Pitkin 1

Benjamin Pitkin

Professor Kevin Brooks

English 275

28 February 2017

Ganz, Marshall. Public Narrative, Collective Action, and Power Accountability through Public

Opinion: From Inertia to Public Action. Eds. Taeku Lee and Sina Odugbemi. World Bank

Publications. 2011.

The author first talks about the two ways of knowing, why and how, and says that

when we consider action there are three questions we should ask: why must we act, how can we

act, and what must we learn to do. Gantz then talks about how must consider motivation, and

the values and information that shapes then, along with the action that this motivation produces.

He also talks about action inhibitors and what can be used to overcome them, or to better fit in

the context of the work, the motivation that overcomes the inhibitors. Gentz then talks about

telling your public story and the elements that should be considered in composing it, plot,

character, moral, and the setting, and goes into detail about each of these elements. He also talks

about three more stories, the stories of self, us, and now respectively.

I found the action inhibitors, and what Gentz says can motivate over these inhibitors was

interesting. While I agree that plot, character, moral and setting are all important, but I dont

think Gentz needed to go into as much detail as he did, I think that these elements are already

known to most writers and considered by them when write. I also think it is important to think

about motivation, but I would consider it common sense that motivations are shaped by values

and actions are shaped by motivations. I think it would have been useful to mention these

elements, but it was somewhat unnecessary to write about them as much as Gentz did.