Narrativist Framework Grand Narrative

Grand Narrative: One of the curious things about Narrativists is that no matter what form the narrative they live by ultimately takes, it will always conform nearly identically to certain (surprisingly narrow) details and themes. The names, characters, and settings may change, but the ultimate shape and themes of the story remains uniform. I call this the Grand Narrative. From start to finish, this narrative always follows the same path, to the same eventual conclusion, no deviations. This narrative has multiple sections and each section has certain expectations for behavior. For example, various Narrativist Communist movements have believed themselves living in the "Dawn of a New Age" (the start of the Grand Narrative) and have conducted themselves accordingly. In contrast, American Evangelicals believe themselves to be living at the "End Times", or the end of the Grand Narrative, and they base all their decisions on that perception. Understanding then what part of this universal story an Narrativist thinks themselves living in is critical to understanding what decisions an Narrativist is going to make, and why.


Narrativist media that incorporates storytelling in any form almost invariably adheres to the general format of the Four Structural Points of the Grand Narrative- as a result Narrativist media is often simply re-telling the exact same story over and over.Further certain archetypal stories are universal between the various Narrativists Clusters. For example Narrativists almost always embrace an archetypal "end of days" story that always features the God-Force destroying The Enemy in an act of righteous judgment while The Elect watch the destruction whilst safely ensconced in paradise. The quickest demonstration of this idea is to compare two pieces of Narrativist media that are both examples of this archetype that originate in separate Clusters; in this case we shall use Atlas Shrugged (Economic Cluster) and Left Behind (Religious Cluster) for our purposes.

Starting with Left Behind, allow me to summarize the general structure of the story:

The God-Force (Yahweh) sends the perfect man (Jesus Christ) as a thief in the night to quietly gather The Elect (distinguished by being "true" Christians for their adherence to the correct version of Christian beliefs) and take them away from the world and to a sheltered paradise (Heaven) just before the onset of a period of massive destruction brought on by the collective refusal of The Enemy/The Sheeple (Atheists/The Unsaved) to obey the dictates of the God-Force (Allow Narrativists to rule the lives of everyone in accordance with fundamentalist Christianity). The story centers on a group of individuals (The Tribulation Force) that do not initially meet the requirements for admission to paradise but who later earn that right by changing their beliefs to be in line with the dictates of the God-Force. (Yahweh) It is presumed that once the destruction has ended The Elect will emerge from paradise to rebuild the world and rule over it in a new golden age.

And now the same treatment applied to Atlas Shrugged:

The God-Force (the Free Market)  sends the perfect man (John Galt) as a thief in the night to quietly gather The Elect (distinguished by being rich people with the correct beliefs regarding personal greed) and take them away from the world and to a sheltered paradise (Galt's Gulch) just before the onset of a period of massive destruction caused by the collective refusal The Enemy/The Sheeple (The poor/everyone not poor but not rich) to obey the dictates of the God-Force (Allow Narrativists to rule the lives of everyone in accordance with Objectivism). The story centers primarily on an individual (Dagny Taggert) that does not initially meet the requirements for admission to paradise but then later earns that right by changing her beliefs to be in line with the dictates of the God-Force. (Free Market as personified by John Galt.) It is presumed that once the destruction of the old world has concluded The Elect will emerge from paradise to rebuild the world and rule over it in a new golden age.

Continue on to "Outer Narrative".


Full Glossary of terms.