Narrative, Humanity, and Liberal Modernity

“Humans appear to pay attention to related details in a movie for much longer than monkeys do, suggesting that humans integrate events over time in a fundamentally different way.” In other words, it seems that what makes people different is our ability to follow a narrative. ... People fixate on one actor and integrate complex events over time. ... “Monkeys were reacting moment-by-moment instead of assembling and testing a narrative explanation for the scene before them,” the researchers wrote. - Asif Ghazanfar, HT to Andrew Sullivan

With the development of narrative, we became the animal that knows that it will grow old and die, and thus the animal that has art and religion. ... With the development of narrative, we also become the animal that imagines laws and ethics. (Vide infra)

Brandon Watson has a helpful rundown of the most common theories.  I'd like to sketch another, which I might call narrative theory. The paradox of fiction, as Brandon explains it, is that we feel for things we know don't exist.  Narrative theory, as I define it, posits 1) that fictional characters do exist, not as literally existing beings, but as narrative entities and 2) that real people like you and me are also narrative entities. We lovers of fiction and fictional characters have something in common: we're narrative beings. - Kyle R. Cupp

Charles K. Rowley: In 1993, in his book, Post-Liberalism, [John] Gray poked around among the rubble of classical liberal philosophy to determine what, if anything was left. He concluded that none of the four constitutive elements of doctrinal liberalism — universalism, individualism, egalitarianism and meliorism (or human flourishing) — could survive the ordeal by value pluralism and that liberalism, as a political philosophy, therefore was dead. www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_1_rowley.pdf

It seems to me that the character of Imperial Germany after 1878 can best be caught in the term "illiberal." [[I am using the term as the dictionary defines it: "Not befitting a free man . . . not generous in respect to the opinions, rights, or liberties of others; narrow-minded." The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1967)]] - Fritz Stern, The Failure of Illiberalism, p. xvii

A major factor in the development of the technological modern world we experience was the symbolic ordering of nature by science. (See earlier post The Liberal Founding.) What is seldom realized is that all of us are constantly ordering the world. We don't live in the world as it is, but in a narrative drama which we construct by "integrat[ing] events over time." In this gestalt formation we perceive connections between the past and the present, and to a certain extent become able to know about the future.

As Ghazanfar and the other researchers argue:

The bulk of the overlap was driven by the two species’ shared interest in complex scenes, particularly faces, body movements, and social interactions.

But the researchers also found two intriguing differences between the monkey and human gaze paths.

First, “humans appear to look at the focus of actor’s attention and intentions to a much greater extent than do monkeys,” Ghazanfar and Shepherd wrote in a fascinating review published in the film journal Projections. Second, “humans appear to pay attention to related details in a movie for much longer than monkeys do, suggesting that humans integrate events over time in a fundamentally different way.”

In other words, it seems that what makes people different is our ability to follow a narrative. Whereas monkeys look and react to scenes quickly, people fixate on one actor and integrate complex events over time. In a clip showing two monkeys, for example, people tended to look squarely on the monkey sitting quietly in the center of the screen. Monkeys, in contrast, looked at the more active second monkey, even thought it was jumping out of view of the camera. “Monkeys were reacting moment-by-moment instead of assembling and testing a narrative explanation for the scene before them,” the researchers wrote.

With the development of narrative, we became the animal that knows that it will grow old and die, and thus the animal that has art and religion.

Part of postmodernism's attack on liberal western civilization was the attempt to deconstruct "metanarrative." In the current Wikipedia, "A metanarrative is a grand narrative common to all. The term refers, in critical theory and particularly in postmodernism, to a comprehensive explanation, a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealised) master idea."

In this point of view, narrative at times goes beyond projecting the future as a continuation of a pattern emerging in the past, visualizing what ought to be. With the development of narrative, we also become the animal which imagines laws and ethics.

