It's useful to be sceptical about narratives - just-so stories about how things are or were in the past - since they are always instrumental. There is no such thing as history in the sense of a narrative that is a true account of what happened in the past, there are only histories, just-so stories told about the past in service of present objectives. What actually happened wasn't known at the time and will forever remain mysterious.

The same is true of news stories or blog posts - early drafts of histories - but more so. Still, they are all we have, they can't just be ignored. Seeking out and comparing various accounts of things may not shed any light on truth but they can at least debunk one another and save us from giving them unwarranted credence. Consider this account of neglected news [via Instapundit].

"The present era of globalization and low inflation has an important precedent: 1880-1914, the era of the classical gold standard," it says. That period ended with the outbreak of World War I, and there is no guarantee that the current low-inflation growth will continue. There are always downside risks in the economy. But we seem to be living by far in the best economic times in human history.

But aren't we also living in times of record strife? Actually, no. Just the opposite. The Human Security Centre of the University of British Columbia has been keeping track of armed conflicts since World War II. It reports that the number of genocides and violent conflicts dropped rapidly after the end of the Cold War and that in 2005 the number of armed conflicts was down 40 percent from 1992. Wars have also become less deadly: The average number of people killed per conflict per year in 1950 was 38,000; in 2002 it was just 600. The conflict in Iraq has not significantly changed that picture. American casualties are orders of magnitude lower than in the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and precision weapons have enabled us to vastly reduce the civilian death toll.

But the good news is asymmetrical. Many economies are doing very well - the US, which accounts for more than a quarter of world GDP, is growing at 4% or more, and other unfettered economies are riding that wave of prosperity. China, India, Eastern Europe, Russia, East Asia, Latin America and even the Middle east are growing at that rate or even higher - over twice as much in China and India which combined account for 1/3 of the world's people. However, the sclerotic euro area is hobbling along at 1% and western Europe as a whole is growing at less than half the rate of the world.

Things probably look different to those mired in laggard states with high unemployment and little innovation. It's likely that they have very different narratives, different takes on the history and condition of the world. There are different narratives associated with different political groups too - Reynolds speculates that "if we elect a Democrat to the White House we'll hear a lot more about those good numbers", a dig at both the Democrats and their fellow travelers in much of the media.

Those in power are arrogant, those out of power are insane as the saying goes, but gloom is an old companion of those of a more leftish persuasion. That subject came up here last January in response to a Nicole-Anne Boyer post, Tracking Global Violence: Are things actually getting better?. It was based in part on the same report Michael Barone cited above that sees a steady decline in violence, and also discussed the reluctance of the left to speak good news:

People's reaction to this study is not just about the findings. Something else is going on -- something more emblematic about how we deal with good news in general these days -- but what is it? Turns out the possible answers are multifaceted. Turns out underneath the content lurks several worldviews in collision. . .

Yet the reasons why good news is hard for us to absorb, intellectually and emotionally, go even deeper. This has to do with cultural mindsets and cognitive biases in how we perceive the world. Compared to base politics and the structure of global media (obvious places to point fingers) these "mental map" factors are harder to pin down.

Taking a long view helps. For instance, the idea of decline and pessimism is part of an enduring tradition in Western thought, a historical legacy most people don't know about. . .

Far from some distant force in the past, this meme is still framing our public discourse and habits of thought. Whether it's amongst the intelligentsia or with friends at a cocktail party, positive interpretations of the human condition are considered "un-intellectual" and "not serious" irrespective of the facts at hand. We are socialized to think that Pollyanna's are mental pansies at best, or just plain foolish. It's just cooler, and easier, to be the dark brooding type deconstructing our reality, instead of offering something more generative.

Leftists as fashion victims. Or is it the reverse? Whatever. In my view all narratives are merely instrumental stories, weak and foolish attempts to advance agendas. It doesn't really matter whether there is some body of thought behind the narrative or simply an emotional need, it's bunk in any case. That doesn't mean that the equal and opposite narrative is any better. It's bunk too.

Boyer delves into the deep muck a bit to help explain if not dispell the gloom:

To make matters even more complicated, our trouble with internalizing good news is also rooted in our cognitive apparatus. As a foresight practitioner, I've noticed that groups have a hard time imagining the upside scenario. Almost always people discount positive scenarios at first because they are considered to be less believable, even though in many instances it is just as plausible as any other possible future. This is counter intuitive because the positive scenario is often the most strategically advantageous of all the outcomes, yet decision-makers naturally resist it. While individuals may perceive themselves as optimists, in a group setting the alchemy changes. Rather, what executive teams seem to want these days is more pain and more negativity to wallow in -- what I've privately called "corporate S&M." Just call me Mistress Nikita! (And no, I'm not serious, even though I'm sure it would be a lucrative niche market :) . . .

In fact, cognitive paleontologists, the folks who study how the human brain has evolved, argue that this negative default is hardwired to some degree because our brains were formed during times of tremendous uncertainty and adversity -- namely, the last major ice age. Evolutionary speaking, our survival was more dependent on our ability to think about negative contingencies rather than positive ones . . .

The rest of the essay is worth another gander, even if you read it the first time it was referenced here in January.

» Whistling from Daily Pundit
USNews.com: Michael Barone: Heard the good news?Things are better than you think. Yes, I know, most Americans are in a sour mood these days, convinced that the struggle in Iraq is an endless cycle of bloodshed, certain that our economy......[read more]
Tracked: May 21, 2006 05:57 PM