Higher Level (HL) Essay

In his essays, what narrative and language structures does George Monbiot use to challenge power to bring about ‘positive’ change and a ‘better’ world?

The journalist and political activist, George Monbiot, appeared at the TED Summit in Edinburgh in July 2019. In his talk (‘The New Political Story That Could Change Everything’), Monbiot claimed that humans are “creatures of narrative”, and he argued that there is an urgent need to construct “a new story with which to replace neoliberalism”. The story Monbiot suggests is a version of an ancient narrative that he refers to as “the restoration story”. According to Monbiot, the actual stories contained within the narrative structure may vary. Indeed, and crucially, competing stories can, and do, exist within an identical restoration narrative framework. The overarching narrative suggests that societal disorder can be displaced by a brave hero figure that challenges traditional authority and fights against the odds to restore societal harmony. In Monbiot’s essays, the brave hero figure is different in each particular story he tells, but traditional authority tends to consist of those social, economic, and political elites that create and maintain social inequality at considerable cost to our planet’s physical environment. It is interesting, therefore, to observe how Monbiot’s own essays, published in The Guardian newspaper, are typically structured around the restoration narrative. This essay considers the ways Monbiot uses and exploits this narrative to tell a variety of stories, each of which champions the oppressed and marginalized, and vilifies greedy elites to tell a story that, in every instance, argues for ‘positive’ change in pursuit of a ‘better’ world.

In reading Monbiot’s essays, it is important to recognize that he is not an impartial, disinterested journalist. He is, by his own admission, a biased and committed journalist who sees the role of journalism as being  “to hold power to account” (Monbiot, 2011). Monbiot has been influenced by another writer-cum-activist, George Marshall, who asserts that the restoration narrative is predominant across arguments made by both the political left and right (Marshall, 2014). In other words, the narrative enables opposite, contradictory stories to be told within a single trope. Marshall goes on to argue that real political engagement with ideas we find disagreeable cannot be achieved until we recognize that a single narrative tells contrary stories. That is, a political meeting of minds requires those of one persuasion to build and extend, in new ways, the stories of their political opponents. Monbiot, however, is not bound to this logic. After all, he is writing in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper whose readership is an audience of ‘the converted’ who broadly share his views. Thus, Monbiot is not constrained to seek ‘balance’ in his journalism, and instead his stories tend to converge around a concern for the various ways that, in his view, powerful groups act with avarice to disadvantage many and cause significant environmental damage.

A rough, but nevertheless helpful initial indication that Monbiot’s essays correspond to a particular, repeated narrative paradigm is word length. There is, that is, a tendency for Monbiot to tell is stories within about 950-1150 words. While this may simply reflect editorial parameters set by The Guardian, it is within this word limit that Monbiot tends to construct his restoration narrative. Typically, Monbiot presents an issue that he frames as a problem. He explains why the issue is problematic and of concern, suggesting that because of a particular set of policies and/or actions, decidedly negative outcomes follow. Often the problem and its perpetrators, as Monbiot describes it, reflect the dominant ideas and practices of elite groups. In terms of Monbiot’s general structure, this is the ‘disorder’ stage of his narrative. He then moves on to challenge the status quo. That is, an intellectual outlaw of sorts – the ‘brave hero figure’ in the restoration narrative – is inserted into the essay with an alternative, ‘progressive’ vision that suggests a ‘better’ world is possible, or is already being established.

An example of this structure is found in Monbiot’s essay ‘The Problem is Capitalism’ (2019). Here, Monbiot argues that capitalism involves a grossly unequal and unfair distribution of the planet’s resources and is, ultimately, unsustainable, leading to “environmental catastrophe”. Monbiot’s typically pithy headline is, in this instance, unequivocal. The intellectual outlaws (i.e. the ‘heroes’) in this essay are many, and Monbiot provides a long list of ‘hero figures’ towards the end of his narrative. He is clear in signalling the apparently iconoclastic nature of challenging capitalism, writing that, “to say ‘capitalism is failing’ in the 21^st century is like saying ‘God is dead’ in the 19^th. It is secular blasphemy”. As noted, Monbiot readily identifies the ‘protagonists’ of his stories. By contrast, he seems more reluctant to explicitly identify his ‘antagonists’. In ‘The Problem of Capitalism’ (2019), Monbiot does challenge the views of Joseph Stiglitz[1], but he generally prefers the nominalized word “capitalism” to express the source of the ‘problem’, suggesting that the challenge is systemic. This strategy allows readers, through implicature, to ‘insert’ into the narrative their own probable antagonists and, for Monbiot, avoids potential legal challenges that may arise from naming specific individuals or groups. Thus, in ‘No More Excuses’ (2019), the antagonist is “the political class”; in ‘Law of Nature’ (2019) it is “those who destroy the living world” and “a few powerful people, companies or states”; and in ‘Parklife’ (2018) it is “agencies supposed to protect [national parks]”.

