The Power of Narratives

How Arnold Kling's Three Languages of Politics can help us understand the reactions to October 7.

The deepest insight for understanding the lenses people use to understand the world comes from Arnold Kling in his superb, concise book, The Three Languages of Politics.

Simple idea. Liberals see the world as a struggle between oppressor and oppressed. Conservatives see the world as a struggle between civilization and barbarism. Libertarians see the world as a struggle between government coercion and personal liberty.

Kling's taxonomy helps makes sense of what is going on right now in Israel and Gaza. Before October 7, liberals sympathized with Palestinians as the oppressed and Israel as the oppressor. Conservatives sympathized with Israel as the standard bearer of democracy and decency against the barbarism of its neighbors. (Libertarianism isn't so relevant for what I’m going to be writing about in this case--so I'll stick with liberals and conservatives.)

October 7 rocked the liberal narrative. Children killed in front of their parents. Parents killed in front of their children. People burned alive. Young and elderly people kidnapped. And much of it filmed and shared unashamedly(and even delightedly) by the perpetrators. Barbaric.

Of course Kling's taxonomy of how people view the world isn't purely binary. Many supporters of Israel can empathize with the plight of the Palestinians. Many supporters of the Palestinians understand that there is a lot of barbarism throughout the almost exclusively totalitarian Middle East. But October 7 forced a lot of people to take the conservative narrative more seriously. The videos of depravity that have emerged caused some viewers to recognize terrorism as barbaric and unjustified regardless of the tragedy of the Palestinian situation.

And for at least one day, Israel was oppressed and Hamas was the oppressor. The pro-Palestinian rallies in NYC, London, and Sydney also affected people's views. In Sydney, a crowd of thousands chanted "Gas the Jews" on the steps of the opera house. People who perhaps hadn't been paying close attention heard the phrases "Free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea" and had to confront the reality that these didn't just mean freedom from oppression for the Palestinian people from Israeli actions. They meant an end to the Jewish state.

And for many people, Jews and non-Jews alike, the idea of a Jewish state—a haven for Jews from Jew-hatred around the world—suddenly seemed like a very reasonable and desirable idea. It became clear to many, that there is a lot of violent hostility not just toward Israel, but toward Jews. And the idea that Jews--everyday Jews, mothers, fathers, children, and elderly--faced the kind of homicidal fury and delight that we saw on October 7, was a wake-up call from reality that could not be ignored.

These people see that the media cannot bear to walk back their indictment of Israel as the cause of what happened to the hospital in Gaza. They hear a crowd of hundred if not thousands chanting "Gas the Jews" on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Maybe anti-Zionism is actually anti-semitism. I think this also partially explains why even politicians--Eric Adams, Joe Biden, and Rishi Sunak, have done so much more than decry the brutality of October 7. They have said they stand with Israel. Period. And that's despite have many constituents who would not agree.

The hatred shown on October 7 and the subsequent hatred that has been unleashed (a synagogue in Berlin and one in Tunisia were both torched for example when the hospital story broke) certainly appears to be about more than Israel and as much about the Jews. The Jewish state was established in 1948 to provide haven from Jew-hatred. The world has been forced to confront the reality that a Jewish state with secure borders is more important than they previously thought. The prevalence of Jew hatred in this moment united liberals and conservatives. The liberals see that Jews (even sometimes Israeli Jews) are the oppressed, and the conservatives see the Jews as civilized and those who hate them as barbarians.

The result is that some people have shifted their lens toward seeing the world as a struggle between civilization and barbarism. They're done assuming that Hamas is about fighting for freedom. They've been forced to look at the Hamas charter which aims not just for autonomy for the Palestinian people but for the destruction of the Jewish state, a Palestine ruled from the river (Jordan) to the (Mediterranean) sea.

But not everyone has changed their lens. For many, the narrative of Israel as oppressor and the Palestinians as oppressed remains intact. Our narratives are hard to abandon. They help us make sense of the world. That is why a Cornell professor can find October 7, "exhilarating"--a blow to the Israeli occupation. That is why the New York Times unhesitatingly quotes Hamas blaming Israel for 500 hospital deaths. That's why the Times and the BBC for examples struggles to admit it was simply wrong to trust a violent terrorist’s organization’s claims about their enemy’s actions, a violent terrorist organization without a free press that intimidates its fellow Gazans with violence to keep them from breaking with the party line.

And perhaps most tellingly, the need for people to hold on to their narrative of Israel as oppressor and the Palestinians as oppressed is why there are no rallies from the left on behalf of either the kidnapped hostages in Gaza or demanding that the Palestinians of Gaza who want no part of Hamas deserve to be sheltered by their fellow Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East. How can you demand a ceasrefire but fail to mention the hostages? Yet many have managed it.

A friend wrote me recently asking why there isn't more pressure on Arab neighbors to shelter Gazans temporarily. Why do people who purportedly care about the Palestinians only demand Israeli pacifism in response to the tragedy of October 7 instead of demanding that those neighbors, many wealthy, open their doors to their brothers and sisters?

It's a complicated question but part of the answer is that suggesting that Gazans leave Gaza even temporarily is to give Israel, the alleged oppressor, a victory in an war of narratives and national aspirations that is at least a century old. If you see the world as a struggle between oppressor and oppressed, anything that favors the oppressor is an injustice.

Narratives are hard to abandon.

But October 7 did radicalize some people pushing them toward the conservative lens. For others (seeing the Jew hatred unleashed by Hamas) being pro-Israel is suddenly consistent with their view of the world as oppressor vs. oppressed. I don't know how long this will last. Whatever Israel does in Gaza will shift things once again.

For now, I am struck by how costly Hamas's "victory" on October 7 has been. They have galvanized and unified a country that was on the verge of civil war. They have created a resolve in both Israel and elsewhere that Hamas has to pay a serious price for their depravity that may include the end of Hamas’s rule in Gaza. And they have forced a number of people around the world to view this moment in a radically different way, as a struggle between civilization and barbarism and not just between oppressor and oppressed.

Thoughtful people can hold onto more than one narrative at the same time. Hamas has unwittingly created a few more thoughtful people around the world.