Bruner (1996: 147) writes that “[w]e live
in a sea of stories,” and like the proverbial fish who will be the last to discover water, “we have our own difficulties
grasping what it is like to swim in stories.” In Life as Narrative, Bruner (1987: 31-32) may be revealing
his true colors when he concedes that “[t]he fish will, indeed, be the last to discover water—unless he gets a
metaphysical assist.”
Bruner (1996: 39-40) recognizes “ two broad ways in which
human beings organize and manage their knowledge of the world, indeed structure even their immediate experience”:
One seems more specialized for treating of “physical things,”
the other for treating of people and their plights. These are conventionally known as logico-scientific thinking and
narrative thinking.
Bruner acknowledges the universality of these contrasting linguistic modes
and suggests they are “givens in the nature of language.” He asserts that “no culture is without both of
them though different cultures privilege them differently.”
Bruner, Jerome (1987) Life as Narrative. Social Research 54:1.
Spring 1987, (11-32).
Bruner, Jerome(1996) The Culture of Education. Cambridge , MA:
Harvard University Press.
"We live in a sea of stories, and
like the fish who (according to the proverb) will be the last to discover water, we have our own difficulties grasping what
it is like to swim in stories. It is not that we lack competence in creating our narrative accounts of reality -- far from
it. We are, if anything, too expert. Our problem, rather, is achieving consciousness of what we so easily do automatically,
the ancient problem of prise de conscience (becoming aware)." - Bruner, 1996, p.147
