The Twilight of the Narrative: Why the Truth will never be Revealed
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? (John 18:38)
What is truth? We often have a “Hollywood” model of truth: we expect it to triumph at the end of the movie, when the bad guy confesses his crime and everyone agrees on what really happened.
Reality is very different. Truth is multiple, fractal, hierarchical, a game of mirrors, never showing herself in full. Think of the pandemic: aren’t we in the age where the “scientific method” gives us a rational, objective view of the world? And yet, the multifaceted aspects of a hugely complex story seem to be beyond our capability to process it rationally. Truth is not coming. It may never come. (And you may also be reminded of another case whose 20th anniversary we recently commemorated — there, too, the truth did not come out and probably never will).
In the post, below, Sheridan analyzes the structure of the memesphere and challenges at the core the idea that the “narrative (about the pandemic) is going to crack” any day now and that the “truth” will be revealed. He says, “There is no longer a unifying narrative that is going to crack and be replaced by a better, more truthful narrative. Rather, there is now only a seemingly infinite number of sub-narratives with a dominant narrative imposed over them. The dominant narrative is not necessarily truthful, it’s just dominant.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
