RECURSO HIDRICO

Ricoeur offers an account of narrative identity which pays some attention to the role of history and culture, but is mainly focussed on individual life stories. I will return to some of the issues this raises when I discuss his ethics in more detail in a later chapter, but for the moment I want to consider whether his account of narrative identity offers an adequate anthropology.

Beyond personal history, other kinds of narratives make claim on us; narratives of national identity, narratives of corporate identity and narratives of religious identity.78 These narratives of community sit alongside a set of narratives about the shaping of individual identity by the community, often seen as changing with historical circumstances. These narratives are catalogued by, among others, Stam and Eggar, Holstein and Gubrium, and Christopher Booker.79

Stam and Eggar argue that narratives of identity draw together experiences and relationships which are not merely located within cultures but are created by the cultures. They summarise, ☜The appearance of narrative structure is the consequence of the intentional interest of the narrator and the audience to which the narrative is addressed.☝80

In each of the scenarios they describe there is an anxiety about the power of society in shaping the individual. David Reisman in The Lonely Crowd describes the world of 1950☂s corporate America as an ☜other directed society☝ in which individuals rely on the good opinion of others as the measure of their decision making so that ☜the idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual

78 _{Stewart Sutherland, ☜History, Truth and Narrative☝ in Martin Warner, The Bible as Rhetoric:}

Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility, Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature (London ; New York: Routledge, 1990). Stephen Denning, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organisations (Woburn, M.A.: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005). James F. Hopewell, Congregation: Stories and Structures (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987).

79 _{Henderikus J. Stam and Lori Egger, ☜Narration and Life☝ in Joy, Context and Contestation.} James A. Holstein and Jaber F. Gubrium, The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (London and New York: Continuum, 2004).

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autonomy in seeking to become like each other.☝81 _{In the following decade, Peter Berger} gives his account of the ☜self-fulfilling prophecy of the deviant child☝, and writes about the self and society as two sides of the same coin, ☜The structures of society become the structures of our own consciousness.☝82 _{We hear echoes of Heidegger in Riesman☂s writing and see the} influence of Foucalt on Berger. Each carries with it a moral stance valuing the independent, authentic individual over the helpless drone. Although these are works of sociology, they echo the literary dystopias of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.83

With the arrival of post-modernity individual narratives are threatened not by the dominant metanarrative, but by the absence of metanarrative. Commentators agree that it is the

multiplicity of narratives competing for our attention which affect our sense of self. Some, like Baudrillard, enjoy the thrill; others like Gergen are troubled by the impact of information overload. The ☜Saturated Self☝ which Kenneth Gergen describes, suffers from ☜multiphrenia☝ - ☜a life condition characterized by the consumption of multiple self-signifiers, none of which is privileged over the other, but all of which are allegedly genuine, each competing for the self you can be.☝84 It is not just the multiplicity of symbols, and the flood of images, narratives and messages available to us to construct our own narratives which troubles Norman Denzin, but their shallowness and lack of contact with reality. He argues that we need to develop resistance to the prevailing culture and instead seek genuine existential experiences which will produce mythical meaning in everyday life.85

By contrast Baudrillard embraces this ☜hyperreality☝ in which everything is equally real, where Disneyland has the same status as Washington, and hyperspace is as real as your drawing room. Hyperreality puts an end to the story of the social self because we can constantly

81

David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950), p. 373, cited Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, p. 44.

82

Peter Berger, Invitation to Sociology,(New York: Doubleday, 1963), p. 121, cited Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, p. 51.

83

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (London: Penguin, 1955). George Orwell, Ninety Eighty- four (London: Secker and Warburg, 1949).

84

Kenneth Gergen, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life,(New York: Basic, 1991), cited Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, p. 60.

85 _{, Norman Denzin, Images of Postmodern Reality 1991 cited Holstein and Gubrium, The Self}

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reinvent ourselves, broadcasting our ☜true life stories☝ on T.V. chat shows and reality shows.86 For Baudrillard this picture is one of playful delight, it remains to be seen whether this is the reality as experienced in the future▁

Once we are immersed in the narrative or while we are trying to make sense of the multiplicity of narratives, we find it extremely difficult to notice that we have a choice, either of narrative or of the narrative paradigm itself. Gary Greenberg is critical of fact that narrative identity has become a metanarrative in itself:

To conceive the self as author may be to give an adequate description of a kind of human selfhood, but this is just one among many possible stories about what a self is. It is a seductive story, offering us the authorial power that we capture in terms like ☜responsibility for oneself☝ or ☜shaping ones destiny☝ or ☜capacity for storytelling☝ ♠ terms that preserve the unitary subject☂s place at the center [stet] of his or her narrative world. But we are seduced at a price: the erasure of the fundamental otherness of narrative, its exceeding and constituting us, albeit as beings who constitute ourselves.87

