evolve. IMO, your social structuralism is bollocks.

.

"...he is being unrealistic is in thinking that the story-tellers will be able to develop that new narrative, in their own minds, without first uprooting the old one."

.

This mechanistic notion as to how people work is naive, to be polite. It envisages people as being like buckets of apples, you've got to take one out to make room to put another one in, you've got to forget something before you can remember something new. It's total nonsense.

.

You think the present mythology has happened by accident not design ? Why do people choose one myth and reject another ?

Why did a specific individual come up with the idea of building a British Empire which then became a reality ? How do you explain that ?

.

"....I think the prevailing narrative is already fairly close to the one Martin Palmer is looking for."

.

Yes I gathered that from your previous remarks that all that's needed are a few subtle tweeks. I think that such a reformism is quite shocking in it's complacency and lack of insight.

[bert louis]

Hahaha.

I can clearly see the Wolfbird quotations in Italic that Malcolm responds to.

WB: And you Malcolm, who have declared your belief in fairies and astrology,..

Haha again! How could the Wolfbird seriously interpret Malcolm's words in that way? Is this a joke? No, I think it's the wolfbird method.

Anyways. Was it you Malcolm, who pointed out to me that change comes in very small steps? And that you were doing you bit in working with legislation and its interpretation and implementation in your county?  I'm working from memory here ... 

WB: I don't see anything in your comment that relates to the topic of cultural narrative.

We can still talk about the search for a new cultural narrative. I mean the topic is rather fresh - still only 3 pages long.

 

[Malcolm Ramsay]

"We seem to be speaking entirely at cross-purposes, Malcolm. I don't see anything in your comment that relates to the topic of cultural narrative. Perhaps you'd care to define what your understanding of the term cultural narrative is."

I think it's the kind of phrase which covers quite a broad area and needs to be understood in the context it's used in. I assumed, when Bert introduced the term into this thread, that he meant the kind of over-arching narrative that Martin Palmer was writing about; that's the subject of the thread, and that's what my comments related to.

Palmer introduced his piece by talking about the 1972 Club of Rome report 'The Limits of Growth' and said that "It challenged [....] the myth of continual growth". For me that set the context of his argument, and I assume that a primary goal of the new narrative that he's looking for is to displace that myth.

He quoted something Paul and Dougald said in the manifesto: "The myth of progress is founded on the myth of nature. The first tells us that we are destined for greatness; the second tells us that greatness is cost-free … Both tell us that we are apart from the world; that we began grunting in the primeval swamps, as a humble part of something called ‘nature’, which we have now triumphantly subdued … [O]ur separation from it [nature] is a myth integral to the triumph of our civilisation."

I don't think they've got this quite right; as I see it, if the myth of progress appears to rest on the myth of nature it's because the myth of nature has been created to give it support. And I'd say the myth of progress is itself secondary. The primary myth - the truly powerful one which is necessary to reconcile people to the status quo - is that poverty can be banished through growth. As long as that story survives, the inequalities and injustices of the present system can be presented as a necessary evil; if it falls, the privileges which the rich and powerful enjoy become indefensible. For that reason a whole web of stories has been created to support it.

As I said in my previous comment, concepts like inheritance, and commodity money, and hierarchy, are deeply entrenched; so deeply entrenched that the 'stories' we create treat them as part of the landscape .... and are therefore hugely constrained by them. Those are the things which keep us in thrall to the dysphoric system we live in. But they are human creations, and they can be reformed - and when they are reformed they will allow new stories which at the moment cannot even be properly conceived.

[Malcolm Ramsay]

"Was it you Malcolm, who pointed out to me that change comes in very small steps? And that you were doing you bit in working with legislation and its interpretation and implementation in your county?"

Well, I was trying to do my bit, Bert .... but not with any success. I'd been hoping I could get a case to court which would oblige them to clarify the purpose of inheritance (of land in particular), and confront the incompatibility between how inheritance law operates at present, and the well-established principle that law does not exist for private benefit. Unfortunately the route I was trying didn't get anywhere, so I'm looking for another path (or rather, at the moment, trying to find the enthusiasm to look for another path).

One of the things people forget about small steps is that they can in fact come in very quick succession; we often spend ages trying to achieve something in a single big step, which could actually be accomplished quite quickly in several small ones.