Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[chewybrian]

I would start by separating narratives from opinions and from good faith attempts to state facts. A narrative would attempt to paint the world with a broad brush without supporting facts . Examples might be something like: "nobody wants to work anymore", or: "things were so much better in (insert your preferred decade)."

Why do people cling to such narratives? Do they prefer to avoid the hard work of trying to assess objective reality? Are they incapable of seeing the complexity of the world? Do they know deep down that they are wrong and wish to live in denial?

Are there narratives that are actually useful? (For good purposes, not just useful for brainwashing people or pretending racism is valid,etc )

[Pattern-chaser]

I would start by separating narratives from opinions and from good faith attempts to state facts. A narrative would attempt to paint the world with a broad brush without supporting facts . Examples might be something like: "nobody wants to work anymore", or: "things were so much better in (insert your preferred decade)."

Why do people cling to such narratives? Do they prefer to avoid the hard work of trying to assess objective reality? Are they incapable of seeing the complexity of the world? Do they know deep down that they are wrong and wish to live in denial?

Are there narratives that are actually useful? (For good purposes, not just useful for brainwashing people or pretending racism is valid,etc )

Interesting question. I think one perspective we could adopt, regarding narratives, is that we are using them to exchange generalities? Rather than descending straight away into a maze of detail, we might just say something heavily simplified and generalised, such as your example "nobody wants to work anymore". And perhaps this is the start of a discussion, rather than a discussion in itself? Perhaps it's a conversational invitation to consider the philosophical and political purpose of "work" in our modern world?

Narratives are stories, I think, and stories are one of the best ways for humans to learn, and to remember what they learnt. So maybe this is sufficient to justify their existence?

[LuckyR]

They're oversimplifications rooted in a "true" factoid or observation. Thus their error is being passed off as a universal truth, when in fact they're a limited "truth".

[B0R5]

Narratives are inevitable, because human beings do not grasp the world only through data, but through meaning. And meaning arises in stories, in context, in structured accounts that help us make sense of what we see, feel, and ought to do.

People don’t necessarily avoid reality — they often try to organize it through simplified frameworks. That’s what narratives are. Sometimes they become traps, replacing lived experience or closing off dialogue. But they can also become bridges — starting points for conversation and deeper understanding.

A narrative becomes harmful when it claims to be the final version of reality, when it becomes territory instead of just a map.

But there are also narratives with educational, spiritual, or communal value — stories that don’t distract from truth, but point toward it. For example: “Every human being deserves respect.” That’s a narrative, too — but one that guides thinking and action toward greater dignity.

The key question is not whether we use narratives, but: Are we aware that it is a narrative, and are we willing to verify, expand, or abandon it when it no longer serves truth or relationship?

Because reality is more complex than any story — but without stories, we have no way to approach it.

[Pattern-chaser]

They're oversimplifications rooted in a "true" factoid or observation. Thus their error is being passed off as a universal truth, when in fact they're a limited "truth".

Yes, except that, sometimes, universal truths, in this context, are something close to universal, but mostly general. Generalisations have their place in discussion. Their use if we need precision is probably a mistake, but for ordinary everyday conversation, they are a necessary convenience. IMO. "Limited" truths also have their place.

And yes, oversimplification is always a risk.

[Pattern-chaser]

Narratives are inevitable, because human beings do not grasp the world only through data, but through meaning. And meaning arises in stories, in context, in structured accounts that help us make sense of what we see, feel, and ought to do.

People don’t necessarily avoid reality — they often try to organize it through simplified frameworks. That’s what narratives are. Sometimes they become traps, replacing lived experience or closing off dialogue. But they can also become bridges — starting points for conversation and deeper understanding.

A narrative becomes harmful when it claims to be the final version of reality, when it becomes territory instead of just a map.

Yes, except that it never becomes the territory, it's only a map item *mistaken* for the territory. This is common, and an easy mistake to make. But it's a mistake nonetheless.

But there are also narratives with educational, spiritual, or communal value — stories that don’t distract from truth, but point toward it. For example: “Every human being deserves respect.” That’s a narrative, too — but one that guides thinking and action toward greater dignity.

The key question is not whether we use narratives, but: Are we aware that it is a narrative, and are we willing to verify, expand, or abandon it when it no longer serves truth or relationship?

