Our everyday speech is constantly "littered with metaphors"—expressions like "breaking the ice," "a thorny issue," or "life's rich tapestry." A metaphor, at its simplest, is an equation where X equals Y. Though sometimes explicitly stated ("every day is a winding road"), they are often embedded in our language, subtly shaping our beliefs, attitudes, and actions without us even realizing it. The fundamental human impulse is to find a likeness between unlike things.
The Mechanics and Meaning of Metaphors
The best metaphors bring color and meaning to the mundane by mixing the foreign with the familiar. For example, in the closing lines of The Great Gatsby, the phrase "we beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" mixes the physical struggle of rowers with the abstract concept of time, nostalgia, and fate.
Some metaphors become so familiar that they almost feel literal. Consider the common metaphor "time is money." This equation is so deeply integrated into Western culture that we speak of "spending time profitably" or "being generous with time." This reveals a societal value system where time is treated as a quantifiable, tradable commodity.
Orientational and Political Framing
American linguist George Lakoff coined the term orientational metaphors to describe how we use physical orientations like "up" and "down" to structure abstract concepts:
Health/Control: He's at the peak of health; she's on top of the situation.
Illness/Subservience: He fell ill; he's under my control.
Lakoff also developed the idea of political framing, arguing that the words and metaphors we choose affect how we perceive and deal with social issues, influencing what becomes publicly accepted common sense. Metaphors, therefore, play a huge role in defining political and social realities.
The Impact of Metaphors on Policy and Treatment
The metaphors we use are not just rhetorical flair; they can influence real-world outcomes, policy decisions, and even medical treatment:
Cancer Treatment: We commonly talk about the "battle" or "fight against cancer." However, a 2019 study suggested that these military metaphors could be harmful. They might make people feel fatalistic about their chances of survival and can implicitly blame those who do not survive the "fight."
Crime Policy: A 2011 Stanford study gave two groups different metaphors for crime: one described it as a "wild beast preying upon a city," and the other as a "virus plaguing the population." The group given the "wild beast" metaphor was 20% more likely to endorse stricter policing and punitive measures than the group given the "virus" metaphor, which suggested a need for treatment and prevention.
Metaphors thus matter profoundly for our laws, our politics, and our treatment of one another. As Lakoff and his co-author Mark Johnson put it, the people who get to impose their metaphors on a culture get to define what everyone else considers to be true. In this sense, knowledge of metaphors is power.
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