How Stories Argue: The Deep Roots of Storytelling in Political Rhetoric

Abstract

It was said in the old days that every year Thor made a circle around Middle Earth, beating back the enemies of order. Thor got older every year, the circle occupied by gods men grew smaller. wisdom god, 'Woden,' went out to the king of the trolls, got him in an arm lock, demanded to know of him how order might triumph over chaos.Give me your left eye, said the king of the trolls, and I'll tell you.Without hesitation, Woden gave up his left eye. Now tell me.The troll said, The secret is, Watch with both eyes!1The author critic John Gardner used this mythic anecdote as an allegory of art criticism. artist critic beat back the forces of chaos, but those multiply while Thor's hammer gets heavier to wield every year. In On Moral Fiction, Gardner uses the hammer on postmodern writers such as William Gass for spending their talents on fiction that glories only in self-referential irony, undercutting characters themes that might strike an ethical chord in their audience-that might, in short, have a persuasive moral effect.There has been much speculation over the years about how stories function persuasively, that is, how they argue. That stories, or to use the more academic term narratives, have persuasive impact has long been understood.2 Yet the relationship of stories to rational argument structures has to date been rather muddled. There are a number of ways to approach this relationship, which I explore in this essay.There is also broad agreement that narrative is important in politics, though just exactly how may be somewhat uncertain. In its recent preliminary analysis of the 2014 election, the Democratic Party found that, while their policies find favor with the American people, the Republicans a better narrative, which makes them more attractive. Thus the analysis suggests the creation of a narrative project that will create a strong values-based national narrative that will engage, inspire, motivate voters to identify with support Democrats (Democratic National Committee). Narrative seems to be the balm in Gilead that will heal all political ills.Stories have long been used for persuasive intent, yet the relationship of narrative to argument in public moral debate has remained unsettled. How do stories argue? This essay addresses that question starting from Walter Fisher's influential essay Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm. Fisher, drawing from Kenneth Burke, posits two dimensions of judgment that audiences use in evaluating whether narratives offer good reasons for the action or motives depicted in the story. Fisher suggests that narrative is a different way of reasoning from rational argument: a paradigm of its own. In contrast, I argue that the persuasive use of stories goes back to early rhetorical training that stories have always been used along with rhetorical argument as part of persuasive discourse. Vladimir Propp's work on the morphology of folk- fairy tales demonstrates that stories use topics, or topoi, in a manner similar to those used to generate lines of argument in rhetoric. Extending Fisher's analysis, I offer four other aspects of narrative that affect the persuasive reception of stories: performance, adaptation, context, iconicity. These aspects of rhetorical storytelling, combined with the topoi of the story, give us a new analytical framework for evaluating the persuasive potential of political storytelling.Narrative, Community, PoliticsNarrative is broadly seen to be necessary to forming maintaining community. For Hannah Arendt, the connection between individual consciousness the public of the community is through shared narrative. It is the storyteller, as historian, who makes public the stories by which the members of a community understand themselves as a we, a body politic. For the ancient Greeks, the stories of a heroic past served as a model for the virtues of civic life. …