March 13, 2009

What's Your Story?

“…liberalism can be characterized as the presumption that you should have no story other than the story you chose when you had no story. A society constituted to produce people who get to choose their stories[, however,] cannot help but be caught in perpetual double-think. For what it cannot acknowledge is that we did not choose the story that we should have no story except the story we choose when we had no story.” (bold and italics mine)

⎯ Stanley Hauerwas quoted in
Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge By R. Scott Smith (p. 69)

Once this noodle-baking concept is comprehended, it is actually quite refreshing. Quite often we are in the habit of thinking that accepting Christ is to assume subservience, while saying no to Christ we maintain an autonomy of freedom. Hauerwas reminds us that no such autonomy exists, and that we are always in a “metanarrative” that gives meaning to our choices and actions. The question then becomes whether or not we are satisfied with the story that engulfs us. Do we want to become characters in a story where we are manipulated into being slaves to systems of power, or do we want to become characters in a story where we are invited to serve the one who serves us? But one thing is sure, we cannot be presume to have no story other than the story we chose when we had no story.

1 comment:

  1. I often think of this Hauerwas riff when my undergrad students tell me (always with the air of triumph) that they can already "think for themselves" and thus don't have to take Socrates or David Hume seriously.

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