This NY Times Magazine article inspired a very thoughtful post by Tom Strong of The Yellow Line on how telling a good story can influence even somewhat suspicious people to adopt (or at least listen to) one’s own argument. Strong notes that his “reflexive[ly] pacifist” views were counterbalanced by the strong narrative weaved by pro-war liberals, such as Tom Friedman, Dean Esmay, Michael Totten, Dan Savage, and others. These men (and I count myself in this group as well) believe that–tremendous mismanagement notwithstanding–the theory that the US must aggressively liberate persons laboring under awful tyrannies is a liberal position (and a moral imperative to boot). Hence, the US should be taking a more interventionist stance in the world–where we differ with those on the right is that we want to focus on what helps the oppressed, not on what necessarily is most aligned with our own realpolitik agenda (though I think that they are in congruence more often that one would think). To Strong, this narrative–of overcoming oppression, using power for good, using our influence to make the world a better place, etc. etc., resonated with his own deep values, even though superficially going to war doesn’t seem to mesh well with pacifism.
There’s no super-compelling insight I have to add to this–merely that, in analyzing why people vote and think and behave the way they do, we would be well served to look to the stories they tell rather than (or more accurately, supplementally to) disembodied “objective” examinations which purport to tell the “whole story.”
For a more academic-y look at the role narratives play in our political conversations, see Richard Delgado, Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2411 (1989).