Update to the Glossary: Added Clusters.

(In the ongoing process of improving the Narrativist Framework Glossary section I have now added a new page with a more formalized definition for Narrativist Clusters. This is meant as a general introduction to the concept of Clusters and not as the final word on Narrativist Clusters. I have included the new section below to make it easier for readers to stay up to date.)




Within Narrativism in the United States (and probably all populations with a sufficiently developed number of Narrativists) these individuals tend to organize themselves into groups aligned along commonly held . These group Inner narratives are aligned first by reaching a general agreement over whom the group perceives as the Enemy and then filling in the blanks for the rest of the Grand narrative as appropriate.

Narrativist groups (or groups that are not necessarily Narrativist in origin but happen to have lave a large percentage of Narrativists in them) can be broadly spoken of as belonging to one of four "Clusters"- which can be classified by the general format of who they perceive as their great Enemy. That is to say that Narrativist Clusters are classified not so much by [i]Who[/i] they view as the Enemy but rather the underlying aspect of human behavior/society that they are most afraid of and then declaring that the solution to the any and all problems is the destruction/subjugation their chosen Enemy. There are four such Narrativist Clusters (Racist, Religious, Economic, and Paranoid) and each shall be examined in some detail below.

• Racist Cluster: Examples of Narrativist groups in this Cluster would include the KKK, Neo-Nazi's, Confederate apologists, and various aspects of the Alt-Right. Racist Cluster Narrativists are obsessed with external physical differences in human beings and build their entire Grand narrative around setting strongly enforced levels of acceptable/unacceptable differences in human beings. A Racist Cluster Narrativist often views their own DNA/Blood/Skin as their God force and will declare their physical body as proof of their membership in the Elect as well as their direct connection to the God-Force. Racist Cluster Narrativists always desire to set their own particular group (those who posses whichever physical features they have deemed in their Inner narrative to be "pure") as a ruling class over tiered system of "lesser" groups that they view as useful for work but requiring supervision. At the bottom of this tiered system will be the group possessing whatever physical traits that have been deemed to be the Enemy, and in social structures wherein Racist Cluster Narrativists have taken control they will often exorcise Narrative dysphoria in their community through the public torture/execution of one of the Enemy rather than engage in a Compaction cycle against one of their own. 
• Religious Cluster: Examples of Narrativist groups in this Cluster would include both Christian Dominionists and ISIS (although ISIS is much more highly compacted the structure of their Inner narratives is virtually identical) as well as Jehovah's Witnesses and various groups of Southern Baptists and Christian Fundamentalists. The Religious Cluster is obsessed with both human behavior and human belief and seeks to create social environments wherein "incorrect" behavior or beliefs are punished viciously and publicly. Religious Cluster Narrativists always see themselves as divine messengers of the God-Force and seek to create a strongly controlled social hierarchy based upon a combination of correct beliefs and behaviors. The more correct your beliefs/behaviors the higher your place in a social environment dominated by Religious Cluster Narrativists. Conversely, behavior and beliefs are what distinguish the Enemy and Religious Cluster Narrativists will obsess over every phrase uttered by their Enemy as well as how every belief their Enemy holds about the world is wrong/dangerous. Religious Cluster Narrativists are also obsessed with the idea that incorrect behavior or beliefs can make one "impure"- unworthy somehow (perhaps permanently) of either the love of the God-Force or basic human dignity.
• Economic Cluster: Members of this Cluster are obsessed with the way that resources are distributed within society and always choose as their Enemy some sort of "takers"- or group that takes more from society than it returns and will thus consume society out of existence. Objectivists, An-Caps, and Libertarians are the goto examples for Economic Cluster Narrativists. This Cluster normally has some sort of abstract concept as their God-Force with the two most common examples being the "Free Market" or the "Non-Aggression Principle" and always declares themselves a member of the elect (e.g. "Captain of Industry) because of their claimed "true" understanding of and obedience to this abstract principle. Economic Cluster Narrativists are notably less likely to become high-compaction than other Clusters as a result of their tendency (within the modern zeitgeist) to attract highly individualistic and ambitious individuals. As a result Compaction cycles tend to fracture Economic Cluster Narrativists easily (e.g. virtually every An-Cap group, ever) or tend to have a very hard time attracting anything more than a small core of dedicated followers (e.g. Stephan Molyneux). Economic Cluster Narrativists are always pre-occupied with ensuring that their chosen Enemy has no access to any of societies resources (including food) and often views poor people as a sort of pestilence that threatens to wipe out society unless the poor themselves are either put down viciously or at least kept out of sight. Economic Cluster Narrativists associate possession of resources (which in our modern culture has been reduced simply to money) with proof of good character and obedience to the God-Force and desire a social environment that is dominated by those who control the most resources.
• Paranoid Cluster:Conspiracy Theorists ala Alex Jones and David Icke would be the classic examples of Narrativists from this Cluster. The Paranoid Cluster always views the dominant social structures of the society within which the Narrativist exists as the Enemy, that is to say that the Paranoid Cluster sees itself oppressed by the structure of society itself first and foremost and therefor constructs its Inner narrative around this theme. Opposition to whatever is viewed as the true power secretly controlling society is a central theme of the Paranoid Cluster. They are consummate synthesizers of Outer narratives- holding no particular affinity for ideology or origin of an Outer narrative- so long as it attacks the dominant social structures in some way a Paranoid Cluster Narrativist is more than happy to either use it directly or re-purpose (very common, e.g. the John Birch Society's Blue Book is essentially just Russian anti-semitism with the word "commie" scribbled over "Jews") it in some way. The Paranoid Cluster is a bit of an oddball in that in any given society they are often the first to break word or suss out genuine misdeeds by the powerful within their society- however they are also unable to distinguish fact from fiction and often rapidly discredit themselves in the event they do uncover an actual conspiracy. The Paranoid Cluister always sees themselves as possessors of special insight (and very often special or supernatural powers) that marks them as superior to the rest of the population who accepts the dominant social power structure. Often the Paranoid Cluster's God-Force is an abstract concept like Freedom! (shouted at the top of ones lungs), variations on the God-Force as some sort of "ascended" intelligence sending instructions through a priest to guide the planet into some sort of Gaia state are frequently found within the Paranoid Cluster as well.

