What is a metanarrative?
A metanarrative is not a grand narrative
A grand narrative is an explicit, thematic story we consciously debate, such as “Progress,” “The American Dream,” or a specific religious doctrine.
By contrast, a metanarrative is the implicit, pre-conscious “deep code” of Value, Motivation, and Purpose (VMP) that structures our perception before any explicit storytelling even begins.
While grand narratives are the stories we tell, metanarratives are the non-thematic, silent operating systems that determine what we attend to, what we deem worthy, and what we consider meaningful action.
MEGA
Mega = grand Explicit narrative that can be debated and deconstructed
META
Meta = foundational, underlying Implicit grammar of meaning-making
Jean-François Lyotard
The term ‘metanarrative’ has been captured by the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, who taught us to be suspicious of grand stories, and rightly so.
But in dismantling the mega, he overlooked the meta: the silent, pre-conscious grammar of value, motivation and purpose that runs beneath every conversation, every institution, every culture.
Not the story we tell, but the invisible code that determines which stories feel true, which feel impossible, and which we never think to tell at all.
Redefining metanarratives
By redefining metanarratives as the implicit ‘deep code’ of Value, Motivation and Purpose (VMP), we now have access to the ‘source layer of all culture.
This is made up of three primitives, that cannot be reduced down to any further part, nor can they exist in isolation from their counterparts.
Making interventions at this layer is where real cultural transformation can be made. This simple shift offers us profound insights for every aspect of our work.
We’ve been trying to change the story. We didn’t know we needed to change the grammar.
– Kieran O’Brien,
Founder of Master Storytelling
We have been treating the second floor as if it were the foundation, making our attempts for intervention downstream from where the actual problem lies.
– Kieran O’Brien,
Founder of Master Storytelling
It is no wonder we have struggled to create real change on the social and environmental issues we face today.
Master Storytelling reveals that this is essentially a problem of architectural confusion, where we have been treating the second floor as if it were the foundation.
By locating the source of cultural formation in grand narratives rather than in the VMP metanarrative beneath them, we have been attempting cultural change at precisely the wrong level.
And this confusion doesn’t just make change harder, it actively prevents us from seeing where change needs to happen.
A new framework for deep cultural change
Metanarrative (VMP Codes)
This is the primary source layer and the most powerful point of intervention . Metanarratives are the implicit Value-Motivation-Purpose (VMP) configurations that function as a culture’s “motivation grammar” . They determine what moves people (push or pull), what is valued (acquisition or participation), and what purpose is for (target or source) .
Social Narratives / Grand Narratives
These are the explicit, thematic stories (such as the narrative of “Progress,” “The American Dream,” or “Marxism”) that emerge from, express, and reinforce the underlying metanarrative. Transforming these grand narratives requires expertise in working with the implicit metanarratives.
Worldviews
These are the conceptual frameworks and interpretive schemas through which individuals and groups make sense of reality . In this hierarchy, worldviews are shaped by the social narratives and metanarratives that precede them .
Values
Rather than being inputs, values are often the outputs or “warmed dispositions” that result from repeated motivational patterns . For example, extrinsic motivational loops “warm” extrinsic values like status and power.
Belief
These are the cognitive commitments and rationalisations people use to justify their worldviews and values .
Behaviours
These are the observable actions and surface-level expressions of all the deeper layers. Trying to transform change at this level of intervention, while leaving all underlying architecture in place, results only in short-term solutions.
Master Storytelling is designed as a source-first discipline specifically to recalibrate the deepest tier—the metanarrative—to ensure that all subsequent layers (narratives, worldviews, and behaviours) align with intrinsic value and flourishing.