Gay Laser to Destroy Humanity. Story at 10.

[Res Ipsa]

Not sure if this qualifies as a meta-narrative Honor, but here goes.

My entire way of thinking was changed when I encountered the legal form of post-modernism in law school (Critical Legal Studies). The explanation is long and boring, but the bottom line is that there is much less necessity in the world than we think there is and much more contingency. That means that predicting the consequences of change ranges between extremely difficult and impossible. On the one hand, that feels disempowering, because how are we supposed to decide what to do? On the other hand, it’s empowering as it gives us the ability to try things that we might not have otherwise thought to try. This requires society to be willing to try out alternative solutions to problems and to be willing to rationally evaluate results, admit failure, and change tactics to try something else. This requires a degree of flexibility and nimbleness that our society seems to lack.

Example, there is no excuse for the US not to have recognized and admitted that its “war on drugs” through harsh criminal prosecution and sentencing was a failure that destroyed the lives of many citizens. Not only did we end up with a horrifying rate of incarceration of black citizens, we squandered the opportunity to be ready to effectively address the opioid epidemic killing mostly white, rural, male citizens.

The other piece of my narrative has to do with structure. Discussions about fairness and rights and liberty are worthless when they occur only “in the air.” The societal structures in which our values are embedded is where the rubber hits the road.

[Some Schmo]

Full disclosure:

When I saw the 'Gay Laser' Scientist was named Lyotard, I thought it was a satirical play on the word leotard and was expecting him to break into a dance in one of the panels. I had no idea there was a philosopher named Lyotard

I don't remember this thread when honor started it. Weird. Thanks for the OP and bumping it, honor.

But anyway, I was reading it new, and had the exact same reaction as you, MeDotOrg. I'm glad it wasn't just me.

And yeah, the OP was awesome. I want to honor honor's question, but I have to ask him first: can you please define for me what you mean by "meta-narratives?" I got a sense from your posts in this thread (you may have even said it explicitly, but I went back to scan and couldn't find it). I'd like a working definition on which to focus.

For me, when someone uses the prefix "meta," it indicates "a something about that something." Meta-data is "data about data." A meta-conversation would be a conversation about another conversation(s). When I'm playing D&D with the guys, we often talk about avoiding "meta-gaming," which is talking about the rules of the game influencing roleplaying decisions in the game. So "meta-narrative" makes me think "a narrative about narratives." I don't get the sense that's what you mean, but something more broad, so I need to be clear first.

Great topic.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Decided to bump this in the context of the Downward Spiral of Contempt thread. Meta-narratives.

I’m glad you did. For guys like me, can you provide an example or ‘object lesson’ with regard to to a meta-narrative?

- Doc

[honorentheos]

For Schmo and Cam, I will take a stab at what I understand by metanarrative as being discussed as a socially organizing structure. It's a bit difficult just by definition in the same way that thinking about a 4th dimensional object is largely approximated rather than grasped. Just as we can easily square the line into the square, and square the square into a cube, but then casually describe cubing the cube while having no way of actually visualizing a 4th dimensional object from our 3rd dimensional experience and senses, metanarratives exist as socially organizing structures on which individual narratives overlay for recognized shared meaning that we all "recognize" but questionably when it comes to the details. We all understand what a narrative is. But that's only sorta helpful. We all probably at least at one time believed in some organizing framework that gave meaning to the world even if we have traded that one in for a more existential or absurdist one...which is another topic I guess. Anyway.

In essence, it is a framing device that we (image we) share as social units that provides contextual meaning to the individual narratives that are our lives. But the details or an easy to outline example is difficult to provide in a clear, comprehensive way. Try this on and see if it makes sense...

The western metanarrative is the story that we might recognize best by it's challengers such as Jared Diamond in his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, or the conflict at the center of the thread Kishkumen started where the end of the Classics program at Howard University has layers to it, but at the core the conflict is for ownership of the metanarrative on which individuals in our society frame the narratives of their lives and those of the people around them. That metanarrative is about the relationship of the success of western civilization and its religious AND cultural origins. Manifest Destiny was an express of that metanarrative. Immigration flows over the centuries reflect the pulse of that metanarrative. And the fear that underlays the anger and hate one hears from many on the right and left are contextualized by what they feel is lost or being enforced unjustly by that metanarrative.

