BELIEF: AN OWNER’S MANUAL
ARTICLE 11
A CLOSER LOOK AT AMBIGUITY
PART 4:
CATALYTIC NARRATIVES
The most ambiguous beliefs of all are those I call catalytic narratives. A catalytic narrative is simply a belief that makes no falsifiable claims but appears, to those who embrace it, to be a profound truth. Like a catalyst, it transforms what it encounters while remaining unchanged.
Catalytic narratives provide lenses through which we view reality. When we’re under their sway, they color our view of the phenomena we take them to describe, in many cases, by leading us to experience a class of events as analogous to the events they portray. While they bias our experience and judgment, they lead us to believe that what we see under their influence is unquestionable. All too often, they also lead us to believe that those who embrace them are morally and intellectually superior to unbelievers.
AWARENESS OF OUR CATALYTIC NARRATIVES
Those who’re under the spell of catalytic narratives may be able to express them clearly and distinctly, as political and religious “true believers” often can (Hoffer, 1951). Other believers may have only a vague sense of the narratives that guide them. That vagueness may become evident to you during discussions with family members, friends, or colleagues about why they think or act as they do or when struggling to characterize your own beliefs. Finally, those under the influence of catalytic narratives may be unaware of that influence.
FORMS OF CATALYTIC NARRATIVES
Some catalytic narratives masquerade as straightforward descriptions of reality such as, “I am unworthy of love,” “Islam is a religion of peace,” or “Those who support Politician X are Nazis, racists, or both.” Some, like Marxist political theory, melanin theory, and Freud’s theories of personality and psychopathology, masquerade as science. Still others are packaged in metaphors we employ when attempting to understand or communicate about an issue or in the motifs that, upon reflection, appear to shape our private thoughts. (Imagine how different one’s relationships are likely to be if the metaphor that colors one’s experience of love is, “Love is collaborative work of art” rather than “Love is an illusion” or “Love is a power struggle”) (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).
SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
Catalytic narratives can be inspired and shaped by anything that touches us – significant personal experiences, experiences or views of those with whom we identify, experiences or views of those we admire, news reports, religious texts, novels, short stories, plays, movies, television programs, advertisements, internet postings, musicals, songs, comedy routines, etc.
Some catalytic narratives may be inspired by the issues on which communications and experiences that provoke our beliefs appear to focus. Others are inspired by portrayals of persons, objects, and ideas that, lurking in the background of those communications and experiences, we accept uncritically. But whatever may inspire our catalytic narratives, we must state them as clearly as possible if we wish to transform them from sovereigns to servants.
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF CATALYTIC NARRATIVES
Catalytic narratives share five vital characteristics.
First, they are typically inspired by a small amounts of information such as an incident, a compelling turn of phrase, an image, or a story.
Those stimuli provide little real justification for the narratives they inspire. However, we find those narratives compelling because they satisfy our need to believe we’re knowledgeable and powerful.
Ironically, the more ambiguous our narratives, the more phenomena they explain (c.f., “The Trouble with Truth”). We also experience the narratives we’re inspired to create as compelling because we find it easy to believe – falsely – that our experience is broadly representative of reality (Tversky & Kahneman, 1971). Furthermore, we find catalytic narratives compelling because the weak relationships between the stimuli that inspire those narratives and the narratives they inspire permit us to create narratives that satisfy our needs. And the ambiguity of the narratives themselves gives us further freedom to interpret them in ways we find satisfying.
Second, such narratives rarely make falsifiable predictions.
Thus, those who embrace catalytic narratives that liken illegal immigrants to Hebrews in the biblical Book of Exodus are likely to insist that their preferred narrative obliges citizens to treat illegals kindly and generously. However, they’re unlikely to claim that their adopted narrative allows them to make specific predictions about the consequences of the policies they endorse.
