A revised version of this article appears in Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, v. 10, no. 2, Spring 1995.
The 1991 Persian Gulf War dramatically punctuated the importance of metaphor to our everyday life and our reasoning about politics. Did the Gulf situation more closely resemble Vietnam or World War II? One's choice of metaphor yielded different practical inferences about what the United States and the world community ought to do in response to the Iraqi invasion. Using the Public Papers of the President series I investigate the metaphors used by former U.S. President George Bush to conceptualize the political situation in the Persian Gulf during the pre-war period of August 1990 through January 1991. I argue the analogical reasoning behind the "new world order" rests on a complex system of metaphors and on Bush's assertion that the expression "the rape of Kuwait" is literal (non-metaphorical) language. The practical outcome of accepting Bush's metaphors and his metaphorically projected inferences was the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf.
If armed men invaded a "home" in this country, killed those in their way, stole what they wanted and then announced that the "house" was now theirs-no one would hesitate about what must be done. And that is why we cannot hesitate about what must be done halfway around the world: Kuwait.
-George Bush, "An Open Letter to College Students on the Persian Gulf Crisis," January 9, 1991 (PPP, 1991, p. 25)
The 1991 Persian Gulf War dramatically punctuated the importance of metaphor to our everyday life and our reasoning about politics. During the pre-war debate a variety of metaphors jockeyed for the lead position in our understanding of the Persian Gulf situation: Did the Gulf situation more closely resemble Vietnam or World War II? Was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait analogous to the theft of a house by armed assailants, or was Iraq an angry adolescent nation redressing injustices visited upon it by Britain during its colonial infancy? One's choice of metaphor during this time yielded different practical inferences about what the United States and the world community ought to do in response to the Iraqi invasion. The stakes of this metaphorical horse-race were clear: war in the Gulf or continued sanctions against Iraq. This study is an investigation into the metaphors used by former U.S. President George Bush to conceptualize the political situation in the Persian Gulf during the pre-war period of August 1990 through January 1991. The examples are obtained from the Public Papers of the President (PPP) series and include materials from prepared remarks, fundraising dinner speeches, radio and television addresses, and press conferences. President Bush was one of the most dominant voices in the world-wide debate leading up to the 1991 Gulf War and he sought, for the most part successfully, to persuade the U.S. public to share his understanding of the crisis. The practical outcome of accepting his metaphors and the understandings they generated was the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf.
The Gulf crisis was remarkable in many respects. It was the first multilateral U.N. peacekeeping operation of its scope since the Korean War. Bush put together a disparate coalition of nations in extremely short order, and that coalition held together for a surprisingly long time given the number of participant nations and the vagaries of diplomacy. Bush claimed that it was the first crisis of an emerging "new world order" arising from the breakup of the Soviet Union and an end to the cold war between superpowers. In the new world order, the community of nations voluntarily acts together to punish transgressions against shared common values. Given this framework, the number of nations which agreed upon military action and sent military forces to the Persian Gulf suggests the degree to which the values that Iraq violated are widely held. What I argue in this paper is that this widely shared value is not respect for the individual human person's right to freedom from the use of deadly force, but instead respect for that individual human right metaphorically transferred to respect for national sovereignty.
Following Lakoff and Johnson (1980) I investigate the underlying conceptual system which makes the metaphorical transfer of individual liberty to national sovereignty possible. To understand the conceptual role metaphors play in foreign policy decisions requires more work detailing exactly what is meant by terms such as "metaphorical logic," "metaphorical reasoning" and the "metaphorical projection of inferences." After briefly examining some of the recent literature on analogical and metaphorical reasoning, I propose a model of how metaphorical inferences work. Finally, I am not claiming in any sense whatsoever that the entire political situation of the Gulf was entirely composed of these metaphors. There were non-metaphorical rapes of actual human beings in Kuwait, and there was a non-metaphorical invasion. However, as with any difficult human decision, I argue the understanding of the political reality which led to a decision to go to war was constituted by the metaphors by which we live.
In a previous effort at tackling the metaphors which underlie the conceptual system used in political rhetoric, I argued that the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor is fundamental to our political discourse, and that the all the other metaphors used to characterize peacemaking cohere in this powerful root metaphor (Rohrer 1991). That hypothesis is borne out by this research and by Lakoff (1991). Much of the following research was influenced by the conceptual system underlying the war in the Gulf as described by Lakoff; however, as Lakoff gives no direct quotes to support his claims, this paper may serve as an initial attempt to fill out the wider scope of his claims.
