Metaphors and politics (was: Prime number algo...)

[Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]

anton at vredegoor.doge.nl (Anton Vredegoor) wrote previously:
|Some antidote against the "country as person metaphor"
|Metaphor and War, Again, George Lakoff, AlterNet
|http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15414

I have been immensely influenced, in my life, by Lakoff, and by his
frequent collaborator Mark Johnson.  Ever since _Women, Fire & Dangerous
Things_ (but I went back and read _Metaphors We Live By_ around the same
time).  But even though I frequently read AlterNet, I had not seen that
article... thanks.

I hope I have not fallen into that trapping metaphor.  Tying in to
Alex's post (really, I know him well enough for a first name :-)), the
anthropomorphic character of the warmongers' argument is emphasized by
the false familiarity in calling Pres.  Hussein "Saddam"[1] Somehow the
chickenhawks are all personally acquainted with the Iraqi president
(well, most of the WH administration -did- personally help him in the
1980s and 1990s--but not the ordinary flag wavers).  Contrary to what
Khesin (err, Max) claimed, this use of first name is meant, in the USA,
to infantilize that foreign sovereign[2], and thereby claim a parental
obligation to "chastise" him (by dropping bombs on thousands of Iraqi
civilians, and killing tens of thousands of Iraqi conscripts).

As a rule, the anti-war folks--as well as being generally better
educated on geography, history, and the like[3]--also eschew pretending
personal acquaintance with Hussein.

Yours, Lulu...

[1] I know that the name came about, in part, as a shorthand
differentiation from (the late) King Hussein of Jordan.  But that's not
the whole story.

[2] Of course, Iraqi elections were not fair or democratic--at least not
the last several.  The USA ones were also compromised, but admittedly
not -quite- as much (the US pres got significantly many real votes, even
if not majority [of electoral college]).  But Iraq's regime is more
legitimate than, say Saudi Crown Prince Faud's claim; or Pakistan's coup
leader Musharraf.

[3] Not my opinion, but rather what all the polls overwhelmingly
indicate; most pro-war USAians cannot find Iraq on a map, know nothing
of its history, and think Iraqis were amoung the WTC attackers.

--
Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food from the bellies
of the hungry; books from the hands of the uneducated; technology from the
underdeveloped; and putting advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual
property is to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.