So how does one synthesize all of that into a statement without losing something critical to understanding it? I don't know.

What I believe, though, is that metanarrative is directly tied to social order. The nation-state as a social structure couldn't really exist without something taking the place of the more basic metanarratives of tribe and clan that allows people to gain a collective shared identity around which to maintain a society. The American Experiment was expected to fail by the monarchies of the 18th century precisely because it seemed unlikely that people of such "diverse" origins could hold together based on some parchment signed by 39 people in Philadelphia. And we seem always in tension, about to pull apart.

The US is the third largest nation based on population. The largest, China, is over 90% Han Chinese and under a totalitarian government. The second largest, India, is largely under a Hindu theocracy posturing as a democracy in a nation that has an ingrained caste system held together by Hindu beliefs in reincarnation. Their metanarratives are challenged by modernity. But no where near the way the US metanarrative is being challenged as our racial, religious, economic, and education diversity is also division as people seem to feel "something" inherent to the American experience is moving away from them. While others feel it was never in their reach but if they fight harder, maybe they can finally "take it".

Is that an answer? I don't know. I think we all have a metanarrative we believe in, and we often assume others around us share it even while it is as remote from our conscious thinking as a cubed cube.

Mormonism has a metanarrative. It has to do with human kind being the children of a Heavenly Father with whom they can return through covenant and faithfulness. One narrative version of this has been turned into a religious ritual in the story of Adam and Eve where the Mormon couple is expected to participate in the reenactment of this ur-couple making the same covenants the modern couple makes with God and one another. But the Mormon metanarrative is more than that, and many a Mormon feels varying degrees of affinity and conflict with other Mormons based on how their life narratives reflect their own perceived understanding of what the meaning is for life, the universe, and everything...

And maybe that's the best answer. A metanarrative is the answer to the question in The Hitchhiker's Guide that turns out to maybe be Adam Douglas saying to the world, "It's funny to answer 42, but that wasn't the actual answer. But 42 is easier to give as an answer than...well,"

Anyway, I think the preservation of a nation-state as a social organization demands commonality of some kind. Sorry if that isn't satisfying. It's the best I can do.

[honorentheos]

I don't know if this counts as an example but since January 6 is a touch point, the difference between how Pence acted compared to Trump comes down to their holding to massively different meta-narratives on which their life narratives are framed. Trump seems to be the true narcissist whose beliefs about the world barely extend beyond his own self-interest. It seems to include something about family but in the same way a mafioso ties family and loyalty inseparably together. There are no grand ideas about democratic norms, nothing that makes sacred our civic institutions.

Pence, otoh, may frame the world in a way that is based in the dominance of anglo-christian western civilization, and his politics is spent combating what he views as existential threats to that view. But America, the city on a hill, with it's civic institutions and Constitution at it's beating heart, is vital to that narrative. To request to violate the rule of law as contained in the Constitution was a violation of his core beliefs in a way the rest of Trump's presidency never could be.

Maybe those are better examples. I don't know.

[Some Schmo]

The only meta-narrative I have (that I can think of) is that understanding reality is fundamental to true, long-term success.

This has implications, of course. I won't tolerate liars. I'm annoyed by religion/faith/god belief/propaganda/politics (and even more annoyed by people profiting off those things). All media should be non-profit (because we've seen how lying is profitable). No problem can be solved until everyone trying to solve it can agree what the problem is. The only proven method of getting to the truth is science. Nothing can be known without proof and testing.

This also makes me think about an economics class I took in college where one of the fundamental tenets was that "profit is ok." I think that's true, so long as it isn't in conflict with the goods/services that are supposed to be provided. Profit isn't always ok. We're witnessing right now how media profits are driving this country apart. Health care/pharmaceutical profits are keeping people sick. Prison profits are in conflict with justice.

I also believe that laughter can solve a lot of interpersonal relationship problems, although that doesn't seem to fit your definition. Seems like a lower-tier belief.

