Francis Berger
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The Great Narrative; Or, Totalitarian Story Time

10/31/2021

17 Comments

 
In ten days, the Davos Crew and their demonic band of Great Resetters are scheduled to meet in Dubai to launch something called the "The Great Narrative" (I'm not going to link it; look it up yourself if interested): 

The Great Narrative Meeting is a linchpin of the Great Narrative initiative, a collaborative effort of the world’s leading thinkers to fashion longer-term perspectives and co-create a narrative that can help guide the creation of a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable vision for our collective future.

​Rather than focus on the details of the Great Narrative itself - all of which, at this point, amounts to little more than a blatantly obvious threading together of the Big Lies and Litmus Test Issues the Davos Crew et al. have been promulgating incessantly since the successful 2020 global coup - I thought it might be prudent to briefly examine the very concept of the metanarrative as well why the demonic totalitarians have determinedly set their sights on establishing one.

In essence, a metanarrative is an all-encompassing story that provides all the answers to life, the universe, and everything - including meaning and purpose. A metanarrative strives to offer a transcendent, universal truth that can connect and explain seemingly disparate events and phenomena into a totalizing comprehensive schema that orders and explains all knowledge and experience and is applicable to everyone at all times, including the past, present, and future. It is knowledge from "beyond" told in a way that can be understood by all.  

Metanarratives also aim to incorporate and subordinate all "little stories" into the "big story", a process that legitimizes the big story while simultaneously de-legitimizing any little story that does not fit into the big story schema.

At their core, all metanarratives are totalitarian in nature. Above all else, the "big story" that explains all other stories functions to legitimize the power and authority of people who craft and control the "big story."

To make the "big story" compelling, metanarratives attempt to cement their legitimacy via some anticipated but as of yet unrealized goal toward which society must orient itself.

Some well-known metanarratives include the Enlightenment and universal reason, Marxism, progressivism, and various religious doctrines - and yes, this includes Christianity. The term became part of academic discourse in the late 1970s courtesy of post-modern theorist Jean-Francois Lyotard who, typically enough, hastily threw together the theory at the behest of some Quebec grant obligation (if memory serves me correctly). Lyotard himself was wary of the totalizing nature of metanarratives, declared them to be over, and heralded an era in which universal grand narratives would eventually give way to a mosaic of small, local narratives. 

Well, that certainly didn't pan out, did it? 

For me, metanarratives, or grand narratives boil down to hearts and minds, and how those hearts and minds think about and understand themselves, others, and the world. Put another way, for me metanarratives are a matter of consciousness, and I believe that all past metanarratives and the ungodly one the Davos Crew strive to implement now reveal a great deal about the development of Western and Christian consciousness.

The following is an extremely simplistic sketch of one possible interpretation the evolution of grand narratives set against religious consciousnesses since Christ:
  • The grand narrative of law and obedience in the Old Testament
  • Jesus's time on Earth and the first few decades after His death and resurrection breaks this metanarrative and offers an alternative, which I will refer to here as Truth and Reality. 
  • With the establishment of Christian culture, consciousness slips away from a pure understanding of Truth and Reality and reverts back to some semblance of Old Testament law.
  • The religious consciousness of Old Testament law is eventually abandoned for the consciousness of autonomous man, in which man is overvalued at the expense of God being undervalued. This movement is at first God-aligned, eventually non-aligned. 
  • Non-God aligned autonomous consciousness gives birth to un-religious and, eventually, anti-religious metanarratives that bring man to the height of his powers, but also alienate him from God. 
  • As man's misguided sense of freedom, sovereignty, and independence continue to solidify, he oscillates between individual alienation and totalitarian metanarratives, culminating in destructive ideological metanarratives like Marxism. 
  • Man appears to recognize the limits and "wrongness" of metanarratives, but is so far removed from Reality and the Divine that he can no longer find his way back to reality.
  • Unable to maintain an atomized, alienated state of incoherent consciousness, man willingly reverts back to Old Testament law consciousness, only this time without any obedience to the Divine or Reality. The onset of despiritualized consciousness.

When I consider what aspirations Davos et al. have in mind concerning their Great Narrative, I come to the realization that it is a final push toward the permanent despiritualization of human consciousness. 

Do I believe such a thing is possible?