While research into implications of the metaphors found in foreign policy is still scarce, Schon (1979) investigated how generative metaphor sets problems for social policy. Howe (1988) investigated the role of metaphor in a U.S. presidential campaign of 1984 and found domestic policy primarily conceptualized in sports metaphors. Read, Cesa, Jones and Collins (1990) found that metaphors played an important role in the evaluation of arguments over domestic economic policy. In the arena of foreign policy, researchers have investigated how the "PERSIAN GULF CRISIS IS WORLD WAR II" metaphor system created coherent and stable conceptual mappings (Spellman and Holyoak, 1992; Spellman, Ullman and Holyoak, 1993). Using the Congressional Record, Voss, Kennet, Wiley and Schooler (1992) investigated the uses of metaphor in the U.S. Senate debate over President Bush's request for a declaration of war. Finally, Johnson (1993) has recently worked out several examples of metaphorical reasoning in political and legal affairs.
The conceptual system used by President Bush to describe the Gulf crisis coheres in the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor. A few beginning examples are listed below:
This metaphor has a common special case: the "RULER STANDS FOR THE NATION" metonymy, as in "Saddam Hussein" invaded Kuwait. Consider the importance of this metonymy to one of the first metaphors to appear (and one of the most widely used), the "HUSSEIN IS HITLER" metaphor:
The "RULER STANDS FOR THE NATION" metonymy and "HITLER" metaphor serve as major conceptual links in developing a larger metaphor system of "THE PERSIAN GULF CRISIS IS WW II." The "WW II" metaphor system was frequently employed by the President, and was often intended to counter questions or recent public criticisms based on a different metaphor: "THE PERSIAN GULF CRISIS IS ANOTHER VIETNAM". As the Vietnam war is generally understood to represent the chaotic, unpredictable, and unpopular sides of war, Bush largely ignored the "VIETNAM" metaphor except to briefly and emphatically deny its pertinence to the Persian Gulf crisis. However, Voss, Kennet, Wiley and Schooler (1992, p. 202) found the "VIETNAM" metaphor used by both Democratic and Republican senators during the U.S. Senate debate over the declaration of war in the Gulf. Nowhere else does the adoption of a metaphor system result in as stark a difference in the engendered inferences, for while the "WW II" metaphor and the mapping of Hitler onto Hussein would result in an imperative to go to war, the "VIETNAM" metaphor's focus on war as chaotic, unpredictable and perhaps ultimately unwinnable would reject a decision to go to war in favor of continued sanctions. (However, some Republican senators did argue against drawing this conclusion, instead claiming that the "VIETNAM" metaphor highlighted a need for the whole-hearted support of the U.S. public before going to war).
A "nation-person," like a human person, eats and swallows. On several occasions Bush likened the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait to eating via a "TERRITORIAL EXPANSION IS EATING" metaphor:
If Kuwait is also understood as a "nation-person," presumably one of the "every standards of civilized behavior" Hussein and Iraq have violated invading Kuwait would be the taboo against cannibalism. Although Bush never explicitly extended the metaphor to cannibalism, both Democratic and Republican senators labeled Hussein a (geopolitical) "glutton" (Voss, Kennet, Wiley and Schooler, 1992, pp. 204-5).
When a "nation-person" "eats," as with a person's eating, it becomes stronger. The "nation-person's" "health" reflects its economic situation. Its "strength" is a function of both military "muscle" and economic "health." Its "behavior" reflects that of its leader and populace, and it lives in a "neighborhood" of other geographically close nations. Oil, as the primary energy source used by nations, is understood to be as necessary to a nation's survival as blood and air is to a person's survival. Hence, we have the metaphor of the "lifeline" as carrying vital "oxygen-oil" and the accompanying vocabulary of "pinching" and "economic nooses" which can constrict a "nation-person's" breathing. Examples of these metaphors:
The "nation-person" not only lives in a "neighborhood" but its bad "behavior" can even earn for it title "neighborhood bully:"
The "NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY" metaphor offers an understanding of the invasion as a violent "crime" perpetrated by the "bully." The "bully's" "crimes" are variously stealing a home, rape, torture and murder. The home and rape metaphors were given special attention and development by the President in the month immediately preceding the war. The home metaphor grows out the understanding of the geopolitical "neighborhood:" One "nation-person" invades the "territory-home" of another, killing the "populace-homeowners" and stealing their wealth, then claims the "territory-home" for its own. As the final days waned before the U.N. deadline in January 1991, Bush offered this metaphor as the justification for war in "An Open Letter to College Students," which was sent to 460 college newspapers across the U.S. on January 9, 1991 (PPP, 1991, p. 26):
In widely publishing a metaphoric rationale for the war in college newspapers, Bush sought to further distance the 1991 Persian Gulf crisis from the "VIETNAM" metaphor and cement the "WW II" metaphor as the primary vehicle of public understanding. If the "VIETNAM" metaphor offered by Senate Democrats hinged substantially upon the memory of the Vietnam War as an unjust and unpopular war, the publication of a rationale for the war may have served to minimize the public, student and university opposition reminiscent of the Vietnam War era. With its perceived basis in similarity eroding, the "VIETNAM" metaphor faded down the stretch as President Bush rode his "WW II" stallion to victory in the senate debate and won a declaration of war.
