Against the Universal Story

Admittedly this is perhaps argument for argument's sake, since I am not really familiar with the term "Universal Story" and all that it is meant to connote. It is a phrase that I heard or invented, and stuck in my mind, bothering me as I invented my own meaning for it. What follows is my response to that "invented meaning".

I reject the idea of a universal story. It is reductive, uninformative and diminishes the power of the narrative in our imagination. It requires a myopic view of both our past and future to imagine that the basic human story is unchanging in time. We tell our stories in time, and therefore they evolve with us. Even as we retell supposedly timeless stories, we shift the emphasis around and allow our current ideas to infiltrate them as viewed through our modern lenses.

Imagine saying that there was a universal architecture. That all architecture was reducible to a simple set of geometric forms: lines, planes, etc. and that a successful architectural arrangement was simply the organization of these essential forms in a time-tested way while dressing them up in a degree of novelty. On a very reductionist level and with some hand-waving we might be able to say this is true, but it is hardly a useful concept. In a world where all buildings look like fifteenth century castles the argument might seem compelling. But what would happen to this theory in such a world were we to suddenly introduce the Guggenheim? How would it be able to explain the complexity of shape, the arrangement of overlapping form, and the emotional response it elicits in the observer with its simplistic description based solely on the principles of fifteenth century castles? The theory would come crumbling down or the Guggenheim would be rejected as not being architecture but instead some other thing which would then absolve the theorists from having to explain it.

Fortunately we do not have such a narrow minded view of architecture. The forms that we use can change, not in conformity with the conventions of the past, but in conformity with the laws of physics. We can look forward because what can be depends on the current state of things rather than on what has come before it. So architecture creates novel shapes and forms, new experiences, and is able to reinvent and redefine its purpose and ambitions.

So back to stories. I would argue that the idea of the universal story is true only so far as the elements of the narrative are made so vague and basic so as to not be a useful theory at all. Insofar as stories resemble one another this is not a necessity of the story but a consequence of history. Stories are judged by their readers and so good stories are those that reflect or cause reflection on the human experience and human nature. Human nature, while mutable, may be considered the physical laws for storytelling, the structure of the story relies upon it and uses it, but is not so transparent so that all diversity of storytelling is removed.

When we champion the idea of the universal story, we are shutting out new expressions, genuine novelty and new ideas because we have decided they are not really stories or not good stories. Writers censor themselves, thinking that they must conform to the template of the past in order to receive acceptance.

This over-reliance on the idea of a timeless story has led to an increasing disconnect between the audience and the stories being told to them. The audience looks for stories that will reflect their reality, and too often storytellers are simply using the present reality as a wrapper with which to repackage old stories that no longer ring true, that can no longer ring true because they have been made obsolete or exposed as falsehoods by the modern age.

We live in an era beyond feudalism, beyond empire, beyond birthright and beyond gods. That is not to say that new stories cannot have those things, but rather that these are not things we can believe in, so our stories must change to reflect that. Doing so requires looking at how deeply ingrained false ideas about the structure of the universe permeate our time-tested stories. The concept of the chosen one continues to be a staple of modern mainstream fiction, yet it serves only as hollow escapism because it contains no truth. Tied into this are notions of destiny and fate. But we know that these things are all lies, that we make our own paths, that there is no benevolent force guiding our history. But instead of admitting this to ourselves and owning up to the reality that we know is true, we retreat to the comfort of time-tested stories from the past, lying to ourselves about the nature of reality and wondering why there is such a nagging feeling that something is wrong with the world. Of course the problem is that our world-view has not in many ways caught up to what we observe in our world, creating the disconnect.

Therefore we need to emphasize the diversity of stories, appreciate their power to inform our world-views, and keep the ground fertile for new stories, for new ideas. There is no universal story, every story is unique, and it is how they differ, not how they are similar, that defines how they impact our society.