I was recently reminded of the work of communication scholar Walter Fisher whose theoretical work on the Narrative Paradigm (here’s a summary) in the 1980s can be seen as an important foundation for much of the narrative work we see happening today. Fisher said that when people explain or justify their behavior, they don’t do so by producing factual evidence, or trying to formulate a logical argument. Rather, they focus on telling a credible story. Fisher juxtaposed two paradigms for understanding human communication and decision-making (Fisher 1984). According to the ‘rational paradigm’, humans are seen as essentially rational, the world is a set of logical puzzles that can be resolved through the application of reason, and human decision-making and communication takes place primarily through argument based on evidence (the rules and format of argument will differ depending on whether the situation is legal, scientific, legislative, and so on).
Fisher believes this paradigm is too limited, however, and cannot account for how most human communication and decision-making takes place. The rational model applies only in specific specialized fields. It does not explain how ‘everyday argument’ takes place, and in particular it does not account for ‘public moral argument’ where competing values are at stake. And so in contrast to the rational paradigm, Fisher proposed what he called a ‘narrative paradigm’ for understanding human communications.
Under this paradigm, humans are seen essentially as storytellers. Fisher argues that human decision-making and communication takes place through the production and exchange of symbols, signs and ‘good reasons’ – which are influenced by history, biography, culture and character. The world is a set of competing narratives which we must choose between. However, this is not a random, irrational process. People judge between stories based on two criteria: narrative probability (whether a story is coherent) and narrative fidelity (does the story ‘ring true’ with the other stories people know to be true in their lives).
I find these ideas of narrative coherence and narrative fidelity really helpful in trying to understand what’s going on in the context of current events, and in grappling with my own growing sense of discomfort and unease with some of the current discourse.
One example is the puzzlement that economists have been expressing about why, when the US economy is going pretty well by their objective measures, public opinion polls show that people feel it is going badly. If we use Fisher’s framework then the experts - the economists - are looking at this through a ‘rational paradigm’ - drawing logical conclusions based on their particular criteria (which one could also critique - but that’s a separate discussion). Most of us though, not being technical experts on the economy, are drawing conclusions about the economy based on what ‘rings true’ for us based on our everyday experiences, (possibly selective) memories of how things were a couple of years ago, the stories we tell one another, and a general feeling we have in our gut.
The concern over these disparate assessments of the economy mainly comes up in the context of the upcoming US presidential election in November - the concern is that voters are judging President Biden negatively, based on inaccurate understanding of the facts. The question is then how can Biden and his party do a better job of explaining how well the economy is doing under his administration.
The implication is that everyday people are mistaken. If we have negative feelings about the economy (as just one example) they are incorrect, and if we only paid attention to the facts we would make the right choices. But I think the problem is that when it comes to the economy, or politics, or all sorts of areas of public life, many of the stories we are being told don’t feel coherent and they don’t ring true. In a recent interview Naomi Klein talks about a vacuum, a gap, a dissonance that we are all feeling. The right is filling this gap, addressing this dissonance by telling stories that ring true to people for various reasons, but that are often completely out of whack with reality. The left is not addressing this gap or this dissonance at all, or is telling us we are crazy to feel the dissonance, and many times is even making it worse. The gap is growing, between the story we are telling and being told, and what rings true. The gap is growing, between words and lived experience, between what the ‘experts’ say are the facts, and what many of us feel to be true, viscerally.
The word ‘feel’ is important, because as that same Naomi Klein interview points out, the establishment on the left is not engaging our emotions, not addressing that growing feeling that many people have that things are going wrong. If we remain in the ‘rational paradigm,’ which according to Fisher is the domain of technical experts, then we might stop at seeing the problem as one of mis- or disinformation: people are simply being misinformed and misled, either accidentally or deliberately. Yes, dis- and misinformation are massive problems, but they are only part of a larger one.. As Heather McGhee argues in this interview there are so many changes happening, many of them frightening, that we desperately need leaders who can help us make sense of it all - help us with a story that is coherent and rings true.
Yet, this is sadly lacking. Living in the US, I know the stakes are enormous in the upcoming elections in November – and at the same time the very leaders who are asking me to support them in order to ‘save democracy’ are funding a genocide. The leaders who want my vote to prevent the trashing of institutions of democracy and justice at home are actively undermining international of justice and democracy. This is not coherent, what I’m being told does not ring true, and I don’t know how to begin to process it.
I think we need a truer and a better story, and I do think that there is one happening all around. Many, many people are living it out and showing the way. It starts with recognizing and accepting that feelings of things being out of whack, wrong, and jarring are legitimate. It starts with recognizing the harms that exist and are continuing right now, in the system we are being asked to prop up and support. For me it starts with recognizing the current struggle is not about saving democracy -- it’s about striving for one.
It continues with recognizing that the quest for democracy and for justice is taking place all over the place and over many timelines. In the US, the November elections are crucial – and they entail multiple contests at all sorts of levels, not just the Presidential one. At the same time, elections are only part of the picture, and our future depends on the decisions we make and the actions we take every single day. If I look around I see so much to give me hope and inspiration – such as what’s happening in many local cities and towns where mayors and councilors and journalists and activists are pushing for and passing and implementing laws and policies that center justice and equity. Such as the student protests on campuses. Such as the political education young people are providing their audiences on platforms like TikTok and Instagram (and yes, those platforms are hugely problematic).
The story that makes sense to me is that the quest for democracy is not in somebody else’s hands, it’s not in the future and it’s not a one-off decision. It’s wherever you and I are, it’s every day, it’s right now.