A vital component in Monbiot’s narrative is the way he tends to structure his sub-headings to signpost his undergirding argument. Although Monbiot frequently recycles the restoration narrative in his essays, at a more straightforward level they are about providing solutions to problems he identifies. That is, the essays move, rhetorically, from problem to solution, and many of his sub-headings succinctly synthesize his argument. For example, in ‘Parklife’ (2018) his headline reads, “our national parks are ecological deserts, run for the benefit of a tiny minority. It’s time we reclaimed them”. The sub-heading builds ironically on the headline, suggesting that there is, in fact, an absence of life in Britain’s national parks. The sub-heading divides into two sentences – a characteristic feature of Monbiot’s writing. The first sentence identifies the problem; the second sentence identifies the solution. In this headline, readers can identify particular language features that are commonplace in many of Monbiot’s essays: His writing is rich in metaphor. Here, in comparing Britain’s national parks to deserts, he suggests a physical environment that is, in most people’s imagination, vast, arid and devoid of life. None of this may be, in reality, entirely true, but it reveals the figurative quality of Monbiot’s writing, constructed to incite a strong emotional response in readers. Monbiot also frequently employs personal and possessive pronouns, and possessive determiners as a form of synthetic personalization intended to build ideological affiliation with his views. In this instance, “our” and “we” are included in the sub-heading. These words may refer to ‘the British people’, ‘the masses’, and/or ‘readers of The Guardian newspaper’. In a wider sense, however, they are intended to signal a complicit reader who shares Monbiot’s concerns and world-view. This encouraged complicity is reinforced through the contraction “it’s”.  Monbiot is not averse to using complex lexis and a scientific argot – after all, his readers tend to be highly literate – but “it’s” rather than the expanded equivalent has a speech like informality that encourages an affiliation with Monbiot’s own perspective. Despite this apparent informality, Monbiot tends to be strongly assertive in the claims he makes. This two-sentence declarative sub-heading is typical of Monbiot emphatic style.

George Marshall, has shown that appeal to emotion rather than rationality has the greatest role in shaping and shifting opinions (Marshall, 2014). Above, we have seen how Monbiot uses language to establish an emotive response in his reader. However, Monbiot’s arguments also build on the findings of the scientific community. These ‘accessed voices’ sometimes function as intellectual outlaws whose views run contrary to those of the hegemonic establishment, but, more so, they provide credibility or ethos to his claims, thereby wedding emotion to apparently objective rationality. Thus, in ‘No More Excuses’ (2019), Monbiot refers to “Erica Chenoweth’s historical research” and in ‘Law of Nature’ (2019) he highlights “the world-changing work of Polly Higgins”. Such accessed voices lend integrity to Monbiot’s claims, and this reliability is reinforced for the online reader who can directly access the hyperlinked research of experts. Moreover, the modified noun phrases – “historical research”; “world-changing work” (my italics) – reinforce the authority of Monbiot’s sources through positive emphasis.

Monbiot’s narrative moves from problem to solution via sometimes-subversive intellectual outlaws and a global community of scientists, policy makers, activists, and writers who are prepared to challenge dominant ideas and find solutions to seemingly intractable issues. His style is bold and forceful. He depicts the world as bleak, but he remains optimistic, suggesting that a ‘better’ world is possible. Monbiot’s role as change-maker seems to be that of writer and communicator. He is a teller of redemption narratives. If, however, George Marshall’s assertion that the narrative is employed by all political persuasions is accurate, Monbiot may need to find alternative narratives to better engage with those whose views differ from his own. 

Works Cited:

Marshall, George. Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. 2014.

Monbiot, George. ‘The New Political Story That Could Change Everything’. TED. 26 July 2019. Lecture.

Monbiot, George. ‘Introduction’. The Guardian. 28 June 2011.

Monbiot, George. ‘Parklife’. The Guardian. 3 March 2018.

Monbiot, George. ‘Law of Nature’. The Guardian. 30 March 2019.

Monbiot, George. ‘No More Excuses’. The Guardian. 20 April 2019.

Monbiot, George. ‘The Problem is Capitalism’. The Guardian. 30 April 2019.

