Narrative
Caitlin Johnstone writes:
“There’s that word: narrative, narrative, narrative. That’s how empire managers talk to each other, because that’s how they think about everything.
This is because empire managers are always acutely aware of something that normal human beings are not: that real power comes from manipulating the stories — narratives — that people tell themselves about their reality.
They understand that humans are storytelling animals whose inner lives are typically dominated by mental narratives about what’s happening, so if you can control those narratives, you can control the humans.
They understand that power is controlling what happens, but true power is controlling what people think about what happens.
They understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world.”
…“Spiritual maturity means moving out of our hypnotic fixation on mental narrative and bringing our attention from the babbling mind chatter to rest in the wonder of the senses, where material reality can get a word in edgewise. As humanity matures toward becoming a conscious species, we will hopefully find ourselves less transfixed by mental narrative, and therefore less easily roped in by manipulators who rely on the stickiness of human head noise to get us to buy into their stories.”
Reference: https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/manipulators-understand-that-narrative
Caitlin’s article on the use of Narrative and ‘narrative control’ by manipulators resonates with my own emphasis on the importance of Storytelling as part of DREAMS – (Dialogue, Reflection, Ethics, Awareness, Meditation and Storytelling) the building blocks of cognitive sovereignty. We cannot control that which we are not aware of. DREAMS is about the cultivation of awareness of our own mental narratives, awareness of how we are manipulated by the narratives of others and finally agency with respect to narrative.
However DREAMS doesn’t reject narrative it integrates it:
Dialogue – narratives meet and are tested socially
Reflection – narratives are examined internally
Ethics – narratives are evaluated morally
Awareness – recognition of narrative as narrative
Meditation – loosening identification with narrative
Storytelling – intentional creation of narrative
I have no argument with Caitlin’s description of how narrative is manipulated against us. But the use of narrative is part of who we are as human beings and members of communities and cultures. “Bringing our attention from the babbling mind chatter to rest in the wonder of the senses, where material reality can get a word in edgewise” is awareness and meditation, and is necessary for our human freedom, but not sufficient for human meaning and creativity. For that we must co-create our own narratives, not once and for all, but as a continuous and conscious part of our way of being.