Because reality is more complex than any story — but without stories, we have no way to approach it.

Yes, stories are an essential part of human communication, IMO.

[B0R5]

Simplifications are inevitable — they help us navigate complex reality and build shared frames of meaning. But every model, every narrative, every shortcut is just an approximation, not reality itself.

In the Theory of Consensual Reality, truth emerges in relationship — in the willingness to revise, to listen, and to dialogue. What is a helpful generalization today may become a barrier tomorrow, if we forget it’s only a map.

Narratives can divide or unite. The key is remaining aware that they are meant to serve understanding — not to dominate or replace it.

[Sy Borg]

Without narratives - stories - you just have data. Data is meaningless and, thus, unactionable. The OP might as well ask why the sensory data we receive is filtered into perceptions about the world. Why don't we just take in all sensory impressions? Why does your body ignore so many signals (eg. digestion) when in fight of flight mode? You have bigger fish to fry.

Every piece of data has a certain level of relevance to one's circumstance.

I used to make a living from turning data into information. Some here would not trust me to do such analyses because I am a cussed centrist who has contempt for political partisanship. All I wanted was to find out what was true, rather than bending the truth so as to appear "on the right side of history". Back then, I preferred to present results that I did not like to bending the results to my taste. My interest in stats and knowing what's real came from being a timid, autistic child who was always confronted with people who were absolutely sure of X and others who were absolutely sure of Y. I did not know how to cope with that, so I started analysing data to find out who was right and who was wrong.

On the other hand, there are countless data sets available but they mean nothing without analysis. One needs to organise the data and find the stories that the data tells. In that way, confusingly vast arrays of numbers can become communicable narratives.

Thus, asking whether narratives serve a useful purpose is akin to asking whether communication serves a useful purpose. Without narratives, we would end up being purely solipsist, like the Ruler of the Universe in Hitch-hiker's Guide.

ZARNIWOOP: How long have you been ruling the Universe?

RULER OF THE UNIVERSE: Ah, this is a question about the past is it?

ZARNIWOOP: Yes.

RULER OF THE UNIVERSE: How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?

ZARNIWOOP: Do you answer all questions like this?

RULER OF THE UNIVERSE: I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.

. . . .

ZARNIWOOP: No. Listen. People come to you, yes?

RULER OF THE UNIVERSE: I think so.

ZARNIWOOP: And they ask you to take decisions—about wars, about economies, about people, about everything going on out there in the Universe?

RULER OF THE UNIVERSE: I only decide about my Universe. My Universe is what happens to my eyes and ears. Anything else is surmise and hearsay. For all I know, these people may not exist. You may not exist. I say what it occurs to me to say.

No narratives, just sensory impressions/data (and note that The Ruler of the Universe is also ignoring many subtle sensory impressions, focusing on the main ones that matter to him in the moment).

[B0R5]

What a beautifully articulated reflection — thank you. Your insight touches something deeply resonant: that raw data alone is inert until it’s enfolded into a meaningful framework. And meaning, in turn, is always relational — not just derived from numbers, but emerging between minds.

In the spirit of the Consensual Theory of Reality (TKR), one might say: narratives are not optional; they are the connective tissue of shared consciousness. Without them, data remains inarticulate noise — unintelligible to the collective. Narratives don’t merely decorate facts; they negotiate reality between conscious beings.

The Ruler of the Universe you referenced is a poignant symbol — a solipsistic endpoint of rejecting shared narratives. While he avoids false consensus, he also evades mutual meaning. And in that, he forfeits not just communication, but communion.

In TKR, experience becomes reality only when it is recognized, expressed, and shared. Narratives are the medium through which we weave private impressions into public intelligibility. Without them, there is no consensus — and without consensus, no stable world.

So yes — your journey from data to meaning, from confusion to coherence, is not just admirable; it's essential. You weren’t just analyzing information. You were stitching together fragments of a shared world.

[Good_Egg]

What's the difference between
- a generalisation
- a narrative
- a prejudice
- a mental "map"
- a stereotype
?

I'd tend to agree with those who say that generalisations are necessary. That our understanding is always partial and we cope by lumping together things or people which have some (possibly superficial) similarity.

Seems like we don't tend to deal with the all-or-nothing statements of classical logic such as "All Cretans are liars".

Rather we hold generalised views that we know are only partially true, but that's better than having no information at all. "Cretans are liars" (or a modern-day equivalent such as "Canadians are polite" or "Mexicans are lazy") is something that most adults would recognise as not being true in every case.

When does such a generalisation become a narrative ? Maybe when it becomes more story-like by including some attribution of cause-and-effect ?

The supposed laziness of Mexicans might be "explained" by it being a hotter country (so people rush around less) or a lack of exposure to the Protestant work ethic.

Maybe we become more emotionally invested in a generalisation-with-explanation ? And thus more likely to act in a prejudiced way (by discounting evidence that contradicts the narrative) ?

[Pattern-chaser]

What's the difference between
- a generalisation
- a narrative
- a prejudice
- a mental "map"
- a stereotype
?

I think perhaps these questions apply to BOR5's Consensual Reality theory, for which they have already created a topic? But that's not this topic.

I'd tend to agree with those who say that generalisations are necessary. That our understanding is always partial and we cope by lumping together things or people which have some (possibly superficial) similarity.

This seems to be the consensus that is gradually emerging, I think?

chewybrian, is this what you expected, or hoped for?

[chewybrian]

b]chewybrian[/b], is this what you expected, or hoped for?

I just wanted to see inside the minds of people who prefer simple narratives to evident reality. I wanted to understand the process to see if I might be falling into the same trap with slightly different narratives. I think I am always checking and double checking to guard against this trap, but perhaps we all fall into it. I know I have in the past, but if I am in that trap at the moment perhaps I am blinded by my own narratives.

I could definitely be accused of falling into the narrative of free will. However, I experience it directly and the evidence against it is correlation and speculation. I can see that the influence from the outside world is serious and rather severe, yet I still sense that I can choose from the options presented to me, while often blocked or limited by forces outside my control. Ultimately, I can usually choose my opinions or reactions to events, which is not such a small thing to me.

Beyond that one asterisk, I don't know that I am holding onto other narratives, at least not simple ones, I think. For example, I am not patriotic, nor do I think that America is the worst country ever. In the past, though, I bit down pretty hard on the individualism narrative of my culture. That fits in with the free will ideas that trace back to the religion I was taught when I was young. I no longer hold to any ideas of an eternal soul, or strong free will, or anything approaching libertarianism.

I don't mean to say I have conquered the problem. I am just aware of it, aware that I have made *some* progress, and wondering what the next level is or what I may be unwittingly clinging to.

[Wossname]

Chewybrian hello old friend. I thank you for raising this thread. You have prompted narratives about narratives it seems. Which in itself suggests honest narratives may (I stress may) serve a useful purpose.

There is much I agree with in what has been said here. Yes indeed Sy Borg, data has limited utility until it is analysed and a narrative constructed to explain it. There are narratives about how to perform the analysis and construct such narratives too. And the emergent narratives really become a guide for action once they are assigned a value, or as you put it “assigned a level of relevance to one’s circumstances,” (e.g. x is a good thing or a bad thing and so we should do y, another narrative).

And GE you have linked this thread to what I believe is a very important topic and I think you and PC have the right of it. In particular GE, the stereotypes that support prejudiced attitudes are narratives that underpin much conflict.

Chewybrian you ask if people are incapable of seeing the complexity of the world? Well, most recognise it is complex I think, but, well, consider that every object, every person in the world, is in some way unique. Now as has been said, it is hard cognitively to deal with the world on a daily basis from such a bewilderingly complex perspective. To help us cope we do, as has also been said, simplify, and one way we simplify is to divide the world into categories. So this is furniture, and this is fruit. These are apples, and these are pears. This helps to generate narrative frameworks for understanding our world and communicating that understanding. And so it goes: These are old and these are young, these are men these are women,[i] stupid/clever, good/evil, back/white, socialists/capitalists, Christians/Muslims/Jews/atheists etc. etc.[/i]

There are two important consequences that arise from this:

1) Since different categories are established based on the perceived differences between things, then these differences are a focus, which can mean that things (and perhaps especially people) in different categories can be perceived to be more different to each other than they really are. E.g. men are very different to women, blacks are different to whites, the elderly are different to the young etc., and often also, importantly, they whoever they are, are in some ways not like us, whoever we are.

2) Since category membership is based on perceived shared similarities (which is why, perhaps, stereotypes are sometimes thought to have a grain of truth), then things (or people) within a category can be perceived to be more similar to each other than they really are. They whoever they are, are often perceived as largely all the same. So we get generalisations of the sort “All wossnames are like this”.

This may seem like lazy stereotyping (and perhaps it is) but this kind of thinking, these kinds of narratives, are ubiquitous. Stereotypes are often readily learned. And this underpins much prejudice. It is doing what you call painting the world with a broad brush without supporting facts. And it can affect how we think and feel about groups of people and how we act towards them. Furthermore people may not actually find it necessary to explain why they believe a particular group has a particular characteristic. It may often be enough to simply accept that it is a characteristic the group does have. (A narrative learned). Do people know deep down that they are wrong you ask? Well the evidence suggests that such attitudes are often deeply felt and hard to change. Confronted by someone who believes “all wossnames are smelly and horrible”, (a stereotype), you may ask them if they have ever met a wossname? They may reply that no they have not and they do not want to either on account of they are all smelly and horrible (a prejudiced attitude).

Now, given that there is, I believe, an innate tendency to favour those perceived as like us over them, the other, who are perceived as in some important way different, the fight against such narratives matters. Promoting different narratives may be a way forward. E.g. ask people why, since they do actually know that members within the groups that they belong to are often very different to each other, why do they not believe this is also true of members of other groups (groups which they do not belong to)? Not all wossnames are necessarily the same, and some wossnames, possibly many wossnames, though admittedly perhaps not this one, may actually be nice.

Since many stereotypes and prejudices are learned, cultural and subcultural factors are very important here. Of course your question goes broader than a discussion on prejudice which I picked from GE. But simply put, cultural and subcultural factors are important for many narratives, including the ones we hold not only to explain the world in general and the people in it, but also, as you acknowledge, to explain ourselves to ourselves. Chewybrian you and I have debated free will in the dim and distant. And I say now as I did then that yes, you do decide from among the options presented to you, a familiar experience to us all, and it is very much you doing the choosing, but you are just as much a product of your genes and environment as the rest of us. In what sense do you believe you are you free of that? Can you be free of that and even still be you? And if not, what is your will free from exactly?

You admit you have not conquered the problem of holding on to possibly dubious narratives, but, in all honesty, I doubt any of us, myself included, have. I think it likely we are all, as you say, to some extent, blinded by our own narratives. No shame in that as long as we are always prepared to question our narratives as you do (and which is, surely, a large part of what philosophers do)? It is good to be aware of this, and the dangers of confirmation bias. No shame in agreeing to differ following open and honest discussion.

If you wish to query a narrative you may be unwittingly holding on to, I will point to a narrative that many hold, including many, it seems, on this forum, (not necessarily you but maybe), and which is (you just may recall) a pet peeve of mine. It is the narrative that says that you go to work, make some money, and the government then takes some of your money off of you to fund whatever it is that they wish to do, and it would be good if the government avoided debt and (in either the near or long term) balanced the books. Many professors of economics have, for years, pointed out that this is not, and cannot be true. Yet since it is the view promoted endlessly in the media it is the narrative most people seem to accept as true. This highlights the importance of the cultural transmission of ideas, and in this case it is a narrative that, I believe, is deeply damaging.

There Chewybrian. You have a narrative from me, and one squeezed out while my beloved was otherwise occupied. I won’t say I miss the old days of lockdown but it was different times for sure.

[Pattern-chaser]

chewybrian, is this what you expected, or hoped for?

I just wanted to see inside the minds of people who prefer simple narratives to evident reality.

I think (hope) it's not binary. I think I use both, as I feel is appropriate. Maybe I even get it right, now and again?

[Pattern-chaser]

And GE you have linked this thread to what I believe is a very important topic and I think you and PC have the right of it. In particular GE, the stereotypes that support prejudiced attitudes are narratives that underpin much conflict.

I hadn't made the connection described in your final sentence. Yes, of course. Because narratives are based as much on feeling as all other things, they will necessarily help to bolster such prejudiced attitudes.

Food for thought. Thanks!