Contemporary governance often operates at a significant remove from the lived realities of the citizens it serves. For decades, prevailing models of political and economic decision-making have been heavily influenced by rational choice theory, a paradigm that explains individual choices by assuming a universal drive to maximize personal preferences, often defined in terms of wealth and power.1 In this framework, the populace becomes an aggregation of utility-maximizing agents, and their complex needs, fears, and aspirations are frequently distilled into statistics and data points. This approach, while useful for certain types of modeling, risks creating a profound chasm between policymakers and the intricate, often illogical, fabric of human experience. Policies that appear sound on paper can fail to resonate, or even cause harm, because they are not attuned to the cultural and emotional landscapes they seek to shape.1
The limitations of this abstract model are becoming increasingly apparent. The modern political sphere is less a contest of ideas than a contest of identity and charisma. Voters and representatives alike often default to supporting figures who 'feel' like them or tell the most comforting stories, regardless of the empirical reality of their proposals. This reliance on personality allows ideological zombies—debates settled centuries ago—to walk again, fueled solely by the rhetorical skill of their proponents. Political narratives frequently exert more influence than empirical facts, shaping public perception and altering the very understanding of reality. This power is often wielded through media manipulation, where carefully crafted language and imagery are used to sway audience emotions and validate existing beliefs rather than foster genuine understanding. The Experiential Parliament bypasses this 'charisma trap' by forcing representatives to confront the lived reality of a policy, stripping away the protective layer of ideology and forcing a direct encounter with consequences.
This chapter proposes a speculative alternative: a Parliament of Enacting. This is a conceptual model for a governing body where understanding is achieved not through rhetoric but through direct, simulated experience. It seeks to harness the undeniable power of narrative and emotion, not for division, but for the construction of a more deeply shared civic reality.
At its core, this proposal represents a shift in what is considered valid political knowledge. Traditional governance, with its reliance on formal models and "thin-rational accounts," operates on an epistemology of logic, where universal theories are often prized over specific, lived contexts.2 Yet, research across psychology and neuroscience confirms that human beings are fundamentally story-driven, emotional creatures whose decisions are guided by feeling as much as by fact.4 The Parliament of Enacting institutionalizes this reality. It posits that to truly "know" a social issue, one must, in some meaningful way, "feel" it through a high-fidelity proxy. This is an epistemology of experience. Such a system is not merely a procedural adjustment but a challenge to the philosophical underpinnings of the modern state, imagining a transition from a government that thinks on behalf of its people to one that feels with them.
To construct a system of governance based on shared experience, it is essential to first understand the mechanisms of that experience. Empathy, the capacity to apprehend and share in the emotions of others, provides the psychological and neurological foundation for such a model. Far from being a vague or sentimental notion, empathy is a complex, multi-component process that is integral to social decision-making. Researchers often distinguish between two primary components: cognitive empathy, which is the ability to understand another's perspective, and affective empathy, which involves sharing the emotional experience of another.10 A governance model designed to foster genuine understanding would need to engage both of these systems, enabling participants not only to think about another's life but to feel a proxy of their emotional state.
The neuropsychology of decision-making provides a firm scientific basis for this approach. Empathy is not a "soft" skill but a sophisticated cognitive function supported by a number of neural networks, particularly in the brain's frontal regions.12 The prefrontal cortex, for instance, is critical for both cognitive flexibility and empathic behaviors, and damage to this area can lead to significant impairments in social judgment and an inability to consider the long-term ramifications of one's actions.13 The interaction between emotion and reason is not a battle between competing forces but an integrated process, where emotional systems provide the essential knowledge needed for quick and effective decision-making.15 This suggests that the health of these empathic systems is vital for good governance; a political process that ignores or sidelines them is operating with an incomplete cognitive toolkit.
This perspective is further reinforced by the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that our cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the physical experiences of our bodies.17 Thinking is not a disembodied process of manipulating abstract symbols; it is shaped by our posture, our movements, and our sensory interactions with the world. This theory provides a powerful rationale for why simply reading a report or hearing a speech about poverty, for example, is insufficient for deep understanding. To truly grasp a different perspective, one must engage in a process that simulates the embodied state of that experience. The Parliament of Enacting can thus be seen as an application of embodied political cognition at the state level, an attempt to create a political body whose "thinking" is grounded in a diverse array of simulated physical and emotional realities.
