#narrative

By calling into question the very ideal of a universal, autonomous reason (which was, in the Enlightenment, the basis for rejecting religious thought) and further demonstrating that all knowledge is grounded in narrative or myth, Lyotard relativizes (secular) philosophy's claim to autonomy and so grants the legitimacy of a philosophy that grounds itself in Christian faith. Previously such a distinctly Christian philosophy would have been exiled from the 'pure' arena of philosophy because of its 'infection' with bias and prejudice. Lyotard's critique, however, demonstrates that no philosophy - indeed, no knowledge - is untainted by prejudice or faith commitments. In this way the playing field is leveled, and new opportunities to voice a Christian philosophy are created. Thus Lyotard's postmodern critique of metanarratives, rather than being a formidable foe of Christian faith and thought, can in fact be enlisted as an ally in the construction of a Christian philosophy. ↗

— James K.A. Smith

#christianity #knowledge #lyotard #metanarrative #narrative

The novel is the privileged vehicle of two ways of being: narrative and freedom: to be new (novel) in a speech open to all, and to be free in a speech that never concludes. ↗

— Carlos Fuentes

#narrative #story #freedom

Public transit situates us so that we are given license to accept what's right in front of us, but will likely arouse our desire to compare our narrative to someone else's, to give ourselves permission to speculate upon a person's private space, or life, with no fear of recourse or punishment. ↗

— Julie Wilson

#desire #imagination #narrative #public-transit #toronto

A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story. ↗

— Isaac Babel

#narrative #on-fiction #reality #story #life

I love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be to find his epics on the shelf of such an unimaginable being as myself, in the middle of an unrumored continent. I love the large minority of the writers on my shelves who have struggled with words and thoughts and, by my lights, have lost the struggle. All together they are my community, the creators of the very idea of books, poetry, and extended narratives, and of the amazing human conversation that has taken place across the millennia, through weal and woe, over the heads of interest and utility. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#narrative #poetry #reading-books #writers #love

All men needed to hear their stories told. He was a man, but if he died without telling the story he would be something less than that, an albino cockroach, a louse. The dungeon did not udnerstand the idea of as tory. The dungeon was static, eternal, black and a story needed motion adn tiem and light. He felt his story slipping away from him, beocming inconsequential, ceasing to be. He has no story. There was no story. He was not a man. There was no man here. There was only the dungeon, and the slithering dark. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#medical-humanities #narrative #story #men

I love movies, I love television, I love narratives of all kinds. ↗

— Michael Cunningham

#i love #kinds #love #movies #narratives

Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive. ↗

— Helen Dunmore

#children #drive #gives #narrative #sense

My shows are not narratives. ↗

— Brian Eno

#shows

I believe in broken, fractured, complicated narratives, but I believe in narratives as a vehicle for truth, not simply as a form of entertainment, though I love entertainment, but also a way of conveying what needs to be conveyed about the works that I care about. ↗

— Stephen Greenblatt

#also #believe #broken #care #complicated