Another complex metaphor system Bush used frequently is "TO STAND UPRIGHT IS TO ACT MORALLY" ("MORAL POSTURE"). In this metaphor, for the "nation-person" to "stand upright" is for the "nation-person" to act morally. The metaphor has two forms of articulation, one in which a "nation-person" "must stand up to aggression;" and the other which uses a series of metonymic links-"THE ACT STANDS FOR THE ACTOR" and "THE RULER STANDS FOR THE NATION"-to articulate one "nation-person's" "moral posture," as in "Hussein's" "aggression" will not "stand." Examples follow:
Why should standing be so important? The key role that Bush ascribes to this metaphor was initially puzzling. However, imagining from the perspective of someone who perceives nations as "children" learning to cope with a new world order, the emphasis on "moral posture" begins to make sense. If international law is understood as a physical force akin to gravitation, then a "nation-person's" spatial posture will represent its "moral posture" with respect to obeying the dictates of the international community. Thus President Bush is reasoning that should the international community permit Iraq (and Iraq's aggression) to "stand" unchallenged as correct "moral posture," Iraq's aggression would be perceived as morally correct behavior for a member of the international community.
The "MORAL POSTURE" metaphor coheres with the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor with respect to a common folk theory of child psychology. A "nation-person" who is permitted to remain "upright"-to "stand"-by the community is a "nation-person" who is a worthy participant and full adult in the community. In Western culture an adult "stands" to deliver a speech in a community or to swear to testimony in a court of law, and only those who have "standing" can bring a lawsuit (Winter, 1988). As learning to stand is a part of the process of developing into a fully adult person, the articulation of moral posture fits tightly with the characterization of Iraq as a wayward "child-nation" which is "backed into a corner by world opinion." While Voss, Kennet, Wiley and Schooler (1992, pp. 210-213) cite several instances of U.S. Senators using a "HUSSEIN/IRAQ IS A CHILD" metaphor, I did not observe Bush explicitly using that metaphor during the pre-war period I examined most closely. However, Bush indirectly draws on this metaphor in alluding to Iraq as the "schoolyard bully" at a post-war press conference.
George Bush makes the centrality of the "MORAL POSTURE" metaphor to the "new world order" plain during an interview with Middle-Eastern journalists just four days after Iraq has agreed to the U.N. cease-fire conditions. The question is a follow-up to a series of questions asking the U.S. President to explain what he means by the phrase "new world order:"
Q. And what is the lesson we have learned from this crisis?
President Bush. Well, the one key lesson is: Aggression will not "stand." You don't "bully" your "neighbor." You don't "swagger" around the "neighborhood" with an "arrogance" and back it up by overwhelming force without "paying a price." Same thing you learned "in the schoolyard" when you were back in Egypt. One guy "came out" and "tried to beat the hell out of you when you're in the third grade," and you'd wait for a while, and then "somebody would hit him" and he'd "go back into his shell" and he wouldn't do it again. And that is what happened in this case. Same thing. (PPP, 1991, p. 239).
The passage begins with the "MORAL POSTURE" metaphor system and ties it closely to the "NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY" system. The aggressive "nation-person" is "standing tall," a "bully" "swaggering arrogantly" around the geopolitical "neighborhood." Eventually, however, the "bully" nation will "pay a price"-"somebody will hit him back" militarily-and the moral balance will be righted again. Finally Bush asserts that the Gulf war has taught Iraq the same lesson as that taught to some schoolyard bully during the journalist's childhood. Bush draws on our understanding of "THE BODY IS A CONTAINER FOR THE EMOTIONS" in expressing this analogy-the schoolyard bully "comes out" and beats someone up, but after the bully is hit back he "goes back into his shell" and doesn't do it again. After reflecting upon this lesson, the bully resolves to "contain" his aggressive nature and according to this folk theory of child psychology should become an "upstanding" adult member of the community.
