Likewise, narratives frame the choices that governments make. After his brush with Communists in Spain, George Orwell captured the essence of the narrative’s importance in his novel 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past.”
哲学家阿拉斯代尔·麦金泰尔（Alasdair MacIntyre）在《追求美德》（After Virtue）中指出，叙事框定了个体的道德选择。类似地，叙事也框定了政府决策。在与西班牙共产主义者发生摩擦后，乔治·奥威尔（George Orwell）在其小说《1984》中抓住了叙事重要性的本质：“控制了过去就控制了未来；控制了现在就控制了过去。”