Narrative - why it matters

Here is an interesting story of how narrative drives political actions.

Earlier this week on NPR, I heard a man-on-the-street segment about the current election cycle featuring three Southern women, two Texans, one a former New Orleans resident who left after Katrina.

The first woman is an assistant manager in a store somewhere in Texas. She sounded bone-weary about both politics and life. When the interviewer asked what national issues she followed most, she said that she just keeps her head down and tries to keep her family afloat, that all that stuff is beyond her. But when she was asked a bit later about what she’d find attractive about a presidential candidate, she very forcefully turned to the issue of illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants, she said, are what has made it difficult for Americans like herself to access welfare and health care. The interviewer pointed out that illegal immigrants usually don’t make use of welfare or unemployment compensation, but the woman shrugged that off. Her resentments were deeper: she sees people that she’s sure are illegal immigrants driving by in nice cars and they seem far better off than she is. She’s struggling just to keep afloat, she’s had to give up health insurance for her children because it’s unaffordable. Her answer to the mystery of how people around her seem better off is that government has something to do with it but in a deep and enigmatic way, and that she’s looking for the candidate who will admit to it, who will mirror her structure of feeling, long before she’s looking for some highly concretized solution. [Snip]

That woman in Texas is probably not a Democratic voter regardless of whom the candidate is. Her key issue maybe ought to be health care reform, but she’s enmeshed in another kind of narrative, one where racial resentment, among other things, is lurking very powerfully just underneath the surface. But even that is a layer covering the real depths. What I heard listening to her was someone who basically thinks that she’s in a hopeless place because some great engine is churning mysteriously in the depths of history, that life is just bad now.

The real problem as far as that woman is concerned is

that life is changing, that the changes are mysterious, that power lies somewhere far away from where the speaker exists, and that they don’t believe that there’s much to be done about it.

The Liberals have been offering plans and programs that are intended to solve that woman's problems, but they all come down to one thing as far as she knows. She is currently fucked, things aren't getting better, and they won't get any better, and the only thing the Liberals offer is "I'm and expert. Trust Me." and she doesn't, because the experts in the past said the same damned thing, and look how THAT turned out.

The Conservatives offer a narrative that "explains" why her life is so difficult. It's simple. All the illegal immigrants are coming over the border and using up the resources. That's why she can't get any. The narrative is simply, it's understandable, and - Hey! It still won't change anything, but that lady understands what is happening to her, and nothing is going to change anyway. At least she has someone to blame.

I'd say that the same thing that drives this woman to the narrative "It's all about the illegal immigrants." will also drive her to find a leader who promises that if she will join him, things will get better because he understands her and her problems. That would fit right in with the idea that she is looking for someone who can mirror the structure of her feelings.

That structure is found in the narrative she accepts as explanation. As Mark Kleiman pointed out in his post that directed me to this one, The answer as far as that woman is concerned could just as well be that "Witches cause the problems."

She'll ignore the expert who says "Trust me." because that does not mirror her feelings the way the narrative she has accepted does.