Meta narrative Conflict  (Link to my Cognitive Map)

Why this is important. (I know, you might be thinking "well, duh!" but heck, to some it might not be obvious.)

Discussion point: Discuss the nature of narrative conflict internal to your own beliefs.

Some of my own thoughts -- I realize I have wondered all over on this one!  When I consider my own beliefs and examine them in light of the nature of a conflict between what I know to be meta narratives I realize I have at least the following conflicts.

            From the metanarrative of process I believe in competition as the most effective way for progress to be made. For example, we say one interpretation of the Darwinian narrative is “the survival of the fittest” (a phrase first created by Herbert Spencer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Species) and enhanced by my reading of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett (Paperback - Jun 12, 1996). (See what he says in this link to Google books -- and you need a free login to go to the page) and the narrative of progress via competition and survival of the fittest habits or complex systems fits in with so many contemporary "texts" that appear to be incredibly useful. As another example there is Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond (Paperback - April 1, 1999) and his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (Paperback - Dec 27, 2005). This is also the model that we use to legitimate our republic! For example, I find The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama (Paperback - Feb 1, 1993) an exceptional narrative description of relatively contemporary events (and subsequent books by Fukuyama have continued my appreciation for his point of view.) This may all be subsumed in the metanarrative called "relativity", or evolution, or progress. (Are they all separate to some extent?)

Einstein -- physics / Freud (through Kohlberg) -- psychology / Kitcher -- mathematics / Wittgenstein -- language / Darwin (through Dennett) - biology: all can be interpreted as the metanarrative of process, or relativity.

Meanwhile, from the metanarrative of "the steady state universe" or the Newtonian "mechanical universe" there are also important cognitive tools. Some of these are even important for the evolution narrative. For example, the idea that there is a fittest complex system in an environment requires there to be a schema of better and worse. This in turn requires a chain of values. Making the better selections result in survival. But this in turn seems to require that the relationships between the choices are fixed even when the environmental conditions are not. Conditions may change but if like conditions occur the best choices in that environment will also remain the same.

If that is the case, certain values can be taught as the best values for those circumstances. That being the case, it seems also clear that those that teach those values, those best adapted to passing those values on to a next generation or two, would also be the best authority for values instruction.

This leaves me with narrative conflict even within the narratives themselves. Evolution does not seem possible without permanent schemas of success, but evolution itself -- change -- seems a part of any permanent schema.

This page is maintained by William S. Jamison. It was last updated August 14, 2012. All links on these pages are either to open source or public domain materials or they are marked with the appropriate copyright information. I frequently check the links I have made to other web sites but each source is responsible for their own content.