The Narrative Paradigm By Scott Stroud - 1299 Words

Scott Stroud in his article Multivalent narratives: Extending the Narrative Paradigm with Insights from Ancient Indian Philosophical Texts critiques the narrative paradigm by pointing out its weaknesses and proposing revisions to the existing paradigm using ancient Indian philosophical narratives. Stroud claims that Fisher’s paradigm is too limiting and conservative when dealing with foreign concepts and texts. The narrative paradigm does not allow people to experience new stories that may differ from their traditional stories challenging their values and/ or accepting new ones (Stroud, p. 372). Our judgment of a narrative is based on what we believe is just or true. New ideas or thoughts or values are not given a chance using the†¦show more content†¦Knowing that man is separate from Dattatreya will lead to â€Å"the mind being cleansed† and salvation. This narrative also says that Dattatreya is of this world, residing in everything of earth. The story argues against the separation of the subordinate and the deity, saying, â€Å"There is no Shepard, no flock† (as cited in Stroud, 2002). The deity tells man in order to achieve salvation he must meditate and work, but man should do neither in order to gain reward, â€Å"taking care to chose actions wisely as those choices will impact future salvation† (Stroud, 2002, p. 382). This text is full of contradictions; the deity is separate from man, the deity is with man and of the world, meditate and work to gain salvation, meditation and work are not important and will not gain man salvation. The second text is equally confusing and contradictory within itself and to the first text. The Devi Gita is a goddess of divine power who urges the reader to be devout only to her. She says she is also separate from the world, only later in the text to claim she is of this world and with man. Meditation is important to achieve salvation however meditating in hopes of salvation or to please t he ego is not pleasing to her. Stroud claims that the narrative paradigm as it is now is not efficient in rendering an outcome for the western reader of these texts, which involve incoherence