A narrative is a story that is created in a constructive format (written, spoken, poetry, prose, images, song, theater or dance) that describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events
Awhile back I wrote about the power of the narrative in regards to global warming. The idea as I pointed out came from a very good article by Charlie Martin-" In Politics Today, It’s All About the Narrative ". If you understand that the narrative in modern day America is the key to influence you begin to understand why seemingly incompressible events occur. More importantly you begin to understand why blatant falsehoods are accepted and even cultivated.
A meaningless example would be the whole Michael Jackson death watch we watched take over the country for over a week. It was not that Michael Jackson's death warranted that much attention or even that the majority of Americans were all that interested, at least to the degree it was covered. It just became that weeks narrative.
Despite the fact that a majority of Americans felt the attention given to it by the media was overkill (excuse the pun) the media couldn't help themselves. Even news organizations that knew that their viewers were fed up with it continued the coverage simply because they could not be left out of the story.
You see once a narrative is developed,nobody knows who believes it or who cares about it, it forms a life of its own regardless of the facts. The reason that narratives are so popular and so destructive is that in our modern society everybody wants the synopsis not the details. A plausible explanation can easily take the place of complicated things such as facts.
The narrative is a great tool in politics because you can create a narrative that fits right into a groups preconceived biases an prejudices. I'll give you a current example:
“First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”
That of course is a direct quote from Barack Obama which he made in New Jersey on July 16. He has made this same statement countless times over the past year in describing his Health Care reform agenda. The fact is that it is not true. As a matter of fact when I googled to find the quote, I got it from an ABC story which is titled President Obama Continues Questionable “You Can Keep Your Health Care” Promise Jack Tapper of ABC was not the first and has not been the last to point out that THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is being deceitful by saying this.
In fact a month prior to this he said virtually the same thing at the AMA convention:
"no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."
People questioned it even back then when the bill in congress was just being written and the White House told the AP:
"White House officials suggest the president's rhetoric shouldn't be taken literally: What Obama really means is that government isn't about to barge in and force people to change insurance."
So everyone including the white House and the Congressional Budget Office knows and has known for some time that this statement by THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITES STATES is not true. In fact the bills that are in Congress are making a complete fallacy of that claim so it is no longer even a hypothetical situation.
So on Wednesday night what did Obama say
"It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it."
Why would he continue to make an assertion that is blatantly false? He has been shown that it is not true, his Administration has admitted it is not true and yet he continues to repeat it. Why? Because it is part of the narrative.
Some people will know it is not true, most will not it doesn't matter because it is all about the narrative. What is important is that when his supporters want to push the plan, they can say President Obama says "if you’re happy with your insurance you can keep it" and that is true. Not that you can actually keep your insurance just that Obama says you can, that is building a narrative. The "you can keep your insurance" plank is firmly planted in the Health Reform debate structure-true or not.
Most people go through life just hearing competing narratives, they have very little time to seek out the facts. This narrative battle has replaced reality and a well informed public in American Society,
I read things on the Internet all the time that are just not true, especially on blogs, but they are very popular narratives.
The problem now is that narratives are replacing facts and reality in the mainstream of life. After all if THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES can continually mislead the public in order to establish a narrative what's to stop it?
The worse thing about a narrative is that it becomes an intimidating presence. Nobody knows who is buying into the narrative and who is not, so people don't want to attack it for fear of being considered out of the mainstream. Facts actually become impediments to the debate and the debate is the entertainent anyway right?
I am sure there are many things in American life that people just don't buy into but don't object to or ignore simply because it is a popular narrative. A President was destroyed (Bush) and one was elected (Obama) all based on narratives that had very little facts to back up the popular story about either one of them.
Narratives become so powerful that people are intimidated by them, fearful that to question them will make them outcasts. Other people grab onto narratives and begin to believe them even when facts contradict the story, the narrative becomes their reality. When a narrative fits into a persons bias and prejudices it can become an obsession that must be protected.
Meanwhile, as I said most people don't have the time to investigate, they are just making decisions based upon competing narratives. That is why presentation and marketing is so important-but that is for another day.
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