When Narratives Compete

We are all storytellers. It’s part of our DNA. It’s how  we share our experiences, our beliefs, form community, and make sense of the world.

Some of our early stories proved to be false but considered endearing – Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. A more sophisticated word for story is narrative.

What is a Narrative?

Studiobinder.com provides a good definition: A narrative is an account of a string of events occurring in space and time. They do not unfold randomly, but rather as an ordered series of events connected by the logic of cause and effect. Narratives are as old as human civilization, and probably older. Historians trace the visual storytelling of cave painting back at least 30,000 years.

A Good Example

“The writer and scholar Joseph Campbell studied the quest narrative across cultures and history. He found that elements repeated in quest stories around the world, even in cultures that had no contact with one another. He famously organized them into The Hero’s Journey, which includes these steps: the call to adventure, transformation, and return. In Campbell’s famous journey, the narratives follow logically, one after another.”

Challenging Narratives

Narratives can also overlap or conflict. Many people, like me, become disheartened when they are confronted with a narrative that conflicts with a long-held belief. Learning, years later, that someone you admired or loved was not the person you thought they were can be disheartening. Facing the truth requires emotional work that is never easy. The best we can do is to try to see the whole person, “warts and all” as is said.*

There are similar conflicting industry and high-tech produced narratives regarding our health and food, the globe, and medicine. Recently, counter narratives have emerged reflecting the abusive power of the food/health/ pharmacy industries to get what they want regardless of the danger to human life. Glyphosate spraying, cloud seeding, the destruction of farmland, the unchecked influence of lobbyists and billionaires, and data centers stealing a community’s natural resources.   

The fact remains that we are fed narratives on a daily basis. Many people prefer mainstream news, newspapers, publications, and governmental sources for the truth of a narrative. Others seek information on the truth or falsity of a narrative by following people they trust on social media and podcasts. The fact is that many Americans have turned away from the nightly news shows that feature anchors and panelists but leave much of the news unreported or distorted. “A big reason,” says James Howard Kunstler “is that broadcast news now employs nearly zero correspondents in-the-field. Nobody is out there reporting on events. They don’t want to spend the money. So, the news just spins and spins, mostly in the service of what key sponsors prefer.”

As part of an increased focus on governmental narratives, a recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research highlights Americans’ feeling of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. Only about one-quarter of Americans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world. Another 44% say it’s one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others. About 3 in 10 say there are better countries than the U.S., an increase from 19% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016.

Matt Smith

What to do?

Matt Smith, an American entrepreneur and economic commentator offers an interesting and helpful process. When the narrative you believe is challenged by an overlapping or competing narrative, think of that narrative and then:

• Try to set it aside and look at the cause and effect of that narrative – who developed it? What facts have been presented to support it? And what compels you to believe it?
• Next let your belief be challenged. Is this actually the real story or is there “more to the story?”
• Smith proposes using an objective hypothesis as a way to challenge what you believe by seeing if it can be disproved. It takes work – mentally and also psychologically to be willing to change your mind and/or your long-held beliefs.

A Blizzard of Conflicting Narratives

I’m writing this blog post in late June. The news is awash with counter narratives.

An MoU (memorandum of understanding) has been signed by both the U.S. and Iran. Given the history of the U.S. and Israel breaking agreements, it will be amazing if it holds and leads to something more permanent. Waiting in the U.S. wings is Cuba; maybe a few more invasions before the end of Trump’s term. Many war lovers are deeply offended by what they see as a defeat of the U.S. and our cherished world domination. Those of us who would like lasting peace are hoping a new narrative will rule.

A Reemerging Narrative

Barely reported in mainstream media is the latest information about the cause of Covid and the  vaccine and boosters. This is maybe the most difficult set of narratives in our lifetime. I’m going to apply Matt Smith’s process and look at the multiple narratives.

• First, there is the source of Covid. It came from a U.S. military lab and then shipped to Wuhan, China to avoid various U.S. safety and governmental rules.
• The administrations of both Trump and Biden, combined with NIH, Anthony Fauci, WHO, and the pharmaceutical industry came together to demand citizen compliance. Investors made millions. Doctors received bonuses for how many patients they could vaccinate, hospitals were rewarded financially for the most procedures, and any entity or scientist who objected was silenced. Social media was closely monitored to make sure no counter narrative was allowed.
• Today, hidden data, new science-based studies, reports from various record-keeping organizations, a growing number of medical personnel, and the voice of the vaccine injured are reaching the public.

These emerging narratives are devastating in so many respects. How could the insistence of pursuing a bioweapon leaked from a lab, turned  into a virus, and killed more than one million Americans be allowed? How was it that the vaccine had already been developed?

Departing Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, left her position with this revelation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_zXImHFwG4. She accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci of covering up the origins of COVID-19, alleging he influenced intelligence assessments, and misled Congress. She says newly released documents reveal efforts to suppress the lab leak theory and silence dissenting voices. I have linked to her video because mainstream media has been hesitant to show it.

Whatever Covid Narrative You Chose

• If you chose to be unvaccinated, you paid either a personal, financial, or professional price. You were shunned by former friends, colleagues, and family who were told you were a danger. The hardest part for this group may have been a concern for those who were vaccinated and what new studies of potential injury and the mRNA lifespan in the body may reveal. If you were a parent and held to this narrative, you most likely had to homeschool your child or children which had to have been a challenge in many ways – emotionally and financially.
• If you chose the vaccination and booster route you were convinced that you would be protected from serious illness and death. For those who had unvaccinated family members and friends, their concern was equally significant and worrisome. They had only approved information and few counter sources they could consider.
• If you recovered from Covid early on, your counter narrative was likely to see what amount of immunity you had from future infections. And could herd immunity play a role?
• If you only took the vaccine and stopped, you must have had a competing narrative that brought you to a difficult decision to not sign on for the boosters. The encouragement to keep getting the shots was nonstop.
• If you went all out and took multiple boosters and believe you had done the right thing for yourself, family, and your community, you have a challenge ahead of you as new narratives emerge.

Without a doubt, trust in health authorities, medical providers, governmental agencies, and a variety of media – main and social – has been broken. All because of a few world-dominating industries, a handful of billionaires who crave fewer people on the planet, and dishonesty at the highest levels of government and medicine watched to see just how obedient and cooperative people would be when enough fear and silence was applied.

My Favorite Competing Narratives – Much Appreciated These Days

Photo credits: Competing lines – paris-bilal

*The “warts and all” origin is said to come from 17th-century English statesman Oliver Cromwell sitting for his portrait. He supposedly stated, “I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me.”