Higher Level (HL) Essay

In his essays, what narrative and language structures does George Monbiot use to challenge power to bring about ‘positive’ change and a ‘better’ world?[DM1] 

The journalist and political activist, George Monbiot, appeared at the TED Summit in Edinburgh in July 2019. In his talk (‘The New Political Story That Could Change Everything’), Monbiot claimed that humans are “creatures of narrative”, and he argued that there is an urgent need to construct “a new story with which to replace neoliberalism”. The story Monbiot suggests is a version of an ancient narrative that he refers to as “the restoration story”. According to Monbiot, the actual stories contained within the narrative structure may vary. Indeed, and crucially, competing stories can, and do, exist within an identical restoration narrative framework. The overarching narrative suggests that societal disorder can be displaced by a brave hero figure that challenges traditional authority and fights against the odds to restore societal harmony. In Monbiot’s essays, the brave hero figure is different in each particular story he tells, but traditional authority tends to consist of those social, economic, and political elites that create and maintain social inequality at considerable cost to our planet’s physical environment. It is interesting, therefore, to observe how Monbiot’s own essays, published in The Guardian newspaper, are typically structured around the restoration narrative. This essay considers the ways Monbiot uses and exploits this narrative to tell a variety of stories, each of which champions the oppressed and marginalized, and vilifies greedy elites to tell a story that, in every instance, argues for ‘positive’ change in pursuit of a ‘better’ world.[DM2] 

In reading Monbiot’s essays, it is important to recognize that he is not an impartial, disinterested journalist. He is, by his own admission, a biased and committed journalist who sees the role of journalism as being  “to hold power to account” (Monbiot, 2011). Monbiot has been influenced by another writer-cum-activist, George Marshall, who asserts that the restoration narrative is predominant across arguments made by both the political left and right (Marshall, 2014). In other words, the narrative enables opposite, contradictory stories to be told within a single trope. Marshall goes on to argue that real political engagement with ideas we find disagreeable cannot be achieved until we recognize that a single narrative tells contrary stories. That is, a political meeting of minds requires those of one persuasion to build and extend, in new ways, the stories of their political opponents. Monbiot, however, is not bound to this logic. After all, he is writing in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper whose readership is an audience of ‘the converted’ who broadly share his views. Thus, Monbiot is not constrained to seek ‘balance’ in his journalism, and instead his stories tend to converge around a concern for the various ways that, in his view, powerful groups act with avarice to disadvantage many and cause significant environmental damage. [DM3] 

A rough, but nevertheless helpful initial indication that Monbiot’s essays correspond to a particular, repeated narrative paradigm [DM4] is word length. There is, that is, a tendency for Monbiot to tell is stories within about 950-1150 words. While this may simply reflect editorial parameters set by The Guardian, it is within this word limit that Monbiot tends to construct his restoration narrative. Typically, Monbiot presents an issue that he frames as a problem. He explains why the issue is problematic and of concern, suggesting that because of a particular set of policies and/or actions, decidedly negative outcomes follow. Often the problem and its perpetrators, as Monbiot describes it, reflect the dominant ideas and practices of elite groups. In terms of Monbiot’s general structure, this is the ‘disorder’ stage of his narrative. He then moves on to challenge the status quo. That is, an intellectual outlaw of sorts – the ‘brave hero figure’ in the restoration narrative – is inserted into the essay with an alternative, ‘progressive’ vision that suggests a ‘better’ world is possible, or is already being established.

An example [DM5] of this structure is found in Monbiot’s essay ‘The Problem is Capitalism’ (2019). Here, Monbiot argues that capitalism involves a grossly unequal and unfair distribution of the planet’s resources and is, ultimately, unsustainable, leading to “environmental catastrophe”. Monbiot’s typically pithy headline [DM6] is, in this instance, unequivocal. The intellectual outlaws (i.e. the ‘heroes’) in this essay are many, and Monbiot provides a long list of ‘hero figures’ towards the end of his narrative. He is clear in signalling the apparently iconoclastic nature of challenging capitalism, writing that, “to say ‘capitalism is failing’ in the 21^st century is like saying ‘God is dead’ in the 19^th. It is secular blasphemy”. As noted, Monbiot readily identifies the ‘protagonists’ of his stories. By contrast, he seems more reluctant to explicitly identify his ‘antagonists’. In ‘The Problem of Capitalism’ (2019), Monbiot does challenge the views of Joseph Stiglitz[1], but he generally prefers the nominalized word “capitalism” to express the source of the ‘problem’, suggesting that the challenge is systemic. This strategy allows readers, through implicature, to ‘insert’ into the narrative their own probable antagonists and, for Monbiot, avoids potential legal challenges that may arise from naming specific individuals or groups[DM7] . Thus, in ‘No More Excuses’ (2019), the antagonist is “the political class”; in ‘Law of Nature’ (2019) it is “those who destroy the living world” and “a few powerful people, companies or states”; and in ‘Parklife’ (2018) it is “agencies supposed to protect [national parks]”.[DM8] 

