Contagion and the National Body

The Organism Metaphor in American Thought

Gerald O'Brien

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351394086
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

Drawing on the work of George Lakoff, this book provides a detailed analysis of the organism metaphor, which draws an analogy between the national or social body and a physical body. With attention to the manner in which this metaphor conceives of various sub-groups as either beneficial or detrimental to the (social) body's overall functioning, the author examines the use of this metaphor to view marginalized sub-populations as invasive or contagious entities that need to be treated in the same way as harmful bacteria or pathogens. Analyzing the organism metaphor as it was employed in the service of social injustice through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States, Contagion and the National Body focuses on the alarm eras of the restrictive immigration period (1890–1924), the agitation against Chinese and Japanese populations on the West Coast, the eugenic period's targeting of feeble-minded persons and other "defectives, " periods of anti-Semitism, the anti-Communist movements, and various forms of racial animosity against African-Americans.

1Introduction to Metaphor Theory

Its Use in Public Policy

Of all of the political spats that have taken place in the United States over the past few decades, among the more amusing ones was the DemocRAT controversy from the 2000 election. While many made light of the irritation expressed by Democrats over the matter, or even said their resentment was purely the result of an overactive imagination or product of a victim mentality, this incident highlights some important aspects of public policy in regard to the utilization of metaphors. The 30 second commercial that initiated this dispute was sponsored by the Republican National Committee and was critical of candidate Al Gore and the Democrats. Within the course of the commercial, the word DEMOCRATS fades away at one point, but not in its entirety. For a brief moment, no more than a blink of the eye, the word “rats” remains on screen (Berke 2000). Democrats cried foul. Republicans argued that there was no intention to put forth a comparison, and the voting public was largely bemused at politics as usual.¹

It certainly seems reasonable to assume that a metaphoric connection was intended here (Democrats as rats), considering the amount of money paid to develop and air such commercials and the huge political stakes involved. One might think that commercials related to presidential races are reviewed closely prior to being placed on the air. Additionally, the use of rats as a pejorative point of comparison has a long history. In fact, of all negative and disgusting animal metaphors, the employment of rats may have the most predominant role in denigrating various groups. Such comparisons were frequently utilized during the anti-Chinese era (1870–1890) on the West Coast, and for many Americans, the belief that Chinese immigrants made rats a normal part of their diet was enough to mark them as a lower form of humanity (Metrick-Chen 2012, p. 207), especially since “foreigners who eat exotic, unsafe food might be associated with food-borne contagions” (Paprocki 2014, p. 223). It wasn’t just coincidental that a well-known rat poison from the period included a Chinese man on its advertising, and it was a bit unclear whether its motto, “they must go,” was directed more at the actual vermin or the metaphorical one (Metrick-Chen 2012, p. 208). Rats also constituted one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite ways of describing Jews and their presumptive impact on society (Keen 1986, p. 61).² Rats are loathsome, dirty, and cowardly (they hide from us until it’s time to strike), and are associated with sewage, waste, and poverty-stricken environments. For reasons that are likely associated more with their overall repugnance rather than their actual characteristics, rats are also used to describe treachery and deception (“I smell a rat,” “ratting someone out,” “he’s a rat fink”), which are among the worst of human failings.

More than this, of course, they are disease carriers, transmitting germs from the outside (the home, the body, the nation) to the inside. They break through protective boundaries and inject contagion. While ostensibly an animal metaphor then, rats are also frequently used within the context of the organism metaphor, as a disease vector that can infect and even destroy a human body. Perhaps most importantly, like many organism metaphor images, they inject fear on a largely subconscious level; they usually remain in hiding, and we can’t see the transfer of disease that they are responsible for. Additionally, we have a primal fear which we only partially understand of anything that may try to break our skin or otherwise inject contaminants into our body. While mice are viewed as an annoyance requiring traps, rats are a high-priority threat requiring an expert exterminator and complete protection of the perimeter of one’s property and even the surrounding neighborhood. Considering this history, then, one might be wary of buying into the argument that this comparison was simply a coincidence. When a politician or political party compares its opposition to an eagle that will be inadvertent: we really like eagles.

