New Stories - The Death of Tropes

If you live in the West - and by West, I'm talking aobut the United States right now - you're probably very exhausted by the incessant noise of all the same, tired tropes we're seeing over and over ad nauseum.  If you watch television - especially the news - you know that the same themes run throughout nearly every story presented, and from the news you can find these same tropes in our cinema, in our literature, and even in our political and religious propaganda.    They're literally everywhere. 

There are several different themes that repeat themselves (that's what a trope is) throughout our Western culture here, but the main one - the one that I believe does the most damage - is what I call the "othering" trope.   It's the "us vs them" theme - the one we see played out in our news about international relationships, political violence, and even in domestic propaganda.   Here in the United States, it's always "us vs them," and the scenery only changes a little from one side of that vs to the other.   If you're supporting one agenda/theme/group/cause, then you're forced to take up the boycott of another, so that you're forever othering some other group/cause/agenda/theme/action.   There's always a bad guy, and no matter what, it's never your party or group. 

I'm tired of this.  Can we stop it already?

We need new stories. Stories where there don't have to be villains, where we don't have to marginalize any group or theme, and where we can harmonize more completely with our world.    

The irony of this, though, isn't the tropes themselves.  It's that we created them, and we have the power to change/edit/delete any of them at any time, but we don't.  For some reason, as human beings, we seem to be unable to learn from the legacy of our forebears on this: we can't seem to realize that marginalizing any one cause/action/group/agenda/idea/concept for the sake of another - more relevant, more popular, more whatever?? - only leads us down dark roads toward violent ends.  And that's all of us, not just the groups we marginalize.  And yes, I'm talking to both sides of the proverbial argument now:  stop othering. Just stop. 

The "us vs them" trope is constantly reheared in every story
disseminated by our Western media outlets.

Let's start a new story in 2026.  It won't be finished this year.  It might take us many lifetimes to write it, in fact.   But let's begin this year.    Let's do this one simple thing whenever we see any news or information handed down in the media at large:  let's ask ourselves "what do I not know about this?" If we ask ourselves that, no matter how solid the news headline/political argument seems, we can at least leave open the possibility that the rehearsed tropes we see repeating over and over again are not telling the whole story - we are leaving open the possibility that there is something we don't or can't know right now.  

This simple question just might be the firs step toward the death of tropes - it may help us move beyond the regurgitated fictional narratives of conflict and scarcity, and toward a deeper understanding of the world with which we cohabitate.