Easy narratives vs a purposeful engagement

The success of any given narrative is whether it catches on and defines a debate or an issue. A successful narrative, however, does not mean much beyond changing the hue of the white noise of 21st century discourse. This wasn’t always true.

Not so long ago, if a given narrative came to define an issue, one could be assured that the new definition would eventually shape outcomes. Human beings are a ceaselessly optimistic species, and we want to believe that if we all agree that something is good then, eventually, we will all come together and ensure the triumph of the good over whatever needs to be replaced.

The digitalisation of discourse has fundamentally altered the efficacy of narratives. First, the dramatically enhanced set of channels of access to information in the digital age means that "successful" narratives are much easier to build up and sustain. For example, when I started writing this column in 2008, you either needed to subscribe to The News, or visit The News website, or receive an email of the column to read it. Today, people don’t need to read the whole newspaper, or visit a website, or receive it via email to read this article. They may find it in their WhatsApp, or through their Facebook feed, or they may click on a link on Twitter.

Second, the massively increased quantum of content that is being generated and consumed means that there are more successful narratives out there than ever before. This means that each "successful" narrative occupies a smaller share of the top of mind and is even more shallow than the traditional narrative — itself a concept that gags in the face of details and depth.

To continue with the analogy of this column, as a place where I explore different issues and the narratives associated with them, people don’t read the full 1,300 words. Or rather, only the most dedicated reader or a reader that finds the language and content truly gripping, will read through the whole thing. To choose to read 1,300 words has an opportunity cost: it is likely equivalent to about three or four videos on Twitter, or a five-to-ten-minute (much more animated and much less taxing) YouTube news analysis video or scanning through several dozen images or videos on Instagram or WhatsApp.

Third, given the massive increase in both the channels available to drive home narratives and the high frequency of those narratives, there is a race to the bottom as far as an incentive to paint outside the lines is concerned. There is a growing visceral-ness to the nature of public discourse globally. Many traditional centrists keep associating this shift erroneously to right-wing populism. The truth is more profoundly disturbing. The swing to the Right is because the Right engages with the visceral more readily than the Left tends to. But in places where the context and the history are there, the left-wing is equally adept and equally guilty of appealing to the baser instincts of people.

Why is this happening? In the simplest terms possible, as efforts to appeal to people are forced to compete in an extreme version of a perfectly competitive ‘market’, the only chance to design and deploy successful narratives is to connect with people at a level that defines them beyond the easy plus and minus arithmetic of the utility curve. It is much easier, for example, to rile people up with false narratives about their history and their present than it is to build a convincing case that they will rise up in the future whilst also sitting on their behinds, sipping on the same sugary drinks, taking the same over-prescribed antibiotics and consuming the same mind-numbing nonsense, over and over and over again.

In short, the boilerplate "successful" narrative is thin, it is easily replaced at the top of mind, and it must connect viscerally with the audience. But the more that this is true about any given narrative, the more likely it is that such a narrative is and will forever remain a narrative. It will never translate into something beyond. Why is this important for Pakistan and Pakistani leaders?

Let us take three narratives to help us understand the uselessness of the successful narrative. Imran Khan’s ‘corruption’ narrative is the archetype of the successful narrative, helping him establish and sustain a powerhouse political persona, and ride it all the way to power. Nawaz Sharif’s ‘vote ko izzat do’ narrative is an even more profoundly successful narrative, given how little the PML-N itself has invested in it, even in the short duration of its life, since it emerged in 2018. The security establishment’s "reform" narrative is perhaps the most successful of all national narratives, given that it has been used to justify and sustain a civil-military disequilibrium. The "system" needs reform: elections, economy, civil service, institutions, ministries, departments, heck, even the private sector needs to be "reformed".

Each of these three successful narratives helps sustain an institutional architecture that seems to be constantly changing but is permanently entrenched and incapable of being changed. Of the key stakeholders involved, none is negatively affected in the medium to long run. Imran Khan’s ability to leverage the optimism and hope of his supporters only grows as corruption defines the lived experience of the lower- and middle-class Pakistani (with the elites either being direct implements of corruption or being able to largely protect themselves from it).

Nawaz Sharif’s ability to claim victimhood to the civil-military disequilibrium only deepens the longer that disequilibrium sustains. The system that needs reform engages the very instruments of the status quo to help it reform itself that have upheld the status quo for decades. The longer the system resists reform, the more alluring and the more appealing is the attraction of so-called reformers to enlist the expertise of those that are the cause of the disease itself, to analyse and assess what the disease is.

The anti-corruption narrative, the pro civilian supremacy narrative and the reform narrative are all innately self-perpetuating mechanisms that ensure the continuation of the merry-go-round of narratives. The digital age gives them a strange and inorganic new kind of resilience.

To actually deliver on an agenda of anti-corruption or civilian supremacy or actual reform requires rigorous, focused and purposeful engagement beyond the thrill of the narrative win. Purposeful engagement is foundationally different from the narratives game — it is much harder to conceive, and nearly impossible to design, plan and execute. More than any other factor that works against purposeful engagement is the factor of time. A single narrative can be seeded and sustained through someone’s smartphone. Indeed, this is how some of the things that infect the public discourse, here in Pakistan and indeed around the world, are managed. Anti-Muslim riots in New Delhi, the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC, the successful movement for Brexit, and the rise of the TLP all represent the rise of the narrative as a society and state shifting moments that seem, retrospectively, unbelievable.

How did these things happen, as fast as they did, as overwhelmingly as they did? They happened because the source code for the state and society were already changed. All the protagonists of these moments did was exploit the laziness of the traditional elites in each context. Digital has altered the very foundations of the assumptions upon which traditional state and society are built. You snooze? You lose the Brexit vote. You undo the ban on the TLP. You declare JuD activists not guilty of terrorist financing. You sustain and deepen the hold of QAnon and anti-vaxxers in your society. You watch India burn with right-wing Hindutva rage.

Now for the worst news of all: the only antidote to the problems of the cheap and easy narrative is long, hard and expensive purposeful engagement. Do you see any sign that the world’s leaders are ready for this challenge?

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

Originally published in The News