{"id":560,"date":"2008-09-04T08:37:57","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T12:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=560"},"modified":"2025-10-13T09:19:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:19:22","slug":"fade-to-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=560","title":{"rendered":"Fade to narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The dangers of <a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=339\">TV-studio live mics<\/a> were demonstrated again yesterday, this time by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peggy_Noonan\">Peggy Noonan<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mike_Murphy_(political_consultant)\">Mike Murphy<\/a> after an interview by Chuck Todd on MSNBC. Political content aside, the discussion provided a lovely example of how a term from literary theory has established itself in American political discourse. The relevant segment:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Mike Murphy: They're all bummed out.<br \/>\nChuck Todd: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?<br \/>\nPeggy Noonan: The most qualified? No! I would think they went for this &#8212; excuse me&#8211; political bullshit about narratives, and ((unintelligible)) picture &#8230;<br \/>\nChuck Todd: Yeah they went to narrative.<br \/>\nMike Murphy: I totally agree.<br \/>\nPeggy Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that &#8212; because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at &#8212; they blow it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan Trip over Live Mics on MSNBC\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Dq4sOM4tpno?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Later, in the WSJ, Ms. Noonan <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB122044753790594947.html\">explained at greater length<\/a> what she meant:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Early this morning I saw Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and as we chatted about the McCain campaign (she thoughtfully and supportively) I looked into her eyes and thought, Why not her? Had she been vetted for the vice presidency, and how did it come about that it was the less experienced Mrs. Palin who was chosen? I didn't ask these questions or mention them, I just thought them. Later in the morning, still pondering this, I thought of something that had happened exactly 20 years before. It was just after the 1988 Republican convention ended. I was on the plane, as a speechwriter, that took Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush, and the new vice presidential nominee, Dan Quayle, from New Orleans, the site of the convention, to Indiana. Sitting next to Mr. Quayle was the other senator from that state, Richard Lugar. As we chatted, I thought, \"Why him and not him?\" Why Mr. Quayle as the choice, and not the more experienced Mr. Lugar? I came to think, in following years, that some of the reason came down to <strong>what is now called The Narrative. The story the campaign wishes to tell about itself, and communicate to others<\/strong>. I don't like the idea of The Narrative. I think it is &#8230; a barnyard epithet. And, oddly enough, it is something that Republicans are not very good at, because it's not where they live, it's not what they're about, it's too fancy. To the extent the McCain campaign was thinking in these terms, I don't like that either.<\/span> <em>[emphasis added]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Many will find it ironic to read Peggy Noonan &#8212; who was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter &#8212;\u00a0 claiming that Republicans are not very good at The Narrative. George Lakoff <a href=\"http:\/\/itre.cis.upenn.edu\/~myl\/languagelog\/archives\/001247.html\">made a name for himself as a political commentator<\/a> by expressing, at length, a contrary view.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, George <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/george-lakoff\/the-palin-choice-and-the_b_123012.html\">disagrees<\/a> with her about the likely effectiveness of the Sarah Palin narrative as well. He writes that\u00a0 \"the Palin nomination changes the game\", and \"Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting disaster\", because \"the Palin nomination is not basically about external realities and what Democrats call 'issues,' but about the symbolic mechanisms of the political mind\u2014the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural narratives, and stereotypes\".<\/p>\n<p>The role of The Narrative in American electoral politics was well enough established in the 2004 election season for William Safire to write a column about it (\"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/12\/05\/magazine\/05ONLANGUAGE.html\">Narrative<\/a>\", 12\/5\/2004), in which he quotes James Carville as complaining \"They [the Republicans] produce a narrative, we [the Democrats] produce a litany\". Safire explains the term's background this way:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Thus has political science dipped into the latest terminology of literary criticism to explain an election. In 1966, the essayist Roland Barthes declared, \"Numberless are the world's narratives,\" and his structural analysis of stories helped give birth to the discipline of narratology. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>What Barthes actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fabula.org\/revue\/document3931.php\">wrote<\/a> in \"Introduction \u00e0 l'analyse structurale des r\u00e9cits\" was \"Innombrable sont les r\u00e9cits du monde\". And it's true that there's a sort of translational analogy <strong><em>histoire:r\u00e9cit::story:narrative<\/em><\/strong>, but in French, it seems to me, <strong><em>r\u00e9cit<\/em><\/strong> is a more everyday word than <em><strong>narrative<\/strong><\/em> is in English. For example, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ville-echirolles.fr\/article4901.html\">recent article<\/a> about going back to school, on the web site of a suburb of Grenoble, lists \"Les premiers pas dans de nouvelles \u00e9coles, les premi\u00e8res r\u00e9cr\u00e9s, les premiers foot, les premi\u00e8res rencontres, les premi\u00e8res heures de classes, les r\u00e9cits des vacances&#8230;\" &#8212; \"the first steps into new schools, the first recesses, the first soccer games, the first meetings, the first hours of class, the r\u00e9cits of vacations&#8230;\"\u00a0 Surely the small-town American equivalent would be \"stories\" (or maybe \"reports\") about summer vacation, not \"narratives\".<\/p>\n<p>I speculate that Barthes' translator, Stephen Heath, felt that <em><strong>story<\/strong><\/em> was too plain a word to use in translating Barthes' <em><strong>r\u00e9cit<\/strong><\/em>. Perhaps as a result, <em><strong>narrative<\/strong><\/em> has become a literary term of art in English, although as far as I can tell, Barthes was using <strong><em>r\u00e9cit<\/em><\/strong> in its ordinary-language meaning in the French original.\u00a0 It may comfort Peggy Noonan a little to learn that payback is underway: while <strong><em>narrative<\/em><\/strong> has flourished in our political culture under the influence of French literary theory, the English word <strong><em>story<\/em><\/strong> is spreading in France under the influence of reality TV (\"<a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=313\">Quelle est la story?<\/a>\", 7\/4\/2008).<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, the <a href=\"http:\/\/litguide.press.jhu.edu\/cgi-bin\/view.cgi?eid=189\">article on Narratology<\/a> in the <em>Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism<\/em> gives some context for the political adoption of the literary term:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">The tacit idea that underpins all narratology &#8230; is that narrative is part of the general process of <em>representation<\/em> that takes place in human discourse. That is to say, the world is not given to humans in pure form; instead, it is always mediated or <em>re<\/em>-presented. Stuart Hall suggests that there are three general approaches to the question of the work done by representation. The \"reflective\" approach sees meaning as residing in the person or thing in the real world; a representation such as narrative \"reflects\" that meaning. The \"intentional\" approach sees meaning in the control exercised by the producer of a representational form such as narrative; he or she uses representation to make the world \"mean.\" The \"constructionist\" approach sees meaning neither in the control of the producer nor in the thing being represented; instead, it identifies the thoroughly social nature of the <em>construction <\/em>of meaning, the fact that representational systems, rather than their users and objects, allow meaning to occur. Narratology generally embraces the \"constructionist\" perspective as its guiding principle, seeing in narrative form the organization, possibility, and very progenitor of narrative meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Some dictionaries haven't yet assimilated this new sense of <em><strong>narrative<\/strong><\/em>. The American Heritage Dictionary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bartleby.com\/61\/98\/N0019800.html\">has<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">1. A narrated account; a story. 2. The art, technique, or process of narrating. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Encarta's <a href=\"http:\/\/encarta.msn.com\/dictionary_\/narrative.html\">entry<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">1<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">. story: a story or an account of a sequence of events in the order in which they happened<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>2.<\/strong> process of narrating: the art or process of telling a story or giving an account of something<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>3.<\/strong> story in literary work: the part of a literary work that is concerned with telling the story<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And Merriam-Webster OnLine <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/narrative\">has<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">1:<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"> something that is narrated : story, account<br \/>\n<strong>2: <\/strong>the art or practice of narration<br \/>\n<strong>3:<\/strong> the representation in art of an event or story; also : an example of such a representation<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But the OED is on the case &#8212; the (historically?) first sense given for <em><strong>narrative<\/strong><\/em> is a technical term from Scots Law, but then we get:<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">2. a.<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"> An account of a series of events, facts, etc., given in order and with the establishing of connections between them; a narration, a story, an account.<br \/>\n<strong>b.<\/strong> <em>Literary Criticism.<\/em> The part of a text, esp. a work of fiction, which represents the sequence of events, as distinguished from that dealing with dialogue, description, etc.; narration as a literary method or genre.<br \/>\n[<em>narrative<\/em> is sometimes used to refer to the story as it is supposed to have taken place, whereas <em>plot<\/em> is used to refer to the way in which the story is revealed.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>c.<\/strong> In structuralist and post-structuralist theory: a representation of a history, biography, process, etc., in which a sequence of events has been constructed into a story in accordance with a particular ideology; esp. in <strong>grand narrative<\/strong> <em>n<\/em>. [after French <em>grand r\u00e9cit<\/em> (1979 in the passage translated in quot. 1984)] a story or representation used to give an explanatory or justificatory account of a society, period, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>1977<\/strong> S. HEATH tr. R. Barthes <em>Image, Music, Text<\/em> 79 Narrative [<strong>1966<\/strong> le r\u00e9cit] is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself. <strong><br \/>\n1984<\/strong> G. BENNINGTON &amp; B. MASSUMI tr. J.-F. Lyotard <em>Postmodern Condition<\/em> p. xxiii, I will use the term <em>modern <\/em>to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative. <strong><br \/>\n1991<\/strong> <em>Past &amp; Present<\/em> Aug. 120 In historical accounts of Third World countries.., where there are data relating to the emergence of politics, they are generally concealed behind the dominant narratives of the state and nationalism.<br \/>\n<strong>2000<\/strong> C. BRUNSDON <em>Feminist, Housewife &amp; Soap Opera<\/em> 6 This autobiographical turn is not currently unusual in critical intellectual work, assailed as its practitioners are by..a reluctance to appear to endorse the grand narratives which might permit an impersonal voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But these are all example from literary criticism or from closely-related areas of the social sciences. Presumably the first use in reference to American political strategies was at some point between Stephen Heath's 1977 translation <em>Image-Music-Text<\/em>, and William Safire's 2004 column.\u00a0 A quick search of the NYT archives turns up Michiko Kakutani, \"<a href=\"http:\/\/query.nytimes.com\/gst\/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEFDE133EF937A35751C0A9679C8B63&amp;sec=&amp;spon=&amp;partner=permalink&amp;exprod=permalink\">Faith Base; As American As Second Acts And Apple Pie<\/a>\", 2\/4\/2001, which represents at least a transitional example:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">THE stories a people tell and retell reveal a lot about who they are and who they want to be, and there is no public narrative more potent today &#8212; or throughout American history &#8212; than the one about redemption. [&#8230;]<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">In this environment, President Bush's embrace of religion-based social programs &#8212; which hold out the promise of rebirth through spiritual change &#8212; may well strike a chord with voters frustrated with such seemingly intractable problems as substance abuse and teenage violence, while at the same time raising questions about knee-jerk thinking about the easiness of change and redemption. [&#8230;]<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">So potent is the narrative trope of trauma-to-transcendence that it has spread from talk shows and recovery groups to creative writing classes and television entertainment, often supplanting the traditional Bildungsroman arc that traces the journey from innocence to wisdom. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>I'm sure that it's easy to find examples that antedate this one, and are also more clearly about electoral strategies &#8212; but my breakfast hour is over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dangers of TV-studio live mics were demonstrated again yesterday, this time by Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy after an interview by Chuck Todd on MSNBC. Political content aside, the discussion provided a lovely example of how a term from literary theory has established itself in American political discourse. The relevant segment: Mike Murphy: They're [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words-words-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71642,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/71642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}