Tim Adamson, Greg Johnson, Tim Rohrer and Howard Lam
Brought to you by the Metaphor Center Online
Rush Limbaugh is one of the most influential voices on the American political scene today. While many regard his voice as polemical and bombastic, he nevertheless has a primary role in formulating the metaphors which shape much of the 1994 Republican Congress' policies. Though many dismiss his rhetoric as simplistic and intellectually facile, he clearly taps deep into the American psyche with his visceral language. Viewed from the perspective of metaphor analysis, Limbaugh's rhetoric is brilliantly constructed in its use of culturally entrenched metaphors, which resonate with the emotional feelings of his listeners and readers. In this paper, we investigate Limbaugh's use of metaphor in his recent book, The Way Things Ought To Be.[1] We sum up by arguing that Limbaugh's metaphors cohere in his theory of human nature and a vision of a society built around the traditional nuclear family. We conclude that liberals are not yet articulating their own version of human nature and offering some initial thoughts as to what that might entail.
According to Limbaugh, America is engaged in a culture war. While liberals are waging a war to destroy society, conservatives are fighting a rear guard action to uphold traditional values and maintain a strong society. At stake in this war is whether our nation and our children will live in accordance with a certain preordained view of human nature. Limbaugh believes that this view of human nature is the vision our founding fathers had in creating the U.S. constitution and is inseparable from our American way of life. At the core of this view of human nature is a faith in rugged individuals who provide for the traditional nuclear family. Our capitalist system is on this view a natural consequence of these individuals competing to provide the best lives for their families. Liberals, Limbaugh argues, reject this account of capitalism and society; he claims that their vision is to replace the capitalist system with a utopian socialist government that replaces fathers as providers. In advocating a socialist agenda, liberals are at war not just with conservatives and conservative ideologies, but with human nature itself. Evidence for the contemporary POLITICS IS WAR metaphor system follows:
1. Folks, here you have perhaps the best example of the culture war being waged in our country today. (133)2. They [liberals] march under different labels now: political correctness, gender politics, peace studies. But they are all based on the same misguided premise held by the 60's radicals: that Utopia is possible. They think that a centralized governmental authority can bring us Utopia. I say that's bunk. I think it is Utopian to expect that every citizen will eat equally well on every day of the year. I think it is Utopian to expect that every citizen will be provided health care in whatever amount and whatever degree he wants every day of the year. (262)
3. It's important that people in this country who still hold sacred our American traditions be made aware of the constant assault that is being waged on this society by its Utopian enemies. . . . No one, but the Socialist Utopians don't tell you that their agenda to end it [poverty] merely spreads the misery to include more people. . . . . The frightening thing about these people is their insidious nature. They would present much less threat to this society if they would simply be honest and open about their agendas. Instead, they disarm us with such harmless platitudes as "we are in favor of clean air" or "we are against poverty." People should be aware of the extent to which our way of life is under siege by an increasing number of groups with candy-coated causes, but poisonous agendas. (265)
4. [The media] is "constantly pounding us with doom and gloom scenarios, which often cast a negative spell over the national psyche. (300)
5. What they [environmentalists] really want to do is attack our way of life. Their primary enemy: capitalism. (155)
6. Their appeals and their scare tactics are designed to transform people into foot soldiers in the army of doomsday environmentalism. (155)
7. Dioxin at those levels isn't harmful, yet we were bombarded by TV reports showing people in spacesuits walking through the empty town. (162)
8. The feminist leadership vowed revenge and retreated to plot a new destructive and divisive strategy. (190)
9. And Stanford capitulated and abolished the Western civilization requirement. (204)
In these examples, Limbaugh makes use of the conventional metaphor POLITICS IS WAR. The mapping for this metaphor follows:
WAR POLITICS armies political groups commanders political leaders soldiers citizens objective anarchy or stability weapons policies, ideas propaganda books, TV, radio, slogans casualties ordinary citizens (innocent) war heroes conservatives like Rush traitors liberals
Limbaugh uses the POLITICS IS WAR metaphor to conceptualize the way in which he sees liberal left as attacking society. This metaphor is predominant in his rhetoric concerning the left. Limbaugh believes that he and his conservative counterparts are generals in this battle against the left who are trying to recruit ordinary citizens to their cause. In this war, the primary objective of the conservative movement is to restore stability amidst the anarchy brought on by liberal attacks. Since liberal policies are destroying the country, Limbaugh believes that the most effective way to respond is to launch conservative weapons, i.e., conservative policies.