While amusing, this example provides a good introduction to the use of metaphor in politics. At their most basic level, metaphors involve an effort to describe or frame a person, group, object, or even concept through comparison with something else. This may be accomplished for explanatory purposes, as when highly technical scientific or medical phenomena are explained through well-known comparisons (e.g., the Human Genome project as a form of “mapping,” a “blueprint to the human body,” or effort to find the biological “Holy Grail”) (Nelkin and Tancredi 1989, p. 14; Semino 2008, p. 146). Santa Ana (2002) notes that paradigm shifts in science are largely explained to the public through the employment of metaphors (p. 34). In most cases, however, metaphoric comparisons, particularly in the policy arena, are invoked for evaluative or ideological purposes, as a means of providing support or opposition for a particular position, group, or policy option.

The remainder of this chapter will provide a general overview of conceptual metaphor theory and the employment of metaphors within the context of analyzing social problems and related social policies, particularly in situations where the control of a specific marginalized population is a possible outgrowth of such a policy. Following this, in Chapter 2, I will more fully discuss the history and contemporary importance of the organism metaphor, and its relationship to alternative forms of dehumanizing metaphoric themes.

Metaphors, Problem/Group Framing and Social Policy³

Donald Schön (1979) wrote that metaphors constitute “the carrying over of frames or perspectives from one domain of experience to another” (p. 254). According to the late paleontologist Steven Jay Gould (1995), the term metaphor derives from the Greek and means to carry across or transfer something (pp. 443–444). At its most basic level metaphor is a rhetorical vehicle for using one thing (a source domain) to describe another (a target domain). In the example described above, rats constitute the source domain and Democrats the target. The primary rationale for the metaphor, then, is to “carry over” or transfer important though often covert and highly emotive aspects of the source object (e.g., threat, cowardice, sneakiness, disease, contagion, waste) onto the target (O’Brien 2009).

Metaphors may therefore be viewed as a powerful method of synthesizing and framing, in an easily understood and compact “package,” a specific description or, especially in the case of political usage, an ideological position relative to social problems or groups (Charteris-Black 2004; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Importantly, since they often “work” on a largely subconscious level, these connections don’t even have to always make logical sense. To quote Lori Bougher (2012), “[d]‌espite its pervasiveness in cognition, metaphorical reasoning … is largely an ‘implicit procedure’ … that is so ubiquitous it can often go undetected” (p. 148). As Kövecses (2010) notes, metaphors are generally unidirectional, with the source domain giving meaning to the target domain, but not the other way around. People may use parasites to describe people “on welfare,” but won’t really use welfare recipients to give meaning to what a parasite is. Source metaphors are also usually more concrete than the target, and, as noted, such images are frequently used to describe more intangible or complex phenomenon (p. 6).

Those who perceive metaphors as simply providing an interesting, novel, or picturesque mode of describing people and issues with little real impact fail to understand their true importance (Ellwood 1995). Lakoff and Johnson, in their groundbreaking 1980 book, Metaphors We Live By, write that “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 3). Santa Ana (2002) likewise wrote that not only do metaphors shape common daily discourse between humans, but they also lay “a cognitive foundation for higher-level everyday human understanding” (p. 32).

In addition to linguistic metaphors (Democrats are rats, welfare recipients are parasites, etc.), scholars frequently point out the importance of more broad “conceptual metaphors,” which relate not just to a metaphorical term or phrase, but to a general way of thinking about the relationship between the source and target domains on a broad level (Allbritton 1995). Lakoff and Johnson (1980) are credited with laying the groundwork for conceptual metaphor theory. Conceptual metaphors may certainly be fostered through the utilization of relevant linguistic metaphors, but also in a myriad of other ways (Kövecses 2010). The belief that those on “welfare” are parasites, for example, may be supported by case examples and news reports of individuals acting in a particular manner that supports the metaphor, through the belief that they are dependent on and even harming us, their hosts, as well as by the fact that persons in poverty may be presumed to live in vermin-infested environments.

Along with providing a general “frame” or backdrop against which the target is described, conceptual metaphors “can influence the way information [about the target] is processed and represented in memory” (Kövecses 2010, p. 38). In other words, additional knowledge about the person, group, or event is often cognitively processed based on how well it “fits” with the existing conceptual image that one has already embraced. Landau and Keefer (2014) discuss this in terms of conceptual “mapping.” When a particular source domain is accepted as a salient means of describing the target domain, we may, even without consciously knowing it, selectively focus on those elements or characteristics of that target that support the connection. When thinking of welfare recipients, for example, we may be more likely to take note of or remember those cases from the headlines where specific situational elements fit well with the parasite metaphor.

