The Plan for Action #8: Narrative is More Powerful than Fact
Communication is the only way to make action grow beyond ourselves, but how many times has arguing on the Internet really won converts or moved the needle on a topic you cared about? Even if your logic is sound, you just get the same NPC responses.
And beyond enemies, what about people who are already friendly, but you want to convince then to go with you to a higher level of action? How do you motivate people? Again, if you start doing this you find that a good argument or logic isn't enough.
The Importance of Narrative
Something I was taught when publishing my first research paper was to communicate "the story the data is telling." The reason is simple: data alone is meaningless. The model that explains the data is where the power is, but the story that is told, which presents the model, is more powerful still. We are being bombarded every day with data, from articles on Minds to conversations to watching people outside, and to make sense of it, we construct stories in our head, which explain what we see. A guy tearing up his front yard to grow vegetables could be taking practical action to feed himself, or he could be a culture warrior fighting for traditionalism, or he could be counter-cultural, depending on the "story" you are applying to what is otherwise the mere fact of someone creating a garden. These stories also give us cues on how to respond to what we see.
Word-pictures
A major component of these stories are "word-pictures," and one interesting book that catalogs architectural word-pictures is A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. In this case, a word is not merely a word. The word is an image, tied to a story being told. In the case of Alexander's book, saying door should immediately tell you the dimensions, use, and likely materials to be used. Planting trees for privacy should automatically communicate that the trees are in a line, and must be of a type that will allow them to grow into each other just enough so that someone can see through.
For example of how we use this in communication, I usually get my images on Pixabay, and I'm going to show the first results for the word "wealthy:"
If I had a guess, if you used the word "rich" these kinds of images come to mind. Meanwhile, the actual decamillionaires I have met would not look anything like the images given. None of the wealthy people I know credit their wealth to inheritance, either. Further, studies done on the topic further confirm these observations. If you want more money for any reason there's a very straightforward way to get it, and it certainly doesn't involve anything flashy.
But again, the key here is that the word-picture for rich isn't based on fact, it's based on a mental image of someone on the other side of some uncrossable chasm, in which everything comes easily, somehow from your pocket. Its a big club and you ain't in it, and the only way to get into the club is to sell your soul. This is why a revolution is needed, because we can't get access to things that meet our basic needs otherwise. As you might have noticed, I just listed several word-pictures in the head of what communists call "useful idiots." The order to undermine society doesn't need to be issued because the conclusion of the narrative is already obvious.
This is the power of narrative. It not only explains observations, but it also gives us cues as to how we should react to others, and how we should think about complex matters. The "what to do" conclusion often writes itself.
Strike the Root
On the matter of convincing others, simply presenting facts is not the most important thing. Instead, the goal is to look for the underlying narrative, and work to change that. In so doing you will "strike the root" of the person's thinking, and in the case of an opponent this makes them open to investigating the facts, if you can disrupt that narrative. This might take some experimentation to learn how to do it effectively, and I would recommend starting by asking questions as you can try to gain a shared understanding of the person's internal narrative.
Striking at the core narratives is how the cultural war is being fought. The SJW and globalist lines, for example, are sold as "everyone before us was stupid, we know better, our way of doing things is inevitable." Once you shake the "inevitable" part of the narrative, then the person is forced to consider whether their ideas actually could stand the test of time. Great new books like The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict are also questioning the "don't look at history!" narrative, leading to books like The Ethics of Money Production, which is one of many books which demonstrates that our ancestors were in fact quite intelligent, and could see the disastrous outcomes of modern policy.
Once the core narrative is broken, the rest of the house of cards comes tumbling down.
Shared Understanding
I'm going to end this blog with a quote from another blog on the Yellow Vest protests: Is the Yellow Jacket movement the beginning of something bigger?
What is the rest of the world learning from this?
The French have shown what happens when a large number of people stand up at the same time with the intention of disrupting the system. Even with no leader they are highly effective at achieving their goal. The interesting thing about the way in which they are disrupting the system is that the people themselves don't seem to mind. Almost every car I see on the roads here has a yellow jacket proudly displayed on the dashboard as a mark of respect to those on the 'front line' and they are more than happy to find an alternative route in the name of liberty.
What these disruptions ultimately mean is a steady decline in productivity from across the country bringing the wheels of the great financial machine to a halt, forcing a response from their president.
(emphasis mine)
Attacking a bad narrative is great for bringing people to your side, but building a shared narrative contains such incredible power that vast media enterprises, school systems, and forced importation of foreigners have been built to prevent it. Before any great change takes places, there is a long period of a common narrative being built, coming from ordinary people talking to each other. When the time comes, everyone already has an idea of what the change is about, and what they need to do. And here's the incredible part:
Other reporters have provided video evidence of police taking their helmets off to show they have no intention of attacking and the word on the street is that should the military be called upon here, there is a good chance they will simply refuse, not wanting to go to war with their own people.
(emphasis mine)
In this case, the common narrative has gotten far enough, that some police simply are not willing to follow orders any more, because again, there is a narrative of liberty and of "free people need to decide their own future," versus the globalist "these rabble are too stupid to make their own decisions." The latter narrative is losing.
This piece of The Plan for Action has an assignment. In your local area, start interviewing people, either by small talk with strangers or chatting up neighbors. Try and write down (after talking to them) a short list of these people's personal narratives, i.e. the life story they see themselves in, as well as their mental image of your neighborhood, town, or city. Write down any word-pictures that jump out at you. Finally, write out the narrative of how you think things should go, and meditate on the differences.