The Narrative and Its Discontents
18th February 2021
One of the things that happened to stories was memetics. Stories proliferate or decline based on their own Darwinian logic. They may reproduce if they are funny, or if they flatter the listener, or if they are set to a catchy tune. Consider my simplified story of history: isn’t it pleasing in its symmetry? Doesn’t “both eras had their benefits and challenges” sound like something a sophisticated person would say? But memetics isn’t inherently hostile to truth and unity. It produces Harambe, not Lysenkoism. Stories, like Soviet agronomists, are corrupted by power.