[Ads-l] "narrative"; PLUS script = to present, portray, interpret, etc....

[Jonathan Lighter]

A nearly paradigm ex.:

"Our own view is that postmodernism and identity politics are closely
related. The conception that there is no such thing as objective truth,
that everyone merely has his or her 'narrative' has had pernicious
consequences. But I will ask your view on the matter."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/12/byn1-j12.html

JL

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "narrative"; PLUS script = to present, portray,
> interpret,
>               etc....
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------
>
> To be precise, to do so "...in accordance with consciously or unconsciously
> held beliefs, esp. irrespective of truth or falsity."
>
> At least I think that's what it means. Beloved by postmoderns:
> 1997 Marita Sturken _Tangled Memories_ (Berkeley: U. of C. P.) 14: Although
> AIDS may [someday] be cured and its meaning will change, such developments
> likely would not affect the AIDS narrative as it has been scripted so far -
> the virus that both exposed divisions and created new communities in
> American society.
>
> Out-of-touch readers might think that Sturken is just trying to say "the
> AIDS *story* as it has been *written* [e.g., by journalists] so far," but
> experience, and a close reading of the sentence, tells me otherwise. As
> elsewhere, "narrative" seems to mean "version of events" whereas "story,"
> here, would seem to mean "actual events."
>
> But never mind that. There's also "rescript":
>
> Ibid., p. 16: "Attempts to rescript the Vietnam War have been as much about
> healing...as they have been about smoothing over the disrupions of the
> war's
> narratives."  [Note pl. "narratives" -JL.]  _Ibid._ 39: These images made
> it
> possible to rescript [Rodney] King as a threatening, resisting figure and
> to
> refigure [syn. of "rescript" -JL] the beating as a reasonable attempt to
> restrain a dangerous suspect.
>
> And_pre-script_ (perhaps "to influence or persuade in advance" ):
>
> Ibid., p. 35: Voyeuristically watching the parents and students of Christa
> McAuliffe, Americans were pre-scripted to share their pride and enthusiasm
> over the fact that an "ordinary" teacher could experience space flight via
> U.S. technology.
>
> And a final _narrative_ : "an artificially arranged or projected sequence
> of
> actual events":
>
> Ibid., p. 35: Christa McAuliffe's narrative, designed to make Americans
> identify with her as an ordinary, non-astronaut space traveler, thus
> backfired.
>
> JL
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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