The authenticity of this self cannot be interpreted in terms of a universal truth value, but rather depends on the acceptance by an ☜interpretative community☝ or within a particular language game ♠ and the definition of either of these may be contested. Holstein and Gubrium remind us that we are still considering a paradigm of selfhood which is located in the developed West. Clifford Geertz, in particular, has highlighted the peculiarity of this boundaried, integrated, distinctive self within the context of the world☂s cultures and contrasted it with the communal identity of several Asian cultures, where the identity of the people is enacted in communal rituals, such as Balinese theatre, or in family or tribal life, and not located in individuals at all.88

86

Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, p. 65ff. 87 _{Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, pp. 272-273.} 88

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What cannot be argued is that narrative identities are completely arbitrary. Holstein and Gubrium argue that the self is ☜first and foremost a practical project of everyday life.☝89 They list the almost ubiquitous practices of storytelling and note some of their characteristics: they range from the anecdotal to the life-time experience; they are shaped in language games that cast selves in particular themes or plot lines, for example in twelve step programmes or behaviour modification systems; they occur in all kinds of institutional settings; they are used to process, screen and fashion people to fit into businesses and organisations; they are used in schools, clinics, counselling centres, correctional facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, support groups and self-help organisations. ☜In some sense, these settings invite participants to construct the stories they need to do their work, but they don☂t do so completely on their own terms.☝90

Ricoeur is, I think, aware of some of the critical responses to the proposal of narrative identity, and he attempts to explore them in exploring a number of aporias in Oneself as Another.91 However, narrative identity is crucial to Ricoeur in preserving both ethical responsibility in the philosophical plane and free will in the religious one. And, in Western society in general, as Holstein and Gubrium say:

This is not merely a playful exercise. In certain societies, our own included, the self is a widely recognized, if not deadly serious, set of language games. [▁] As a matter of practice, self☂s representations construct the self as part of communicating it

.

If we accept that some kind of narrative world is being co-authored between individuals and communities all the time and offered to individuals to inhabit, the second question that must concern us is the competence of individuals to make a free choice of the world to inhabit, or narratives to tell about themselves.

89

Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, p. 70. 90

Holstein and Gubrium, The Self We Live By, p. 105. 91

for example in his discussion of Robert Musil☂s A Man Without Qualities, Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, p. 149 and 166.

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Narrative competence may be an acquired skill and not an inherent capacity. For example, David Pellauer confirms that Ricoeur ☜believes narrative is a universal aspect of the human condition☝ and asks whether narrative skills ♠ both storytelling and interpretation ♠ are not learned rather than innate. He writes; ☜Might it not be possible to show that these are skills that we in some sense learn, even if they are based upon some underlying competence or

possibility within us?☝ 93

There is considerable evidence to confirm Pellauer☂s hypothesis. The role of the development of language in the development of the sense of self was highlighted by Vygotsky and is strongly linked to the function of memory which impacts on our capacity to tell stories about our own past.94 Such concerns highlight not only the need to examine the development of narrative skill as children grow, but also the implications for attributing ethical responsibility to those who do not have developed narrative capacity.

Joan McCarthy draws attention to the sense of self displayed by those who do not have linguistic capacity and expresses some concern about the prioritising of linguistic features which implies a judgement of inferiority on the inarticulate. McCarthy☂s solution is to focus on the role of other aspects of self, such as sensory pleasure and spiritual affect.95 She has a point, but we must be careful to distinguish between value and virtue, and I think that she has missed the importance of the place of the individual in the narratives of others; those who cannot narrate may not have ethical responsibility, but they do have a place in the ethical life of the community.

93

David Pellauer, foreword to Joy, Context and Contestation, p. xix. referring to Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Volume 2, p. 28.

94

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, Thought and Language, Studies in Communication (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Wiley, 1962). Karl Sabbagh, Remembering Our Childhood: How Memory Betrays Us (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009). Sabbagh reviews research which shows how memory is socially and linguistically constructed. 95 _{Joan McCarthy, Dennett and Ricoeur on the Narrative Self, Contemporary Studies in} Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2007), p. 75.

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The whole field of psychoanalysis is based on the need of the individual to create a coherent narrative. In psychoanalysis, as in Ricoeur☂s philosophy, we have to ask, who makes the choice of narrative or who authors it? The strong account of choice is exemplified by Heidegger, for whom authenticity demands taking responsibility for the uniqueness of one☂s own life and thus seizing authorship. Authenticity is guaranteed not simply by authorship but also by coherence, which for Heidegger meant the opposite of disconnectedness, the state when actions do not seem to hang together or we loose track of what we are doing. David Carr suggests that this sensation also occurs when our life loses its sense of coherence, when individual actions do not seem to connect to the whole. Carr suggests that radical

disintegration of this kind results in angst -when nothing makes sense anymore.96 Heidegger describes two scenarios, one full of activity and the other devoid of any novelty, both of which are empty of meaning. Carr characterises these as ☜distraction☝ and ☜disconnection☝, separate translations of Heidegger☂s ☜well-chosen word, zerstreut.☝97 _{What Carr helpfully points out is} that our narratives do not have to be particularly good, dramatic, exciting or satisfying to be coherent.98 What he misses is that there are moments of spontaneous, out of character action, which may turn out to be authentic ♠ this is why Ricoeur insists on consent in attestation.

