Taxonomists 'R Us: Phylogeny of Political Metaphor

[jjhunter]

Where might we find elements of poetry in politics? For starters, no political speech seems complete without at least one metaphor, however well (or not so well) conceived.

Like some strange survival of the wittiest, some metaphors are so apt — or at least brain-snaggingly adaptive — that they seed entire families of related metaphors. 20th century US politics proffers, for example, a New Deal, a Square Deal, and a Fair Deal, followed by a War On Poverty, twin Wars on Cancer and Drugs respectively, and a War On Terror. When people call national efforts to recriminalize abortion in the USA part of a War On Women, they're drawing on decades of war-as-shorthand-for-national-mobilization metaphors, and also drawing attention to the violence 'War' never entirely escapes, metaphorical or otherwise.

What families of political metaphors or phrasings have you noticed? Do you have any thoughts about the ones mentioned so far, or metaphors you wish would catch on instead?

Comments

[anonymous_sibyl]

This always reminds me of Mario Cuomo saying "we campaign in poetry, we govern in prose." I think, though, that people mistake that to mean poetry lies, when, to me, poetry reveals, not obscures.

[kaberett]

I think this post mostly makes me regret that it's been quite so long since I last read any Cicero.

In terms of families-of-words, there is of course the -gate suffix, which now means "scandal"; there is the odd poetry, in UK politics, of remembering Portillo; and, of course, there is never again; and then there is the war poetry, all of the war poetry, and the ways in which at the going down of the sun and in the morning/we shall remember them.

[raze]

I find that wartime rhetoric tends to be a goldmine of metaphor and repetitious phrasing, and often lends itself to exploration by poetry. As Dunya Mikahil said in The War Works Hard, wartime "awards medals to generals / and themes to poets."

Here is a great example of baseball in a poem (note: pdf file) used as a metaphor for war in WWI, which was popular to euphemize war and appeal to young men for enlistment.

There is also the consistent visual and written metaphor of the dove as a peace symbol and the eagle or hawk as a war symbol throughout propaganda, poetry, and prose about war.

Finally: let's never forget the significance of flags not only as literal symbols of nationalism and patriotism, but also as metaphors in song and poetry. Flags come to actually represent the country itself, with all of those ideals wrapped neatly within. I am reminded of the significance of flags in the moving song Hero of War, which you can listen to/read lyrics to here (TW: pretty graphic description of human rights abuses and combat in warfare).