We are incubating disastrous intolerance on political podiums

Prof Edward Kisiangani calls it the prime narrative. Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie calls it the single story. And social science scholars Daniel Lerner and Everett Rogers called it the dominant paradigm. It all boils down to one thing – intolerance. It is the intemperate belief that there can only be one way of looking at things. There is only one truth and it is a gospel truth. The higher the source of the single story, the more binding it must be to all who hear it.

The single story is always a fanatical narrative. That was why Lerner and Everett called it the dominant paradigm. It seeks to repress all other perspectives while demonising freedom of thought and conscience. Independence of mind descends to thought-crime. George Orwell wrote about the acme of the rule of the dominant narrative in the volume Nineteen-Eighty-Four. In the end, you have a massive sleepwalking population that worships Big Brother, the master of the single story.