"As you read a log," blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote, "you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending." [Emphasis added]

Orwell argued that to write clearly is a political act: "To think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers." The well-structured, coherent novel of "one increasing purpose" is the verbal art form of our time. Its antithesis is deconstruction's concept of the postmodern novel, fragmented, ironic and self-refuting.

A "truth" becomes true by its connection to other elements of knowledge—in effect, by its place in an ordered narrative. The concept of a free citizen of a liberal society, capable of self-government, comes from the acceptance of an ordered narrative describing a rational, informed, ethical being capable of acting in the name of the public good out of enlightened self-interest.

As Richard Wolin wrote in The Terms of Cultural Criticism, to deconstruct the narrative of the autonomous self is profoundly antiliberal:

In the New Republic, Tzvetan Todorov deplored the “dogmatic skepticism” he finds in the academy—the attitude that “there is no such thing as truth or objectivity.” Todorov dramatized the danger by recalling that in George Orwell’s 1984 Big Brother crushes the idea that reality is “something objective, external, existing in its own right.” … Tzvetan Todorov writes that “it is not possible, without inconsistency, to defend human rights with one hand and deconstruct the idea of humanity with the other.” Deconstruct humanity—reduce the autonomous self to the status of a fiction—and you are left with an entity no more responsible for its actions than a puppet manipulated by an unseen master.

After the turning point in our history of September 11, 2001, people hoped for a return to what was fundamental. Some asked, "Is this the end of irony?" What ordered narratives do you credit?

Ta-Nehisi Coates 'White Supremacy' Theme and the Attack on Civility

Here’s the problem if you are a non-African American parent: how do you voice your concern with these issues without being viewed as a racist by some (though not all) black parents at the school? Is there an underlying cultural issue that makes it more likely that kids who are non-Catholic and who come to the school from outside the neighborhood will end up having discipline problems? ... How do I demand safety for my kids without being tarred with the ugly “racist” label? It really is a tight rope walk. - A Nation Defined by White Supremacy? Ctd

The recent controversy over Ta-Nehisi Coates' "A Nation Defined by White Supremacy?" series of articles is of special interest because in these articles TNC seems to have discarded functional evaluation of culture—particularly middle class culture—for an ad hominem validation of uncivil subcultures.

In "Other People's Pathologies", TNC writes,

It’s very nice to talk about “middle-class values” when that describes your small, limited world. But when your grandmother lives in one hood and your coworkers live another, you generally need something more than “middle-class values.” You need to be bilingual.

TNC's cite of Yoni Applebaum in "Black Pathology Crowdsourced" clarifies what he means:

Culture of Poverty is a label attached to a wide array of behaviors. There are behaviors—physical assertiveness—well-suited to that environment that may tend to inhibit success elsewhere.

This misleading critique of the civil culture of Western civilization—characterized by notably successful and peaceful societies—is familiar from the turbulent years of the counterculture. As David Lehman noted in Signs of the Times, “In a Marxist model of knowledge, the superstructure—the tangible products of culture—camouflages and reinforces the hidden reality of class warfare.”

"Physical assertiveness," contrary to TNC's subtle misdirection, is to be deprecated not because it is thought to pertain to an underclass, but because it is dysfunctional. Valuable sectors of any society—women, children, for example—can scarcely compete where the criterion is physical advantage. That is why bullying is in disrepute.

As part of this general theme Coates has been critiquing President Obama for calling for black parents to teach responsibility to their children. In Andrew Sullivan's blog The Dish, a bi-racial parent looks at both sides of the "assertiveness" and responsibility issues:

    It seems like the Dish posts on school suspensions and the argument between Coates and Chait regarding [it] are linked. Let me share an example.

    My kids go to a small Catholic school in the south suburbs of Chicago. I personally chose the school because it provided a solid Catholic education and it is diverse. Many of the schools in this area are all white or all black. I didn’t like either of those options for my kids. I grew up in a very diverse area and want my kids to experience the same thing.