At this point, an initial conceptual mapping for the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor system can be generated from the examples given previously. A conceptual mapping is given as list of the correspondences operative between the source and target domains of a metaphor. However, the conceptual mapping of a metaphor is more than a mere list of corresponding words. Metaphors are "not just a matter of language, but of thought and reason. The language is secondary. The mapping is primary in that it sanctions the use of source domain language and inference patterns for target domain concepts" (Lakoff 1993, p. 208). Thus the mapping of the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor sanctions the projection of embodied knowledge and inferential patterns from our stock of personal knowledge to our reasoning about nations. For example: In the personal domain we know that if our throat is constricted we cannot breathe and our health is threatened; similarly, if the oil lifeline is threatened, our economic activity is impaired and our national economic "health" is threatened. In a conceptual mapping, the initial or ontological correspondences between domains serve as a springboard for mapping inferential relations and epistemic entailments between the domains (Gentner & Gentner 1983 and Lakoff 1993) . Obviously, Figure 1 contains only a partial mapping of the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor system.
PERSON (source domain) NATION (target domain) body landmass, territory skin (physical boundaries) geographic boundaries fist, muscle military power throat (lifeline) oil pipeline breathing, circulation economic activity health economic health home territory eating, growth territorial expansion neighborhood other geographically nearby nations friends allies
Figure 1-A Conceptual Mapping of the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor
I limit the initial examples of rape metaphors to those few instances where it was clearer that President Bush was speaking of nations and not of the actual rapes of Kuwaiti nationals. Though Lakoff's (1991) discussion of a rape-and-rescue scenario as a possible justification for the Gulf war led me to expect otherwise, I found surprisingly few "pure" instances of rape metaphors where it was grammatically clear that George Bush was referring to the rape of a nation. Examples of "KUWAIT IS A RAPE VICTIM" follow:
Rape metaphors present a complicated case to identify because so much of the metaphoric structure seems utterly dead. The clearest cases are where Bush uses the term rape when speaking about nations (such as "the rape of Kuwait"), but much of the terminology generally associated with rape is also deeply conventionalized with respect to war. Is every invasion a sexual invasion? Every withdrawal a sexual withdrawal? Every victim a sexual victim? Every violation a sexual violation? To raise the old Freudian saw: Is a cigar ever just a cigar?
Nor is every invasion a military invasion. The initial presidential statement (PPP, 1990, p. 1082) condemning the Iraqi invasion specifies military invasion. What this suggests to me is that the metaphor is not "WAR IS RAPE" or even "RAPE IS WAR," but that both uses of terms such as invasion have a common basis in the human experience of bounded spaces. One of the most paradigmatic of our perceptions of bounded spaces is our constant bodily experience of ourselves as containers-into which we put food, out of which we excrete, bleed and so on. Johnson (1987, pp. 18-40) has called this the "CONTAINMENT" image schema. Upon Johnson's account, the terms for war, rape and spatial boundaries have an experiential image schema in common-a visual and motor pattern of experience formed through our interaction with bounded spaces. Thus, the conceptualization of rape and war cross at this point in our experience because both are underlaid by the CONTAINMENT schema. Consider the inference which motivates the metaphorical entailment:
The "rape of Kuwait" is the rape of the body of a metaphorically projected person via the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor.
-We know persons have an experience of containment, of being bounded by a skin. -We know nations have geographic boundaries.
Non-metaphorical entailment: A forcible invasion of personal boundaries (i.e., the body) constitutes rape and/or injury. Metaphorical entailment: A nation may be said to be "raped" when its geographic boundaries are forcibly invaded.
I will talk about the inferential structure in greater depth when I discuss metaphoric reasoning in the following section, but I believe Gendlin (1991) is correct when he suggests that an entire use-family of associated meanings cross with a term whenever the term is used, although the specific context activates certain meanings and deactivates others. Though typically considered dead, the term "invasion" carries with it an unused portion which, although deactivated in the military context surrounding the term, may be picked up and extended by a politician, a poet, a political cartoonist, or even an enterprising reporter.
An example of a reporter picking up on the unused part of a use-family occurs with the "HUSSEIN IS HITLER" metaphor. At the President's news conference on 1 November 1990, a reporter challenged President Bush's "HITLER" and "WW II" metaphors by activating an unused part of the metaphors. "Mr. President, you said today that Saddam Hussein has committed atrocities that were worse than Adolf Hitler. Can you tell us what Saddam Hussein has done that can be compared to the Holocaust?" (PPP, 1990, p. 1518). President Bush responded by stating this point was not the source of the historical parallel he had drawn: "Yes, go back and-well, I didn't say the Holocaust .... I was told-and we've got to check this carefully-that Hitler did not stake people out against potential military targets and that he did, indeed, respect the legitimacy of the Embassies. So we've got some differences here. But ... I see many similarities by the way the Iraqi forces behaved in Kuwait and the Death's Head regiments behaved in Poland" (PPP, 1990, p. 1518).