[honorentheos]

Thanks, Schmo. It's helpful to look at the beliefs you shared in the context of the shapes analogy. It's relatively easy to articulate a belief, in the same way it is relatively easy to visualize squaring a line into a 2D square. And if asked, you'd be able to share why those beliefs are important to your view of the world. You've said before that a shared approach to facts is necessary to have functional relationships and you expand on those more in your post. Much like one can visualize squaring the square into a 3D cube, your narrative explanation for why the beliefs are valid can be readily articulated with perhaps some thought. And you can readily tie them into your own narrative that is the Life of Schmo.

But we need to dig deeper to try to get at any underlying meta-narratives involved. I'd suggest asking the question, "What ultimate end is being enabled or frustrated when people fail to engage reality in the same way?"

Inherent in that question is also another belief. That being, there is objective reality that is universally accessible and sharable. Why is that fundamental to your beliefs? Answering either or both of those questions doesn't expose the meta-narrative in total. But they help one examine why they approach the world as one does.

As noted, meta-narratives are frameworks on which our narratives are built but their composition is complex. If it's easy to articulate, it's probably not the full, complex meta-narrative being described but rather part of a narrative that is derived from it. A cube face from the cubed cube, if you will. I think the 4D object is a pretty good analogy for the relationship we have with them, too.

[Some Schmo]

But we need to dig deeper to try to get at any underlying meta-narratives involved. I'd suggest asking the question, "What ultimate end is being enabled or frustrated when people fail to engage reality in the same way?"

Progress is frustrated when people choose to believe stuff rather than let good, verifiable evidence dictate what they believe.

Inherent in that question is also another belief. That being, there is objective reality that is universally accessible and sharable. Why is that fundamental to your beliefs? Answering either or both of those questions doesn't expose the meta-narrative in total. But they help one examine why they approach the world as one does.

I do believe in objective reality, but I wouldn't say it's universally accessible. There are some things I don't think we'll ever know. If something is knowable, then I would say that piece of knowledge is universally accessible.

And I would also agree that an objective reality is fundamental to my beliefs. Without an objective reality, we truly are free to believe whatever the hell we want, because there's nothing tethering us to anything real.

One of the worst expressions ever uttered is "my truth."

[Gadianton]

The part that makes a metanarrative controversial is the "narrative" part. In "metaphysics" you can either think about the really big picture (photograph), or you can think about what comes before physics, or the preconditions of physics. You're grasping towards the most logically immutable ideas. The most logically immutable idea is the law of non-contradiction.

A metanarrative throws that out and says everything is just a story, and so a metanarrative would be the biggest BS story told by the biggest liars who represent the interests of the biggest BS institutions -- such as the institution of the white male.

In other words, politics is everything.

If the white male isn't rock bottom reality, if there is no rock bottom reality, then other narratives are just as valid. One version of this (deconstructionism), a very popular version, is to show that metanarratives are only possible by suppressing other narratives.

In art, an analogy would be folk art represents post-modernism. Art that represents communities. In contrast is modern art -- abstract art, which represents modernism. Same for music -- modern for those who listen to atonal / 20th century. The philosophical connection is probably that the high point of modernism is existentialism. When you get to existentialism, "existence before essence", the subject arbitrates (creates?) reality; the subject is all-powerful or at least, is the greatest resistor of boundaries. modernism = subject creates world. postmodernism = community creates world.

All those symbols physics guy writes down? Just a narrative, not a mirror of real reality. You can just google "science wars" -- literary people saying that science is a patriarchal power structure (for instance). Does that mean they deny 'reality' and there's nothing but community narratives? That's the part that nobody can really answer clearly. Technically speaking, just about every philosophy of science denies reality or in order to affirm reality, you have to accept assumptions that sound just as crazy, or just accept something commonsensical that isn't very consistent. There are a lot of commonsense contradictions, for instance, if you ask Gemli or just about anyone who defends common sense to the bitter end, they will probably say both that science works by falsification and science creates a picture of reality; incompatible.

One way I've seen it put is that modernism and post-modernism both "reject reality" but modernism is either forlorn or in denial, whereas post-modernism is celebrating.

[Res Ipsa]

I'd also say that my meta narrative includes an objective reality that each person's brain maps imperfectly and differently. It also includes the notion that the concept of "real" is not all or nothing -- there are different ways of being real. The coffee table that sits in my living room is real. "Coffee table" and "living room" are also real, but in a different way.

Also, everything that whatever it is that thinks of itself as "Res Ipsa" is a function of activity that happens in the brain.