As mentioned, Limbaugh believes the country is under attack. So, when he attempts to justify his aggressive rhetoric or the implementation of harsh-sounding conservative policies, he is doing so because he thinks the war against the left justifies these "responses." The cause for which he and those like him are fighting is to save this country from liberal takeover. He thinks that holding back this liberal aggression must be accomplished at all costs.
Limbaugh is aware of the need to use propaganda to justify the conservative cause. He skillfully employs TV, radio, and his books to advance the conservative counter-offensive. The liberals, he says, use books, radio, and TV to spread their message, so he must do the same. He knows that his rhetorical tactics will result in political casualties. His personal attacks are directed against the leaders of the liberal left. He thinks he is justified in assassinating their characters, because the political deaths of a few liberals in no way compare to the casualties of many (innocent) civilians who suffer from liberal policies.
Finally, there is an extension concerning the role of war heroes. Every war has its heroes, and the war over America is no exception. A logical extension of this metaphor is that conservative leaders are war heroes who, if called upon, would sacrifice themselves for their country. Notice that this metaphor could extend to Limbaugh himelf. In contrast, liberals are portrayed as traitors to the American way of life.
Limbaugh believes that some enemies that are more dangerous than others. He declares that the women's movement is the most significant threat to America. He labels radical feminists "feminazis." Even though he admits that there are only a few feminazis, the mere allusion to Nazis suggests an unspeakable evil. The labeling of women as feminazis is a metaphorical extension of POLITICS AS WAR. Limbaugh sees feminism as the vanguard of the liberal attack in that feminists seek to subvert the natural order of the nuclear family by fostering confusion between the nurturing role of the mother and the providing role of the father.
Limbaugh's use of the SOCIETY IS A FAMILY metaphor is rather perplexing. The following quote illustrates some of the connections between the SOCIETY IS A FAMILY metaphor and the POLITICS IS WAR metaphor. Limbaugh writes:
The main ideological battle in this country is between those who think the government should be the primary allocator of benefits in society and those who believe the private sector should have that function. (148)
He uses a special case of the SOCIETY IS A FAMILY metaphor to argue that the government should not play the role of a provider in society. Under this special case of the metaphor, American society under liberal leadership is understood as a dysfunctional family of lazy and dependent pigs. His purpose in portraying the liberal vision of society as a family of pigs is to show the illegitimacy of a government that replaces the father as provider. According to Limbaugh, traditional families should be the model for society. They should be independent, self-sufficient, and contributing members of a capitalist society. Evidence for the LIBERAL SOCIETY IS A FAMILY OF PIGS metaphor follows:
1. We need to replace the eagle with a huge sow that has a lot of nipples and a bunch of fat piglets hanging on them, all trying to suckle as much nourishment from them as possible. (146)2. Of course, the large sow is near death. She's not fat and flourishing, she's emaciated. A lot of the piglets have dropped off and are running around lost because they can't get any more nourishment. (146)
3. The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the mother pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of this government and they give nothing back. Nothing. They're the ones who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones who are always pandered to. (40)
4. And do the poor pay anything back? Do they pay any taxes? No. They don't pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country. They do nothing but take from it. There are people who are putting into this economy. There are people who are working hard every day, playing by the rules and contributing. They are the givers. Who are the takers? The poor. (40)
5. Instead of supporting your own kids, you are supporting a giant bloated pig in Washington, DC, and you're just trying to get your face into the nipple so that you can get some of it back. We've all become a bunch of little piglets trying to get to the mother pig and then trying to squeeze in and get our share. (39)
6. We need to encourage people to contribute to the economy, not to sit around and bask in self-pity. Encourage them to become economically equal members of this society, rather than a collection of sycophants sidling up to the pig and looking for the biggest nipple they can find. (41)
7. We do, however, need to wean people off the government pig. The country is losing its self-reliance and becoming a subsidy hog. (43)
8. We're going to have to wean people away from entitlements; wean them off the sow. (147)
The following is the mapping for the special case metaphor LIBERAL SOCIETY AS A FAMILY OF PIGS:
PORCINE FAMILY LIBERAL SOCIETY sow government piglets poor people nipples, teats social programs milk, nourishment entitlements food for the sow tax money providers of the food tax payers
Limbaugh uses this metaphor to satirize the liberal vision of society. The government as a sow is an illegitimate provider, for it does not independently produce what it provides. The sow, like the government, is not self-sufficient. The domesticated sow relies upon someone else to provide food for it; likewise, the government cannot exist without tax-payers providing tax dollars. So, just as the milk that the sow provides for the piglets comes from the food provided by the farmer, the entitlements the government provides for the poor that the government provides for the poor comes from the money provided by the tax payers. Further, just the primary concern of the piglets is getting milk from the nipple, the primary concern of the poor is securing entitlements and benefits from governmental programs. That the milk comes out of the sow does not change the fact that it is the food providers who keep the sow alive. Similarly, the entitlements that are disbursed by the government depend on the tax payers, who shoulder the cost of government.
