Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing……

Story telling also has some inherent problems with it. For instance, war stories frequently stretch the truth, and sometimes are mere fabrications. Those who work with war stories understand this, and are cautious in using them. The war story analogy comes to mind because of the word campaign. It is used to describe aspects of both wars and elections. Even during this election cycle we have heard the president use the terms friends and enemies.

Because of the nature of story telling, in the interest of searching for factual truths as suggested by Arendt, it is very helpful to have transcripts in context, and be willing to ask the sociologically important question “says who,“ as suggested by Berger and Luckmann.

If we were to apply this perspective to story telling transcripts, it would be useful to identify “says who” when an assertion is made. I began trying to do this with President Obama’s statement on HIV/Aids; however, I wasn’t able to identify an official Republican Party statement on the assertion. It would be helpful to have links to statements that support assertions made in story telling. This may be impractical. It is time-consuming work, and most assertions made in political speech lack specific “says who” components.

One thing that story telling should do is set up the conditions to help solve major problems. This is best done when the vision is clear, persuasive and supported by factual truths.

The conundrum in this election cycle is that huge problems exist and aren’t being addressed. To accomplish our social objectives, the nation must be solvent. The absolute amount of the nation’s debt is not sustainable over time, and the trajectory of it is problematic. This is a Gordian Knot of huge proportions. To deal with joblessness, significant economic growth is necessary. This is the same kind of growth that can also help generate significant tax revenues. If economic growth will not solve the problem, then tax increases will be needed, but increases in taxation tends to slow economic growth. The magnitude of our national debt may require cutbacks in spending; however, the funded and unfunded liabilities are so large they cannot be dealt with through cutbacks in discretionary spending. What that leaves is defense and most of the social programs.

Story telling and a clear vision should provide guidance in how to address the problem. Solution may be painful, and probably can be implemented only if there is substantial consensus generated around the solutions. Unfortunately, these issues aren’t being addressed in this election cycle as far as I can see.