Mis-Used Metaphors

 

The subject of “metaphors” probably seems remote and not very interesting at first, but there are some aspects of it that I just find fascinating.

I happened to pick up recently a new book entitled “Don't Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense about the Economy,” by Anat Shenker-Osorio and there on p. 75 was this criticism of progressives who are ineffective in challenging regressive economic arguments because they use the same inappropriate metaphors of “the economy” as having agency and intentionality, or even as being a God:

...they imbue the economy with agency and intentionality, obscuring the roles people play and the harms done to them...these habits reinforce self-defeating notions about the market as an independent entity. This makes it harder to see the truth: the economy is a construction of human choices that requires our oversight and control. We are not here in its service, at its beck and call. It is neither our creator nor our crotchety uncle but rather the means by which we produce and distribute...

Here are some common economics phrases that come immediately to mind:

“Let the market choose the winners and losers.”

“The markets climbed higher today.”

“The market is rational.”

“The markets showed no confidence.”
 

“The economy allocates rewards.”

“Let the market correct itself.”

Now, I think why this fascinates me so much, and is not just quibbling about words, is because I have seen the mischief caused by using inappropriate metaphors implying agency in sociology and social psychology. A sociologist can vitiate his entire life's work by assuming that society or culture “dictates” or “requires” or “mandates” or “causes” people to act the way they do. Or, a psychologist can vitiate his entire work by assuming that some inner drive such as “survival instinct” “drives” us or “pushes” us like water in a pipe or move us like a gear in a machine. Inner or outer “forces” - environment or heredity - are mistakenly believed to act upon us. The forces do the acting and we are believed to be like beads on a string or vegetables in a garden.

The currently most popular misused metaphor is the computer. But the computer is an input-output device and does nothing, and has no intentions, on its own. If we know the wiring, and the input - which are analogous to the heredity and environment – then we can predict the output, minus a little indeterminacy to be found in all physical systems. Ronald Laing's pithy 1969 comment is every bit as pertinent now as ever:

So the person who says he is a machine is mad, while many of those who say men are machines are considered great scientists!

We use metaphors all the time. They are simply symbols after all: “meta-phor” is literally “with-carried” in Greek as “sym-bol” is “with-thrown.”

My mentioning Ronald Laing brings to my mind his magnificent little book entitled “Knots.” Here's just a lovely little sample from it which may bring you a smile:

They are playing a game. They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

I look back now, forty years after having last read him, and I think; Lord, I'm going to have to read him all over again because now I can see so much more in what he was saying, great as it was even then.