metanarrative
Story about stories
A metanarrative is an overarching story or framework that gives meaning to smaller stories and events—a grand explanatory scheme.
In philosophy and cultural theory, metanarratives are the big stories societies tell themselves: progress, enlightenment, religious salvation, the march of history.
Postmodern thinkers are skeptical of metanarratives, arguing that no single story can legitimately explain everything.
The American Dream functions as a metanarrative about opportunity and success.
Comprehensive belief framework
- ideologyStructured belief framework
- hegemonyDominant group's control
- propagandaBiased information for influence
- doctrineEstablished body of teachings
dogma · orthodoxy · legitimation · universalism · teleology · foundationalism · essentialism · paradigm
Analysis exposing self-contradiction
- incredulityInability to accept something
- fragmentationBreaking into smaller pieces
- DerridaGrammatology's French author
- FoucaultProminent French family name
poststructuralism · relativism · hyperreality · simulacrum · Baudrillard · intertextuality · pastiche · pluralism
Movement toward improvement
- EnlightenmentEra prioritizing reason over dogma
- modernityBeing of present times
- MarxismClass-based revolutionary philosophy
- capitalismPrivate profit-based economy
nationalism · manifest destiny · emancipation · civilization · colonialism · secularization · industrialization · liberalism
Deliverance from harm
- eschatologyStudy of ultimate destiny
- providenceDivine protective care
- covenantBinding formal pledge
- creationMaking something exist
fall · redemption · apocalypse · prophecy · cosmogony · theodicy · dharma · karma
worldview
Comprehensive belief framework
- ideologyStructured belief framework
- hegemonyDominant group's control
- propagandaBiased information for influence
doctrine · dogma · orthodoxy · legitimation · universalism · teleology · foundationalism · essentialism · paradigm · belief system
deconstruction
Analysis exposing self-contradiction
- incredulityInability to accept something
- fragmentationBreaking into smaller pieces
- DerridaGrammatology's French author
Foucault · poststructuralism · relativism · hyperreality · simulacrum · Baudrillard · intertextuality · pastiche · pluralism · indeterminacy
progress
Movement toward improvement
- EnlightenmentEra prioritizing reason over dogma
- modernityBeing of present times
- MarxismClass-based revolutionary philosophy
capitalism · nationalism · manifest destiny · emancipation · civilization · colonialism · secularization · industrialization · liberalism · utopianism
salvation
Deliverance from harm
- eschatologyStudy of ultimate destiny
- providenceDivine protective care
- covenantBinding formal pledge
creation · fall · redemption · apocalypse · prophecy · cosmogony · theodicy · dharma · karma · samsara
- Self-referenceself-reference, self-referential, recursion, recursive, infinite regress
- metafictionfourth wall break, self-reference, breaking the fourth wall, metafiction, self-referential
- narratologyplot, story, character, protagonist, antagonist
- postmodernismdeconstruction, metafiction, hyperreality, pastiche, simulacra
- narrationfirst person, second person, third person, voice-over, telling
metanarrativepersonal narrative
Self-told life account
fragment · anecdote · case study · vignette · episode
metanarrativepostmodernism
Skepticism toward universal truths
relativism · pluralism · anti-foundationalism · skepticism · heterogeneity
narrative, narrator, narrate, narration, narrating, narrated, meta, narrates, narrators