[Reader-list] on war as a metaphor

[Rajlakshmi]

This is an article by a professor of linguistics on the metaphorical
usage of war etc. 

Metaphor and War
Metaphors can kill. 
That's how I began a piece on the first Gulf War back in 1990, just
before
the war began. Many of those metaphorical ideas are back, but within a
very
different and more dangerous context. Since Gulf War II is due to start
any
day, perhaps even tomorrow, it might be useful to take a look before the
action begins at the metaphorical ideas being used to justify Gulf War
II. 
One of the most central metaphors in our foreign policy is that A Nation
Is
A Person. It is used hundreds of times a day, every time the nation of
Iraq
is conceptualized in terms of a single person, Saddam Hussein. The war,
we
are told, is not being waged against the Iraqi people, but only against
this
one person. Ordinary American citizens are using this metaphor when they
say
things like, "Saddam is a tyrant. He must be stopped." What the metaphor
hides, of course, is that the 3000 bombs to be dropped in the first two
days
will not be dropped on that one person. They will kill many thousands of
the
people hidden by the metaphor, people that according to the metaphor we
are
not going to war against. 
The Nation As Person metaphor is pervasive, powerful, and part of an
elaborate metaphor system. It is part of an International Community
metaphor, in which there are friendly nations, hostile nations, rogue
states, and so on. This metaphor comes with a notion of the national
interest: Just as it is in the interest of a person to be healthy and
strong, so it is in the interest of a Nation-Person to be economically
healthy and militarily strong. That is what is meant by the "national
interest." 
In the International Community, peopled by Nation-Persons, there are
Nation-adults and Nation-children, with Maturity metaphorically
understood
as Industrialization. The children are the "developing" nations of the
Third
World, in the process of industrializing, who need to be taught how to
develop properly and to be disciplined (say, by the International
Monetary
Fund) when they fail to follow instructions. "Backward" nations are
those
that are "underdeveloped." Iraq, despite being the cradle of
civilization,
is seen via this metaphor as a kind of defiant armed teenage hoodlum who
refuses to abide by the rules and must be "taught a lesson." 
The international relations community adds to the Nation As Person
metaphor
what is called the "Rational Actor Model." The idea here is that it is
irrational to act against your interests and that nations act as if they
were "rational actors" -- individual people trying to maximize their
"gains'
and "assets" and minimize their "costs" and "losses." In Gulf War I, the
metaphor was applied so that a country's "assets" included its soldiers,
materiel, and money. Since the US lost few of those "assets" in Gulf War
I,
the war was reported, just afterward in the NY Times Business section,
as
having been a "bargain." Since Iraqi civilians were not our assets, they
could not be counted as among the "losses" and so there was no careful
public accounting of civilian lives lost, people maimed, and children
starved or made seriously ill by the war or the sanctions that followed
it.
Estimates vary from half a million to a million or more. However, public
relations was seen to be a US asset: excessive slaughter reported on in
the
press would be bad PR, a possible loss. These metaphors are with us
again. A
short war with few US casualties would minimize costs. But the longer it
goes on, the more Iraqi resistance and the more US casualties, the less
the
US would appear invulnerable and the more the war would appear as a war
against the Iraqi people. That would be a high "cost." 
According to the Rational Actor Model, countries act naturally in their
own
best interests -- preserving their assets, that is, their own
populations,
their infrastructure, their wealth, their weaponry, and so on. That is
what
the US did in Gulf War I and what it is doing now. But Saddam Hussein,
in
Gulf War I, did not fit our government's Rational Actor model. He had
goals
like preserving his power in Iraq and being an Arab hero just for
standing
up to the Great Satan. Though such goals might have their own
rationality,
they are "irrational" from the model's perspective. 
One of the most frequent uses of the Nation As Person metaphor comes in
the
almost daily attempts to justify the war metaphorically as a "just war."
The
basic idea of a just war uses the Nation As Person metaphor plus two
narratives that have the structure of classical fairy tales: The Self
Defense Story and The Rescue Story. 
In each story, there is a Hero, a Crime, a Victim, and a Villain. In the
Self-Defense story, the Hero and the Victim are the same. In both
stories,
the Villain is inherently evil and irrational: The Hero can't reason
with
the Villain; he has to fight him and defeat him or kill him. In both,
the
victim must be innocent and beyond reproach. In both, there is an
initial
crime by the Villain, and the Hero balances the moral books by defeating
him. If all the parties are Nation-Persons, then self-defense and rescue
stories become forms of a just war for the Hero-Nation. 
In Gulf War I, Bush I tried out a self-defense story: Saddam was
"threatening our oil line-line." The American people didn't buy it. Then
he
found a winning story, a rescue story -- The Rape of Kuwait. It sold
well,
and is still the most popular account of that war. 
In Gulf War II, Bush II is pushing different versions of the same two
story
types, and this explains a great deal of what is going on in the
American
press and in speeches by Bush and Powell. If they can show that Saddam =
Al
Quaeda -- that he is helping or harboring Al Qaeda, then they can make a
case for the Self-defense scenario, and hence for a just war on those
grounds. Indeed, despite the lack of any positive evidence and the fact
that
the secular Saddam and the fundamentalist bin Laden despise each other,
the
Bush administration has managed to convince 40 per cent of the American
public of the link, just by asserting it. The administration has told
its
soldiers the same thing, and so our military men see themselves as going
to
Iraq in defense of their country. 
In the Rescue Scenario, the victims are (1) the Iraqi people and (2)
Saddam's neighbors, whom he has not attacked, but is seen as
"threatening."
That is why Bush and Powell keep on listing Saddam's crimes against the
Iraqi people and the weapons he could use to harm his neighbors. Again,
most
of the American people have accepted the idea that Gulf War II is a
rescue
of the Iraqi people and a safeguarding of neighboring countries. Of
course,
the war threatens the safety and well-being of the Iraqi people and will
inflict considerable damage on neighboring countries like Turkey and
Kuwait.