Trump Supporters, Narrative Dysphoria, and destroying the Enemy. A demonstration of how Trump suppoters experience cognitive dissonance and believe that harming Democrats is the solution to all societal ills.

Authors Note: The following article presumes a working understanding of the Narrativist Framework on the part of the reader. If you are new to this material then the relevant concepts from the Narrativist Framework have been linked the first time they appear in the article.



So I came across an interesting article that is a fascinating example of someone who is a mid-compaction (neither particularly high but certainly not really low) Narrativist trying to process all the Narrative dysphoria they are experiencing as a result of Donald Trump/Republicans slowly outing themselves as hollow conmen. The GOP Congress Better Get It's Act Together, Or It's Sunk. The entire article is for the most part a badly formatted polemic blaming the Republican Party for the Narrative dysphoria the author is experiencing, and further threatening a massive retaliatory compaction cycle. I decided to examine some portions of this article in depth with an eye towards both illustrating Narrative dysphoria as well as the authors unusually frank admittance of a concept I call "Victory by Destruction of the Enemy" when he flatly declares that his expectation is for the GOP to do only things that hurt Democrats because hurting Democrats is both what they were elected to do as well as the key to success.

First off let us start out with the opening paragraphs of this article because even as badly written as this article is the opening at least does a good job of setting the tone.

Kurt Schlichter posted:

“Everything’s fine,” smiled Captain Paul Ryan smarmily as he steered the Titanic into an iceberg. “Now, let me get back to shafting our own voting base via my incomprehensible determination to cancel the tax deductions that Republicans use instead of cutting handouts to Democrat-voting freeloaders!”

We are sailing toward disaster in 2018 and no one seems to want to acknowledge it. Let’s look at the facts and evidence.

Data Point One: We scraped by in a couple of House special elections so far, including Punchy McSlugahack’s in Montana, but that Daily Kos reader-funded-12-year old non-resident Democrat dork is going to beat the charisma-free Republican in the Georgia 6 race next week. Our enemy is motivated and smells blood.

Data Point Two: Because she is a droning non-performer, Theresa May took a 24 point advantage and turned it into a loss in Britain.

Data Point Three: Our GOP Republican legislators are droning non-performers who have a 10 point disadvantage going into 2018.

The theme underlying these opening paragraphs is that the author is experiencing quite a bit of Narrative dysphoria because of the contradictions between what her Inner narrative is telling her should be happening now that Trump is in power and the reality of what is happening now that Trump is in power. In fact in just 8 sentences this author references seven separate sources of Narrative dysphoria that are obviously causing her stress. (In point of fact the opening of this article is barely more than a list of sources of Narrative dysphoria with barely any attempt to relate them to each other.) Let us take a moment to briefly examine each of these sources.

