David Brooks, that most frustrating of New York Times columnists (He sees reality! He denies it!) today (April 12) talks about metaphors and how we apply them. "We just use those metaphors," he says of some, "without even thinking about it, as a way to capture what is going on." Or to explain it. He goes on to name names: food metaphors to describe ideas, health metaphors to describe relationships. And while indeed, his larger point is true, he ignores (as he so often does) a central premise: the metaphors he's talking about are in common usage, they're cliches, tried but not completely true. To suggest they're poetry is as much a crime as it is to call his mislabel a crime.
Metaphor is commonly described as "a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another" (Websters New World Dictionary). It's no surprise to anyone who pays the least attention to language and discourse that what Brooks is telling us is true. We make metaphorical comparisons, with various degrees of relevancy, all the time. Brooks states that we do this to help ourselves understand complicated issues or new ideas. "It’s good to pause to appreciate how flexible and tenuous our grip on reality actually is," he states, suggesting we "pause once a month or so to pierce the illusion that we see the world directly...to appreciate how flexible and tenuous our grip on reality actually is."
The weak or trivial metaphor doesn't help us grip reality any better than StickUm. This poet would argue that good metaphors don't impart specificity as much as they suggest multiplicity, linking two or more images in the readers mind while making an emotional or personal connection
For our money, the money quote, if we might repeat metaphors (and we promise that we didn't pay for it) is this:
Most important, being aware of metaphors reminds you of the central role that poetic skills play in our thought. If much of our thinking is shaped and driven by metaphor, then the skilled thinker will be able to recognize patterns, blend patterns, apprehend the relationships and pursue unexpected likenesses.
Sadly, poetic skills vary. Even as he makes a big deal of metaphor, Brooks tends to depend on the trite and trivial when he uses them. From his previous column (April 7) on Paul Ryan's budget: "Liberals are on the warpath" and "Republicans are aroused " (or is this double entendre?). Whatever the case, Brooks only attempt at something truly new and creative falls amazingly flat: "Ryan has moved us off Unreality Island." Not clever, not even cute.
While many of the comments attached to Brooks column argue for and against metaphor's role in clarity, the very first comment calls him out perfectly. These aren't metaphors, they're cliches. Or as another comment says, they're words "written out of laziness, ...the opposite of creative speech. "
And that's why this poet is angry. Poets struggle to make their metaphor as meaningful and suggestive as possible; and always (somehow) new, if only in context. Kudos to Brooks for quoting Harvard Department of Psychology professor Steven Pinker who calls this kind of thinking “pedestrian poetry.” We just wish Brooks himself would be a little less pedestrian.
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