No. I do not believe God would allow such a development to occur within Creation. At the same time, I believe God's powers are somewhat limited in this capacity. The bulk of the pushback against despiritualized consciousness must emanate from us.

And what might this entail? Contrary to what most traditionally-minded Christians believe, it cannot involve a total reversion back to more conventional forms of Christianity because those forms of Christianity are firmly locked into a metanarrative structure. 

I believe Lyotard was correct when he declared the age of the metanarrative to be over. At the very least, it should have been in theory. Being of a material mindset himself, Lyotard's vision of local, micronarratives in place of metanarratives point in the right direction, but lack the "stuff" necessary to make the arrangement work because like the metanarratives they work against, the micronarratives have no real basis in Truth and Reality. 

I get the sense that story time - be it big or small - should be over. Our task now is not to tell stories, be they individual, relativistic micronarratives or all-encompassing metanarratives. Our task now is to reconnect to Truth and Reality, and the way we do this is by realizing that we are all mirco-Truths and micro-Realities, but only so far as we as these micro-Truths and micro-Realities are aligned with Truth and Reality. 

In my mind, this is the antithesis to the totalizing power of metanarrative. Unlike the grand narrative, which aims to incorporate and subordinate, Truth and Reality aim to love and elevate. Truth and Reality does not seek to assimilate, become one with, or rule over the micro-Truths and micro-Realities, but invites them to participate in the ongoing Creation that is Truth and Reality. 

Without this recognition, without this transformation in consciousness, the Divine within man will dim even further, and he will plow headlong into the whatever incoherent metanarrative is offered to him as reality.

The Davos crew senses this. Whether their Great Narrative Initiative stems from hubristic confidence in their accomplishments thus far or from latent anxiety at the unravelling of their own "micronarratives" is a moot point. 

What is not moot is the underlying motive of their Great Narrative Initiative. Though the "meta" in narrative means "beyond", "above", or "transcendent", it also means "death", as the famed owner of a huge social media company recently discovered when he re-branded his platform with the name "Meta." 

In this light, the Great Narrative Initiative is a death story. It is primarily a story of spiritual death, but not insignificantly, it is also rapidly becoming a story of physical death.

Meta reality is not Reality. It really is that simple.  

Anyone who willingly and actively adheres to the totalitarians' latest metanarrative "death story" will certainly suffer spiritual death. Moreover, physical death will likely occur much sooner than they could have possibly imagined.

On a more optimistic note, the demonic Davos Great Narrative may become the catalyst that sparks the micro-Truth, micro-Reality transformation in many.   
17 Comments
bruce charlton
11/1/2021 07:55:39

Thanks - plenty to chew on here.

Another point - I wonder how many *great* narratives have been written by committees of evil bureaucrats? I am actually looking forward to seeing how pathetic and dull this Great story will be. Such moments can be unintentionally very revealing.

Here in the UK there was nothing that demonstrated the ludicrous sham that was the Tony Blair government more clearly than their Millennium Dome project - which was intended to surpass the great exhibition of 1851 or the festival of Britain of 1951; but the 'dome' (hardly even a dome) was tawdry, commercialized and just boring - and the public stayed away in droves.

Also, after three years planning and an unlimited budget, it was late opening and kept the celebrity guests waiting in the cold for several hours!

I confidently expect something similarly anticlimactic, yawn-inducing and dysfunctional from the Ahrimanic demons.

Reply
Francis Berger
11/1/2021 20:35:47

@ Bruce - Yes, it will be pathetic - pathetic enough that it may actually cause a lot of pennies to drop.

At the same time, all of the Ahrimanic demons' smaller, equally pathetic narratives have captivated audiences the world over thus far, so who knows?

The real anticlimax may come when the Sorathic demons upset the Ahrimanic demons' pathetic control and scam chicanery.



Reply
lea
11/2/2021 07:05:12

Its all fun and games until the destructive side of the unholy deal kicks into action. As if people thought hollyweird is just fiction when it depicts henchmen of evil as disposable, and they can somehow be safe or exempt from that. Like you pointed out with the 'No Country' post; being 'smarter' then the previous guy/ gal to stay one step ahead of the devil is a silly notion, but its a narrative that keeps getting explored with mixed fictional results. As you already suggested, we need to stop buying into these grand narratives and start listening to the smaller ones again. People tend to like stories, they are a fundamental communication conduit right after language itself, but apparently at some point we also get attached to external sources for these to an unhealthy degree. It definitely ties into my ongoing project of exploring effective communication but i digress, could go on for too long and i need to get some clarity within that whole set of ideas. Thanks for a great post once again!