• “Now, let me get back to shafting our own voting base via my incomprehensible determination to cancel the tax deductions that Republicans use instead of cutting handouts to Democrat-voting freeloaders!”: Paul Ryan's actions will hurt Republicans and Democrats and that puzzles this Narrativist. Narrativists can only conceptualize improving society by harming their Enemy (a theme this author shall return to later in this article) so the fact that Ryan's actions will harm both Democrats and Republicans disagrees with the expectations generated by the Inner narrative, thus Narrative dysphoria is experienced.
  
• ["i]We scraped by in a couple of House special elections so far[/i]": Now that the country has risen up and elected the champion of the people the GOP should be crushing every single election.
  
• " including Punchy McSlugahack’s in Montana": Behaving like a brazen thug and being rewarded for it is something that this Narrativist is certain only the Enemy would do. Seeing it come from his own side (which is supposed to be made up only of pure-hearted "good guys") is clearly disconcerting.
  
• "but that Daily Kos reader-funded-12-year old non-resident Democrat dork is going to beat the charisma-free Republican in the Georgia 6 race next week.": Weak intellectuals are not supposed to defeat manly/heroic good guys, even if they are "charisma free".
  
• " Because she is a droning non-performer, Theresa May took a 24 point advantage and turned it into a loss in Britain.": Narrativists will almost instinctively flock to and support Narrativist leaders no matter where in the world those leaders are or what group they represent- see for example the rights strange love affair with Vladimir Putin. (Putin knows how to appeal to Narrativists) Seeing even a foreign leader who is associated with Narrativism take such an unexpected defeat is a source of Narrative dysphoria in this case.
  
• "Our GOP Republican legislators are droning non-performers who have a 10 point disadvantage going into 2018.": Now that Trump has won and the GOP controls all three branches we should be being ushered into a glowing Conservative utopia. (As seen on the documentary Leave it to Beaver.) Instead deadlock has continued and little has changed despite all the power in the hands of the Republican party at the oment.
  

From here on out the article is more or less just pure lashing out at Narrative dysphoria. None of these bits are particularly worth diving deeply into (although you can see other portions of the Narrativist Framework at play here there are better examples to use to illustrate them) so I will simply quote a couple examples.


[Bracketed comments are mine.]

Kurt Schlichter posted:

“But stuff is getting done!” the GOP leadership insists, which might be true but is definitely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if “stuff is getting done” if your voters don’t know it and support you. Now, when Paul Ryan talks directly to us on Hugh Hewitt's show or elsewhere, he actually makes sense. He explains his strategy, so we can sigh “Oh, there’s a reason for all this and a coherent plan. Phew.” But then Ryan says something unbelievably stupid along the lines of, “As Speaker, my job is to pass legislation, not to go out and sell our agenda to voters.” No, that’s a steaming pile of Harry Reid.

....


Stop failing. Start doing what we sent you to do and letting us in on the plan. Let us see you are intent on winning and you’ll start to rebuild the confidence your incompetence has shattered.


....


You must get the President’s agenda passed, but, at the same time, you must keep us in the loop. See, we don’t trust you. You haven’t earned our trust. We know you hate the idea that we are going to hold you accountable for what you do and fail to do and you don’t like it. Too bad. Because now we’re watching, so you better communicate with us to explain what we see and why it’s not surrender or failure. As the hep kidz say, we’re woke. [Note the threatened compaction cycle here.]


....


So stop wasting time and effort cavorting with the Democrats about their fake Trump/Russia obsession. Those crusty senators with their “We must uncover the truth about these questions” nonsense need to stop. We all know the truth. It’s all a liberal lie.

Cut our taxes, like the GOP promised.

Rebuild our military, like the GOP promised.

Fix infrastructure (wisely), like the GOP promised.

Build a wall, like the GOP promised. [The wall with Mexico is a physical manifestation of the Bypass of Perfect Safety which is why Narrativists cling to it so much.]

Kill Obamacare, like the GOP promised.


....


The Democrats are out there recruiting military vets – there’s one jerky liberal everyone finds annoying in every big unit, and that’s who they pick. They’ll preen and pose and get elected and then salute General Pelosi and vote as ordered on every item of Democrat soldier-shafting liberal hackery. That’s the threat – are you ready for it? You need to spend some time and effort on candidate selection and grooming; you need to make sure that in every district our money is on a winner. Are you doing that? Who is doing that? Why do none of us know about how you are doing that?

Finally we come to the end of the article and probably the best demonstration of the Narrativism benchmark of "Victory by Destruction of the Enemy" that I have yet found. I will first quote the relevant portion of the Narrativist Framework and then quote the article's much more succinct summation of my ideas.