While Heidegger is confident in human capacity to seize authorship and live authentically, others take a more nuanced approach. Both MacIntyre and Carr write in terms of co-authoring. Carr argues that while there is no pre-ordained, already authored narrative, and even though the roles society offers may provide conflicting pathways, there is only the inevitability of self- choice. ☜I am responsible not only for the particular action [▁] but also for the story or stories in which I ☁find myself☂ involved☝ 99

These writers are all concerned with the broad capacity of individuals to choose narratives from among those on offer by society. In a further area of human life, individuals may find the stories they wish to author are contested. This is particularly true in situations where narratives

96

David Carr, Time, Narrative and History (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986), p. 87.

97

Carr, Time, Narrative and History, p. 88. citing Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 129. 98 _{Carr, Time, Narrative and History, p. 90.}

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are being constructed on a therapeutic basis. Stam and Egger ask about ownership of the narrative in the therapeutic context. Who constructs it and who interprets it? In the case of psychoanalysis, the telling of stories which heal, who decides when healing has occurred? 100

Such a decision may have significant social consequences in the case, for example, of a convicted criminal who has been labelled mentally ill or psychologically disturbed. 101

Donald Polkinghorne has suggested that a responsible narrative identity is constructed using elements not always of one☂s own choosing, but rather from the accidents, organic and social givens, and unintended consequences as well as self-motivated events.102 Authenticity is not achieved when the story is constructed from fantasy, self-illusion and the self-deception that is the product of desire rather than real action. Neither is it achieved by the refusal to construct a story at all.103

Polkinghorne focuses on those who refuse to create a narrative, and so evade ethical

responsibility by avoiding any kind of consistent life story ♠ I cannot be blamed if I do not act consistently, I cannot be expected to keep my promises. However, we might also take into account those who are unable to make sense of life and to create a coherent narrative because their experience has been so distorted, so disturbed or chaotic as to make making sense of it a real challenge.

With regard to the criticism that bringing narrative to birth is a struggle, Ricoeur himself writes, with reference to Oneself as Another, ☜I did not emphasize enough our difficulty, even our incapacity to bring to language the emotional, often traumatic experience that

psychoanalysis seeks to liberate.☝104

100

Henderikus J. Stam and Lori Egger, ☜Narration and Life☝ in Joy, Context and Contestation.

101

The hostility shown towards R.D. Laing is a good example of the way in which society ☜owns☝ the narratives of mental illness.

102

Donald Polkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, SUNY Series in Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), p. 152. 103 _{Polkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, p. 154.}

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Up to this point we have considered the way in which narrative identity is constructed in a social setting and assumed to be integral to a healthy sense of personhood. In our chapter on ethics we will consider how this sense of personhood becomes a sense of ☜self-esteem☝ not only understood as the capacity of the individual to attest to an approximation of living well, but perhaps more importantly for individuals within communities to esteem ☜selves☝ and to value them within the narrative of the community. The aporias are serious, but not paralysing, as we move forward to consider the ethical dimensions of selfhood in Chapter Five.

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CHAPTER FOUR: Biblical Hermeneutics

We have seen how, for Ricoeur, narrative identity is the consequence of interpretation. We turn now to consider the character of narrative identity shaped by biblical texts. This is the point when we ask, with Rowan Williams, ☜If we live like this, has revelation occurred?☝1

To answer this we have to ask, with Ricoeur, whether God is revealed in the texts, how the reader of the text can experience that revelation and, for revelation to occur, what are the natures of the text, the reader, and the revelation?

Ricoeur proposes that biblical texts should be approached in the same way as other texts, subject to the same hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval. The concept of ☁second naiveté☂ is pivotal because it reveals Ricoeur☂s attitude to the mythological elements of biblical texts, which must be scrutinised but cannot be brushed out or dismissed in the manner which Bultmann appears to propose. For Ricoeur, the kerygma is located in the texts in the forms in which they exist; it is not a truth which can be ☜uncovered☝ once the mythological gilding has been removed.

For Ricoeur, the unique aspect of the biblical texts is not their origin, but their referent or referents. Ricoeur is confident that the texts refer to God: not a God revealed in the form of propositional truths, but revealed in the testimony of those whose narrative identity is shaped by their encounter with the texts. This account is problematic for some theologians and we will survey the main critical responses. However, the main theme of this chapter, as the preceding one, will be the nature of narrative identity and, in particular, the character of the summoned subject in the anthropology of religious being.

1 _{Williams, On Christian Theology, p. 135.}

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