It’s Time to Kill Our Political Narratives

It is often said that we need to listen more to each other’s stories so that we can see where others are coming from. But I propose that the solution is actually that we do less listening. And that’s because the standard narratives are dead ends that obscure issues. We cannot really avoid these narratives, but familiarity with them allows us to see how they undermine themselves.

Here, then, is a brief primer on the narratives and their weaknesses followed by a brief suggestion on how to restructure political discourse.

Once upon a time, being progressive meant endorsing an ideology whose key components were: civil and political rights for all, equality of opportunity, and equality before the law.

Today, being progressive means endorsing some or all of a narrative that goes something like this:

(1) Although legal segregation is gone, African-Americans face ongoing racism that limits job opportunities and results in harsh treatment by police ranging from frequent traffic stops to death.

(2) Racism motivates travel bans, border enforcement, and other measures to keep America from becoming less white.

(3) The ready availability of guns is responsible for increasing gun deaths.

(4) Women face special obstacles in their quest for equal rights from politicians who would criminalize abortion and from men whose unwanted advances threaten them physically and emotionally.

(5) Extreme inequalities of wealth allow some people to wield powers that undermine democratic government and equal justice.

(6) Global warming is an imminent threat to human survival, but capitalist “deniers” prevent it from being addressed.

(7) Israel systematically oppresses and denies rights to the Palestinian people.

Conservatives, of course, have created a familiar counter-narrative to challenge each of these claims:

(1) High levels of crime, much of it drug fueled, among African-Americans warrants strong police tactics; (2) Unskilled illegal immigrants are invading the country to take advantage of free health care and other government benefits; (3) Gun ownership is the only feasible protection against violent attacks; (4) Bad behavior towards women crosses political lines but claims of victimhood are often politically motivated; (5) The possibility of amassing wealth is what motivates hard work, creativity, and risk; (6) So much manufacturing takes place in the third world that those countries are principally responsible for the human contribution to whatever sort of climate change there might be; and (7) Palestinians have chosen terrorism against Israel and rejected a state for themselves.

These competing narratives are rooted in experiences, and sometimes in the experiences of other people. We are disposed to believe stories that fit into the narrative we endorse. This is why the idea of “fake news” has so much traction: It reinforces the stories we already believe. Which is . . . not good.

On the bright side, disagreement over which narrative is correct actually presupposes significant agreement on our bedrock ideas.

Nearly all Americans agree on the founding principles of liberty and justice for all. (There are exceptions, of course—Nazis, racists, etc.—but at this point those views are markedly less popular than they were 20, 40, or 100 years ago. However many tweets you see about white nationalism in America, those people are on the decline.)

Maybe, though, the abstract uniformity of our value set is actually making matters worse: We might be able to reasonably debate ideas about justice. But competing narratives are hard to argue because narratives are based on experiences, and it’s awfully difficult to convince someone that he is wrong about what he experienced.

Christine Ford gave such compelling testimony about her experience that many continue to believe that she was assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh even though no supporting evidence emerged. And on the other side, Kavanaugh’s claim of being wrongly accused and, therefore, defenseless, clearly touched many people.

What’s more, people’s experiences sometimes aren’t wrong in the specific even if the narratives that emerge from them are wrong in the general. In a large and diverse population governed by imperfect institutions, we will always find victims of injustice and inequity. It is important to know how many such victims are—this can tell us if the problems are random or systemic.

Also, there are times when parts of contrary narratives are both correct. For instance, the available evidence in terms of criminal statistics suggest that the policing of African-American communities is sometimes disproportionately harsh and unprofessional. It can also be true that crime and drug use in certain African-American communities is disproportionately high. So our narratives are not always mutually exclusive.

But my point is not that one narrative is more right or more wrong than the other, but that approaching political issues through any narrative is polarizing and unproductive. Most political narratives neither provide nor even suggest a plan of action. Instead, they virtually insure that real problems continue to be unresolved.

There is, however, a way to undermine our narratives: Ask whether or not they actually achieve their goals on their own terms. Is the progressive narrative really creating progress? Does it advance the rights of the “oppressed” in any way? And, likewise, is the conservative counter-narrative really protecting freedom and liberty?

Let’s look at the seven components of each narrative.

(1) Harsh police tactics in African-American communities are unfair because they are indiscriminate, but it is also unfair for the people who live in these communities to be subject to high crime.

By pointing to the police or to the lack of opportunities, the progressive narrative deflects attention from breakdowns of too many African-American families and from the failure of many African-Americans to take advantage of the opportunities that do exist for them. Yes, racism is real, but the most insidious sort of racism is an attitude. It’s hard to address, and its victims are not necessarily benefitted by dwelling on it.

On the other hand, by pointing to crime rates, the counter-narrative reinforces the racial stereotypes that too many African-Americans have, tragically, internalized. And both narratives discourage African-Americans from developing their considerable talents.

(2) Ronald Reagan promised to build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants. Millions of people have come to the United States illegally since then for a simple reason: They come from poor, dysfunctional states and are fleeing lives of poverty in search of jobs and freedom.

The progressive narrative decries the racism of people who are concerned about illegal immigration—but by opposing deportation it suggests that illegals should remain in the country as second-class citizens with no political rights and the threat of deportation hanging over their heads. And illegal workers tend to depress wages for unskilled American workers—exactly the people whom progressive want to help.

On the other hand, to endorse legal immigration, as the counter-narrative does, is, in practice, to favor skilled workers over the unskilled. These skilled workers come to America not as poor, huddled masses, but as middle class people looking to make their lives still better. The poor immigrants who found freedom and success in America in the early twentieth century and their children developed deep commitments to American values. It is less clear that skilled immigrants will develop comparable commitments. Is this latter sort of legal immigration really promoting justice and liberty in America, as the counter-narrative would have it?