If catalytic narratives make explicit predictions, they incorporate second-order precepts that encourage failures to be “explained away” while inspiring believers to be uncritical of even specious explanations. Thus, believers’ confidence in such narratives is unaffected by data and experience that should, from an outsider’s point of view, raise questions about their beliefs.
Since that proclivity is easy to see in others but difficult to see in ourselves, I encourage those who wish to examine this phenomenon more closely to explore When Prophesy Fails, a detailed account of how The Seekers, an apocalyptic cult that expected the world to end, responded when the predicted apocalypse failed to occur (Festinger, Riecken, & Schacter, 1956) or The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, a novel-length description of an experiment at the Ypsilanti (Michigan) State Hospital in which three patients who believed themselves to be Jesus Christ were placed on the same ward and encouraged to interact (Rokeach, 1964).
Third, catalytic narratives seldom specify the lessons believers should derive from them. As such, they are likely to embroil believers in disputes over the correct way to interpret them and who has the right to decide. Thus, there are eight sects of Islam, over a dozen schools of Marxist thought, about the same number of contemporary schools of psychoanalysis, and over fifty Christian denominations. And, at the time this document is being written, American Jews are engaged in a struggle over whether their prayers and ethics are best guided by progressive interpretations of social justice or more ancient aspects of their heritage (Neumann, 2018).
Fourth, catalytic narratives bear no responsibility for believers’ expectations regarding relationships between phenomena or the circumstances in which those relationships might occur. After all, the sources of catalytic narratives’ inspiration and the narratives those sources inspire are open to diverse – and characteristically nebulous – interpretations.
Fifth, catalytic narratives are, in practice, immune to criticism. Since they neither make falsifiable predictions nor bear responsibility for the lessons believers derive from them, the credence believers grant them is unaffected by the effectiveness of the guidance they inspire. In fact, believers for whom their guidance doesn’t “work” are likely to blame themselves. On the other hand, believers are likely to view helpful guidance they derive from such narratives as evidence that their narratives are “right.”
In sum, catalytic narratives are remarkably ambiguous. Their power to explain events after they occur is limited only by the vagueness of their language and the passion, imagination and rhetorical skill of their believers. And their rare predictive failures are easily discounted.
A PARADIGMATIC CATALYTIC NARRATIVE IN ACTION
As we’ve seen, catalytic narratives don’t convey meaningful information about the way things are or how to get things done. Instead, they shape believers’ vision and judgment in ways that make them experience the world their narratives portray. Although believers view catalytic narratives as informative, they’re not. They’re transformative. They don’t reveal reality; they shape perception and understanding. And in all too many cases, they do little more than create compelling illusions.
Let me give you an example. It’s something that lots of people were passionate about, but, since it happened over a decade ago (i.e., in 2006), I hope we can examine it calmly. I’m talking about the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. As you may remember, a black stripper and lap dancer falsely accused three members of the Duke Lacrosse Team of rape. All were white and came from affluent families.
A specific narrative shaped the media’s response to those accusations. Roughly, it was, “This is just another example of what’s happened ever since slavery. Powerful, privileged white men raped a powerless, innocent black woman.” Both the national and local press embraced that narrative and spun their stories to portray the lacrosse players as guilty and their defense attorneys as liars.
But there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support the accuser’s story. She changed her story repeatedly. She had told similar lies in the past. And she turned out to have been lying about the rape.
North Carolina’s Attorney General ultimately declared the lacrosse players innocent and described them as victims of a “tragic rush to accuse.” The North Carolina State Bar ultimately disbarred the prosecutor who’d brought the case for “dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation.”
When the facts became irrefutable, Evan Thomas of Newsweek Magazine, which had provided extensive and passionate coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case based on the narrative just described, said, “It was about race . . . The narrative was properly about race, sex and class. . . We went a beat too fast in assuming that a rape took place. . . We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”
There were no facts to justify any sort of narrative, but, according to Evan Thomas, “the narrative was right” anyway. Evan Thomas’ catalytic narrative did what such narratives do. Under the guise of informing him about an issue, it transformed him into someone who could see things no other way.