Similarly, Bush was also challenged on his use of "RAPE" metaphors with respect to nations. However, here his rhetoric is marked by a peculiar insistence on the literality of the rape. Consider the following passage, which became a staple of Bush rhetoric after its initial use: "They literally-literally, not figuratively-raped, pillaged and plundered this once-peaceful land, this nation that is a member of the Arab League and a member of the United Nations" (PPP, 1990, p. 1512; repeated with slight variations p. 1527). Bush's insistence on the literal rape of a nation is followed by descriptions of the transshipment of medical equipment and factory machinery from Kuwait to Baghdad, and a catalogue of human rights violations, including the starving out of embassies and references to actual, non-metaphorical rapes of Kuwaiti women. What is peculiar here is the juxtaposition of the terms rape, pillage and plunder: While one can speak of pillaging or plundering a nation fairly literally, one can only pillage and plunder a person metaphorically; the case is the reverse with rape. This peculiarity was motivated by our understanding of rape as a particularly degrading invasion with enduring traumatic effects. When challenged on the rape metaphor, Bush fought for its literal reality by rhetorically asserting the literal pillaging, plundering and human rights violations were deeply analogous to the continuing degradation a rape victim feels.
Why does the "RAPE" metaphor need to be literalized? Why do any of these metaphors need be literalized? If the metaphors are merely figurative adornments to our reasoning and our arguments over whether to go to war, their failure to fit the world in a few respects should not detract from the logical force of the argument-the tack Bush took in downplaying the Holocaust portion of the "HITLER" metaphor. However, as I intend to show in the following section, the metaphors are crucial to the inferential structure of Bush's vision of the new world order, and hence the metaphors are crucial to his argument's ability to pick us up, carry us along, and compel a declaration of war. The rape must be literalized because we must be able to see in our imagination the "crime"-the rape of the "nation-person" of Kuwait. Reinforcing the "RAPE" metaphor with the images and evidence of the non-metaphorical atrocities provides visceral knowledge of what is meant by the "rape of Kuwait." It is in this way that the "rape" of a nation became literal for the U.S. President and most of the American public.
As the "rape of Kuwait" became more literal, metaphorical reasoning about what to do about the Gulf situation became easier to accept. Recent works on how metaphorical and analogical reasoning operate are becoming more extensive, and the proliferation of the literature has led to a need to distinguish the different aspects of the reasoning process. For instance, Spellman and Holyoak (1992, p. 914-5) describe four such component processes: a) the retrieval of an appropriate source domain, b) the conceptual mapping between the source and target, c) the projection of inferences in the source domain onto the target domain via the mapping, and d) using actual knowledge of the target domain to adapt and limit the projected inferences. All of these processes involve reasoning, and each possesses a type of logic.
In a series of priming experiments exploring the "PERSIAN GULF CRISIS IS WW II" metaphor system, Spellman and Holyoak focus on the logic of the conceptual mapping between the source and target domain. A curious source-domain ambivalence of the "WW II" analogy is that Bush may be mapped from either his rhetorical inspiration (Winston Churchill) or from the 1941 U.S. president (Franklin Delano Roosevelt). Spellman and Holyoak report that this ambivalence is resolved in such a way as to cohere with another mapping: if the 1991 United States is mapped from 1941 United States, Bush is mapped from Roosevelt; but if Bush is mapped from Churchill, then the 1991 United States is mapped from 1941 Great Britain. While the experimental subjects tended to prefer analogies which mapped the United States to itself, they had a stronger preference for a mapping which maintained internal consistency-if Bush is mapped from Churchill, then it will follow that the 1991 United States is mapped from 1941 Great Britain. Spellman and Holyoak proceed to rank these preferences as constraints on the mapping and conclude by offering a computer simulation of the internal logic of the "WW II" mapping.
A focus on the internal logic of a conceptual mapping is slightly different from a a focus on how source domain inferences project onto a target domain. The two are similar in that both processes can involve the inferential projection of elements from the source domain onto the target. For example, a conceptual mapping may be extended by the metaphorical projection of non-metaphorical source-domain entailments onto the target domain, forming metaphorical entailments such as "the rape of Kuwait." However, we can use a process similar to metaphorical entailment to engender complex inferences in the target domain via projecting entire inferences from the source domain. Complex practical inferences of this kind can lead us to conclusions about what to expect in a scientific experiment or what act to perform in our political life.
