When I was in undergraduate school at Linfield College in the 60s, my cadre of friends studying Religious Philosophy would drink strong coffee and discuss whether the prophets of various religions predicted the future or created it. Since I’m a believer in the power of declaration, I always came down on the side of creation.
My friend and current teacher, Dennis Slattery of The Pacifica Graduate Institute, believes in the power of story to transform, to inspire. Since the human is the only being that can imagine a future different from the present, it would seem likely that narrative indeed has a special place in our quest to discover the source of inspiration. After all, Martin Luther King did not say, “I have a few concepts that I’d like to discuss.” He said that he had a different story, a dream in mind that could be lived out if we chose to make it real.
So what about the declaration of a future story in today’s world? In Sunday’s NY Times, Robert J. Shiller, economics professor at Yale, suggests that the “Depression narrative […] is not just a story about the past: It has started to inform our current expectations.” [1]
He warns the President that embedding a story in the populace can create a future that is not a pleasant one. Indeed, the darker the President paints the future, the lower the University of Michigan consumer confidence index slides.
Naturally, events have to also yield hope in order to produce new results. But is it possible that the voice from without has to speak first? Do we need to be inspired to create something new from this fire? I think so. Perhaps it is time for some of that optimistic, believable rhetoric from the campaign. Just what does our future look like?
[1] Shiller, Robert J. NY Times, February 22, 2009, page (Business) 2.
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