This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome. Today's suggested topic is the quilt metaphor.
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From Wikipedia: The Aids Quilt
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What is for dinner? How are you doing? What is on your mind. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself beyond the fold in a comment. This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome.
Metaphor is central to my political struggle. So much so I picked my user name here at Daily Kos to reflect my belief in the importance of it. A metaphor is a type of mapping or linkage. I have long believed that our language sometimes betrays us when we are communicating. And, understanding the use and misuse of metaphor is often the key to understanding.
Suppose there is something which a person cannot understand. He happens to notice the similarity of this something to some other thing which he understands quite well. By comparing them he may come to understand the thing which he could not understand up to that moment. If his understanding turns out to be appropriate and nobody else has ever come to such an understanding, he can claim that his thinking was really creative.
— Hideki Yukawa
Creativity and Intuition: A Physicist Looks at East and West (1973), 114.
Further, metaphor has an archetypal nature. Consider how the quilts in the Aids quilts give life those who voices were tragically cut short by the governments, Republicans, and big pharmaceuticals companies inaction.
The picture above has two archetypes displayed in it. One is the quilt or covering of surface area metaphor the other is the line, spear, or protuberance archetype. Words fail me here, but science gives is a good basis for understanding these two archetypes.
The Elliptic Umbilic is the protype for the spear or top down hierarchy metaphor and the Hyperbolic Umbilic is the prototype for the wave or covering a surface area metaphor.
How do I apply these metaphors to my political struggle? Often I see around me solutions being presented through the understanding of the top down hierarchy. Solutions that depend on authority from the top. By being sensitive to the form of this archetype one can learn to see and judge if it the best solution. Many government and social processes are best modeled and run using the top down authority.
While others reflect the quilt metaphor. Such as distributed responsibility given to all the members of society. Democracy and voting are examples of assembling a large amount of dissimilar voters to work toward a common goal. Much like assembling a quilt.
What is key here is that there are always two or more approaches to solve problems. As reflected by these eternal archetypes. Knowing this gives me faith to look for a different solution. Or, allows me to listen to differing voices. Often from the feminine perspective.
My apology for not getting into my local political struggle today, but I have been very busy with preparing videos from NN13 for release. Next week I will start reporting on some of my local political struggles as president of my local Democratic Club.
JON