Metaphor: "TARGET IS SOURCE"
Source Domain Target Domain
things known about source domain projections of things known about
the source domain onto target
domain
non-metaphorically entailed metaphorically entailed
understanding in source domain understanding in target domain
Figure 2-An extended model for metaphorical inference
In the rest of this article I will make substantial use of an extended model of metaphorical entailment (Figure 2) to make complex metaphorical inference patterns more straightforward and easier to read. Presenting the non-metaphorical and the metaphorical inferences in parallel helps articulate the metaphorical projection of the original inference. In effect, I have tried to marry the models of metaphorical entailment and conceptual mapping. A fairly straightforward example of a metaphorical inference important in western culture and to the following arguments results from the "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE" metaphor. The metaphor is found in the following common expressions:
In Figure 3 I give first a conceptual mapping of "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE" and then an example of a metaphorical inference. Using this metaphor, the justice can "weigh" the injustice and then "right" the "scales of justice" by exacting precisely the same item from the transgressor. Just as when the fulcrum in a physical balance is improperly positioned, a justice (fulcrum) who is "too close to one side" will improperly "measure" the testimony of the "nearer" party as having more "weight."
"JUSTICE IS A BALANCE"
BALANCING SCALES (source) JUSTICE (target)
objects unjust acts, testimony about such
acts
weight severity of injustice
fulcrum judge
imbalance injustice, unfair
balance justice, fairness
pans persons
a fulcrum not based at the center
of the balancing arm bias
Metaphor: "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE"
Balancing Scales (source) JUSTICE (target)
An object placed on one side of the An injustice is done causing an
scales tilts the scales "imbalance" of justice
The weight of the object is The severity of an injustice is
measured by the amount the scales "measured" by the judge
tilt
To balance the scale, one must put An injury requires retribution in
a like object of equal weight "like kind and like measure" to
opposite it regain a just "balance"
Figure 3-Mapping and Model of "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE"
This metaphorical inference about how to right the scales of justice is the model of retributive-"an eye for an eye"-justice which is at the core of much of Western moral and legal reasoning. Though a modified form of this inference remains basic to Western legal reasoning, the metaphors which incorporate the "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE" metaphor have become more complex as our economic transactions have become more sophisticated. Ultimately, this metaphor is a special case of Johnson's "MORAL ACCOUNTING" metaphor system (1993, pp. 32-33, 44-50) under which moral interactions are seen as economic transactions. Using the "MORAL ACCOUNTING" metaphor, injustice is redressed not by simply taking "an eye for an eye" but by using a universal medium of recompense: money. Thus in Western legal reasoning a successful wrongful death suit against a corporation results in monetary damages, not the beheading of the CEO of the guilty company. Similarly, Bush resisted "retributive" suggestions that the U.S. military should assassinate Hussein or occupy all of Iraq, and instead demanded that Iraq help pay the price of the U.N. inspection teams mandated by the cease-fire agreement.
I previously argued that the rape of Kuwait was the rape of a metaphorically projected body. We can now begin to make the logic of the rape and its bearing on the justification of war explicit. Upon a first attempt the logic might appear to be as simple as in Figure 4. The conclusion in Figure 4 may be summarized thus: If we witness an injustice, either a person or as a nation, we must intervene forcibly to redress the injustice and "right" the "scales of justice."
Metaphor: "A NATION IS A PERSON"
PERSON (source) NATION (target)
Persons have physical boundaries Nations have geographic boundaries
(i.e. their skin)
A forcible invasion of the boundary A forcible invasion of the
constitutes either rape and/or boundaries constitutes a violation
injury and/or damage
A third person witnessing one A third nation witnessing one
person raping another ought to act nation's violation of another ought
to prevent the injury to act to halt the damage/injury
from "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE:" from "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE:"
An injury requires retribution in An injury requires retribution in
like kind and like measure like kind and like measure
*Hence the third person ought to *Hence that third nation ought to
forcibly intervene to stop the rape forcibly intervene to stop the
invasion
Figure 4-The metaphorical logic of political rape under the Social Contract
However, I have starred the entailments of Figure 4 because there is another conflicting factor operative here, something which is known about the domains which forces an adaptation to the inference. While I want to suggest that this conclusion is often accepted in the domain of international politics, it is incoherent in the personal domain due to another of our conceptual metaphor systems. Moreover, it is not the reasoning of Bush's new world order. Consider the following excerpt from a Bush letter: "Some ask whether it's moral to use force to stop the rape, the pillage, the plunder of Kuwait. And my answer: Extraordinary diplomatic efforts having been exhausted to resolve the matter peacefully, then the use of force is moral" (PPP, 1991, p. 71). Why is the use of force moral only after diplomatic efforts are exhausted?
