{"id":2788,"date":"2013-07-22T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T18:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politicalhat.com\/?p=2788"},"modified":"2013-07-22T11:22:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T18:22:13","slug":"winning-the-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2013\/07\/22\/winning-the-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning the Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

     Jim Geraghty of the National Review recently opined<\/a> about “what impedes conservative efforts to shape the culture?”\u00a0 Rod Dreher over at the American Conservative puts the blame squarely on conservatives’ lack of narrative<\/a> and the offloading of storytelling to the far left:<\/p>\n

\n

“Argument has its place, but story is what truly moves the hearts and minds of men. The power of myth\u2014which is to say, of storytelling\u2014is the power to form and enlighten the moral imagination, which is how we learn right from wrong, the proper ordering of our souls, and what it means to be human.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     It doesn’t matter how logical or sane an idea is.\u00a0 If people don’t understand the narrative it embodies, the whole human experience as it were, then people won’t connect.\u00a0 To put it another way:<\/p>\n

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“The best art imitates life in a compelling way.\u00a0 If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life.\u00a0 Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect.\u00a0 Our plugs don’t fit.”
\n     \u2014Darwi Odrade (from Chapterhouse: Dune)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

     Have conservatives forgotten that “[s]ocieties governed strongly by tradition keep their collective wisdom alive through storytelling… So why are contemporary conservatives so lousy at telling stories?<\/em>“<\/p>\n

     Conservatives no longer do this, nor do libertarians typically catch on to it as well.\u00a0 They assume that politics is just a reflection of society, and that they are representing society as they know it… or knew it.\u00a0 The problem with this approach is that for conservatives, politics and policy ought to reflect<\/em> society and our common heritage<\/a>.\u00a0 Thus they are happy and willing to leave the story telling to others.<\/p>\n

     In contrast, the Progressive left is all about<\/em> reconstructing society<\/a> and “shaping the mentality of the population as a whole in accordance with a predetermined model and instilling the ideas and sentiments they though desirable in the minds of all<\/em>.”\u00a0 The narratives of the left<\/a> are not meant to reflect<\/em> how things are, but how things ought<\/em> to be.\u00a0 By presenting, repeatedly, their favored narratives, people connect with the narratives, and internalize them.\u00a0 Thus, society is reconstructed<\/a> along Progressive lines.<\/p>\n

     The Progressive left does not even have to be explicit about it, but only has to push things gently in their direction until people have accepted the arguments without the arguments even having to be made yet.<\/p>\n

     As Andrew Breitbart<\/a> said, “Politics is downstream from culture<\/em>.”\u00a0 Fight for the culture.\u00a0 Do not assume that a society mutated over decades towards the Progressive line can suddenly be jolted “back to its senses” by a well crafted agrument, reality, or by shouting “liberty” ever more loudly.\u00a0 Instead, they must put into practice the Bene Gesserit Panoplia Propheticus<\/em> to heart: \u201cWe do not teach history; we recreate the experience.\u00a0 We follow the chain of consequences\u2013the tracks of the beast in the forest<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     Jim Geraghty of the National Review recently opined about “what impedes conservative efforts to shape the culture?”\u00a0 Rod Dreher over at the American Conservative puts the blame squarely on conservatives’ lack of narrative and the offloading of storytelling to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[15,33,62],"class_list":["post-2788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-progressives","category-uncategorized","tag-democrats","tag-gop","tag-patriotism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2788"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2803,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions\/2803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}