The Capacity of Shared Stories to Function as Myth and Encourage Inclusive Participation

Mitchell, Roger Haydon (2023) The Capacity of Shared Stories to Function as Myth and Encourage Inclusive Participation. Journal of Academic Perspectives, 2023 (1). ISSN 2328-8264

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Abstract

Beginning with a description of the way the myths of incarnation and trinity function to encourage collaborative social participation in the experience of the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission (http://www.morecambebaypovertytruthcommission.org.uk/), the paper will attempt to show that shared stories operate as myths that transform corporate behaviour. In Timothy Stacey’s words they "help people expand their imagination, overcome the instrumental lens through which they perceive their own lives, and revivify the spirit of political participation." The paper will draw in particular on Stacey, Saving Liberalism from Itself: The Spirit of Political Participation (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022); Julie Tomlin “The Spiralling Dance of Wisdom” in The Kenarchy Journal 1.3, 2020 (https://kenarchy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Kenarchy_Volume1.3.pdf) and Sue Mitchell and Francisco Jose Eiroa-Orosa, “Love your enemy? An aesthetic discourse analysis of self-transcendence in values-motivated altruism” in Roger Haydon Mitchell, ed. Cultivating New Post–Secular Political Space (London and New York: Routledge, 2019). Stacey’s applied research findings from his years researching among participants in the Metro Vancouver Alliance (https://www.metvanalliance.org.), Tomlin’s work on the instatement of feminine myths and Sue Mitchell’s iteration of the skills of dialogic listening are harnessed to substantiate the proposal that a greater recognition of the role of myth in contemporary society will encourage and facilitate genuine participation. The capacity of shared stories to offset the Western liberal tendency to see knowledge as a rational mathēsis by means of which experts induct the individual into a more or less passive role will be indicated. In conclusion some of the practical outcomes of Round One of the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission will be outlined in evidence of the socially transformative potential of shared story telling.