Topic of phrases that come up when you are drunk

[Bosola]

Isn't a grand narrative just something for your followers and true believers to point at and say, "See, things will be okay if we just listen to the authorities and keep trying to kill the right people"?

I wouldn't quite say that. A grand narrative is just a sort of 'wrapper' of meaning around smaller events that poses them as precursors to some eventual end. It's actually fairly natural - human beings are good at finding patterns and chains of causality. If I see three events, I'm tempted to believe the first and the second led to the third. This isn't too far away from the thinking behind grand narratives, called teleologies.

Here's a good example of a teleology. If I look at lots of events in Syria over the past decade, and think of them in terms of how they eroded Gadafi's power base, I'm creating a teleology where all events in the past marched inexorably towards one in the future (Gadafi being deposed). If I then extend that teleology to make the Syrian issue a larger narrative of 'the birth of Arab democracy', and then go even further to suggest that all societies proceed inevitably towards democracy, then I am applying a grand narrative, and probably falsely.

Deconstructionism and postmodernism tend not to like grand narratives. The problem is they're also suspicious of almost anyone who finds a chain of causality, no matter how well-reasoned.

 

[Jenova's Witness]

.

 

[Bosola]

Bit of a tangent, but I don't think it's trivial to go from 'measurable biological data' to 'radical conclusions about politics and society'.

As for your example, I'm suspicious of the assumptions that

a) human beings can recognize 'stability' (pretty abstract) on a biological basis, and likewise react to it. How on earth would this mechanism work?
b) human beings haven't benefited from social stability for reproductive purposes
c) stability leads to extinction. Organisms only adapt because they aren't currently well-suited to their environment - 'adapting' doesn't provide 'strength' in its own right.
d) wars are about genetic strength rather than diplomatic, material and geographical advantages

Not to be rude, but if I were you, I wouldn't take my opinions from sci-fi writers. They write for entertainment, not for serious discussion. I'd also remember that practically every ideology has made a claim on 'measurable biological data' - even aristocratic societies looking at social animals like ants.

 

[Jenova's Witness]

.