Narrative
intelligence is the
ability (or tendency) to perceive, know, think, feel, explain one's experience
and influence reality through the use of stories and narrative forms.
The Power of
Story - The Story Paradigm
In the field of
co-intelligence, stories are more than dramas people tell or read. Story, as a
pattern, is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and
exploring and co-creating shared realites. It forms one of the underlying
structures of reality,
comprehensible and responsive to those who possess what we call narrative
intelligence. Our psyches and
cultures are filled with narrative fields of influence, or story fields, which shape the awareness and behavior of the
individuals and collectives associated with them.
Story-reality is the reality that we see when we recognize that
every person, every being, every thing has a story and contains stories -- and,
in fact, is a story -- and that all of these stories interconnect, that we are,
in fact, surrounded by stories, embedded in stories and made of stories. When
poet Murial Rukeyser tells us "the universe is made of stories, not
atoms," she's describing story-reality. Ultimately, story-reality includes
any and all actual events and realities, but experienced as stories, not as the more usual patterns --
objects-and-actions; matter, energy, space, time; patterns of probability; etc.
Story-reality is made up of lived stories.
Lived stories are those real-life, actual stories that are
happening in the real world all around us all the time. The actual unfolding
events relating to any one actual entity or subject comprise that entity's or
subject's lived story. Everything that exists has, embodies and participates in
many lived stories. The way to co-intelligently engage in story-reality is to
become sensitive to lived stories... to learn about the lived stories of
people, places, things... to share our own lived stories... to discover how all
these stories intersect, who or what is in the foreground and background of
each other's lived stories. Ultimately, this provides the guidance we need to
find our own most meaningful place in the universal story.
While analysis is
good for control and prediction, story-sensibility is good for understanding
meaning and role.
Narrative
intelligence is the ability (or
tendency) to perceive, know, think, feel, explain one's experience and
influence reality through the use of stories and narrative forms.
It
includes:
•
the ability and
tendency to organize experience and ideas using stories and narrative patterns
(an excellent example of this is the use of myth, which defines and discusses
concepts -- such as archetypes -- in narrative form)
•
the tendency to
understand things better when they are presented in the form of a story (and
sometimes to have trouble understanding things when they aren't presented as
stories)
•
the capacity to sense
the importance of context, character, history, etc., in any explanation -- and
dissatisfaction when these are omitted
•
dissatisfaction with
isolated events and abstract ideas, out of context
•
an ability to sense or
imagine the stories of people, objects, places; the ability to accurately guess
where something (or someone) comes from, what has happened to it, where it is
going, what it means
•
curiosity about the
stories behind things, and an ability to investigate such stories
•
a tendency to make up
stories, plausible or fantastic, to illustrate a point
•
the ability to
maintain a repertoire of stories (real and imaginary) to convey meanings; the
ability to access that repertoire
•
the ability to sort
out and describe what has happened to oneself or others, often with a richness
of context and detail, and often with great relish
•
the ability to place
and remember events in sequence
•
the ability to
envision chains and webs of causation
•
the tendency to build
scenarios (stories of possibilities); an ability to plan and think
strategically
•
a love of stories
•
the ability and
tendency to see people, places and things in terms of their function in a story
(very helpful for novelists picking up tidbits from the lives around them for
use in their creative work)
•
resonance with the
stories of others; the ability to see another's viewpoint when presented with
the stories which underlie or embody that viewpoint
•
the ability to
discover themes in the events of a life or story
•
the ability to
recognize (or select) certain elements as significant, as embodying certain meanings
that "make sense of things"
•
the ability to build a
story out of randomly-selected items
•
the ability to use
stories as memory-enhancing devices (such as remembering a phone number by
making the digits into characters and weaving them into a story).
•
Story fields
are fields of influence or patterns of dynamic potential that permeate
psycho-social space and influence the lives of those connected to them. They
are made up of many mutually-reinforcing stories (myths, news, soap operas,
lives, memories) and story-like phenomena (roles, metaphors, archetypes,
images). A story field paints a particular picture of how life is or should be,
and shapes the life within its range into its image.
The American Way of
Life is a powerful story field, which includes everything from principles like
freedom and the pursuit of happiness, to stories of cowboys and rags-to-riches
heroes, to metaphors like the melting pot and the safety net, to images like
the Statue of Liberty and the flag. It is communicated by movies, men in
business suits, advertisements, college catalogues, and mall displays -- among
many, many other things. It takes immense effort to resist or change it. Anyone
or anything which doesn't live within this story-sea and move with its currents
doesn't seem quite American.
Psychological,
organizational or social transformation is usually preceded or accompanied by a
change in the story field governing that system. It is therefore usually
non-productive to try to change forms and habits without changing the story
fields that hold them in place. Once the story field is changed, subsidiary
patterns tend to realign rapidly. (This process is part of what has been called
a paradigm shift.)
Co-intelligent cultural transformation necessarily includes the co-generation of co-intelligent
story fields. This would include examples of co-intelligence in action, visions
of how things could be more co-intelligent, biographies of co-intelligent
people, fiction illustrating the dynamics of co-intelligence, co-intelligent
myths and poems, academic reframing of numerous other subjects in terms of
co-intelligence, people actually living co-intelligently, the clarification and
use of special roles (like elder and partner) associated with co-intelligence,
etc.
[An interesting effort
to consciously shift the story field of modern culture is The New Story a.k.a.
The Great Story. Connie Barlow and
Michael Dowd are
among the most creative of those developing this story field for those
interested in sustainability, conservation biology, creation spirituality,
evolutionary consciousness, the new cosmology, deep ecology, bioregionalism, or
the marriage of science and religion for personal and planetary wellbeing.]