The influence of empathy on political attitudes is already well-documented. Empathetic communication from a political candidate can produce more favorable attitudes and increase voter support, particularly when it is perceived as genuine.10 Furthermore, an individual's general propensity for empathy correlates with certain political attitudes, suggesting a deep connection between this capacity and one's worldview.11 An empathy-centric system of governance could therefore fundamentally alter political dynamics. However, this also raises a critical question: because empathy appears to correlate more strongly with some political views than others, would such a system systematically favor certain ideologies, or would the direct experience of a wide range of stories create a more nuanced political landscape altogether?11
This reframes the purpose of a parliament from a place of legislative production to a system for collective cognitive and emotional regulation. The neuropsychological link between emotional states, empathy, and the quality of decision-making is clear.12 Political psychology confirms that emotions are not peripheral noise but potent drivers of political judgment and behavior.4 The "Experience Chamber" at the heart of this proposed parliament would function as a controlled environment to induce specific cognitive-emotional states—perspective-taking, affective sharing, empathic concern—in its participants. By having representatives undergo these experiences, the parliament is not merely processing abstract information; it is actively attempting to regulate and synchronize the cognitive-emotional states of its decision-makers. The goal is to create a more coherent and representative collective "mind," one whose judgments are aligned with the diverse mental and emotional states of the populace it represents. This is, in effect, a form of institutionalized mentalizing, the conscious effort to understand the mental states of others, elevated to a principle of statecraft.21
If the Parliament of Enacting operates on an epistemology of experience, then its primary currency cannot be votes or abstract policy positions, but the lived stories of its citizens. Politics is fundamentally an effort to control interpretations of reality, and this is achieved through the strategic construction and dissemination of narratives.22 These stories underwrite and stabilize the assumptions for policymaking, shaping public opinion and mobilizing support in ways that raw data rarely can.5 The proposed model embraces this reality, not as a flaw to be overcome, but as the central mechanism of political life. It seeks to replace strategically constructed political narratives with a curated collection of authentic, lived stories, treating them as the primary units of political information.
The process of gathering these stories must be built on a foundation of rigorous ethical practice, as they are highly personal and powerful.24 A core principle is that of informed consent and agency. Storytellers must give full, recorded permission, understand precisely how their stories will be used, and retain the ability to withdraw their story if they change their mind.24 Given the sensitivity of this personal data, robust protocols for security and confidentiality are paramount to protect the privacy of participants, ensuring that shared stories are stored securely and that anonymity is maintained throughout the process.24 Furthermore, the collection process must be actively inclusive and culturally sensitive, making a concerted effort to gather stories from a wide range of voices and backgrounds, and to understand and respect cultural differences in communication and storytelling traditions.24
A methodology well-suited to this task is Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI).27 PNI is a collaborative research method where participants are involved not just as subjects but as partners in designing questions, analyzing data, and interpreting findings. Its focus on eliciting open-ended stories, rather than quantifiable answers, aligns perfectly with the parliament's goal of capturing the richness of human experience. Crucially, in PNI, the storyteller is also involved in interpreting their own story, an empowering act that ensures the meaning remains grounded in their lived reality.28
The selection of which stories to transform into enactable experiences is perhaps the most critical and challenging step in this entire process. The risk of "narrative bias"—the tendency for single, vivid case narratives to disproportionately influence judgment over statistical information—is significant.29 If only the most dramatic, emotionally charged, or easily dramatized stories are selected, the system could create a distorted reflection of society. To mitigate this, the curation would need to be handled by an independent body, guided by an ethics and anthropology board. Their mandate would be to select a portfolio of stories that are representative of significant, recurring, or impactful themes within the nation. The goal would not be to find the most persuasive story, but the most representative and illuminating collection of lived realities.
This process fundamentally shifts the role of the state. It becomes not merely an arbiter of laws or a provider of services, but a formal custodian and processor of the nation's collective experiential memory. The primary input for governance is the vast, ongoing collection of citizen stories.28 This necessitates a massive, ethical, and permanent infrastructure for their collection, secure storage, and curation.24 This infrastructure would effectively function as a national, institutionalized archive of lived experience. Unlike a traditional archive of documents, however, this one would be active and dynamic. The stories are not just stored for posterity; they are continuously "re-lived" and re-interpreted through the Experience Chamber. In such a system, the government's legitimacy becomes intrinsically tied to how well it performs its function as a faithful and ethical custodian of these stories. Governance transforms into an act of continuous, collective remembrance and re-enactment.
The heart of this model is the Experiential Parliament itself, a dedicated space where abstract policy proposals are translated into tangible, lived realities. The operation of this facility depends on a new class of support staff—technicians, narrative designers, and facilitators. Their role is strictly technical: to take the dry statistics of a proposed law and render its human consequences in high-fidelity, lived scenarios. Crucially, the power lies not with these modelers, but with the Exemplary Representatives—individuals selected not for their rhetorical skill, but because they serve as archetypes for specific segments of the population. These representatives evaluate the rich media and scenarios prepared by the technicians, judging them against the lived reality of the groups they represent.
The Parliament functions as a "time machine" for governance. However, unlike the solitary isolation of Virtual Reality (VR), this model relies on immersive enactment, drawing on techniques from Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) and immersive theater. Representatives do not just watch a simulation; they physically inhabit the potential futures their decisions would create. They do not just read a report on urban planning; they physically navigate a mock-up of the future city, dealing with the noise levels and social friction of its simulated inhabitants. They do not just debate a healthcare bill; they act out the user journey of a patient navigating the proposed system—filling out the forms, waiting in the rooms, and interacting with actors playing overwhelmed staff.