“In the Republic of Stories” began as a 6 month experiment to apply a narrative critical mind to the 2008 Presidential election process as it is covered by the mainstream media. What made it distinct from the other political blogs out there is that we played the role of the NARRATIVE ANALYST, not the pundit or someone who has any particular party preference. We are the Center for Narrative Studies based in Washington DC and our mission for the past 16 years has been to “shape the stories that shape us.” Go do www.storywise.com for more information.
What has prompted reviving this by-line from the old CNS NARRATIVE MATTERS Newsletter is the frequent use of the word “narrative” by our TV pundits and experts. For instance, they speak of “Obama’s narrative” challenging Clinton’s,” or “McCain’s narrative” not exactly fitting the conservative agenda. If the so called experts are now using “narrative” in their prime time lexicon, we feel its time that narrative practitioners enter the fray to demonstrate that a narrative approach is more than just throwing that word around as a new cliche. We want to demonstrate that “story” is both a tale told and a method of meaning-making. We want to show of and demystify “story” as the dominant strategy driving the election and an increasingly popular metaphor to describe it.
We set ourselves some specific goals. This analysis must prove that
- It is relevant,
- It is not just a rip-off or a recycling of the chatter from the commentariat.
- It must add light and not just heat to the dialog.
- It must also carry its own explanatory power to help us understand the drama that is unfolding.
- It must demonstrate not only explanatory value but predictive power.That is not to say that we can predict the winner or the loser but we can predict how certain stories will unfold. Stories give us reliable maps.
- Lastly, with millions of other blogs out there, we want to test to see if we can attract an audience and draw collaborators who will take off the political lens, or the media masks and get as curious as we are in the Presidential election as an epic unfolding in real time.
Democracy is a story in which the hero is the people, not just the winning candidate. When the people vote, they are making their voices heard. In French, the word for vote is the same as voice. In the Republic of Stories, we want to champion a view of democracy in which every voice counts, and every story has a right to be told, not just the Stories that come blaring out at us from CNN and FOX.
The Republic of Stories is what makes our democracy vibrant and our election process exciting. But some stories are dangerous, some stories drown out or disqualify other stories, and some stories deliberately feed our fears. The “story of power” can too easily boil down to “the power of story,” where millions are being spent by the electoral spin-meisters targeting us as their uncritical story consumers. This column offers a form of consumer protection from those stories that threaten to turn the Republic of Stories into a Tyranny of the Deaf and the Dumb!
EPILOGUE-WHAT BEGAN AS A BLOG BECAME A BOOK-THE PRESIDENTIAL PLOT
The project that is described above was completed, not as a continual blog as intended but as a published book called The Presidential Plot- the Story, the Map and the Conspiracy to elect a President. It is now available at http://www.lulu.com/content/3972295. Here is the opening page.
INTRODUCTION TO “THE PRESIDENTIAL PLOT”
“We are all suckers for a good story; it’s not just that people lie to us. We lie to ourselves. We are the willing confabulators of our fictions and if you don’t believe me, let’s remind ourselves of a few recent stories.
Remember Iraq? There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s) but most of us wanted to find them because we knew Saddam was a baddie! He should have had them. It so fit the story. Now we are blaming the Government, so we don’t have to blame ourselves, but even 65% of Democratic voters originally bought the horror movie of “Smoking gun to mushroom clouds.”
Remember how Enron was re-inventing the energy business? All the Harvard business gurus were lauding it for setting new standards of excellence and profitability. We didn’t want to know about any bottom line finagling until they ran out of money. But big business, who are paid to know, and government, who are paid to regulate, bought it big time. Ken Lay was a White House VIP, a member of the Board of Harvard Business School no less.
And lest we forget Katrina-FEMA was a great agency. They knew how to handle hurricanes and were doing one “heckuva of a job,” because our President told us so. Then we saw the bodies floating and the people abandoned on housetops. The images didn’t fit the story, though ‘heck,’ as a euphemism for “hell” was at least accurate!
Katrina-Enron-WMD’s, I am sure you can name even more-the Boston Archdiocese, Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. Corporations now produce stories as an industry, and whether they be the military, the White House or Wall Street,they wield enormous power over us, until sometimes, reality has its revenge and firms go bust, wars go bad, and levees break. But by then, it’s too late. And we are left to wonder: Why were we suckers for the story in the first place?