Story Won't Solve the Meaning Crisis

Meaning comes from reality, not from imposing illusory narratives on experience

In recent years, advanced thinkers and corporate marketing departments alike have converged on the idea that story could be a load-bearing concept in our late stage of modernity. Marketing departments hope that by identifying with the story a company tells, a consumer will be more likely to buy their product. Bruno Macaes suggests in a more elevated pitch in History has Begun that participation in "virtual" stories could be the next stage of possibility in American society after the supposedly valueless but in fact prescriptive model of End-of-history style liberalism.

The context for this investigation and deployment of the idea of story seems to me to make sense within the context of what philosopher John Vervaeke identified as the meaning crisis: the lack of structure and meaning for life that is experienced in modern societies after the demise of organized religion. Religion provided a fixed framework for our lives. If we lived a good life according to certain scriptural and institutionally defined tenets, an infinitely good thing would happen to us at the end. There are no longer any such rewards held out to us in a secular age. Beyond the pursuit of pleasure, how then may life be structured? "Story" seems to provide an answer: perhaps we might identify ourselves as a character in a narrative and find ourselves compelled and interested in the plot as we might with a movie.

What is a story? Definitions vary, but most agree that a story is a narrative about a protagonist confronting some sort of obstacle, and in victory or defeat realizing or failing to realize some key human value. Precise definitions, as always, are difficult, and ultimately less necessary for this article than a reflection on any number of examples, from Dune to Pride and Prejudice to Titanic. There is no question that stories are compelling. The problem when we apply them to life is that "story," associated with the realm of entertainment, tends to connote something that is not strictly real. But the more an event or development in our lives seems to have real import, the less the framing of "story" is needed. When faced with an actual crisis, we do not need to reflectively think of ourselves as a character experiencing a crisis; the crisis is simply a fact of reality in which we need to make decisions and manage difficult emotions. This isn't to deny that stories have a social utility, whether we trade stories of an engagement or of job performance at an interview. What I would claim, however, is that stories are only effective to the degree that they reflect real aspects of reality. They can't produce meaning where there is no corresponding reality to an obstacle or circumstance.

There is something to be said about possibilities for meaning opening up after the supposed end of the story in the 1990s, but these possibilities are grounded in specific material realities and are not generated by the production of superfluous narratives. In the 90's it seemed from some perspectives that we were at the "End of History"—there was nothing left to do, nothing left to happen. Movies such as Office Space and The Matrix portrayed the dull existence of working as a computer coder in a cubicle and how that led to unbearable existential angst that could only be released through extreme measures. It seemed that there was nothing specific one should or even could do except do one's dull duties inside the "system" as a corporate drone.

Yet as time progressed, things kept happening. There were pockets of geographical and cultural space that were not fully incorporated into the unipolar "system" and fostered anti-system tendencies like terrorist ideologies, culminating in the 9/11 attacks. The internet was developed, changing the landscape of socializing, media, and information dissemination, leading to a "disruption" narrative which held that old stagnant ways of doing things could be disrupted by new technologies. It is important to note that disruption wasn't just a narrative; various old aspects of society were actually disrupted.

We also came to the awareness that the end of history was only perceived from the dominant cultural perspective and that certain groups in society didn't feel that we were at the end, and instead felt that they were disenfranchised by the system. Rural whites who didn't get to participate in the benefits of globalization and racial minorities who felt that the system had not done enough to correct the results of previous injustice both rebelled against the consensus system, giving rise to two other narratives, the "make America great again" narrative, and the woke, or social justice narrative. Both promised a transformation from the current state, the first one promising a return to a past where things were better for the aggrieved white subjects, and the second one promising the coming of a future where a never-before-seen principle of justice could hold. Again, though both of these were narratives of things that could change, they both had a basis in material reality.

At the end of history, it seemed that geopolitical conflict might be over, but we see that returning, too. Rather than a stable state where all around the world continue to do boring office or labor jobs doled out by the system, other parties instead vied for a change to the system. Russia didn't want to accept its role as docile liberalized gas provider to Europe but instead wanted to be a great imperial nation, and China didn't want to accept its role as the world's factory and instead wanted to turn its manufacturing dominance into technological dominance and then political dominance. These can be seen as narratives, but they are at the same time based in material differences in power, status, and circumstances that they wish to change.

There are also trends that don't rise to the level of great ideals and forces like justice, equality, and power, but still caused massive changes and disruptions. For example, there were changing economic possibilities of making money online, the rise of entrepreneurship, and concomitant new lifestyle possibilities from living in a van to living on a Southeast Asian beach. Some chose to move to Silicon Valley to take part in the aforementioned disruption narrative and spent 12 hours a day coding to take over businesses; but other creators were able to use the software programs coded by those hackers to fulfill their own passions, making livings as entertainers or educators in the creator economy.

If we had really reached the end of history, there would be nothing left to desire and nothing left to be motivated by. We are left to conclude that the 90's really were not the end of history but merely one stable point. It was a momentarily stable configuration, perhaps, with a "system" in place that would be adequate according to the people in charge with roles that seemed to fit everyone within the system. But there were too many people within that system that were unhappy with the results they got. Nerdy computer coders, once they saw the potential for financial success that could come from technology, weren't content to do the bidding of the wealthy businessmen who had previously employed them and wanted to take their own piece of the pie. Minorities who had achieved a carved out accommodations within the system were not happy and wanted to be recognized for their full value. Countries who were relegated to their set part within the system felt that they wanted more. Because the system of the 90's was not a totalitarian imposition but one that proclaimed, at least, the ideal of freedom, different actors within the system were able to mobilize towards their own interests, which sent the previous system into chaos.

The static, narrative-less moment of the end of history thus gave way to a great many degrees of participation with all the shifting elements of the configuration, and we now have a degree of choice as to which part we want to play. Do we want to follow the Progress Studies movement and study how to use technological and economic growth to improve society? Do we want to make the world more spiritual by promulgating spiritual practices and teachings from ancient cultures? Do we want to fight the lack of economic and social equality by joining the social justice movement or starting a nonprofit? Do we want to cultivate personal power and freedom by becoming an entrepreneur? These new possibilities go together with a profusion of value systems and cultural micro-worlds that one may join whose range is facilitated by the new possibilities of social connection provided by the internet.

This is perhaps the significance of the idea of story at this juncture: it feels like we are in a game where we might choose our own adventure from a variety of communities, goals, and value systems—that is, that we might be able to choose our own "story." My concern with the framing of "story" is that we may lose the sense of reality behind our endeavors. While it is certainly possible for us to think of ourselves as actors playing at conflicts and racking up notification-like points within value systems, I believe it's more constructive to get a sense of the different real problems that each of these communities and value system options is engaged with. Narratives remain a useful tool for communication, literary artistry, and information compression, but there is a difference between a "story," even an immersive one, on the movie screen and the reality of life itself. As with "story", the idea of "reality" may be one that is difficult to define precisely, but we all have a sense of what this is and why this makes our lives different from projections on a screen.