This is a straw-manning of the use of narrative, i.e. over-using it. Try steel-manning it, which is the point of the post. For example, take this observation:

Self-image to me seems like a biased filter to pass data through.

Indeed. And biased filters are sometimes good; e.g. google "bias variance tradeoff", or read it about it here or here. In particular, biased estimators are often more accurate than unbiased onces due to having less variance. I think use of narrative schema and other thick concepts as literal examples of this. The trick is using them wisely, instead of always or never.