I am not a story

Strawson, Galen. “Let.” Aeon. N.p., 2015. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

Concepts

Narrative, non-Narrative, anti-narrative

Summary

Strawson disagrees with the widely held belief that we are narrativists and that our stories are, at some fundamental level, reflections of ourselves. Strawson believes that humans are anti-narrative by creation. Strawson argues that humans are random, and though we may have narrativists among us, to say that humans are inherently narrative creatures is a lie.

Quotations

I think it’s false — false that everyone stories themselves, and false that it’s always a good thing. These are not universal human truths — even when we confine our attention to human beings who count as psychologically normal, as I will here. They’re not universal human truths even if they’re true of some people, or even many, or most. The narrativists are, at best, generalizing from their own case, in an all-too-human way. At best: I doubt that what they say is an accurate description even of themselves.

We’re naturally — deeply — non-Narrative. We’re anti-Narrative by fundamental constitution. It’s not just that the deliverances of memory are, for us, hopelessly piecemeal and disordered, even when we’re trying to remember a temporally extended sequence of events. The point is more general. It concerns all parts of life, life’s ‘great shambles’, in the American novelist Henry James’s expression. This seems a much better characterization of the large-scale structure of human existence as we find it. Life simply never assumes a story-like shape for us. And neither, from a moral point of view, should it.

Commentary

Strawson sees the notion that we humans are narrative by default as an extremely pervasive one. Strawson believes that we humans are inherently anti-narrative. He argues that, first, narrativists are making a lump assumption of humans. Though we may have people among us that prefer to base their stories upon their own lives, Strawson says that not all humans do this. He believes that we humans are, by nature, random, unorganized, and more concerned with the point of a story, than the method through which the said message is delivered. Strawson also believes that it’s difficult for us to attempt to construct our lives in some narrative way, as our lives rarely ever take the shape of a cohesive, attracting story. Strawson doesn’t believe that narrativists are wrong to attempt to structure and narrate their lives, instead, he believes that they are wrong to say that all humans do this. Strawson also brings up the research of psychologist Dan Wegner, who says that narrativism is a trait, acquired by some and missing in others. It’s a personality trait, one that Strawson sees as pervasive. Wegner also claims that these people in possession of what he calls the ‘emotion of authorship’ pay more attention to their thoughts, believing them to be some sort of inner monologue to the story they perceive is their lives. Strawson views his own thoughts as nothing more than processes, things that just happen. Strawson harbors no resentment for narrativists, instead, he respects them and critiques their belief that all humans are born like them. Not all humans are narrativists and to say so is an affront to the scope of humanity.

Question

Do you believe humans are inherently Narrative or anti-Narrative? How would you identify yourself?