(3) For every story about an innocent victim of gun violence, there’s a counter narrative about an armed defender saving someone’s life. But on the specific subject of mass shootings, we don’t know what the killers would have done without access to guns—there are plenty of other ways to kill—because very few of them survive their attacks. Again, both narrative and counter-narrative obscure the issue.

(4) Is allowing women to have abortions really in women’s interests, as progressives insist? Or are women who lack the financial resources to care for a child being forced into abortion by their circumstances—having their “choice” made for them by economic forces, which is just the opposite of what progressives seek?

Sexual harassment and assault are immoral and illegal. However, there is a huge range of inappropriate behaviors—from off-color comments to forcible rape. There can hardly be a paradigmatic narrative where the infractions are so varied. Moreover, many perpetrators seem truly not to understand that they have done anything wrong. The progressive narrative aims to protect the accuser, the presumed victim, while the counter-narrative aims to protect the rights of the accused. The former narrative has trouble distinguishing between degrees of inappropriateness and, thus, does not always serve the best interest of victims by encouraging them to press for prosecution. The latter narrative will excuse much inappropriate behavior and, thus, hardly serves the interest of justice. In this case, the emergence of the narratives has helped expose the problem, but the narratives themselves contribute nothing towards a solution.

(5) Unlike the age of the industrial age robber barons, many large fortunes in the information age have been made by creating intangible intellectual property that does not take resources from others. So the fabulous wealth of the 1 percent is not necessarily a limitation on everyone else or even a true monopoly. As long as lower income people are able to provide for themselves, wealth disparities may, or may not, matter in practical ways.

Then, there is the progressive narrative about the minimum wage. It’s true that the minimum wage is inadequate for adults for whom it’s their sole job. But raising the minimum wage by law has the effect of causing some of these people to lose their jobs. The progressive narrative does not serve the poor. But neither does the Horatio Alger, up-by-your-bootstraps counter-narrative: Structural poverty is real and philosophers since Aristotle have observed that extreme discrepancies in wealth are incompatible with popular government.

(6) Once global warming became political, the science was shoved aside by ideologues on both sides. There are plenty of studies, but a number of them have had to be corrected because people tend to see what they want to see. It remains unclear how much climate change there is, let alone how much belongs to a natural cycle and how much is man-made.

The progressive narrative of imminent disaster fueled by excessive western demand bumps up against the economic and social benefits manufacturing has brought to China, India, and other countries. The contrary narrative trumpets the economic development of the third world, but ignores the horrible pollution and health consequences of this development. It is clear that the world should reduce fossil fuel consumption. How to accomplish this is not a matter of choosing among competing narratives.

(7) When women’s march leaders refused to distance themselves from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and condemned Jewish marchers for supporting Israel, it was clear that Israel and the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement had become a central pillar of the progressive narrative. We are hearing more of the “Palestinian narrative” of Israel’s land theft and oppressive rule, and it stands in sharp contrast to the narrative of an oppressed people re-establishing itself in its ancient homeland.

Rather than trying to adjudicate between these competing narratives, let me simply note how the progressive narrative works against its own aims. Palestinians who live under Hamas rule have no rights: They cannot speak freely, assemble freely, or read a free press. The Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank has a slightly looser grip, but is also corrupt. Druze, Palestinian Christians, and other minority are far better off in Israel. So why are progressives supporting oppressive Palestinian rule in the West Bank and Gaza? On the other hand, the counter-narrative unfairly characterizes all Palestinians as terrorists: Most are likely appalled by the actions of their leaders, but have no freedom to express themselves. Neither narrative serves liberty and justice.

In short, the narratives that dominate our political discourse undermine their own ends. The problems they have are intrinsic to all narratives: They are based on the experiences of a few rather than an understanding of the issue. Our two competing narratives have plenty of anecdote and experience behind them, and they reinforce themselves with every news cycle. But the more anecdotal evidence there is for each, the more rigid our mental frameworks become and the less able we are to think through the issues.

Thus, these narratives actually come to work against the values we share.

It’s time to put them aside.

Narrative has become so ingrained in our political discourse, that most of us hardly know how to talk about politics without it. Let me suggest that we begin from the ideals we share as Americans: justice, liberty, equal rights, the rule of law, and human dignity. We can have a civil and fruitful public discourse when we acknowledge our shared ends and start thinking about how best to achieve them.

Second, let’s recognize the problems we face. It’s no help to label them “racism,” “sexism,” and so forth. Better to say, that too many African-Americans are not developing and using their abilities; too many people are subjected to harassment and bullying; too many people lack opportunities for economic advancement, and so forth.

It’s better still to set aside particular groups and think of the issues we all face: We have a serious labor shortage; we have schools that are not preparing people to fill the technically-advanced jobs that the new economy demands; we have low and semi-skilled jobs that remain necessary for our economy, yet lack people willing to do them. Our devices are highly efficient, but the manufacturing processes that produce them are not. The technology that provides so many opportunities for human development also makes us vulnerable to those individuals, governments, and rogue groups that would destroy our freedom.

These problems are not rooted in attitudes. They are mostly structural and they are urgent. Once we set aside the standard narratives and the finger pointing that goes with them, we can acknowledge the problems and, importantly, begin to address them.

We’re likely to find much to disagree about as we ponder solutions. We will have to compromise. Importantly, though, we will be able to compromise and to participate in public discourse. Even if we cannot fully resolve all issues, the renewal of public discourse by itself is, at least, one way to make America great again.