Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Tace

(6,800 posts)
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 07:28 AM Jun 2014

The Stories of our Grandchildren | John Michael Greer



June 18, 2014 (Archdruid Report) -- Over the last six weeks, in what spare time I could find, I’ve glanced back over the last eight years of weekly Archdruid Report posts, trying to get some sense of where this blog has been and where it might head in the months and years to come.

In language the Grateful Dead made famous -- well, among those of us in a certain generation, at least -- it‘s been a long strange trip, crossing terrain not often included in tours of the future of our faltering industrial civilization.

Among those neglected landscapes of the mind, though, the territory that seems most crucial to me involves the role that stories play in shaping our ideas and expectations about the future, and thus our future itself. It’s a surprisingly difficult issue for many people these days to grapple with. Each time I raise it, I can count on hearing from readers who don’t get what I’m saying, usually because they’ve lost track of the distinction between whatever story they’ve gotten stuck in their minds and the far more diffuse and shapeless experiences that the story claims to explain.

We tell ourselves stories to explain the world; that much is normal among human beings, and inevitable. The problem creeps in when we lose track of the difference between the narrative map and the experiential territory, and treat (for example) progress as a simple reality, rather than the complex and nuanced set of interpretations we lay over the facts of history to turn them into incidents in a familiar narrative.

more

http://worldnewstrust.com/the-stories-of-our-grandchildren-john-michael-greer
Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Editorials & Other Articles»The Stories of our Grandc...