I really enjoyed the essay. And I can't help but wonder if this has some relationship with another phenomenon I've been experiencing and witnessing since 2020: an apparent change in how we perceive the passing of time. At least in my immediate peer group this seems to be common. Perhaps a sort of "narrative pendulum" is one of the signals that helps set our internal clocks, and that signal is now lost or at least very weak.
This is a very exciting read. I agree. The Culture War lens is not really applicable now. What i have noticed more about this decade has been discussions about what's real and what's not. So we potentially have an emergence of a new politics of consciousness, like the 60s, but without a clear-cut narrative thrust. I have spoken to so many people who do not know what they believe anymore. Being an artsy fartsy "person," I like the dark. As an icon of the '60s said in his very last posthumously released top 40 single, "strange days indeed."
This would help explain the lack of a coherent narrative to explain certain periods like the American story of Gilded Age through WWI ending with the Great Depression.
Is there also a question of being in a time vs talking about a time? My sense is that there are periods where the waveform collapses and we retrospectively define a narrative (the 60s was probably like this) but there are also periods which remain inscrutable in the popular consciousness (1945-1947 in Europe was one - maybe the Spanish flu pandemic too).
If this model is accurate my sense is that our current era is more like the 60s than the post war period. There’s too much pressure in the system and not enough actual disaster induced trauma.
Have you ever looked at the concept of “social imaginaries” as defined by Charles Taylor? I find it a helpful concept when thinking about grand narratives in the context of society. https://garden.johanneskleske.com/social-imaginaries
It could be interesting to think through how grand narratives interface with micro narratives - why do people get up in the morning, what are their bread and circuses, their hopes and plans? Are grand narratives associated with hierarchical leadership, and less important as decentralised or swarm-like patterns become more effective?
I really enjoyed the essay. And I can't help but wonder if this has some relationship with another phenomenon I've been experiencing and witnessing since 2020: an apparent change in how we perceive the passing of time. At least in my immediate peer group this seems to be common. Perhaps a sort of "narrative pendulum" is one of the signals that helps set our internal clocks, and that signal is now lost or at least very weak.
This is a very exciting read. I agree. The Culture War lens is not really applicable now. What i have noticed more about this decade has been discussions about what's real and what's not. So we potentially have an emergence of a new politics of consciousness, like the 60s, but without a clear-cut narrative thrust. I have spoken to so many people who do not know what they believe anymore. Being an artsy fartsy "person," I like the dark. As an icon of the '60s said in his very last posthumously released top 40 single, "strange days indeed."
This would help explain the lack of a coherent narrative to explain certain periods like the American story of Gilded Age through WWI ending with the Great Depression.
Thank you for drawing my attention to Cipolla stupidity
Is there also a question of being in a time vs talking about a time? My sense is that there are periods where the waveform collapses and we retrospectively define a narrative (the 60s was probably like this) but there are also periods which remain inscrutable in the popular consciousness (1945-1947 in Europe was one - maybe the Spanish flu pandemic too).
If this model is accurate my sense is that our current era is more like the 60s than the post war period. There’s too much pressure in the system and not enough actual disaster induced trauma.
Have you ever looked at the concept of “social imaginaries” as defined by Charles Taylor? I find it a helpful concept when thinking about grand narratives in the context of society. https://garden.johanneskleske.com/social-imaginaries
Without examples of previous unnarratable times this sounds like maybe you are just describing "the present".
It could be interesting to think through how grand narratives interface with micro narratives - why do people get up in the morning, what are their bread and circuses, their hopes and plans? Are grand narratives associated with hierarchical leadership, and less important as decentralised or swarm-like patterns become more effective?