The more “apt” the metaphoric connection becomes, the more natural it will be for us to intuitively discover additional connection points (Jones and Estes 2006). As will be discussed later in this book, this is especially true of the organism metaphor since it relates to “primitive” emotions such as disgust, fear, anger, and revulsion, which are hard-wired but largely subliminal, and since humans have a built-in psychological as well as physical need to protect ourselves and our loved ones from perceived contagion and threats. As De Vos and Suárez-Orozco (1990) wrote, “[o]‌nce conditioned to feel disgusted in reference to certain groups of individuals, objects, or practices, people resist later rational attempts to redefine affected groups, practices, or objects as ‘nondirty.’ Later thought does not overcome continuing feelings of social revulsion and disgust” (p. 131; see also O’Brien 2009). Paul Rozin (2001) likewise noted that a central aspect of presumably contagious entities is permanence; once an entity (or person) is accepted as being dirty or contaminated, our minds will continue to view it that way, regardless of efforts at “purification” (p. 33).

Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Public Policy

Andreas Musolff (2010) notes that if “metaphors structure our worldviews, they are clearly of fundamental importance in political ideology and their critical analysis can provide ‘particular insight into why the rhetoric of political leaders is successful’” (p. 14). The importance of metaphoric language and concepts in public policy may be implied by the rapt attention and substantial resources that politicians and other stakeholders give to those who study and advise them regarding political rhetoric. Those who analyze the public response to political talking points or deconstruct metaphoric framings of social issues, such as Frank Luntz on the right and George Lakoff on the left, have become very influential, both in electoral campaigns as well as in interest group politics. Beginning with the 1994 Contract with America, which gave the Republicans control of the House of Representatives, Luntz (2007) has been heavily involved in analyzing political talking points and helping to develop the phrases that many Republicans employ on an ongoing basis. One of the many examples of this is the estate tax verses the death tax. For several decades the former term was used to describe the taxes that those who inherit large sums of money are required to pay. The latter, however, is the current preferred term, at least for conservatives. While most people are fine with taxing estates, which bring to mind grand mansions on acres of manicured grounds, they may think it unreasonable to tax someone at his/her death. This portends the heavy hand of government reaching into places where it doesn’t belong, and even “getting us” once we have passed from this world.

As noted, Lakoff can be referred to as the father of conceptual metaphor theory, and he contends that conservative politicians and other stakeholders have been much more successful than their liberal counterparts in driving specific policy agendas because they are more savvy about the impact of metaphors on the construction of policy frames. While many have traditionally viewed public policy as being directed primarily by rational approaches which involve critical thinking and the careful balancing of the strengths and deficits of a policy proposal, many social issues are largely driven by emotional appeals and subconscious beliefs, hopes, and fears, often encapsulated through simple language and images. Elena Semino (2008) notes that “language plays a central … role in politics, and … much political action is, either wholly or partly, linguistic action” (p. 85). In his more recent writings such as The Political Mind (2008), Lakoff argues that our brains are actually “wired” differently based in part on our personal experiences and the stimuli that we have absorbed over the years. Life experiences, including the language and thoughts we are exposed to, serve to solidify specific neuronal pathways that impact our beliefs and decision-making. The more we are exposed to similar environmental stimuli, he contends, the more these specific neural pathways are strengthened.

To say that metaphors have great significance within the policy arena is an understatement. Policy debates that appear within the Congressional Record or in any public forum are often laced with potent metaphors (see Ellwood 1995; Lakoff 1995). This is particularly the case when such policies or proposals relate to forms of social control of vulnerable or marginalized groups. Those policymakers who are best able to utilize linguistic and conceptual metaphors in framing issues are the most apt to garner public support for their ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Introduction to Metaphor Theory: Its Use in Public Policy
• 2 Overview of the Organism Metaphor
• 3 Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods
• 4 Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness”
• 5 Metaphoric Disease-Making
• 6 Penetration of the Social Body
• 7 Decay of the Social Body
• 8 Metaphorical Public Health Responses
• Conclusion
• Index