What started out as a nice word applicable to something as wonderful as Homer’s prose in his role as the narrator, the bard, of The Iliad and The Odyssey, has now become a pejorative of the meanest sort. “Narrative,” which according to an old Webster’s means ‘something that is narrated: STORY,’ is now used in reference to a “story” that is in no way instructive, emboldening, entertaining, inspiring, ennobling, transformative, or that all-important cathartic, which Homer’s nonpareil masterpieces are in all regards.
In these far-from-heroic treacherous times that totally lack the stuff of Homeric legends, “narratives” are just tawdry penny-dreadfuls meant to spread abroad cheap gold-plated truths that tomorrow are tossed out and replaced with the next “narrative” du jour, this one more illogical, more confusing, more meaningless than the one that preceded it. Our credulity is being yanked around by a cruel master like a dog on a leash.
“Narrative” in current parlance has taken on the qualities of a kind of algorithm (defined by my old Webster’s as ‘a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end’) that requires, kind of like an Arthur Murray bossa-nova foot-step floor mat, those responsible for adhering to the “narrative” to stick with all the “steps” come hell or high water. For those in the mainstream media, to stray from the “narrative” is to commit career hara-kiri.
To stray seriously could land one, literally, in a landfill alongside Jimmy Hoffa, though the reporter, PR person, information officer, person responsible for spreading the “reliable” information, the horse manure, will be easily distinguished from Jimmy by the microphone wedged down the corpse’s throat to throttle non-sanctioned speech. Banishment from social media, loss of job, accident and even “suicide” are common enough for those who stray from the script, chilling warnings to anyone (continued)
This post originally appeared on The Blue State Conservative.
