Definition of metanarrative

Stories employed to legitimate the mechanisms of social control. Thus, for example, when parents tell their children, "We only want to help you avoid our mistakes," they are constructing a metanarrative that justifies the imposition of rules of conduct they are unwilling to follow themselves. Lyotard supposed that the deliberate subversion of prominent metanarratives is a significant tool of postmodernism. Recommended Reading: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Postmodern Fables, tr. by Georges Van Den Abbeele (Minnesota, 1999) and Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, tr. by Brian Massumi (Minnesota, 1985). ((Definition of metanarrative. http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/foldop/foldoc.cgi?metanarrative))