Living with other people's narratives

This past week a certain country disputed the findings of a United Nations report, saying it rejected the UN's "narrative". It is not the name of the country that is important here, but this: if you lived in that country, what would your response have been been?

Considering its frame of reference (or narrative), every country or person's actions make complete sense to them, and they are horrified that others do not agree with them.  It is not unusual for them to add then to the existing narrative: "People are biased" and "They are out to get us". 

There is a scripture in Proverbs which could be in any religion's holy writ. "A person's report is believed until another comes and gives his side". I remember once asking my mother for a toy pistol while we were waiting in the cashier's queue at a supermarket. She shook her head, and so I summoned what appeared  to be a fair argument. The whole family was aware that I no longer possessed one because my brother had thrown mine out of a moving car. My mother turned to me: "Yes, but you then took your brother's gun to the tool shed and demolished it".

Case dismissed.

In most cases, a narrative does not have a sequence of events which can be reviewed by a mother or a judge, followed by an indisputable verdict. It may have a context, but a look at the chronologies of two conflicting narratives will leave you scratching your head. The two parties could well be living in different universes!

Narratives are hard to correct. And some times, when a narrative has been revised, we wonder what really occasioned the change of heart and dig for motivations other than the explanation offered. This is especially true if it was our own narrative that the person abandoned.

One narrative in agriculture looks at what the population will be in such-and-such a year, usually 2030 or 2050, and then adds what is needed to accomplish feeding such a world (genetically modified crops etc). Now enter what someone has called the "competing narrative". Philip Lymberry in his book Farmageddon shows that we already produce enough food for what we'll need in such-and-such a year. Vast quantities, however, are siphoned off to prop up "factory farming" or "intensive meat producing facilities" (what you call it depends on your narrative). One could also point to the food we throw away, an astonishing 11.3 billion tonnes per year according to Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General. Making changes to our food-chains would make a difference to the 900-million people suffering food shortages now, never mind the year such-and-such.

Having differences in opinion is inevitable. "The further one travels [into multiplicity and away from unity], the less one really knows", sang the Beatles in a song based on the Tao te Ching.

In my experience, the only time a narrative is hushed, though, is when there is a moment of understanding of what it is like for the other side. Have we really considered the anxiety caused by having an empty stomach, and not knowing where the next meal will come from? Or being hungry while also being responsible for a family who depend on you for food? If we don't experience this sort of co-feeling, what are our narratives really worth?