Explore every episode of the podcast The Narratologist

Education only has ONE problem?! Really? No, but it does have one problem that is WAY bigger than all the other problems. So, what is it? Listen and find out.

In this episode we start with the Choctaw nation, move on to the Irish, then the Palestinians, back to the Irish, then back to the Choctaw. What narrative weaves its way to make those connections?

Listen and find out!

Is the racism faced by black people different from other forms of racism? Dianne Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party the other week. Again. For more or less saying that. This is about the nature of racism, and how words get in the way of our understanding.

Is there objective reality? Yes! Is it easy? No! And it's getting harder. What do we do when reality is denied? And how do we prevent reality from becoming unknowable?

Here it is. The meaning of life. I know. Not really anything more to say. Enjoy.

Christianity went off course. Not in the 1980s with the rise of televangelists. Not in the 1960s with the rise of the Jesus Freaks. Not even in the 1520s with the Reformation. It went off course almost 1700 years ago. And it hasn't found its way back. What happened? What's missing? Whether you're a Christian or an Atheist or a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist, this is your story. This story created the world we inherited, and is still creating the world we live in today.

Racism is as old as humanity. Right? Actually, no. If you had to pinpoint it, it's about 580 years old. Give or take a few years. Want to find out more?

When most of think of conspiracy theories, we think of people staring out between shuttered blinds, terrified of the world around them. Conspiracies actually make us feel safe. Want to find out more?

The LP was born almost a century ago, and there is reason to think it will soon be a relic of the past. In that light, I offer this elegy for the LP and one of my favoruite albums, Sam's Town by The Killers. If when you're done, if you do nothing else, listen to an album. From start to finish. It's a vibe.

We often look at what we do. We often try to measure what we do. But we seldom look at the effect that our measuring has on the thing itself. It's a bit like Heisenberg, where the act of observing something changes the something observed.

But with more numbers.

What is the American Dream? Does it still exist? Is it a positive narrative? How has it changed?

Someonce once said, "We used to live in counties ruled by counts, in kingdoms ruled by kings and in duchies ruled by dukes. Now we live in countries."

Where we live is a fiction, and our attachment to that fiction can lead us into some pretty strange places. If you want to know more, have a listen.

CORRECTION: It's 6, not 7. If you listen, and you know, you know. If not, just smile and wave.

We are often confronted with the terrible statistics about how many women will be victims of sexual violence. But how many men will be perpetrators of sexual violence? And what does it mean for our narratives around sex?

Do we shape our political parties, or do our political parties shape us? When our parties change their beliefs, what do we do? Are we the dog wagging our tail, or is the tail wagging the dog?

We all belong to tribes. Some are obvious, some less so. Some tribes are intensely aware of who we are, some don't even know we're members. But they shape us, our beliefs, and our sense of "us" and "them". They are the key to that primal human sense: belonging.

The Netflix series Adolscence has inceased our awareness of the issues surrounding boys and men. It's an important topic, especially for those of us one or two steps removed. How do we relate to narratives that we aren't explicitly living out? How do we place ourselves in other people's shoes, to better understand what they are going through?

Humans have used narratives to explain our existences for the entirety of recorded history, and we can be sure that some of those narratives stretch far back into prehistory.

What might be more surprising is that fact that some of our most primal narratives - narratives many of us would assume we'd abandoned centuries ago - are alive and well in the 21st century.

Sure, we dress them up in different clothes, but the role they fulfil - the job they do - hasn't actually changed at all.

In this episode, we compare 2 versions of 1 of our oldest narratives and find surprising connections.

We go through our lives talking about ourselves: me, myself, I. We seldom wonder whether the self we're talking about is the same as the self that is doing the describing, or if it's the same as the self that is living life.

Surely "I" am a single, constant thing, right?

Right?

Strange as it may sound, that actually isn't the experience any of us has. So, if there are multiple "me"s living my life, then how are they different? What narratives can I use to navigate between them?

Neoliberalism is a narrative like no other. It is not just a story. It is THE framework from which a huge number of other narratives hang.

But where did it come from? And what does it say? And - most importantly - what's next?

Do people all tell themselves the same sorts of stories? Or do rich and poor people, famous and unknown, actually tell themselves different stories? If our stories are meant to explain our realities to ourselves, it would make sense if different realities conjured up different narratives.

The stories we use to explain what makes one person successful and another not are some of the most powerful stories we have. They are a way of reminding ourselves what the rules are. They tell us that our world functions as it should, and that people get what they deserve.

Welcome to The Narratologist.

Who are we? How do we process reality? I believe that the answer to both questions is the same: stories.

This is our first step on that journey, laying out some of the fundamentals that we'll build on in future episodes.