People in power get to construct reality

President Carter declared that the energy crisis is the “moral equivalent of war” in 1977. This declaration immediately imposed a network of entailments (to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result). These entailments were such things as “enemy”, “threat to national security”, requiring “setting targets”, “reorganizing priorities”, organizing “strategies”, accepting “sacrifice”, “obeying the Commander in Chief”, etc.

New metaphors, like old tried and true metaphors, can have the power to define reality; thus the conclusion that power can determine reality.

Metaphors create reality through a network of entailments that are coherent and commanding. Metaphors high light some things and push others under the rug. Our acceptance of a metaphor forces us to focus attention only on the aspects of our experience that it illuminates thereby by causing us to view its entailments as being true.

Concerns of truth do arise regarding new metaphors but of most importance are our perceptions and inferences following the metaphor and the actions sanctioned by it.

“In all aspects of life…we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphor. We draw inference, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.”

Can you give examples of how metaphors have directed action in your life?

Quotes from “Metaphors We Live By” by Lakoff and Johnson