And why such enmity toward France and Germany? Via the Nation As Person
metaphor, they are supposed to be our "friends" and friends are supposed
to
be supportive and jump in and help us when we need help. Friends are
supposed to be loyal. That makes France and Germany fair-weather
friends!
Not there when you need them. 
This is how the war is being framed for the American people by the
Administration and media. Millions of people around the world can see
that
the metaphors and fairy tales don't fit the current situation, that Gulf
War
II does not qualify as a just war -- a "legal" war. But if you accept
all
these metaphors, as Americans have been led to do by the administration,
the
press, and the lack of an effective Democratic opposition, then Gulf War
II
would indeed seem like a just war. 
But surely most Americans have been exposed to the facts -- the lack of
a
credible link between Saddam and al Quaeda and the idea that large
numbers
of innocent Iraqi civilians (estimates are around 500,000) will be
killed or
maimed by our bombs. Why don't they reach the rational conclusion? 
One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is that people
think in
terms of frames and metaphors -- conceptual structures like those we
have
been describing. The frames are in the synapses of our brains --
physically
present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don't fit the
frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored. 
It is a common folk theory of progressives that "The facts will set you
free!" If only you can get all the facts out there in the public eye,
then
every rational person will reach the right conclusion. It is a vain
hope.
Human brains just don't work that way. Framing matters. Frames once
entrenched are hard to dispel. 
In the first Gulf War, Colin Powell began the testimony before Congress.
He
explained the rational actor model to the congressmen and gave a brief
exposition of the views on war of Clausewitz, the Prussian general: War
is
business and politics carried out by other means. Nations naturally seek
their self-interest, and when necessary, they use military force in the
service of their self-interest. This is both natural and legitimate. 
To the Bush administration, this war furthers our self-interest:
controlling
the flow of oil from the world's second largest known reserve, and being
in
the position to control the flow of oil from central Asia as well. These
would guarantee energy domination over a significant part of the world.
The
US could control oil sales around the world. And in the absence of
alternative fuel development, whoever controls the distribution of oil
throughout the world controls politics as well as economics. 
My 1990 paper did not stop Gulf War I. This paper will not stop Gulf War
II.
So why bother? 
I think it is crucially important to understand the cognitive dimensions
of
politics -- especially when most of our conceptual framing is
unconscious
and we may not be aware of our own metaphorical thought. I have been
referred to as a "cognitive activist" and I think the label fits me
well. As
a professor, I do analyses of linguistic and conceptual issues in
politics,
and I do them as accurately as I can. But that analytic act is a
political
act: Awareness matters. Being able to articulate what is going on can
change
what is going on - at least in the long run. 
This war is a symptom of a larger disease. The war will start presently.
The
fighting will be over before long. Where will the anti-war movement be
then?

First, the anti-war movement, properly understood, is not just, or even
primarily, a movement against the war. It is a movement against the
overall
direction that the Bush administration is moving in. Second, such a
movement, to be effective, needs to say clearly what it is for, not just
what it is against. 
Third, it must have a clearly articulated moral vision, with values
rather
than mere interests determining its political direction. 
As the war begins, we should look ahead to transforming the anti-war
movement into a movement that powerfully articulates progressive values
and
changes the course of our nation to where those values take us. The war
has
begun a discussion about values. Let's continue it. 
George Lakoff is the author of "Moral Politics: How Liberals and
Conservatives Think," University of Chicago Press, Second edition, 2002.
He
is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley
and
a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute.