
Grand Narrative
Humanity is a species which relies on our stories. We tell stories constantly. Stories are our touchstones to dreaming of a world to come and then making that dream come true. Well this new sensibility in culture is pointing us to the fact that Post-Modernism has led us to a dead end. No solutions can come from it and the new distrust of stories has diminished our capacity to improve ourselves and our culture. However, we learned a lot on our journey towards that end. Going back to Meta-Narratives seems to be allowing this new cultural movement to again look toward Utopianism, Reason, and Progress in a way that could allow us to navigate in a hopeful, goal-oriented manner to move forward in changing our world into one with less world ending possibilities and more nurturing of humanity and the world we live in. Yes, this is a tight rope. We walk back, retracing our steps to find the assurance we once had in tackling the world’s problems to create a better life for ourselves, The American Dream, and the world around us. Therefore, this new sensibility does not reject all Meta-Narratives but questions and is cautious toward their claims to truth. That is why an informed “Naivety” is important in moving forward. Meta-Modernism explores the importance of these Meta-Narrative in trying to chart a path toward where our future may be going; positive or negative. Embracing the concept of meta-narratives as was just pointed out could bring Hope, however there is still the specter of dystopic proportions lurking behind which we would inevitably learn from both.