The Means of Narration
We need more stories, because stories are power.
Stories change norms just by existing, and centering a perspective as real and heroic. Authoritarians have always understood this. This is how they keep dragging public opinion over the line of absurdity over and over.
Yet for all that, look how quickly opinions shifted once the protests started, and people got a new story, with new heroes.
Stories outlive civilization. They’re all we’ve got of what came before, and who knows what they leave out.
They’re the most powerful weapons and the most powerful shields, because they’re a statement of value. Every story serves to set terms for what we hold normal and right. They shape reality more than stones, because our reality is us. It’s just people.
The very nature of stories is people over property. Stories themselves are made to be comrades. Intellectual property is a sinister concept, that could only exist under capitalism. It’s a form of servitude of the human spirit.
Control the means of narration. Assert your stories. Make them real in the telling.