Metaphoric revolution

Metaphoric Revolution: in quest of a manifesto for governance through metaphor (Part #8)

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Individual opportunity: The complexities of society and the global problematique are such that the shift in focus advocated in the previous section may well only occur in isolated groups, corporations and countries, if at all. Although it can be demonstrated that such a shift is a natural evolution beyond the current situation, and that it is pre-figured in many ways by current uses of metaphor in government, the pressures in favour of short-term political crisis management will in all probability prevail. Exceptions may however emerge from recognition of the power of metaphor in elaborating more sophisticated strategy and in the current preoccupation with fruitfully moulding a corporate culture. On this point it was argued in a previous paper that the success of Japanese business in comparison with that of western corporations may be fundamentally due to the subtlety of the sporting and military metaphors (intimately linked to metaphoric imagery) associated with the 'martial arts' -- as against metaphors based on western sports and military practices (3). This is typified by the place accorded by Japanese management training to The Five Rings, a traditional treatise on swordsmanship (recently subtitled The Real Art of Japanese Management.(43)

The opportunities for the individual and affinity groups are entirely different. Individuals may relatively easily choose to make much more extensive use of metaphor to provide themselves with quite different ways of restructuring their perceptual environment. This may be done, as it is to some degree at present, quite superficially and primarily for rhetorical or illustrative purposes. There is however little to prevent individuals and groups from selecting or designing metaphors to be used over an extended period of time to structure their perceptions and their communications. Such use is evident in the implicit use of military and sporting jargon amongst management groups already.

Such use of metaphor may become 'revolutionary' in the following two ways, as consciously cultivated cognitive dissonance, and through a rhythmic change of cognitive framework.

Consciously cultivated cognitive dissonance: Individuals alienated by mind-sets and policies prevailing in society may choose metaphors which enable them to totally reinterpret social dynamics, attributing value according to a very different pattern. They may associate with others sharing that metaphor.

The key question is whether this is in any way different from the current freedom of individuals to hold (or convert to) certain beliefs or work with certain paradigms. In many ways it is not, except perhaps in the greater recognition that individuals are free to do so. The shift becomes more radical and revolutionary to the extent that individuals choose metaphors which provide them with insights into dynamic relationships about which they can communicate amongst those who share the metaphor, but are totally unable to communicate meaningfully with those who do not. This too is already a characteristic of those using specialized jargons. The question is how would society be if the number of active specialized jargons increased by several orders of magnitude -- if individuals effectively felt empowered to develop their own specialized languages and cognitive systems.

It is one thing for such specialized jargons to emerge from scholarly or technological preoccupations legitimized by establishment institutions.It is quite another when people are actively developing uses of metaphors which effectively ignore or devalue such structures and the cognitive systems on which they are based. None of this is especially improbable, as can be seen in the development and seductiveness of the cognitive systems associated with cults. And to the extent that the importance of the drug problem is indicative of the need for new ways of perceiving the world, development of metaphoric skills may offer a more meaningful alternative than unrealistic medical attempts to simply 'get people off drugs' and legalistic attempts to 'stamp out drug-taking'. In this sense the metaphoric revolution opens the gates to a new cognitive frontier, a set of parallel conceptual universes, possibly richer and more challenging, in which people can develop new relationships to their available resources.

Features of this process are indicated (whether ironically or because of its traditionally pre-figurative role) by some current initiatives in theology. As in other arenas, considerable rethinking has been evoked by perceptions of the current psycho-social crisis. One theologian, Sally McFague, writes:

• 'One of the serious deficiencies in contemporary theology is that though theologians have attempted to interpret faith in new concepts appropriate to our time, the basic metaphors and models have remained relatively constant: they are triumphalist, monarchical, patriarchal. Much deconstruction of the traditional imagery has taken place, but little construction. If, however, metaphor and concept are, as I believe, inextricably and symbiotically related in theology, there is no way to do theology for our time with outmoded or oppressive metaphors and models....The kind of theology being advanced here is what I call metaphorical or heuristic theology; that is it experiments with metaphors and models, and the claims it makes are small....What this sort of enterprise makes very clear is that theology is mostly fiction: it is the elaboration of key metaphors and models. It insists that we do not know very much and that we should not camouflage our ignorance by either petrifying our metaphors or forgetting that our concepts derive from metaphors.' (45)

These points could equally be applied to thinking about development. She discusses the considerable advantages of using metaphors of God as mother, as lover, and as friend, in contrast to the traditional patriarchal model. Her point being that no one metaphor is appropriate for all or appropriate for one person all the time. (45,46)

Rhythmic change of cognitive framework: If people are enriched by having a range of metaphors within which they can select and move in creative response to pressures from the social environment (and especially information overload), how should they govern their choice of metaphor ? Rather than clinging to any one metaphor (with the false sense of security that gives), or shifting reactively from one to another in spastic response to external pressures, the real challenge is to enable people to cultivate a rhythm of changes amongst a set of metaphors -- to evolve a cognitive dance with their environment.

Again such a transition is not improbable in that it is prefigured in many ways by the manner in which people switch cognitive frameworks in switching from home to work to cafe to leisure activity, or in their dealings with people in different roles (e.g. as spouse, as helpmate, as lover, as companion, etc). But people are offered little insight as to how such switches are to be governed and consequently tend to live them spastically unless they can evolve some sense of pattern and rhythm for themselves.

In this sense the metaphoric revolution is one of revolving through a cycle of cognitive frameworks such that the revolution itself defines a new psychic centre of gravity for the individual immersed in a socially turbulent environment. A very sophisticated version of this is to be found in the Chinese classic the I Ching (or Book of Changes), which involves transitions between 64 conditions, each described in metaphoric terms. This has been interpreted into Western management jargon in the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (see illustration of the pattern in Figure 3). The fact that it is traditionally recommended for the over-60s is an indication that simpler cycles could usefully be developed and explored.

Figure 4: Map of transformations between global ("heads-together") networking conditions *"top-in")

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