Арсен Аветисов – Political Narratology. How Stories Shape Power and Compliance (страница 6)

When We’ Becomes a Trap

The problem is not belonging as such – a person needs community. Danger arises when ‘we’ do not allow distance, when doubt is declared a betrayal, when exit from the narrative becomes impossible.

At this moment, the collective ‘we’ ceases to be a source of power and turns into a mechanism of compliance.

Why It is Important to See the Construction of We

Understanding how the collective ‘we’ is created does not isolate a person. It restores their choice. One can belong without dissolving, participate without abandoning thought, say ‘we’ while understanding who is forming it and for what purpose.

Political narratology begins precisely here – with discerning the boundary between the story and oneself. Because the most dangerous moment is the moment you cease to understand where the narrative ends and your self begins.

Chapter 6. Who Is Included and Who Is Excluded

Exclusion is the foundation of the political order.

Every We’ Begins with a Boundary

A collective ‘we’ cannot be infinite. Without boundaries, it loses its form. If it includes everyone, it ceases to mean anything.

Therefore, every political narrative, in creating a ‘we’, simultaneously, if not always explicitly, answers another question: ‘Who does not belong?’

It is this question that makes politics tense, painful, and dangerous because inclusion offers protection and meaning, while exclusion brings vulnerability and silence.

Exclusion as an Invisible Operation

Exclusion is rarely declared outright. It is almost never spoken of openly. It happens through language, implication, tone, emphasis, word choice, repetition, and silence. Some are labelled ‘authentic’, others as ‘questionable’, ‘temporarily misguided’, ‘not fully’, ‘too much’, or ‘not quite’.

This is how a zone of ambiguous status is formed: people who are technically within society but not fully within the story. This zone is the most vulnerable.

Inclusion as a Privilege

Belonging to the ‘we’ is never unconditional. It comes with terms: loyalty, language, gestures, agreement with the story, acceptance of symbols, and observance of rituals. A person can be a formal citizen, yet narratively excluded. They can live within the state, but outside its ‘we’. They can speak but not be heard.

Politics rarely punishes directly. Far more often, it simply ceases to recognise.

The Categories of Others’ as a Construct

In every political narrative, a recurring set of exclusionary figures can be found. Their names change, but the structure remains: the outsider, the traitor, the parasite, the elite, the marginal, the agent, the rootless, the illegitimate. And the ‘crown of them all’: the enemy of the people.

It is crucial to understand: these categories do not describe real people. They describe functions within the story, and their purpose is to reinforce the boundary of the ‘we’.

When the narrative needs consolidation, the number of the excluded expands. When it is confident, the boundaries may temporarily widen.

External Exclusion: Them

The simplest form is external: ‘them’. Another people, another culture, another bloc, another world.

An external enemy is convenient: they are distant, abstract, and easily demonised. They can be blamed without immediate risk of internal social conflict. They are used to explain failures, delays, fears, and restrictions.

The external enemy is a way to keep the internal ‘we’ in a state of tense unity.

Internal Exclusion: The Most Dangerous

Far more dangerous is internal exclusion. This is the moment when the ‘others’ are close by.

This is where the figures of the ‘fifth column’, ‘enemies within’, ‘doubters’, ‘the overly complex’, ‘the disloyal’ emerge. Their difference is not always in actions but more often in their interpretation.

They are dangerous not for what they do, but for explaining events differently. Consequently, the struggle against them is almost always narrative, not judicial.

Language as a Tool of Exclusion

Notice: exclusion is rarely formulated through direct prohibition. It is enacted through language.

A person may not be arrested but simply no longer invited. Not silenced by law, but no longer quoted. Not declared an enemy, but labelled as ‘controversial’, ‘toxic’, or ‘problematic’.

Language sets the social temperature. And if that temperature drops, a person finds themselves in a chilling space, without the need for formal exile.

The Excluded as a Mirror of Fear

The figure of the excluded always reflects the fears of the ‘we’ itself. Insecurity about identity, anxiety about change, fear of losing control.

By excluding the other, the collective confirms itself. By punishing deviation, it soothes its own doubts.

Therefore, exclusion is rarely linked to a real threat; it is linked to the psychological vulnerability of the narrative.

Why Exclusion Seems Necessary

Every story strives for coherence. And coherence struggles with complexity.

Differences interfere with simplicity, ambivalence disrupts mobilisation, and multiplicity weakens clarity. Therefore, the narrative seeks to simplify reality, which means reducing the number of permissible positions.

Exclusion is a way to lower a society’s cognitive load.

The Silent Majority of the Excluded

The largest excluded group are those no one names. They are neither enemies nor heroes. They simply don’t fit.

People without a clear identity, without a voice, without symbolic capital. They are absent from the stories, not debated, and do not become characters.

This is no accident. A narrative needs outlines, not nuance.

Exclusion and Violence

Not all exclusion leads to physical violence, but all mass violence begins with narrative exclusion.

First, a person ceases to be considered ‘one of us’, then ‘equal’, then ‘necessary’. And only at the end – ‘human’.

This process is almost always gradual and thus imperceptible from within.

Is It Possible to Manage Without Exclusion?

Completely – no. Any identity implies a boundary.

But there is a difference between a permeable boundary and an absolute one. Between exclusion as distinction and exclusion as annihilation.

A society’s political maturity is measured by whether its narrative allows for the possibility of disagreement without exile.

What Understanding the Mechanism of Exclusion Offers

By becoming aware of how inclusion and exclusion work, a person gains a rare resource – the ability not to confuse belonging with subordination.

One can be part of the ‘we’ and still see how it is constructed. One can participate without surrendering the capacity to question. One can understand that every narrative has a shadow – and avoid becoming its victim.

Political narratology does not abolish boundaries. It makes them visible.

And a visible boundary is no longer an absolute one.

Chapter 7. Language, Symbols, and Memory

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Politics Begins with Language

No political reality exists before language. The word comes first; action follows.

Before a law is enacted, there is a formulation. Before an enemy is identified, there is a name. Before a society begins to remember, it is told what to remember. Politics does not use language as a tool; politics exists within language.

Language Does Not Describe – It Organises