Gary Bleasdale
11/2/2021 09:47:53

Interesting piece. I think you have honed in on an important point to discern and remember, which is that basing our judgments, decisions, values, beliefs, principles, way of life, customs, etc. on a "narrative" (be it micro- or macro- or meta-) is a non-starter.

Narratives have various qualities which make them unsuited to this purpose. Firstly, they are always second-hand - that is, a narrative is always the work of a man/entity, passing something through the filter of his own mind. This means that it is already "disturbed" by a partializing filter. As a corollary of this, for a narrative to have value at all, a great degree of trust in the motivations and knowledge of who it is coming from is needed.

Secondly, narratives a purely "mental" phenomenon, and ignore all other aspects of man - as such they are "reductive", not only in content but also in form. They are, fundamentally, an affair for children, at best a temporary expedience. Of course, not all stories are only for children: "narratives" are merely a certain type of story, designed at bottom to generate consensus and reduce critical thinking and the imagination.

Reply
lea
11/2/2021 13:33:06

I feel like we are getting into a potential syntax based discourse completely, but i suppose there is no avoiding that. Narratives are the description of events within a certain set of circumstances, within a cultural or societal context. But much more important then that, they also describe the perceivant and perceptant's states of mind at large, as well as the possible relation these states might have to the 'outside' world.

As much as i like examining different cosmologies, and at the behest of dozens of disclaimers, (i) try to avoid conclusions here, are you suggesting solipsism or am i being purposely obtuse?

You are equating the concept of a narrative with reductionism, which is absurd. You are also foregoing the scale of things in this equation equaling any and all narratives to whatever unclearly posited standards you inserted into the discussion. So nothing we describe in a narrative fashion holds any value? I know thats not the message you were trying to put across but philosophically and epistemologically it just holds no water, regardless of spin. Humanity has functioned by stories and narratives, go ahead and re-define this.

As a species, were we able to communicate without language at some point? Even then narratives would have existed, as ways to describe parts of the world that others had not experienced yet.

Now if you argued that most narratives are a distraction from what is important, i would agree completely, but profiling a descriptionary method that is fundamental to the current state of humanity as childish, is unproductive and simplified. Do you propose telepathy as a replacement? I do not want to partake in the Sorathic minds because there is no arguing with the abyss. Telling our stories to others is important for a number of reasons.

I made the mistake of commenting out of some intellectual (and even sinful) urge many times, loving to see myself talk. But dont we all succumb to this kind of nonsense sometimes?

Narratives are not independent entities with their own will, you are ascribing qualities to them that are literally only a syntax based description of the word itself. Meaningful stories have always gone beyond this kind of academic speculation. Define meaning? Robot says 42.

Reply
Gary Bleasdale
11/2/2021 13:50:00

Lea, my response was to Frank's post, not your comment.

Francis Berger
11/2/2021 13:59:53

@ lea - Narratives can serve a good purpose if they can communicate something about reality, but even then, they are not reality and cannot (and should not) substitute for reality.

We have become so enmeshed in narrative that we struggle to understand what is merely story and what is real and true. It doesn't help that narrative has been employed by the most malicious of people for the most malicious of reasons. In this regard, motivation is key - and the motivation behind most narratives today is evil.

"Story" should serve as a necessarily faulty means in the pursuit of truth. As such, it needs to be redeemed, but it can only be redeemed if we, as people, redeem it by first redeeming ourselves. Once we have been redeemed, we may still value narratives to some degree, but I believe we will realize that metanarratives no longer serve.

Francis Berger
11/2/2021 14:02:13

@ Gary - Good comment. Yes, the two points you have raised strike at the heart of the matter.

