Saturation of Metaphor

In his brilliant new book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, Steven Pinker devotes a chapter to metaphor, and how our language is "saturated" with it. Leaving aside the fact that "saturate" could itself be categorized as an imprecise metaphor -- after all, language can presumably accommodate limitless metaphors -- there is, everywhere you look, heightened awareness of the extent to which our opinions, judgments and behavior are shaped by figurative linguistic concepts:

The September Harvard Business Review has an article, "Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership," suggesting that the phrase "glass ceiling" be replaced with the "glass labyrinth," if women are ever going to shatter said transparent structures. In New York, the hoary "political parties as parents" metaphor and recasts the Democrats as "Jodie Foster mommies" and the Republicans as "deadbeat daddies"; The Boston Globe wants people to stop thinking of America's defense against terrorism in terms of "a metaphor of endless war against an amorphous enemy"; and in Ethan Nadelmann's Foreign Policy cover story, he asserts that "futile rhetoric" regarding "the war on drugs" means that casualties in this unwinnable "war" are accepted by the public as collateral damage.

Nadelmann's assertion implies that the framing of drug law enforcement as "war" goes largely unrecognized; indeed, a central question of Pinker's is whether people are generally conscious of the metaphors used for communicating, or blind to them. One school of thought -- "the killjoy theory" -- proposes that most metaphors are indeed "dead," used so often and for so long that their figurative meaning (but not necessarily resonance) has drained away. Certainly, the war metaphor is pressed into service in so many contexts and in such oblique forms that it's rarely noticeable ("war on drugs" is taken as literal) even though, Pinker points out, the vast number of expressions conceptualizing argument as war shows that "the tacit metaphor must have been transparent to a large number of coiners and adopters for a very long time."

Obviously, an expression like glass ceiling is too blatantly metaphorical to go unnoticed, which is part of the point that the HBR essay makes: such a concrete and specific image to explain the dearth of women in powerful jobs has focused attention too narrowly on the notion of one barrier at the highest level, rather than on various obstacles along the way -- indicating that fresh, conspicuous metaphors, of which there are in fact plenty, can be as problematically influential as those we're oblivious to.

Still, Pinker reassures us that "metaphors can be tested on their predictions and scrutinized on their merits, including their fidelity to the structure of the world." The kind of vigilance exercised by the writers quoted above evidently does much to undermine the power of metaphor, especially as used by politicians. Not that vigilance is always necessary: while "witch hunt" is surely not too far from joining the "dead" group of metaphors, it's unlikely that too many people needed to parse Sen. Larry Craig's invocation of seventeenth century Salem and fifties McCarthyism to decide that he isn't currently a victim of one.

Comments

[jeskiley]

I guess, I'd listen wholeheartedly to the metaphors of someone I respect. Someone complex enough to cast those windows where I can learn more about the speaker and myself by peering in. I usually know by the first metaphor whether I'll continue to lend my spirit to it. For that reason, we should choose our words carefully.

[readyforchange]

Dem02020:

Excellent commentary. The English language has become so bastardized that it's not recognizable. It hasn't helped that the administration for the past 7 years has crafted the most deceptive speaking practices and incorporated them into legislation (Patriot Act, etc.).

[Dem02020]

It is a serious problem, this vague and imprecise use of speech; not so serious in the leisure of our private lives, but serious in public speaking; and most serious in Law, and Government.

Metaphors are not only lies, they are bald-faced at that; even those who speak of a "glass ceiling" will admit, that what they mean has nothing to do with glass, or that part of the room that hides the roof from our sight.

Why not be precise and exact, if the matter being spoken of is important enough.

Metaphors, hyperboles, similes and analogies, are never admitted into the language of a legal contract, or admitted into the testimonies of a Court of Law: why then would we admit them into any public discussion so important, as Law and Government are?

If in a Court of Law, someone uses a metaphor in their testimony, they are stopped, and instructed to speak specifically and exactly about the matter...

Because aren't there specifics and details to what it is they're saying?

And if not, then just what is it they're testifying about?
Their vague and undefined impressions of the world?

That's it, you know.
That's what people are doing, when they speak incessantly in metaphors etc.; when they speak of "glass ceilings" for example...

They're simply prattling on, about their vague and undefined impressions of the world.

Why would we listen, if the matter were serious enough?

Why would we admit such nonsense, into a contract or into the testimonies in a Court of Law?

We don't.


But we allow politicians, and our president even, to speak in that manner to us, publicly...

...and who can say just exactly is the reason for that, without descending themselves, into vague metaphor.

[godlessclif]

"If we can put a man on the moon..."
The Apollo Program for energy is one of these.
If we can waste money on the moon, why can't we waste money on Alchemical Fuels or some other pet project. We can do the impossible if we try. A dead metaphor.

I wish we would get real

[jeskiley]

Alchemical fuels, that's very clever!

[bethinCary]

Yes, but unfortunately in studies like the one that jsut came out about how neo and libs have different thought-processes: the end result was that neos don't think in a wide-variety of thught pattern. But that those pathways are rather singularly routed-from lack of thinking in a different way. Which is sad really when you think about it-that God gave us all a brain-yet there are people who want others to do the thinking for them "cause it's just too hard". After doing this for years, I imagine it becomes hard to think any other way.
So unfortunately for the simple-minded I expect the metaphoric analogy to continue-and to possibly be the best offense that Dems can use to get thier message out.