Narrative is important because the language it provides frames a way of life for many who haven't framed their own perspective based on the information they hav

Narrative is important because the language it provides frames a way of life for many who haven't framed their own perspective based on the information they have and haven't seen. It's easy to pickup a narrative, it's far more difficult to dig through and generate your own perspective. It's even more critical because childhood education relies on providing narrative frameworks because children often don't have enough information of processes yet to think critically. The reason I say this is as you point out, in the US we frame everything as being highly mobile. The illusory framing of our society in "the American dream" in K-12 education and freedoms dangles this carrot of possibility of high social mobility to children. It's not completely invalid, it is possible to make massive transitions in socioeconomic brakets, but it's just a framing of the rare exceptions, not the norms. Most of us are going to be the norms, so these narratives are a disservice to people about what their real socioeconomic mobility potential and probability is. It's fine to dream, aim high, and shoot for the moon as a society-- that promotes growth and avoids stagnation. At the same time, we should be very clear what is and isn't a moonshot that way many aren't so resentful when they later discover what they thought was reasonable was actually incredibly difficult bordering on impossible. What's possible and what's probable need to be distinguished and the American dream framing doesn't talk to probability. There's this whole lie painted to children that the US is somehow a meritocracy when it's not. Merit can help, but it isn't everything and we need people to understand this.