Narrativist Framework posted:

Victory by Destruction of the Enemy: All Narrativist models for changing society involve destruction of an identified "other", and nothing else. "If we just got rid of X, everything would be fine." When I was a conspiracy theorist, I believed that simply eliminating the globalists and getting out of humanity's way would basically fix everything. When I was a David Icke-loving UFO nut, merely destroying the Reptilians and their agents would have resulted in humanity raising its vibration to a heavenly level and fix everything. When I was a fundamentalist, I believed that converting (or destroying) all the unbelievers would fix every problem on Earth. Objectivists believe that getting rid of all regulations would result in the emergence of a new golden age of prosperity for all. For racists, crime and social ills would disappear if we just stopped coddling blacks or illegal immigrants (or killed them all).

No thought is given to actual policy or the reality of a given situation. Much like all Narrativist battle plans boil down to "fight big, fight hard", all Narrativist strategies for fixing society's ills boil down to "destroy the other". Nothing is planned beyond that. There is no "what do we do when we win?" because that question is pointless. If they win, they have already won, you see? They believe that the simple non-existence of whoever or whatever they chose as their enemy would result in a natural order emerging or reasserting itself and harmony would ensue.

In short, the one weird trick that will give them everything they want is always "destroy the enemy". And the way to destroy the enemy is always in a big battle.

(Italics in original)

Kurt Schlichter posted:

And we need to stop jamming our own voters in the name of some arbitrary, D.C. think tank g-generated conception of good policy. Good policy is what wins. How about not imposing anything upon us that hurts the GOP base? You see, you're there to represent Republicans. Some goofs and wusscons have the idea that you're there to represent all voters, but that's nonsense.

You are there to represent the people who voted for you, not the liberal whiners and welfare cheats who didn't and who hate you and us. So we're not going to close off deductions that help Republicans and we're not going to increase taxes on Republicans and we're not gonna do other things that hurt Republicans. We're going to hurt Democrats.

That's called politics. Try it. It’s amazingly effective.

If you do, we win. If the economy is cranking in November 2018 and health insurance premiums are under control – and they will be if you keep your promises – then you’re fine. Otherwise, you’re gone.

As demonstrated above this Narrativist can only conceive of advancing his agenda by harming those he deems to have lost a struggle against his side. There is no "Do good things for Republicans" step in the above, rather the above author is operating from the logic of "If the Democrats are harmed then Republicans are helped by default and if we harm the Democrats enough then the economy will boom. There isn't any thought given to how harming Democrats will help Republicans, it is simply accepted as a patently obvious truth that Republicans/society benefits when Democrats are harmed. Note how there isn't any thought given to how to harm Democrats, it is simply accepted that if they are harmed then it is good for Republicans.

Or to put it another way the above quotation is just a really angry way of saying "Lottery in June, Corn be heavy soon." (Assuming of course that only a particular group of people were drawing folded pieces of paper out of hat.)

Oathkeepers are now openly declaring their expectation to engage in violence against the left.

So I came across this video today and wanted to comment on it. As predicted (or really expected at this point, these are hardly even predictions anymore) the Oathkeepers have emerged as a quasi-vigilante force providing armed "security" for Proud Boys and the like at demonstrations. This video is a demonstration of a high-compaction Narrativist that has reached a 10 on my hypothetical compaction scale. He is fully prepared to engage in violence and at this point the only thing really holding him back is our militarized police force. (He admits this pretty directly.) In this video he demonstrates many of the Benchmarks for Narrativism as well as winging that even Hitler admitted that Islam is more "masculine" than our "feminine" Christianity.

Based on my experience in cults/being a high-compaction Narrativist, the way this individual calmly asserts that there will be a Civil War within three years while calmly describing anything his perceived Enemy does as preparations for the coming conflict. Within Trump supporters at present I believe that there is momentum building for another Rapid Narrative Convergence Event, and under the current circumstances a R.N.C.E. would have a very high probability of turning violent. Thankfully with Trump running the Federal government it is much harder for his Narrativist supporters to find a venue for this R.N.C.E to play out (taking over a federal wildlife refuge isn't going to cut it this time) so for now very little is likely to come out of this. However with this much momentum building towards a R.N.C.E. if a venue opportunistically presents itself (hard to imagine how, although I can see a militia targeting a facility owned by a state government in a blue state like California) then we could see civil order break down on a small scale wherever the R.N.C.E. winds up playing out at. (Civil order was severely strained during the Malheur occupation and required turning portions of the city into a fortress.)