THE IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVE

Traditional narratives were firmly established –  you took your identity from your locale, your clan and your religion. You fit in with your family and your country. These were master narratives that contained within them other, subsidiary stories that centered on more transient matters. “Master narratives broke apart in the modern world. People began to migrate, religions unraveled under the onslaught of rational education. Traditions frayed beyond recognition. The master narratives became stories of nostalgia, not guiding forces that determined both morality and reality.

“Since we can’t live without stories, new ones bid to replace the old master narratives. Today’s stories, though, are different from those in the past. They don’t arise organically from a community but instead come packaged by those whose goal isn’t to inform but to make money. The master narrative of the modern world is the story of the market economy, a powerful but deeply problematic story. “The stories we live by today largely come packaged, not as spiritual or communal quests, but as aspirations for material gain, as Robb Smith says. “Values are created by advertisements and advertisements replace wisdom and literature. Actors, musicians, comedians, and others are followed as they though they were gurus, nearly worshipped as avatars and almost deified simply because they are appealing. Wisdom now lives under the shadow of celebrity.“