individual


The risk of accelerated and globalized collective aka grand narratives

Grand narratives, mass media, and hyper-centralized power can not exist without each other. Their total opposites are personal experiences, personal connections, and small group cooperations, such as family. They are extreme sides of the spectrum with many more options in-between.

Our fulfillment requires participation in both extremes and all options in between. We understand the world in narratives and we need all types of narratives – small and grand – to understand our function.

While all narratives can be wrong, grand narratives, mass media, and hyper-centralization are too complex to fix quickly and damage they cause is great. Damage from great narratives is caused by the conflict with personal stories, and between the grand narratives competing for power.

The expansion of mass media is forcing generalization of grand narratives and creating bigger conflicts between personal and grand, and also between different grand narratives. The speed of change is also accelerating and does not allow time for adaptation.

Without hyper-centralization and such high reaching mass media, individuals required much less energy to balance the grand narratives with more personal ones. Changes and conflicts were slower and smaller giving us time to adapt and repair. Now extreme generalization and speed of change are creating internal individual conflicts which do not have the time to be resolve.

Solution to this is openness, which reduces the conflict between grand and personal, but also slows down generalized changes and conflicts. This will give more time to individuals to process the changes and minimize damage.