A metaphor is a bridge.

[Mole]

The Smile of the Metaphor

hmmm.. Nice food for thought. (Food for thought! Used a metaphor and didn't know it! )

You see, the food is like the words, and the thought is like the mouth or the stomach and... yay! I'm getting the hang of this!

Yes, swinging on the trapeze of metaphor. Will ShortnSweet make the leap from one metaphor to another? Will she leap into space and be caught by the next metaphor as the audience gasps below?

How wonderful she looks up there in her suit of lights, high above the literalists standing flat-footed on the ground. It is almost as though she is singing in space as she swings on her high trapeze, smiling at us, twinkling and winking.

 

[Mole]

The Death of Ideology in the Birth of Metaphor

It's just a matter of perspective then, you see someone hiding, I see someone exploring.

Sure, metaphors are made for exploring, while literalism is made for ideology.

And literalism in the USA has led to the ideological Constitution, and the literal interpretation of the Bible has led to the ideology of Creationism, making the USA the laughing stock of the world.

And literalism in Europe led to the ideologies of Fascism and Communism, just as the literal interpretation of the Koran leads to the ideology of Islamo-Fascism.

Literalism and ideology go together like a horse and carriage, love and marriage.

But when Oz was formed by the Enlightenment we cast the electric telegraph across this wide, brown land and so the headline was born, a metaphor at the top of our newspaper every morning.

 

[redacted]

words are metaphors

 

[onemoretime]

Of course it's war. It's war between literalism and metaphor.

Literalism was born in 1440 with the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. And the first book printed was the Gutenberg Bible, leading to universal literacy and literalism.

And the country most influenced by the literal interpretation of the Bible was the USA. And today Yankees remain soaked in literalism, and the meretricious are still trying to force it down my throat.

Fortunately in 1840 the electric telegraph was born and metaphor came into its own.

And so the war between literalism and metaphor plays itself out here. Fortunately the media we use here is quite like the electric telegraph, but available to each of us across the world.

Today literalism is stale and dead and only maintained by force majeure, while metaphor is alive and speaks to the deep down freshness of things.

The printed book itself is metaphor.

The printed word is the statute by which some seek to codify and rationalize all of existence. Indeed, the US has pursued rationalization for a large portion of its history, just as it has pursued separation from Great Britain. However, neither this separation nor rationalization are possible, because the tools of rationalization are made up of the very language that binds us to Great Britain, and the statutes attempt to hem in a tradition of experience and metaphor that we inherited from Great Britain, using the same language, the same metaphors, that gave us the common law in the first place.

So, Victor, while you may speak of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you also can accept that because of my tradition, because of the metaphors and experiences that we English-speaking peoples inherited, that the declaration only serves as a metaphor for a warm wish of so many people. You may also accept that principles, laws, norms, mores and all these supposed binds we place on us are also metaphors.

But what is the reality? What is being represented? What is the gap being bridged?

Ultimately, it comes down to one thing: we all choose what we believe the metaphor to represent. The gap is between interpretations. The bridge is the metaphor itself. For once we know an interpretation is possible, we thus have the key to understanding how another person's view may be valid. And this, Victor, is a pearl of great price.

 

[Mole]

The printed book itself is metaphor.

The printed word is the statute by which some seek to codify and rationalize all of existence. Indeed, the US has pursued rationalization for a large portion of its history, just as it has pursued separation from Great Britain. However, neither this separation nor rationalization are possible, because the tools of rationalization are made up of the very language that binds us to Great Britain, and the statutes attempt to hem in a tradition of experience and metaphor that we inherited from Great Britain, using the same language, the same metaphors, that gave us the common law in the first place.

So, Victor, while you may speak of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you also can accept that because of my tradition, because of the metaphors and experiences that we English-speaking peoples inherited, that the declaration only serves as a metaphor for a warm wish of so many people. You may also accept that principles, laws, norms, mores and all these supposed binds we place on us are also metaphors.

But what is the reality? What is being represented? What is the gap being bridged?

Ultimately, it comes down to one thing: we all choose what we believe the metaphor to represent. The gap is between interpretations. The bridge is the metaphor itself. For once we know an interpretation is possible, we thus have the key to understanding how another person's view may be valid. And this, Victor, is a pearl of great price.

Yes, and today literalism is seeking to impose itself by violence.

The literal interpretation of the Koran is seeking to impose itself by violence.

The literal interpretation of the Koran is seeking to impose itself by violence and ideology. And the ideology of Islamo-Fascism justifies the violence.

Literalism, violence and ideology go hand in hand.

Islamo literalism has declared war on metaphor.

 

[onemoretime]

Yes, and today literalism is seeking to impose itself by violence.

The literal interpretation of the Koran is seeking to impose itself by violence.

The literal interpretation of the Koran is seeking to impose itself by violence and ideology. And the ideology of Islamo-Fascism justifies the violence.

Literalism, violence and ideology go hand in hand.

Islamo literalism has declared war on metaphor.

And just like the previous wars, it sows the seeds of its own destruction within. How could one expect to maintain a literalist, dogmatic belief within a interpretive, metaphorical, commentary-based faith? In much the same way, how can we try to rationalize MBTI when Jung spoke almost entirely in metaphor?

Even now, Muslim fundamentalists are trading electronic metaphors across incredible distances. The dragon is dead, and they're learning that he had a considerable cache of gold beneath him. The dragon spit fires of literalism that spanned continents, and yet lived a life of pure metaphor.

Yet, it is not they who I fear the most. It is the persons without souls who trouble me.