Here’s a silly little Tumblr post that I encounter occasionally.
Every time it crosses my feed, I get a little chuckle. But here are some serious ideas it brings to mind for me:
The “Specialest Little Boy” trope is a narrative/metaphorical pattern that persists, perpetuated by stories that usually still follow the well-worn steps of the monomyth (Hero’s Journey), but rooted in essentialism--the hero is great because they were always destined for greatness, because it was in their blood. It was an extant and inescapable aspect of their identity, because they inherited hella midichlorians from evil dad, they were secret royalty or a wizard all along or whatever (see: obliviously superpowered).
Essentialism is “the view that objects have attributes necessary to their identity” (Wikipedia). In gender studies, essentialism can be the attribution of fixed essences to men and women—an unalterable underlying maleness or femaleness which cannot be denied or escaped (suggesting that attempts to transcend or deviate from these (mostly social) constructs constitutes a violation of nature). Essentialism was a core aspect of scientific racism, suggesting that fundamental characteristics of human races produce inherent superiorities or inferiorities. There may be hints of essentialism in commentary about socioeconomic class distinctions. We might observe that “successful people do not comport themselves in the manner that the unsuccessful do” as though there is an inherent identity that leads to people demonstrating qualities or attributes of the wealthy or the poor, and thus occupying their rightful place within the economic system. On this, see Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus.
Seonaid Lee’s essay ‘Princess Ethics’ explores the essentialism of the Cinderella story: Cinderella is a princess by either right of birth or because she possesses inherent qualities (extreme beauty of goodness) which indicate she was meant to be a princess all along.
The essentialist aspect of “Specialest Little Boy” stories conflicts in a way with a possible implications of the Hero's Journey as a metaphor for life--the generic pattern might suggest that we could all theoretically be wielders of "gifts of the goddess" in a normie world if we would simply accept the call, cross the threshold, battle the brother, clean the catbox, etc etc... This is a coherent message for maybe most people--one of those metaphors that feels correct because of how useful it is in the post-hoc crafting of our own personal myths, but it would be particularly appealing for like... Stoic Bros™... but also anyone who leans more psychological on the "psychological vs sociological narrative" dichotomy
I have documented a few of my objections to the Monomyth- in particular how it suits stories told backwards, enabled by retrospective coherence, by those who have emerged from hardship and can now wield these models against those now in the midst of suffering. The narrative pattern applied to reality might suggest that we can consider the misery of others some kind of enabler or milestone on the path to their ultimate Apotheosis. What a crime it might be to interrupt their journey to potential or even predetermined greatness…
I understand the appeal of the monomyth. It aligns well with philosophical and even political orientations (e.g. see how individualist vs collectivist orientation fits in here). But there's something concerning about the essentialist heroic narrative metaphor for me. It suggests that either one day we might "arrive" at that pursuit or place which reveals the purpose/function of our inner spark, or it suggests that there are only a few with the "specialist little boy" configuration (midichlorians or other magical superpower to which they are only currently oblivious). Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker, while clearly monomyths, go a step further… and if they instill any hope at all of “arrival”, that destination is ultimately a foregone conclusion. We, unlike the rest of the population, won the lottery of heroic birthright.
No I'd much rather live in a world in which winning such a lottery wasn't necessary. I’d rather a world in which we are all “called to adventure”, not for the sake of arriving at a predetermined destination based on our inherent essence, but allowing for the continual unfolding of surprise both in the past and the present as we ourselves change and exercise intentional change on the world, our values, and our social systems.
I'd also rather live in a world that recognized just how socially constructed our social reality actually is. We could just as well have deigned African American Vernacular English or a southern drawl to be demonstrated qualities of those predestined for positions of power within society (see: Prestige in sociolinguistics). Or we could recognize that the policing of privilege on the basis of criteria of comportment is messed up…
A 2015 article in the Atlantic explores how we as humans construct narrative arcs for both sensemaking and in the formation of identity, and it’s interesting reading. In a recent conversation with my wife Jessica, I referred to our shared life having multiple “acts”—the first having perhaps concluded with the death of our daughter Rebecca, and the second now emerging in all its difference enabled by massive changes in the constraints we face day-to-day. But I am averse to concepts of linearity and “arrival” and therefore perhaps any sense of narrative structure within those acts. I have been thinking a lot lately about how death is always the interruption of something “unfinished”. Here is a perhaps related reflection from my last post on Substack about Journeys and Destinations:
I can't help but wonder what effect a “destination orientation” has on our ability to appreciate the places that we occupy the rest of the time. Life is like 99% journeys and 1% destinations. Just about everyone who has “arrived” where you’re headed just immediately started another journey.
I also reject the temptation to consider anyone within these journeys “non-player characters”, which I think psychological narratives and the monomyth might tend to inspire.
I am averse to the post-hoc simplicity of structure that emerges in retrospect, because I am wary of retrospective coherence in complexity.
I believe that identity is far more fluid than we tend to think; but story has this habit of situating us as fixed entities with unchanging essence and suggests a perfect, unchanging alignment to be arrived at within a system. The popularity of personality tests like the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator is perhaps in part driven by our desire to arrive at the “right” configuration, perhaps our destined place predetermined by the essential qualities of our identity.
This is a poor way of considering the health of any complex system, for which there is no “arrival” or perfectly balanced configuration, but rather a relentless, fluid movement towards and away from better and worse, with such distinctions depending on point of view. A gardener’s work is ceaseless, and I believe that the pursuit of cultural alignment and individual fit within a group is far more complex even than gardening.
I do enjoy a good “Specialest Little Boy” story. I think most of us do. One of my favorites as a young child was Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. I liked to think that maybe I had somehow won the magical child lottery and possessed a spark which set me apart from the normies and destined me for greatness. For a period as a very young child I even entertained the notion that I might be telekinetic like Matilda.
I have come to wonder if this essentialist narrative archetype, while in ways lovely and hopeful and massively entertaining, might urge us to see the world in ways that it most definitely should not be… and perhaps contributes to reinforcing our habits of harmful essentialism in other domains.
These are not views I hold strongly. Just something that a silly little tumblr post made me think about.
As you note, people come down somewhere on that psychology-sociology spectrum, whether they are more individually or collectivist oriented, favor more competition or more cooperation. And we know we need both of each of those to flourish in a healthy system.
There are Epics like "War and Peace", or "The Good War" by Studs Terkel (And "World War Z" by Max Brooks for that matter), that try to create a pastiche of a bunch of smaller perspectives to shed light on the collective story.
The thing I see with narrative is that it is designed to entertain/inform/transform the end user, which is a individual human. Those humans can then use the wisdom gained to contribute to the collective, but we still take in stories as individuals.