Empowerment through metaphor

Metaphor is everywhere. It’s in the most moving poems and heartfelt songs, sure. But it’s also in our news articles, our viral memes, and our casual conversation. It’s even in our scientific research. Metaphor is also powerful. It shapes how we reason and talk about pretty much everything, from something as seemingly simple as time or quantity, to something as complex and abstract as love or democracy. In its power and omnipresence, metaphor can help or harm. So we better know how it works.

We take metaphor to be a cognitive process in which we use one concept to reason about another. This cognitive process is then expressed through language and imagery. This means that we don’t really care about the differences between “metaphors”, “similes”, and “analogies”. They are just different strategies for expressing the same underlying process (which is all to say, don’t bug us for using an example with “like”).

We also understand metaphor as a cultural process in which a particular cognitive metaphor is reinforced or challenged via our interactions with each other and institutions.

In our tumultuous and crisis-ridden times, we think that being alert to the power of metaphor is more important than ever. We’re not here to tell you what metaphors are good or bad, though we will share our opinions, concerns, and excitement. What we hope to do is inspire you to look at the barrage of media in a new way, to find the metaphor yourself. And we want you to decide, through creative and critical deliberation, whether the metaphor speaks to truth or fiction.

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Most of the time, our newsletters will have two main components. The first will be a deep dive into a particular metaphor or set of related metaphors. We’ll go into where we’ve seen it appear, think about its historical context, and discuss the different functions it may serve (intentionally or not). We’ll also talk about how metaphors get literalized through policy and social action (Schuyler wrote an essay on this with a bunch of sources to follow up on). To lighten the mood, you’ll then get a quick round-up of our favorite metaphors of the week – ones we’ve happened upon in our physical or virtual wanderings.

Note that this newsletter is highly irregular, at least for now. Kelly and I are currently leading irregular lives and do not do this full time. So we won't make any promises as to when a newsletter might arrive, or how often you'll receive one. But a subscription means that you'll receive the next one, whenever it arrives, and will make us feel more purposeful in writing them.

Citizens of the Metaphor Society

Be part of our community by practicing metaphor analysis yourself. Become a member, for free, and participate in our discussions through the comments. We don't and won't do subscriptions, but if you have some money to spare, you can directly support our work through a one-off tip here.

Oh, and if you see a metaphor that you think deserves a shout out in our next newsletter, make sure to let us know!