Metanarrative Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
A metanarrative is a term used in postmodern discourse to refer to a narrative about narratives. The prefix meta is used to mean about, a narrative is a story, so a metanarrative is a story about a story.Metanarratives justifies stories and determines which other (non-meta) stories are "central" and acceptable, and which are "marginal". Metanarratives are thought to prevent narratives deemed "marginal" from upsetting or subverting the cultural order; they prevent (certain) stories from proliferating. According to Jean-François Lyotard (1984), postmodernism is defined "as incredulity toward metanarratives" and thus represents an openness to "marginal" narratives.
For example, the history of mental illness, from the perspective of mental health institutions, gathers together and gives meaning and value to the many individual stories and texts which comprise this history, and it does this, possibly entirely, through devaluing other stories and texts, for instance the writings of the mad are most often discounted in favor of writings about the mad. Michel Foucault shows incredulity towards this history in his book Madness and Civilization (1961).
A metanarrative is often equated to the concept of an ideology or world view; however, this equation is not entirely accurate, as the Western concepts of ideology and world view are themselves thought to be influenced by Western metanarratives. A metanarrative is more correctly a story about ideologies and world views. For example, while Marxism and atheism are ideologies, the story of human and scientific progress is a metanarrative supporting those ideologies. Similarly, the story of human liberation is a metanarrative supporting both libertarianism and humanitarianism. Other examples of metanarratives include the emancipation of the dissonance.
‘Metanarrative’ knowledge, which largely stems from the Enlightenment period, can actually be traced back to Ancient Greek thought and the work of Plato and Aristotle. Their conception of a metaphysical world, as distinct and separate from the world in which we live, has had a lasting effect on the course of European philosophy and the social sciences. In this context ‘meta-knowledge’ may be understood as:
‘…a grand overarching [account] or ‘grand récit' that gives order and meaning to the historical record.’
Blackburn, S. (1994)
A metanarrative is typically characterised by some form of ‘transcendent and universal truth’ in addition to a evolutionary story; though different schools of thought offer very differing narratives. As an example many Christians believe human existence is inherently sinful, though capable of redemption and eternal peace in heaven. For the Enlightenment theorists (the philosophes) rational thought allied with scientific reasoning will lead to an inevitable progression of mankind. And for the traditional Marxists, whom Lyotard regards (in this respect at least) to be the successors to the philosophes; human existence is alienated from its species being though capable of realising its full potential through collective, democratic organisation. Similarly a blind faith in the free market and trickle down effect is open to metanarrative interpretations, though not as blatantly utopian as some others. Postmodern discourse on the other hand, in emphasizing the difference of humanity, establishes an orientation towards history and knowledge that denies both the existence of material truth and the existence of an evolutionary narrative. Many postmodern theorists, borrowing from a Nietzschean perspectivist approach, have queried where the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia sits with the modernist envisaged progression of mankind. This is an Article on Metanarrative. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Metanarrative References