Metaphors

Back in 2015, I published a paper on metaphors for sustainability that ended up becoming one of my most cited papers. In the paper, I discussed the power of metaphors in limiting our thinking, and how seemingly innocent ideas like the ecological footprint metaphor can have far-reaching consequences for all our futures.

In a similar vein, I read an article in Foreign Policy on how using the Second World War as analogy makes the war in Ukraine worse by insisting that the only way it could end is in the complete surrender (if not annihilation) of either side. To treat the war as an existential struggle against evil, however apt that metaphor may have been during the Second World War, limits the room for compromise and risks ultimately spark nuclear Armageddon (especially if Russia is forced out of Crimea). Instead, Anatol Lieven suggests that we should think of the conflict more akin to the First World War and accept that a messy outcome is immeasurably more desirable than one in which the world ends.