Confronting the political dimensions of the theory of narrative helps dispel the false dichotomy between narratiuity and rationality and puts narration on the side of truth in public argument by calling upon the moral resources of the culture.Writer Ursula Le Guin says that "in the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood" (33, p. 99). Philosopher Stanley Cave11 says that "the wish and search for community are the wish and search for reason" (15, p.120).How do reason, story, and community relate? How should good discussion on public issues proceed these days? And how should good communities be structured?Rhetorician Walter Fisher (21) urges public pursuit of a new paradigm of narrative discourse in societies that esteem science and technology. Fisher's argument attracts attention as a clear attempt to address these questions from a communication point of view. He makes three claims. (a) There are at least two separate paradigms of human communication-the rational and the narrational. (b) Experts need the rational paradigm to conduct or account for their special fields of argument (including disciplines of science), but experts and the rational paradigm pervert "public moral argument." (c) The narrative paradigm has no necessary place in special fields, but publics need it to conduct or account for good moral argument about major decisions of the day.Fisher's aims are admirable, and he is right to tie them to renewal of narrative rhetoric. We also share Fisher's commitment to communities who reason through stories. But we disagree with his deliberate contrast of reason to narrative, especially in public argument. Hence we advance
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