    Unfortunately, discipline problems had progressively been on the rise before the principal resigned last summer. Also unfortunately, many of the kids who have been involved in these discipline problems are African American. They range from calling a teacher a bitch to bringing a knife to school to assaulting a much younger (and white) child in a bathroom.

    I’m bi-racial, so I have a kinda distinctive view of the dynamics within the community of the school, which unfortunately is often self segregating. I remember a school function where most white parents sat on one side of the gym while most black parents sat on the other. Since I hadn’t grown up around here and wasn’t used to such a thing, it was very jarring for me. I walk with comfort on both sides of the spectrum, but I would say most here don’t, for whatever reason. It has sometimes been very difficult to get black and white parents together for social events, such as fundraisers.

    The parents of students who live in the neighborhood of the school – which is upper-middle class to downright rich and mostly white – have been very disturbed by the recent discipline issues. There has been a call to be much harsher with punishment, and some want to make the school exclusively Catholic. But that really isn’t workable, because the school has suffered through enrollment declines in recent years due to the economy, and shutting some kids out would probably mean shutting down the school. Catholic schools all over the nation are shutting down in alarming numbers.

    Here’s the problem if you are a non-African American parent: how do you voice your concern with these issues without being viewed as a racist by some (though not all) black parents at the school? Is there an underlying cultural issue that makes it more likely that kids who are non-Catholic and who come to the school from outside the neighborhood will end up having discipline problems? I don’t know the answer, but it is worth thinking about. There are parents here who are racist, who revel in bringing up such issues behind closed doors at parties and such. But I’m not one of them. How do I demand safety for my kids without being tarred with the ugly “racist” label? It really is a tight rope walk.

    This is why I welcome the president making these speeches. He has a credibility that people like me can’t possibly have, despite the fact that I’m very active at the school with both ends of the spectrum. At some point, people like me who are not racist should be able to point out issues like discipline problems at school or poor service at business establishments on the merits without having to worry about the race issue hanging over our heads. I don’t see that happening in the near future. Maybe Barack Obama can help. He’s surely trying, which I appreciate. I voted for the man twice on issues that have nothing to do with this one, but I do like his personal responsibility stance on this.

    I’ve always been a fan of TNC and his writing, especially his historical perspectives. But it seems to me lately that he has fallen to the Jackson/Sharpton point of view, which I find disappointing. Racism is definitely everywhere. I’ve seen it personally, having a father who was DARK brown. I’ve seen it in my own neighborhood from people who I’m friendly with (and from BOTH races). Still, it would seem like blaming the plight of African Americans today solely on white supremacy would be like blaming WWI on one cause. There can be more than one cause.

Coates' position seems to be faux “realism.” The existence of brutish, criminal 'hoods or subcultures does not delegitimize civility or middle class ethics, it illustrates the need for them.

TNC once saw the founders as “reluctant slaveholders.” (In "Why We Fight" he wrote, "Jefferson's generation were, to some extent, reluctant slaveholders. (I shudder writing that.)") He now appears to claim, as one observer said, "that George Washington’s presidency means nothing more than his being a slaveholder."


In Very Hard Choices Spider Robinson wrote, “'The Constitution and Bill of Rights are among the most enlightened political documents the human race has produced so far, and its people are, so help me, some of the kindest who have yet walked the earth. . . . So far nobody's ever been as ashamed of their own racism as we are.'” Ta-Nehisi Coates pretends that one half of the picture does not exist. There are still white supremacists, but to assert over and over, as Coates is doing, that that defines our multiracial society, is to fail to give credit to the most important fact: What he characterizes as a supremacist nation listened to Martin Luther King, then passed the Omnibus Civil Rights Act. If this had not happened, it is unlikely that Coates would be, as his employer states, "a national correspondent at The Atlantic."

Because on balance this is not a white supremacist nation, Coates has the platform from which he claims, as he seems to, that we are always and only racists.