I'm a big fan of Harari's Sapiens, like a lot of people.
But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives...
Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally.
Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a model for scientific exploration and a symbol for the coming rational age. The Roman Republic ended that day, and the Empire began.
These no neither truths or falsehoods. They're narratives, or fictions as YNH sometimes calls them.
The truth of a narrative is much squishier than the truth of a fact. A case in point is right here: he gives 3 reasons for why fictions succeed politically. These reasons are narratives themselves. For example: "How many Israelis Italians or Indians can stomach the unblemished truth about their nations" I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation. History is ultimately the biggest harriest example of narrative making. Without narratives, there is no meaningful "Italian people," just people and places and stuff. To make it meaningful, you need a narrative. A story that tels you what "The Italian People" are.
I think a better understanding of how political narratives work is important (and interesting). I'm just skeptical that a true-v-not_true classification is meaningful or useful.
Political pychology should be a field in itsewlf.
It's very hard to project much meaning from facts. Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic.
> I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation
As an Italian, born in Italy and still living in Italy in 2019, I think there is and it is true that if you talk about our recent past very few (20-25% maybe) can stomach it.
Italian people IS "just people and places and stuff", but you forgot food.
> Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic.
It means he ended it.
He was a military leader who seized control of and put an end to the Roman Republic.
This is not narrative, this is a fact.
Narrative is letting Brutus become a traitor, while he conspired to kill a tyrant, narrative is Shakespeare that named him "the noblest Roman of them all".
I'm not disagreeing with the main points. There are things about our countries that we can't stomach.
My point is that to be meaningful politically, that stuff is likely to be narrative.. which is not the same as fact. "Cesar ended the republic" is a narrative sort of a statement not a factual one. Cesar crossed the Rubicon, named himself distator for life, marched on Rome... those are facts.
By narrative, I don't mean that it's false.
The Republic itself is/was a story, and the story changed and evolved constantly. Just like democracy, capitalism or whanot it's not a legible concept. It's more like "X is the better man for the job" than "X weighs more than Y." Whether the Republic ended or not only has meaning within the context of the story. There's no external test that declares a republic dead, outside of the narrative.
I recently read a Chinese history timeline. The jist was "China was an empire for thousands of years, until mao." Whether or not something is or isn't "The Chinese empire" is a narrative claim, not a factual one.
The first step towards a truthier world is recognizing the difference between facts and stories. Truth means something totally different depending on what you're dealing with. Apart from climate change, I can't think of major political questions where factual truths and falsehoods play a roles anything like role naratives play.
It's funny you mention E=mc^2 and F=ma in the same sentence as pure truths, because the former suggests the latter is only an approximation. The consequence of special relativity is that F=ma is not a pure truth, it's an approximation of the world. A useful one at that.
But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives...
Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally.
Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a model for scientific exploration and a symbol for the coming rational age. The Roman Republic ended that day, and the Empire began.
These no neither truths or falsehoods. They're narratives, or fictions as YNH sometimes calls them.
The truth of a narrative is much squishier than the truth of a fact. A case in point is right here: he gives 3 reasons for why fictions succeed politically. These reasons are narratives themselves. For example: "How many Israelis Italians or Indians can stomach the unblemished truth about their nations" I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation. History is ultimately the biggest harriest example of narrative making. Without narratives, there is no meaningful "Italian people," just people and places and stuff. To make it meaningful, you need a narrative. A story that tels you what "The Italian People" are.
I think a better understanding of how political narratives work is important (and interesting). I'm just skeptical that a true-v-not_true classification is meaningful or useful.
Political pychology should be a field in itsewlf.
It's very hard to project much meaning from facts. Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic.