A brief point about grand narratives of history

The other day I got a worried message from a close friend. He was asking my opinion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and showed great concern for how the situation would evolve. My first response was quite simply to disavow any form of expertise on the subject, because I am not an expert on the region, and neither am I an expert in the history of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. I am following the analyses of experts in order to get a good understanding of what is happening, but there is little I can say beyond simple moral points, namely that any act of invasion is an abomination, and that a mad imperialist will use any excuse and any pretense to execute what they have already planned. To condemn tyranny is easy. To analyse and comprehend the specific mechanics of a specific tyranny is anything but, at least for those who have not studied the tyranny in question. 

One thing that did strike me after the message from my friend, however, and one thing that was reinforced by a number of poorly formulated and quite simply idiotic takes that are still circulating on social media, is that this tragedy highlights the importance of not adhering to grand narratives when understanding history and the world. There are several such grand narratives that can be glimpsed in various comments either on social media or in the regular media. For instance, there is the shock of realising that this kind of atrocity can take place in a European country, because this does not fit with the grand narrative of modern Western civilisation and its journey towards peace. It is a particularly nonsensical grand narrative, considering that Russia, in recent years, has exerted pressure on both Ukraine and Georgia, with the 2014 claim to Crimea and the invasion of Georgia in 2008. Other ways to dismiss this grand narrative is the Balkan War, the troubles in Ireland, and any other armed conflict that has taken place in Europe in the past 150 years.    

Another grand narrative is that of a country's natural form, a grand narrative that sees illegal annexations, invasions and domination as a country's process for resuming its boundaries at any given historical reference point. This kind of grand narrative usually sees history as mechanistic, governed by strategies and goals, rather than by the whims, personalities and flaws of individual humans. Some, who defend Vladimir Putin's imperialist transgressions, express variants of this grand narrative.  

There are others as well, and they come in different guises, and one particular type of grand narrative can have numerous variants, depending on the situation to which they pertain or the people by whom they are pushed. In our times, however, when information comes instantly and where the process of maturing information into knowledge is sometimes denied us, it becomes especially clear how ludicrous and damaging any grand narrative can be. 

Since any grand narrative provides a simplistic overview of things, a grand narrative can also be fear-inducing and paralysing, strengthening the sensation that what happens is inescapable and beyond human control. A grand narrative can do this because of its many elisions that have gone into putting the grand narrative together. Among these elisions I will especially point to four which exemplify excellently well why grand narratives are problematic. 

First of all, a grand narrative elides the numerous lived experiences that are happening simultaneously. We are all experiencing the world differently, even if we experience the same events, but this kind of complexity is utterly lost in a grand narrative that sees everything as a homogeneous process. 

Secondly, events unfold in a piecemeal fashion. This means that even though we get information about something right after it has happened, or perhaps while it is happening, it is important to remember that there are many steps in any event, major or minor. Things hardly ever occur as swiftly as they might appear to do for a bystander, and a grand narrative therefore gives the impression that an event unfolded quickly, and also that all subsequent events will follow equally quickly. This is connected to the third point. 

Thirdly, a grand narrative elides the numerous possibilities that are open at any given time. A grand narrative is typically teleological, seeing historical events as necessary and inescapable, which in turn tends to provide some sort of justification or trivialisation of the atrocities that have presided over the events in question. However, just as events happen in a piecemeal fashion, no outcome is one hundred percent guaranteed or dictated by laws of history - especially because no such laws exist. 

Fourthly, a grand narrative tends to elide the human factor in historical events. Typically, historical events will be talked about in terms of strategy, rationality, or perhaps unseen, amorphous forces that bend history according to their nature. That humans are capable of making extremely stupid decisions, or that humans are capable of being kind or sacrificing to the point of self-destruction are only two of the elements of human nature that makes human history utterly unpredictable, but that also help human history make perfect sense once we have all the information we need for careful analysis in the aftermath. (Although we rarely, if ever, have all that information.) Because of the human factor, grand narratives cannot be anything but faux-intellectual constructs that hinder rather than provide a good understanding of reality. 

In a time of crisis, grand narratives often become reference points in the discourse, especially because people who do not know enough about a situation to provide insightful and accurate commentary can often rely on grand narratives to find something to talk about and appear well-informed and intelligent. But grand narratives are useless tools for understanding reality. They can generate misunderstanding and exacerbate panic and fear, and they do not help explaining how we got where we are, or where we are going next.