A vital component in Monbiot’s narrative is the way he tends to structure his sub-headings to signpost his undergirding argument. Although Monbiot frequently recycles the restoration narrative in his essays, at a more straightforward level they are about providing solutions to problems he identifies. That is, the essays move, rhetorically, from problem to solution, and many of his sub-headings succinctly synthesize his argument. For example, in ‘Parklife’ (2018) his headline reads, “our national parks are ecological deserts, run for the benefit of a tiny minority. It’s time we reclaimed them”. The sub-heading builds ironically on the headline, suggesting that there is, in fact, an absence of life in Britain’s national parks. The sub-heading divides into two sentences – a characteristic feature of Monbiot’s writing. The first sentence identifies the problem; the second sentence identifies the solution. In this headline, readers can identify particular language features that are commonplace in many of Monbiot’s essays: His writing is rich in metaphor. Here, in comparing Britain’s national parks to deserts, he suggests a physical environment that is, in most people’s imagination, vast, arid and devoid of life. None of this may be, in reality, entirely true, but it reveals the figurative quality of Monbiot’s writing, constructed to incite a strong emotional response in readers[DM9] . Monbiot also frequently employs personal and possessive pronouns, and possessive determiners as a form of synthetic personalization intended to build ideological affiliation with his views. In this instance, “our” and “we” are included in the sub-heading. These words may refer to ‘the British people’, ‘the masses’, and/or ‘readers of The Guardian newspaper’. In a wider sense, however, they are intended to signal a complicit reader who shares Monbiot’s concerns and world-view. This encouraged complicity is reinforced through the contraction “it’s”.  Monbiot is not averse to using complex lexis and a scientific argot – after all, his readers tend to be highly literate – but “it’s” rather than the expanded equivalent has a speech like informality that encourages an affiliation with Monbiot’s own perspective. Despite this apparent informality, Monbiot tends to be strongly assertive in the claims he makes. This two-sentence declarative sub-heading is typical of Monbiot emphatic style.

George Marshall, has shown that appeal to emotion rather than rationality has the greatest role in shaping and shifting opinions (Marshall, 2014). Above, we have seen how Monbiot uses language to establish an emotive response in his reader. However, Monbiot’s arguments also build on the findings of the scientific community. These ‘accessed voices’ sometimes function as intellectual outlaws whose views run contrary to those of the hegemonic establishment, but, more so, they provide credibility or ethos to his claims, thereby wedding emotion to apparently objective rationality. Thus, in ‘No More Excuses’ (2019), Monbiot refers to “Erica Chenoweth’s historical research” and in ‘Law of Nature’ (2019) he highlights “the world-changing work of Polly Higgins”. Such accessed voices lend integrity to Monbiot’s claims, and this reliability is reinforced for the online reader who can directly access the hyperlinked research of experts. Moreover, the modified noun phrases – “historical research”; “world-changing work” (my italics) – reinforce the authority of Monbiot’s sources through positive emphasis.

Monbiot’s narrative moves from problem to solution via sometimes-subversive intellectual outlaws and a global community of scientists, policy makers, activists, and writers who are prepared to challenge dominant ideas and find solutions to seemingly intractable issues. His style is bold and forceful. He depicts the world as bleak, but he remains optimistic, suggesting that a ‘better’ world is possible. Monbiot’s role as change-maker seems to be that of writer and communicator. He is a teller of redemption narratives. If, however, George Marshall’s assertion that the narrative is employed by all political persuasions is accurate, Monbiot may need to find alternative narratives to better engage with those whose views differ from his own.[DM10]  

Works Cited:

Marshall, George. Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. 2014.

Monbiot, George. ‘The New Political Story That Could Change Everything’. TED. 26 July 2019. Lecture.

Monbiot, George. ‘Introduction’. The Guardian. 28 June 2011.

Monbiot, George. ‘Parklife’. The Guardian. 3 March 2018.

Monbiot, George. ‘Law of Nature’. The Guardian. 30 March 2019.

Monbiot, George. ‘No More Excuses’. The Guardian. 20 April 2019.

Monbiot, George. ‘The Problem is Capitalism’. The Guardian. 30 April 2019.

Examiner’s Comment: This is a very successful essay on the whole. In a few places there is a degree of detail that, while interesting, does not wholly address the question. Nevertheless, the student shows both an excellent understanding of the body of work, individual texts, and the way the writer’s language choices shape meaning. The writing is appropriate and, frequently, sophisticated. The essay is well balanced and develops logically in response to a well-considered question.