Why mourn? — Narrative, Emotion and Mourning

1. What is Narrative?

Narrative is storytelling, the telling of events. Each of us tells stories all the time, about the past, about the future, and about what is happening now. Share your interesting experiences with your friends, and write down your vision for the future in your diary. The same is true for the government. In order to rationalize its regime, it needs to decide how to tell the past history to the people, and how to describe a bright future to the people in its propaganda.

When an event occurs, it does not contain any emotional color, it is just a cold fact that has already happened; and only when we tell about this event, an event begins to have emotional color, Only then does it form part of an exciting story, and its occurrence makes sense. In a sense, therefore, narrative can be seen as a rationalization of an event, making sense of it within a larger context.

So what is a meta-narrative? Grand narrative, through the interpretation and construction of many events, extracts a complete narrative that includes all events, making a certain world view authoritative and legal.

The death of Dr. Li Wenliang was an event.

It is a narrative that Dr. Li was punished as a whistleblower during his lifetime.

It is also a narrative that Dr. Li was inserted into ECMO for unnecessary rescue after his death.

Dr. Li was a fighter on the front line against the virus during his lifetime. It's also a narrative.

Many medical staff died in the fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic. Here, Dr. Li is included under the concept of "medical staff", and the event of his death no longer has any independent meaning, but has become an element under a larger story (medical staff fighting the virus). This is a grand narrative.

2. The construction of narrative by collective emotion

It is a small narrative that the initial blockade of news about the virus led to the death of some people.

The death of medical staff caused by the shortage of masks and protective clothing is also a small narrative.

It is also a small narrative to die in isolation at home without timely medical resources.

The death caused by the collapse of the quarantine hotel in Quanzhou is also a small narrative.

And when we say "the martyrs and compatriots who died in the fight against the new crown pneumonia virus of the people of all ethnic groups in the country", there is no support for any events behind this grand narrative, and there is no integration of any small narratives. Vientiane, seems to be a very reasonable, but very empty concept. This concept highly distills all the independent events that happened into a container that only has a common concept (that is, people who died during this time period). Because of this, those small narratives of independent events no longer have meaning.

When we as a collective mourn such a grand narrative, we are silent for nothing, because through this empty concept we don't know what is lost, we just know that "something" is gone. Without knowing what was lost, all this mourning produces is a sustained resolution to the melancholy, and in this collective melancholy an "imagined community" emerges where everyone is "A collective that lost something". And at this point, the task of the grand narrative is completed, and a sense of belonging is built through collective mourning, which consolidates and strengthens the collective concept of "we are all part of the Chinese people fighting the virus".

The mourning at this moment has lost its original meaning. It is not a pity for each individual who has passed away, but a consolidation and strengthening of ideology.

3. Who should we mourn for?

We should pay tribute to those doctors who are fighting on the front line.

For those lives that have passed away one by one, we should express our regret.

What is more important is reflection, reflection on the content hidden behind the grand narrative; reflection on why people die; how to avoid more deaths instead of falling into meaningless mourning.

Mourn, if you will, for the little narratives that no one mourns, drowned out by the grand ones.