Good Morning!! It is morning gray here today and it is a Zach day. I have a new place for us to go so am excited.
Yesterday I started reading, Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. They begin with "concepts we live by," concepts we take for granted in this society. They point out that the conceptual metaphor that "Argument is war," shows up in our expressions.
From the book:
ARGUMENT IS WAR
Your claims are indefensible.
He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I've never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out.
He shot down all of my arguments.
I then started reading Speak the Language of Healing, Living with Breast Cancer Without Going to War, written by four women, who came from four different spiritual practices to approach cancer from a place different than the medical community language of the time, which spoke of winners and losers, victims and survivors. They chose to greet cancer as an opportunity and see the chemicals of chemotherapy as elixir, not poison. In viewing their experience as a rite of passage, not a war, they created a new language, a new frame in which to view the treatment of disease.
I think that is what President Obama is trying to do. He is creating a new frame, using language to open options and perceptions, so we can begin to even the playing field and unite us all in a vision for one planet earth, a planet with limited resources that needs cooperation now. We need a language with metaphorical concepts of healing and peace.