The implications for us? To passively accept catalytic narratives is to put on blackout goggles, forget you’ve put them on, and confidently declare that the world has gone dark.
HOW TO TELL YOU VIEW A BELIEF AS A CATALYTIC NARRATIVE
If, upon reflecting on one of your beliefs, you conclude that it’s transforming you into someone who sees it as true while failing to provide you with real information, you see it as a catalytic narrative.
How many beliefs have you thought of that way? If you’re like most people, I suspect that your answer is, “None.” In fact, if you’re like most people, you rely on catalytic narratives for guidance, unaware of what they are or how they function.
Even after Evan Thomas’ catalytic narrative demonstrably and publicly misguided him, he continued to view it as an unquestionable truth – not as a belief that, once accepted, rendered him incapable of seeing things any other way.
In this case and countless others, catalytic narratives lead those who accept them to rely on assertions that have nothing to say about reality as if those assertions were as informative and testable as imprecise or even precise beliefs. Catalytic narratives can lead us to rely on our beliefs to help us in ways they can’t. And they can create the kind of unjustified certainty that leads to horrors.
When examining our beliefs, it’s useful to ask the question, “If my belief were wrong, how would I know?” If you have no answer to that question, your belief is a catalytic narrative.
EXERCISE 11
DETERMINING WHETHER BELIEFS
ARE APPROPRIATELY CLASSIFIED AS CATALYTIC
1. Refer to the list of beliefs you generated during Exercise 7A, Exercise 9, or Exercise 10. If none of those lists is readily available, identify one or two beliefs that guide you in each of the areas below, for a total of about ten. Keep a record of those beliefs, many of which you’ll be examining in exercises to follow. Suggested areas from which to draw beliefs are:
• where you find joy
• where you find meaning and purpose
• your view of others – especially those whose views differ from your own
• your personal life
• your vocational/professional life
• advice/guidance you offer others
• political positions you advocate
2. Choose three or more beliefs you rely on for guidance and are interested in examining. If you have not already done so, use the questionnaire found in Exercise 7A to determine whether those beliefs are informative or reassuring. Don’t be concerned if you find it hard to tell whether some or all the catalytic narratives you assess are informative or reassuring.
3. Print the appropriate number of copies of the tool below.
4. Write each belief in the space containing the sentence stem, “I believe that . . .”.
5. Keeping the pertinent belief in mind, answer each of the questions in “A Tool to Help You Determine Whether a Belief is Catalytic.’”
6. Record any thoughts, feelings, or questions that arise during this exercise in the space provided.
A TOOL TO HELP YOU DETERMINE
WHETHER A BELIEF
IS CATALYTIC
Belief to be examined: I BELIEVE THAT . . .
To determine whether the belief in question is a catalytic narrative, determine whether it satisfies criterion 1) and at least three additional criteria.
1) The belief in question makes no falsifiable predictions because of one or more of the following:
a. It makes no predictions.
b. Believers are encouraged to “explain away” predictive failures and to be uncritical of the quality of those explanations.
c. Even if believers interpret the narrative as predictive, they hold the interpreter – rather than the belief – responsible for any predictive failures.
2) The belief in question accounts, after the fact, for a wide range of events.
3) The belief in question fails to encourage (or actively discourages) seeking, generating, and promulgating challenging facts and arguments.
4) The belief in question strongly discourages critical examination of challenging arguments, logic, and/or events.
5) The belief in question strongly discourages the re-examination of claimed predictive successes.
What thoughts, feelings, or questions arose during this exercise?
REFERENCES
Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schacter, S. (1956). When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Hoffer, E. (1951). The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. New York: Harper & Row.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Neumann, J. (2018). To Heal the World? New York: All Points Books.
Rokeach, M. (1964). The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Narrative Study of Three Lost Men. New York: Knopf.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1971). Belief in the Law of Small Numbers. Psychological Bulletin, 105-110.