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I like a lot the suggestion that we "draw on, and offer others" our own experiences with the "authoritarian/suffocating" and the stories we make of them ... but "not be limited to or by" that.  There certainly are "parallel stories" about things other than science being "authoritarian/suffocating."      Indeed "science" itself arose to a significant extent as a way to contend with other forms of "authoritarian/suffocating," and still serves that function for many.  Significantly, the same is so of many humanistic and religious traditions.   What all of that suggests to me is that it is actually the "authoritarian/suffocating," rather than any particular instantiation of it, that needs to be resisted.  And that people with common experiences of being made uncomfortable by the "authoritarian/suffocating" might do better by making common cause rather than contending with each other. 

Along these lines, I'm further intrigued by the notion that "science," and "religion," and the "humanities" ("postmodernism" included) are each in some contexts "authoritarian/suffocating" and in others ... liberating.  Perhaps that's a general characteristic of all socio-cultural "instantiations" of human activity?  And perhaps its also a general characteristic of human thought, of our tendency to make our experiences more manageable by clustering what are always diverse things under a single umbrella name, and then attaching a single value judgement to that single name? 

Its for that reason that I particularly like "not be limited to or by."  The naming and valuing is not itself a problem; it serves a useful function and can be liberating. The problem arises when we forget that the names and values are relevant only in the  particular contexts in which they arose, and should not be presumed to have universal significance (see Deconstructing and reconstructing cultures and individuals).   We are at risk of oppressing each other when we do this but equally at risk of oppressing ourselves, of becoming for ourselves "authoritarian/suffocating."  Perhaps we could help not only each other but ourselves meet the general challenge of the "authoritarian/suffocating" by continual reminders that our stories may be helpful in that they reflect experiences, individual and collective, to date but are otherwise significant only insofar as they serve as the grist for ourselves and others to conceive as yet unconceived stories?  Rather than resisting each other's stories as incompatible with our own, perhaps we should value them as the means by which we can, individually and collectively, escape existing oppression in whatever form it takes?