I don’t mean to deny the sagacity of the observations reproduced in the post, Lakoff & al. But it makes me uncomfortable that Lakoff’s approach to metaphor may invite some to forget the primary existence of metaphor in discourse, as a communication device of huge power that needs to be kept in check.
To take an example of historical dimension, just 10 years ago the purely civilian devices (ab)used by the Atta commando were taken as a metaphor of equivalent military means. The enormous costs of the ensuing 2003 invasion of Iraq “justified” by imaginary WMDs should be proof enough that this was an abysmal equation.
(But it isn’t even clear that the damage stops there. A curious side-effect of the promoted elliptic terminology of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was to solidify the convention that there should be no overwhelming issue with any massive man-made destruction oftheenvironment. What appears to be remain characteristic of the current opinions of many former supporters of the Bush administration.)
I don’t mean to deny the sagacity of the observations reproduced in the post, Lakoff & al. But it makes me uncomfortable that Lakoff’s approach to metaphor may invite some to forget the primary existence of metaphor in discourse, as a communication device of huge power that needs to be kept in check.
To take an example of historical dimension, just 10 years ago the purely civilian devices (ab)used by the Atta commando were taken as a metaphor of equivalent military means. The enormous costs of the ensuing 2003 invasion of Iraq “justified” by imaginary WMDs should be proof enough that this was an abysmal equation.
(But it isn’t even clear that the damage stops there. A curious side-effect of the promoted elliptic terminology of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was to solidify the convention that there should be no overwhelming issue with any massive man-made destruction of the environment. What appears to be remain characteristic of the current opinions of many former supporters of the Bush administration.)