From The Peaceable Kingdom

My power as an agent is therefore relative to the power of my descriptive ability. Yet that very ability is fundamentally a social skill, for we learn to describe through appropriating the narratives of the communities in which we find ourselves.

It is crucial to note, however, that the power of description that a narrative provides is not to be understood only as an intellectual skill. For “description,” while often verbal, is just as importantly a matter of habit¬indeed most verbal skills are also habits. That is why our freedom is literally carried by 2 community that sustains us in the habits of self possession not the least of which is learning to depend on and trust in others. Thus our freedom is not correlative to our selfawareness; rather it depends on the kind of habits we have acquired that are only occasionally brought to awareness. For example, the refusal to use violence for resolving disputes, or perhaps better, the attempt to avoid persistent violent situations, becomes for some so routine they never think about it. It is simply “who they are.” But the formation of that habit does not make it any less, but all the more, a resource of and for their freedom.