In the personal domain, the use of force is proscribed due to our understanding of "A NATION AS A CONTRACT AMONG PERSONS" (the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor). This metaphor is also deeply embodied in our legal system. Under this metaphor, persons (human beings) have "contractually" given up to the state their ability to use deadly force. A crime of murder or rape is not first a crime against the victim, but a "crime" against their "contract" with the state. Hence a third person witnessing a crime does not necessarily need to intervene forcibly because she or he may call on the authorized agents of the state-the police-to intervene forcibly on the victim's behalf. (This is precisely where some argue this inference breaks down in the international domain, for if the right to use deadly force is reposed at the level of the nation-state it is not possible to call on a world police force.) In cases where the third (human) person does use deadly force and kill the rapist, the person would likely be charged with a justifiable homicide. In the Western legal tradition, homicide is held justifiable: (1) in self-defense; (2) in the line of duty-when, having exhausted all other courses of action and the assailant continues to propose a clear and present danger, the person may act as an authorized agent of the state would and use force as the state would. Thus the concluding entailment in the personal domain (of Figure 4) is suspect due to the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor.
The concluding entailment in the domain of international politics is suspect as well once we realize another important point from the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor: The social contract is the genesis of the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor. This genesis rests on the following sort of fictional history. Once, preceding human community, humans lived in "a state of nature." In the state of nature, human beings had the natural ability to take life and let live, and hence had a corresponding "natural right" to exercising that ability. As life is "nasty, brutish and short" when people exercise their natural abilities to kill each other (as they would do in the state of nature), we humans have chosen to "contractually transfer" our natural rights to the state. But of course no one actually "signs" such a "contract;" the "choice," the "transfer" and the "contract" are all completely fictional. However, this fictional history makes the nation-state a "person" with whom one can "contract."
Though the social contract metaphor is given further development by later thinkers such as Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson and Adams, its modern core is set out first by the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes. In its earliest modern incarnation the social contract among natural (human) persons specifies that we elevate one person to the status of monarch (or ruler). Our obedience to the monarch is ensured because only the monarch has the right of power over life and death; our obedience is compelled out of fear for our lives. Hobbes (1651/1962, p. 132) makes this point: "The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another ... is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men ... which is as much to say, to appoint one man or assembly of men to bear their person." In giving up our natural right to the use of deadly force, we have given the state personhood. Hobbes continues: "This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or to speak more reverently, that mortal god ... which to define it, is one person." Though the modern democratic nation-state is certainly not a monarchy, we have seen that we still metaphorically understand a nation as one person and this understanding structures much of our political thought.
However it is precisely this point which makes the conclusion in the target domain suspect as well. Once the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor has given birth to the "nation-person," it seems as if we ought to complete the "NATION IS A PERSON" conceptual mapping by creating an international social contract between "nation-persons" and the world community analogous to the social contract between human persons and the "nation-person." The conceptual mapping ought not have a blank spot; thus the conclusion of the metaphorical inference in Figure 4 is suspect in the international domain as well. This is the metaphorical gap Bush's "new world order" is intended to fill.
It is an extension of the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor which guides George Bush's vision of a new world order. Under the Hobbesian "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor, international politics are not bound by international law because the "nation-persons" are not compelled by any further power-there is no international law if there is no international police force. The "nation-persons" remain in the state of nature, where the only law is the "law of the jungle." However, in the "NEW WORLD ORDER" metaphor system the "nation-persons" give up to the United Nations their right to use deadly force against other nations under the rule of international law. Hence the attention Bush gives to Iraq's violation of international law, to having exhausted the extraordinary diplomatic efforts, to asserting the failure of the international economic sanctions, and tothe multilateral character of the intervention force. In this articulation, Iraq is cast as an "outlaw" "nation-person", the invasion as an "illegal" assault, and each nation in the international community is charged with contributing military forces or monetary support to play world "policeman." But Iraq's "assault" is not on Kuwait, for that would be to say that the invasion is a crime against a "nation-person." Instead, just as in the case of one human being raping another, the Iraqi invasion is seen as an "assault" on the "essence of international order," a "crime" against the world community. When Kuwait's sovereignty is further threatened by the Iraqi attempt to close the embassies, it is not merely Kuwait's survival that is threatened but the emerging international version of a "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor. Hence Bush sees this threat as an opportunity to establish a "NEW WORLD ORDER" metaphor system which gives the "nation-persons" a chance to enact an international social contract. The "NEW WORLD ORDER" is thus a second-order reprojection of the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor system. Evidence for the "NEW WORLD ORDER" metaphor system from Bush's speeches follows:
We are now in a position to understand the metaphorical logic justifying the war in the Gulf (Figure 5). The logic of the "NEW WORLD ORDER" is simply that of the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" projected onto the nation-state via the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor. Since the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor supposedly explains how human persons came to live together in peace, it follows that the way for "nation-persons" to live together in peace is to work toward an international "social contract." Such an international compact is possible only if the nations can agree to act in concert to redress Iraq's "contractual" violation of Kuwaiti sovereignty. Buried underneath this second layer of legal metaphors is the original "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor, in which Kuwaiti sovereignty metaphorically represents the basic human right of individual Kuwaitis to be free from the use of deadly force. For Bush, national sovereignty and this basic human right have a unity that is literal and real-though their unity has its roots in the metaphorical reasoning I have described. Bush offers a way the nations of the world can see themselves as both defending basic human rights and establishing the new world order by acting as a "world police" force, capable of enforcing international law against "rapists" and "neighborhood bullies."
