On Narratives: The Ideas That Kill

You cannot see them nor can you destroy them: Narratives, the strongest weapon of and the biggest threat to any state. History has always shown that not the most violent or powerful win but those that set the narrative. Hence, controlling the narrative is paramount to securing power.

In this video we will see what narratives are and how they work. We will talk about how a narrative enabled and sustained the French Revolution, ultimately giving birth to a narrative that still is very active today: Democracy.

I. The Idea of Narratives

First, However, we have to have a look at the concept of narratives: Narratives are more than just libel, slander or an idea which emerge in the daily activities of humans. Narratives are concepts that people accept as truth without even doubting them. These concepts determine subconsciously the whole perspective and understanding of those afflicted, thus directing their actions.

Imagine the following: During an election, a politician accuses his contender of being prone to corruption. This accusation might be right or wrong, but this does not matter for the scope of this video. Said accusation is not a narrative. People will have doubts about it and do not base their entire thinking and beliefs on this accusation. It’s libel or slander but not a narrative.

But when they consider the accusation, there is one rock standing firm in the surf of their thoughts: That corruption is a bad thing that disqualifies a politician from holding public offices, a thing that the accused should be punished for. This idea ties in the bigger picture of government by the people for the people, government that puts the common good before individual, suspicious interests. Democracy is a narrative.

What makes narratives so powerful is their capability to direct the actions of humans towards the fulfilment of the narrative. Narratives do not only shape the perception of those adhering to them but direct their actions towards the goal that the narrative presents as desirable. Corruption is not democratic, hence people will not vote for a corrupt politician. Narratives allow for the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hence, he who controls the narrative is able to archive and secure goals that he alone never could reach, but now can just by the power of the masses. The masses will not only align their actions and their life with the narrative, but will also act against anybody who counteracts the narrative. Take, for example, the corrupt politician: He probably does not have any issues at all with being corrupt, because he does not adhere to the narrative of democracy. He has not directed his actions according to this belief but contrary to it. His peers will avenge the narrative by punishing him and thus ensuring the further existence of the narrative and its goal, a democratic system.

If people start to renounce a narrative as wrong, it cannot sustain itself anymore and fades into the abyss, most likely taking those whom were favored by it down too. The demise of the narrative of monarchy, that the state shall be governed by kings and the nobility, brought the demise of said ruling class in favor of elected politicians that ought to rule according to the narrative of democracy.

II. The French Revolution

When we think of the French Revolution, we think of enslaved farmers, that started a revolution facing a famine with the Battle Cry “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” against a king and his wife, that sucked the live out of their people. The historical circumstances were far more complex than that. In short, the French Revolution started when the king tried to curtail the tax exemptions of the privileged first and second estate to generate more tax revenue. At this time, most of the taxes were paid by the third estate that had grown more and more discontent towards the king and his wife, who were framed as essentially parasites. In all fairness, the first and second estate, that is clergy and nobility, and even some well off members of the third estate, that are the ordinary citizen, did also massively profit from the system. But the king failed to control the public discourse and different public incidents made it easy to paint an overtly negative image of him. Basically, Parisian gossip and early yellow press created an extremely negative image of a presumably greedy and incompetent if not outright evil king Louis XVI and a queen Marie-Antoinette that some thought to be little more than a spy send by Austria-Hungary, then a European superpower.

The privileged estates obviously did not want to pay new taxes and started to rally the third estate against the king to protect their tax exemptions. They invoked the narrative of equal rights and government by the people, aided by the negative image of the king, which the impoverished third estate quickly took up to overthrow the king’s government. The king controlled the military, the estates did not have any army of their own; but the military rejected the king’s orders in favor of the democratic narrative or remained passive, not willing to pick up the king’s cause.

However, since the egalitarian democratic narrative indeed targeted all privileged, they soon too became victims of the demon they had summoned to overthrow they king. The workings of the narrative culminated in the rule of the Jacobins, that sought a totally egalitarian society that became the first modern totalitarian state, committing horrible atrocities, until they themselves lost their power and were executed.

Next to this democratic and egalitarian narrative stood the essentially medieval narrative of the monarch that ruled by god’s mercy, and by his mercy only. The political history of the 19th century easily can be seen under the perspective of a battle between these narratives, which was fought by sword and by more civilized means. After the atrocities of the Jacobins had rendered the democratic narrative doubtful to the public, the monarchic narrative had a comeback culminating in the reinstalment of a new King of France after Napoleon’s defeat by the holy alliance.

The holy alliance, as its name implies, was the last effective attempt to protect the European monarchs of England, Russia, the different German states and others against the democratic narrative but was doomed to fail from its inception. With the end of World War I and the rise of the United States, a century later, the monarchic narrative was finally dead and the democratic narrative ruled supreme. Any modern monarchy and any totalitarian system has to tie in the democratic narrative to gain much needed legitimacy. The democratic narrative is the standard everything the state does is held too.

III. Replacing a Narrative

As the French Revolution has shown, the replacement of a narrative never goes without friction or outright violence. This points to the fundamental problem of all narratives: A narrative is absolute to those adhering to it. There is no compromise to be made with somebody who adheres to a contrarian narrative. Sure, narratives can coexist next to each other if there is enough leeway and both sides are willing to compromise, but the moment two narratives collide only one can prevail. Both sides cannot back down since a violation of the narrative is unthinkable.

To give an example: If one half of a nation consists of die-hard republicans and the other half of loyal-till-death royalists, it becomes impossible to form a government. In the worst case scenario, both sides will fight to the bitter end to fulfill their narrative. That has happened in the American Revolution.

Truth be told, in many cases a narrative is not strong enough to override all private interests, hence both sides might find a compromise to life with and to pursue their interests anyway. Moreover, narratives are fluid and savvy politicians might come up with some kind of amalgamation that fits both narratives. Think of constitutional monarchy, where both narratives have placed their own elements.

Sometimes, reality hits those afflicted with a narrative hard enough to force a compromise. If it does not, the narrative can go on a rampage. Think of the war on terror: The basic narrative of the war of terror is that we have to fight evil, non-democratic regimes to keep the world save of terrorism that those regimes are accused of nurturing. Hence, the United States set out onto a decade long war in the Middle East that probably made everything worse and has costed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians, because things are never that easy and clear cut as a narrative makes them look.

Nobody could have stopped the narrative until now, when the obvious failure and mounting costs bring the self-fulfilling prophecy to a halt. Bringing a narrative to a halt is a dangerous thing, though, because there will be always demand for a narrative, a story that people can tell themselves to find their place in the world. If a narrative decays, like the monarchic narrative did two centuries ago, savvy politicians will push narratives that fit their own interests, with the potential of massive violence and pain.

The democratic narrative has been weakened in the last decades but still seems to stand steadfast. Let me know in the comments, what narratives might succeed democracy. Maybe a return to the age of kings or a Chinese stile system? Maybe something entirely new?