Let me begin with the standard-issue praise, which is no less sincere for being completely predictable: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By helped shape my thinking. Their book Philosophy in the Flesh is a truly fresh and mind-pivoting look at philosophy. I thank them for all that I’ve learned from them. (And now comes the “But…”)

But Dr. Lakoff’s most recent op-ed comes close to self-parody.

Lakoff has a superb eye for pointing out how what we take as straightforward, factual descriptions are in fact highly metaphorical — everything from talking about “high” notes to “straightforward” descriptions. He watches how these metaphors cluster (why are things that are “down” sad or mournful, and how does “falling” in love fit into that?) and convinces us that reality doesn’t lurk “behind” metaphors but is only understandable “through” metaphors.

In his new op-ed, Lakoff points to the metaphors we use in understanding the Iraqi war: The Nation as Person, the International Community with its “advanced” and “backward” nations, the war’s “gains” and “assets,” etc. It’s helpful to be reminded that when we say that the war isn’t against the Iraqi people, it’s against Saddam, even our smartest bombs aren’t listening to how we speak.

But pointing out that something is a metaphor just isn’t enough. The op-ed reads almost as if Lakoff is using a random quotation marks generator. Since all language and understanding is metaphorical, “you” can “slap” quotes “around” every “word” in “a” sentence. So, ok:

One of the most frequent uses of the Nation As Person metaphor comes in the almost daily attempts to justify the war metaphorically as a “just war.” The basic idea of a just war uses the Nation As Person metaphor plus two narratives that have the structure of classical fairy tales: The Self Defense Story and The Rescue Story.

Reduced to simple enough terms, everything is like everything else. But the question is: Is this a just war? Is it a war we should be waging? Lakoff says no: The connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is too tenuous for the war to be in self-defense, although he’s less clear about whether we’re actually rescuing the Iraqis. Agree or disagree, how does Lakoff’s presentation of our justifications as “stories” help? Why not just say that Bush says we’re in Iraq to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks because he believes that there’s a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Why frame this in terms of a fairy tale?

Certainly that framing suggests the story isn’t true. But if all understanding on such a scale is metaphorical — including Lakoff’s own — why isn’t labeling The Self Defense story a fairy tale just name-calling? In the op-ed, Lakoff says:

Millions of people around the world can see that the metaphors and fairy tales don’t fit the current situation, that Gulf War II does not qualify as a just war — a “legal” war

So, apparently, there’s a way to view “the current situation” outside of the frame of metaphors, seeing how the metaphor fits “the situation.” But Lakoff also writes:

One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is that people think in terms of frames and metaphors — conceptual structures like those we have been describing. The frames are in the synapses of our brains — physically present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don’t fit the frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored.

It is a common folk theory of progressives that “The facts will set you free!” If only you can get all the facts out there in the public eye, then every rational person will reach the right conclusion. It is a vain hope. Human brains just don’t work that way. Framing matters. Frames once entrenched are hard to dispel.

(Hard or impossible? These two paragraphs seem to disagree. Anyway…) If facts won’t do it, then what will? Lakoff ends the piece — lamely, IMO — by suggesting how to build a progressive, anti-war movement:

First, the anti-war movement, properly understood, is not just, or even primarily, a movement against the war. It is a movement against the overall direction that the Bush administration is moving in. Second, such a movement, to be effective, needs to say clearly what it is for, not just what it is against.

Third, it must have a clearly articulated moral vision, with values rather than mere interests determining its political direction.

Isn’t the more consistent conclusion that the anti-war movement needs new stories, new metaphors, a new framing?

Perhaps Lakoff thinks that coming up with new metaphors is too hard, a job for poets that we cannot reasonably demand, nor can we wait for. If not metaphors and facts, what’s left? Values! Values apparently can do what facts cannot. But isn’t it a common folk theory of progressives that “The values will set you free!” If only you can get all the real values out there in the public eye, then every feeling person will reach the right conclusion.

I want to believe that. And yet I also have seen that the same values, the same human responses to suffering, result in radically different political outcomes. The same clips of the injured Iraqis in hospitals are used to dissuade us from war and to show us how compassionate we are towards the handful of unintended victims. The photos of AIDS sufferers in Africa are used to justify international charity, Christian outreach, denunciations of the World Bank and hatred of the regimes that have done too little. Shared values without shared metaphors and stories do not result in shared action.

I’d suggest that when George Soros, Strom Thurmond, Saddam Hussein and Sally Struthers can all point to the same suffering, the anti-war movement isn’t going to succeed by announcing its values. Rather, we really do need a new Story and new metaphors. That and globally connected communities, new leaders, and, yes, the shortcut of money.

(Thanks to Doc for the link, to AKMA for the reminder, and to Rainer Brockerhoff for the discussion.)

Categories: Uncategorized dw