Metaphor: "A NATION IS A PERSON"
PERSON (source) NATION (target)
Persons have physical boundaries Nations have geographic boundaries
(i.e. their skin)
A forcible invasion of the boundary A forcible invasion of the
constitutes either rape and/or boundaries constitutes a violation
injury and/or damage
A third person witnessing one A third nation witnessing one
person raping another ought to act nation's violation of another ought
to prevent the injury to act to halt the damage
from "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE:" from "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE:"
An injury requires retribution in An injury requires retribution in
like kind and like measure like kind and like measure
*Hence the third person would *Hence that third nation would
naturally forcibly intervene to naturally forcibly intervene to
stop the rape stop the invasion
but here the "SOCIAL CONTRACT/NEW WORLD ORDER" metaphor comes into play:
Forcible intervention is precluded Forcible intervention is precluded
in the transfer of certain natural by the transfer of certain
rights to the state sovereign rights to the
international community
Forcible intervention is authorized Forcible intervention can be
by the state sanctioned by the United Nations
In order to intervene one must In order to intervene international
either contact agents of the state consent must be sought and the
or later justify one's action to international community should act
the state in concert
Figure 5-The metaphorical logic of political rape in the New World Order
Why is the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor so central to our conceptualization of politics? This metaphor is vital to Bush's rhetoric and to his attempt at redeploying the power to take life and let live from the level of the sovereign nation to the level of the international community. The new world order remains rooted in this Hobbesian metaphor; in addition to the social contract we will now have the international compact. It is important to realize how much all these metaphors rest on their cognitive entrenchment-their ability to become detached, conventionalized, ordinary fixtures of our conversation. Both the well-entrenched "SOCIAL CONTRACT" and the proposed "NEW WORLD ORDER" metaphor systems rest on a well-imagined fictional history, and share many entailments with other common aspects of our conceptual system (such as "JUSTICE IS A BALANCE").
It is easier to be Dr. Frankenstein than to play god; and it is easier to animate dead metaphors than to invent new ones. The power that the "NEW WORLD ORDER" metaphor system-the metaphorical projection of the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" metaphor-has to persuade us lies in the cognitive entrenchment of the social contract, not in inventing anything new. A pacifist might quarrel with the initial inference from the source domain that was projected-perhaps intervention is not the correct entailment to that inference. Or one could quarrel with which crime-murder or rape-best fits into metaphorical argument. But the metaphor systems are crucial to the force of the argument, and it is extremely difficult to argue against their conclusions without changing the metaphorical basis. However, the "NATION IS A PERSON" system is deeply entrenched in our culture and it shares entailments with so many other metaphors that it is difficult to imagine conceptualizing the nation as anything else and still giving a rich and coherent account of a nation's politics. It is perhaps easier to attack the fictional history and denounce the "SOCIAL CONTRACT" as imaginary, but the fictional history is an admitted illusion and the metaphor still remains intact in our language and understanding. In short, the new world order is not new words, but a new word order.
To say that the reality of our political life is constituted by these metaphors and an admitted fictional history is not to say that our political system is built on shifting sands. To be sure, the power to take life and let live-what Hobbes called a "natural right"-does remain always with the individual, and laying bare this metaphorical structure in some ways reacquaints the individual with that power. But it is the community that has taken that power away, and the community of others does not cease to exist once we understand the metaphors which underlie it. Right now, the sovereign community is that of the nation; in the future sovereignty may be reposed at the level of the international community. The stability and the remarkable endurance of the "NATION IS A PERSON" metaphor (Plato proposed it for Athens in the Crito) is ordinary however, not extraordinary: Politics is quite naturally the extension of our bodily selves into an imagined political space. We may not be able to find a better metaphor for a nation easily, but perhaps we can learn to better refine the one we have-there are alternatives to imagining the "nation-person's" political space in legalese. But to say that the reality of our political system is constituted by these metaphors is to say that politics and peacemaking are cultural and educative processes, for it is the ritual enactment of the social contract that gives these metaphors their motive force.
The author wishes to acknowledge financial support from a Graduate Fellowship from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale while completing work on this paper and insightful intellectual criticism from Mark Johnson, Steve Fesmire, Todd Hedinger, George Lakoff, Michele Pinkow and the editors of Metaphor and Symbolic Activity.
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