Building a Wall = Delusional Metaphor

In the NYT, one Tom Vanderbilt has a featured (of course) piece titled “The Walls in Our Heads”, the subtitle of which reads: “With The idea that we can solve problems by building physical barriers is a persistent human fantasy.”

The article trots out Democratic consultant and liberal hack George Lakoff (“rhymes with”, as Rush would then add):

“Reality exists,” writes the linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson in “Metaphors We Live By,” but “so does the unconscious system of metaphorical thought that we use without awareness to comprehend reality.”

And what metaphor could be more substantial than a wall? The word “border,” with its vague associations with “neighboring,” seems vaporous, but a wall conveys protection, an unyielding solidity…

Vanderbilt then adds:

There is, of course, no reason fencing cannot be taller than a wall, but this is the power of metaphor: It grows in our subconscious mind. Mere fencing or barbed-wire, by contrast, connotes porousness.

There is this mysterious paragraph:

According to the geographer Elisabeth Vallet, there are more than 50 border walls (using the word broadly) in the world today; 15 were built last year alone. These range from the 600-mile barrier Saudi Arabia is constructing along its border with Iraq as an anti-Islamic State measure to the sturdy, 13-foot-high fence backed with razor wire that Hungary has erected along its borders with Croatia and Serbia to stem the flow of migrants to the “separation barrier” built by Israel in the West Bank (like other countries, Israel steadfastly avoids using the word “wall”).

Boy, that’s a lot of delusionary metaphor seduction taking place around the world!

By inference, anyone building a security fence or wall around their property (do a house’s walls also count?) are fools.

And Trump is an idiot!

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