Further, we are, as Hayles aptly put it, “meaning-seeking animals.” So critical is our desire for meaning that, tragically, it is not uncommon for human beings to sooner end their lives than go on living without a substantive experience of meaning. Returning to Hayles, we might say that this because the question of who I am is a question of meaning rather than merely a question of fact, and, as she pointed out, the search for meaning is the primary purpose of narrative. Perhaps I can respond to the question “What am I?” without a story, but I don’t think I could do so to the more significant question “Who am I?” ![]() Regarding the latter question, it may be useful to remember Hannah Arendt’s distinction between what I am and who I am. Simply imagine trying to answer the questions “What happened?” or “Who are you?” without recourse to narrative. It would be hard to imagine how we could get on without it and still function in a recognizably human fashion. In this way, it is, as Hayles suggests, essential. Narrative is a tool by which we extract (or impose, depending on your perspective) meaning from the chaotic flux of being in the world-the “big, blooming, buzzing confusion” newborns encounter in William James memorable line. That is not its only purpose, of course-it instructs, gives pleasure, aides memory, etc.-but it seems to me that this may be its most basic function. Narrative, too, is a deceptively simple technique deployed by the human mind in order to make sense of the world. Yes, algorithms tend to operate in conjunction with complex and sophisticated machines and devices, but they are themselves simply processes or sets of rules to be applied to a particular problem or situation. Consider, for example, of one of our most discussed technologies of late, the algorithm. ![]() It can include a variety of immaterial techniques that we might use to accomplish any number of tasks. To go along with this claim we need to grant, as I think we should, that the technological is not limited to material artifacts. ![]() Of course, it is easy to see how various technologies shape the use of narrative-writing, the codex, film, etc.-but Hayles is claiming that the narrative form itself is a technology. Hayles makes at least three distinct claims in that sentence, but let’s start by focusing on the idea that narrative is a technology. “The primary purpose of narrative,” media scholar Katherine Hayles argued several years ago, “is to search for meaning,” which makes “narrative an essential technology for human beings, who can arguably be defined as meaning-seeking animals.” For what it’s worth, though, I am not alone in conceiving of narrative as a kind of technology. Describing narrative as a technology will seem like a stretch depending on how you define technology, which, as I’ve argued on a number of occasions, is a rather more complicated task than one might imagine before undertaking it. The technology I have in mind is the narrative form, otherwise known as story-telling, and I’m going to argue that this tool is getting glitchy. If we stop to think about the various technologies that structure our social lives, for better and for worse, we may fail to note one of our oldest and most reliable tools, one with which we are all familiar and which we deploy on a daily basis, so much so that we barely take notice of it.
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