Narrative and the “Art of Listening”: Ricoeur, Arendt, and the Political Dangers of Storytelling

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221108160
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221108160

Political Theory

2023, Vol. 51(2) 413 –435

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917221108160

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Article

Narrative and the “Art

of Listening”: Ricoeur,

Arendt, and the Political

Dangers of Storytelling

Adriana Alfaro Altamirano1

Abstract

Using insights from two of the major proponents of the hermeneutical

approach, Paul Ricoeur and Hannah Arendt—who both recognized the

ethicopolitical importance of narrative and acknowledged some of the

dangers associated with it—I will flesh out the worry that “narrativity” in

political theory has been overly attentive to storytelling and not heedful

enough of story listening. More specifically, even if, as Ricoeur says, “narrative

intelligence” is crucial for self-understanding, that does not mean, as he

invites us to, that we should always seek to develop a “narrative identity”

or become, as he says, “the narrator of our own life story.” I offer that,

perhaps inadvertently, such an injunction might turn out to be detrimental

to the “art of listening.” This, however, must also be cultivated if we want

to do justice to our narrative character and expect narrative to have the

political role that both Ricoeur and Arendt envisaged. Thus, although there

certainly is a “redemptive power” in narrative, when the latter is understood

primarily as the act of narration or as the telling of stories, there is a danger

to it as well. Such a danger, I think, intensifies at a time like ours, when, as

some scholars have noted, “communicative abundance” or the “ceaseless

production of redundancy” in traditional and social media has often led to

the impoverishment of the public conversation.

1Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Ciudad de México, México

Corresponding Author:

Adriana Alfaro Altamirano, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Río Hondo no. 1,

Progreso Tizapán, Álvaro Obregón, CDMX, 01080, México.

Email: adriana.alfaro@itam.mx; adrianaalfaro.net

1108160PTXXXX10.1177/00905917221108160Political TheoryAlfaro Altamirano

research-article2022

414 Political Theory 51(2)

Keywords

narrative identity, listening, Paul Ricoeur, Hannah Arendt, social media

One of the central insights offered by hermeneutic philosophy in the twenti-

eth century is that narrative and storytelling have ethicopolitical implications.

More specifically, hermeneutics has taught ethical and political theory that

narrative is central to self-knowledge and that the search for a “narrative

identity” is crucial to a life with meaning—that is, a life worth living—again,

both in individual and collective terms (Taylor 1989; Ricoeur 1992; MacIntyre

2007). Further, it has shown that storytelling allows us to rescue, rediscover,

and reconstruct a past that is fragmentary and/or morally compromised,

attesting thus to what has been called the “redemptive power of narrative”

(Benhabib 1990; Disch 1993; Herzog 2001).1 Finally, the importance of a

“politics of memory” has been elucidated, bringing to light that the “control

of the past is one of the most powerful weapons available to those who would

control the future” (Dienstag 1997, 201).

Not everybody agrees. From a rationalist standpoint (i.e., McDermott

2008), narrative can be quickly dismissed for being too subjective to consti-

tute an admissible ground for ethical and political theory. Alternatively, and

this time from either an empiricist (Strawson 2004) or a postmodern per-

spective (Derrida 1992), narrative and “narrativity”—that is, the whole set

of expectations put on the “power of narrative,” as it has been developed by

hermeneutic philosophy—have been accused both of being unfaithful to the

more episodic character of human experience and of presenting a tendency

to falsification and fabulation that actually compromises self-understanding

and veracity.

Here, I want to pose a different concern with narrative as it is usually

treated in political theory. I do not intend to contest any of the various onto-

logical and epistemological premises that can be found among advocates of

the hermeneutical approach—to name a few, that time is a key part of our

horizon of understanding; that there is an “I” that persists through time; that

1. For the redemptive power of narrative more generally, arguing moreover that the

latter underlies not only individual and collective memory but also ethical and

political theories, see Dienstag (1997).