A review Metaphors are conceptual, influence our action, and are revealed in our language. Systematic and pervasive

Cultural Coherence Deeply entrenched values are consistent with the metaphorical system. Value: More is Better –Metaphors: More is Up, Good is Up –Less is Better is not coherent with these metaphors.

There may be conflicts among our values. There are conflicts among the underlying metaphors. –Inflation is rising, Crime rate is going up One metaphor will be given priority. More is Up over Good is Up

What values have priority? A value conflict(buying a car) –Saving Money is Virtuous –Bigger is Better Depends on –The sub-culture we live in –Our personal values

Values in a Sub-group Trappists: Less is Better [material] Yet, More is Better [virtue] Future will be Better [spiritual growth]

For the Sub-group Metaphors will be internally coherent with respect to what is important for the group. Are coherent with the major orientational metaphors of the mainstream culture.

Conventional metaphors Part of our conventional conceptual system –Orientational –Ontological –Structural Our conventional conceptual system is the framework in which we think, act, and communicate.

Metaphors with New Meaning Metaphors can create new understandings of our experiences “Reverberate through a network of entailments” –What does a collaborative work of art “entail?”

Love is a Collaborative Work of Art Is Work Is Active Requires Cooperation Requires Dedication Requires Discipline Involves Creativity Cannot Be Achieved by Formula Is Unique in Each Instance Emphasizes Certain Aspects of Love; Masks Others Thus, Giving the Concept of Love a New Meaning

A new metaphor will highlight some aspects and hide other aspects. Love as a Collaborative Work highlights –work, creation, pursuing goals, building, helping

Other aspects of love from previous metaphors are hidden –active vs. passive aspects –Love is a Journey (On the rocks) –Love is Madness (out of control, He’s crazy about her)

New Meanings guide action A new image of love can guide our future actions and help set new goals. –(What goals fit the passive metaphors for love?) The New Meaning is –partly culturally determined –partly tied to past experiences

Cultural Change Can arise from the acquisition of new metaphors and the loss of old ones. TIME is MONEY leads to Westernization MORE is BETTER What others?

Creative Metaphors Can Change Social Reality Changed images change our behavior. This includes changes in the way we frame the problems we wish to solve.

Examples Slum as a Disease Slum as a Natural Community Welfare as a safety net Welfare as a hammock

Images are Important A particular metaphor suggests –a particular view of reality –and, hence, suggests a particular social response

“People in power get to impose their metaphors.” L&J –Carter wages war on the energy crisis. –Amory Lovins contrasts Hard Energy path(inflexible, non-renewable) Soft Energy path(not needing defense by force)

Rush Limbaugh: “Society is a Family” Liberal Society is a Family of Pigs –…the large sow is near death. She’s not fat and flourishing, she’s emaciated. A lot of the piglets have dropped off and are running around lost because they can’t get any more nourishment. –You are supporting a giant bloated pig in Washington, D.C.

A metaphor in a political or economic system, by virtue of what it hides, can lead to human degradation.

Models as metaphors McCloskey calls for a balance among fact, logic, metaphor, and stories. Man as individual, materialistic(an overstatement perhaps), More is Better.

L&J’s Destination Objectivism –Modern from a need to understand the external world in order to be able to function in it (positivist, behavioralist) Subjectivism –Post-modern: internal aspects of understanding an attempt to overcome alienation from the world

Experientialist: –Man as part of his environment things in the world do constrain our conceptual system properties and similarities exist and can be experienced only relative to a conceptual system –Suggest that coherence in our experience=meaning