Reply
lea
11/4/2021 08:45:33

Storytelling and narrative formation are just two things in a long list of communicative methods that got usurped and twisted by the club, but that is not a reason to dismiss them as legitimate information transfer, or potentially even more then that. I have been considering the topic at length within the frameworks of my proposed Effective Communication theory, which has expanded to include almost every branch of science with a name and some kind of general relevance. I take issue with binary explanation of terms, because a good comedy show could fall under the terms we are talking about (yes those are extremely rare). Music could provide a narrative too by association and emotional states. It is rarely just good or bad but always tied to motivation, or at a slightly deeper level, /intent/. If you happened to be arguing a degree of asceticism this becomes a different discussion altogether, and i have been fascinated by the Cathars for decades, who took the 'everything in moderation' meme a couple steps further but also have some deeply interesting backstory and culture. I really appreciate the discussion here and your last explanatory post in particular but feel it was still a bit short of the glorious diversity this subject requires. And if you disagree all good, be a boring world when we concur all the time ;)

Reply
Francis Berger
11/4/2021 14:40:47

@ @ lea - Though I appreciate you arguing your points, I can't help but feel that you are grossly missing the point I'm making. Storytelling, narrative formation, and communicative methods depend entirely upon our metaphysical assumptions; more specifically, the first principles of being, which includes the nature of consciousness and how consciousness thinks about and understands reality.

Consciousness that does not recognize or willingly rejects the reality of God cannot communicate anything of value via its narratives. More to the point, anything it does communicate is harmful and potentially damning. The only way to counter this is for people to re-establish Divine communication, but this requires a radical transformation and shift in consciousness, one that accepts the divine nature of reality and the divine nature of people within that reality. From this thinking and understanding, positive and potentially good forms of narrative and communication may emerge, but even then it must not be in the form of metanarrative, which is a terribly dishonest, misleading, blunt, and objectifying force.

Reply
lea
11/5/2021 06:34:28

That made it fall into place, thank you very much. Sometimes i just need to stay quiet and listen, because i clearly still have a tendency to take my own narratives seriously, which is a little bit amusing in this context. Thank you for your great writing and patience, as usual, and apologies to Gary for the out of place comment. Now onwards to the transformation/ shift? ;)

Aristophanes
11/5/2021 07:23:19

@FB, are you using the prefix 'meta' correctly (or the synonymous 'grand')? A meta-something might be a something which is a review of all the llittle things related to the subject something. A review is not an overarching synthesis which must dispose of some items while correcting others or at least commenting on them. A meta-something is not a something which is new and all-inclusive I don't know any prefix which is better, though.

Reply
Francis Berger
11/5/2021 07:48:57

@ Ari - I'm commenting on how the prefix meta- is employed and understood by those who formulate theories about metanarratives.

If used in a term like "metaphysics", meta could fit your definition as a "review."

However, when it comes to metanarratives like Marxism, I would be hard pressed to say it was employed as a review, but rather as a new, all-inclusive something that focused intensely on disposing, correcting, and commenting on everything that did not fit into its story.

The metanarrative the Davos crew are planning to craft will certainly not be a review, but something new and all-inclusive.

As is usually the case, semantic inversions are at play.

Reply
Francis Berger
11/5/2021 07:57:36

@ Ari - One more point. I think it's quite telling that the social media king decided to rebrand his platform as "Meta." Though I can't say for sure, I have the sense the rebranding has to do with the literal meaning of meta as beyond, after, or behind and how it relates to reality, which helps explain the trendy phenomenon of "metareality".

In this sense, a metanarrative is synonymous with metareality.

As for metaphysics, it may indeed be considered a review, but the metaphyscial assumptions one makes based on this review must include some sort of mechanism that disposes of, corrects, or comments. The problem with most modern metanarratives lies in the metaphysical assumptions that support(ed) them, with practically all being either God-denying or God-opposing.

Francis Berger
11/5/2021 08:14:10

@ lea - I think it's important to note that it is not my purpose to convince. Though people like me may provide useful information and ideas, conviction must ultimately be arrived at individually, using our own personal resources. Once we have formed our convictions, the next step is to take personal responsibility for them.

Reply
lea
11/8/2021 09:06:49

We are here to learn from each other (amongst other things). When i end up answering a test asked in a different class A+ i still missed the point even if it was 'good'. My convictions have been muddied by many things, and the path to clarity is clouded by unlimited options with many traps. Purpose is a heavy word but i think doing whatever serves creativity and life always fits the bill.

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lea
11/13/2021 08:19:25

As far as missing the point goes; i did so in a very simple manner missing out on Klaus's announcing his newest con-ference titled 'the great narrative'. Thats the story we are all supposed to get in on. Im not buying it.

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