In my first post, I presented Chris Kyle’s story as a sort of case study in the complex ethical issues inherent in Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm, but I made an error because in presenting such a brief thumbnail view of Kyle’s story, I reduced its own complicated issues to a simple binary.  In many ways, I failed to live up to the ethical standards I was holding forth.  What a surprise, right? But in my defense, Kyle’s story had become politicized, and in our country, when something gets politicized, it also gets polarized.  That, however, must be combatted.  We owe it ourselves and to Kyle to address the full complexity of his story, so let me make my own small attempt to rectify my previous error.

First of all, I should not have so quickly set aside questions about the accuracy of Kyle’s accounts regarding his actions.  It is clear that Kyle fabricated portions of his memoir, but we should not necessarily use that fact to discount the totality of what he wrote.  I hold that everyone fabricates stories about themselves sometimes, but few of us write memoirs that get legally challenged by former governors/Predator victims.  We don’t have to give Kyle a pass for fabricating stories, but instead of using that to discount everything he wrote, we should consider that paratextual information when interpreting the purpose and meaning of his memoir. 

Second, I should not have provided a false dichotomy: praise Kyle for his bravery and dedication or damn Kyle for his violence and perhaps jingoistic worldview.  We should do neither and both.  We should interrogate individual actions and positions but resist the easy temptation of placing Kyle, or our memory of him, into a box neatly labeled “good” or “bad.”  Essentializing Kyle in that way fails him and our broader community.  It cuts off further interrogation and discussion and leads us all into hypocritical positions where we discount or ignore qualities we would otherwise damn or praise.

For better or worse, Chris Kyle has become a character in our national narrative.  We should resist the temptation to make him a flat character and our narrative a Manichean one.