Both the metaphor of SOCIETY IS A FAMILY in general and the special case in which liberal society is a family of pigs are vital to Limbaugh's reasoning about social policy. The first inference that Limbaugh draws from this metaphor is that liberal social programs are based on an internal contradiction. The tax payers are the people who are making the existence of society possible, and yet the liberals are belittling that fact by making the government into the primary provider for the society. However, since the tax payers provide funds for the government, ultimately the government cannot even provide for itself, much less for others.
In assuming the role of the provider to the poor, the government must tax the middle class to raise the necessary funds. Limbaugh believes that this tax practice is unfair since the government takes money from the real providers and gives it to the poor, who contribute nothing to the government. As the government has takes more funds out of the wallets of the middle class, the tax-paying members of society gradually become the poor and clamour for federal assistance as well. At the same time, since the poor are getting what they want without having to work for it, they have no incentive to do anything except continue to depend on the government. The nub of the contradiction is that in the name of helping the poor escape poverty, those same liberal programs create more poverty. Limbaugh believes that the liberal programs turn the taxpaying, contributing citizens into the poor by creating an artificial situation in which the poor become the lesiure class and the middle class chooses to emulate the poor. Limbaugh argues that liberal policies create an absurd situation and should therefore be abandoned. Evidence for the first inference:
1. "The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the mother pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of this government and they give nothing back. Nothing. They're the ones who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones who are always pandered to." (40)2. "And do the poor pay anything back? Do they pay any taxes? No. They don't pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country. They do nothing but take from it. There are people who are putting into this economy. There are people who are working hard every day, playing by the rules and contributing. They are the givers. Who are the takers? The poor." (40)
3. "Of course, the large sow is near death. She's not fat and flourishing, she's emaciated. A lot of the piglets have dropped off and are running around lost because they can't get any more nourishment." (146)
4. "Instead of supporting your own kids, you are supporting a giant bloated pig in Washington, DC, and you're just trying to get your face into the nipple so that you can get some of it back. We've all become a bunch of little piglets trying to get to the mother pig and then trying to squeeze in and get our share." (39)
5. "We're getting to the point where the tax producers will someday be outnumbered by the tax eaters in this country. Those who choose to accept the responsibility of life have had enough of being told that they should give more to those who don't shoulder those responsibilities." (47)
6. "Working people are striving against the odds to make it in this country, and all the government can do is view them as a revenue target." (46)
7. "The sympathy in this country is never for those on whose shoulders the burden actually rests: the diligent middle class." (48)
8. "Yet we are encouraged by such "leaders" as Jesse Jackson to reduce ourselves to the lowest common denominator; to emulate the poor, rather than encourage them to emulate those who produce." (42)
A second inference Limbaugh derives from the metaphor is that liberal social programs both foster illegitimacy and are illegitimate themselves. Limbaugh believes that in taking from the taxpayers to give to the poor, the government is illegitimately usurping the role of the providing father in the nuclear family. By giving the poor what they want but did not earn for themselves, the government is fostering illegitimacy, dependency, and laziness. This dependency is exhibited in the proliferation of fatherless families. That is, since the government is providing them with the income that is normally provided by fathers, these families can subsist without fathers. Further, a fatherless family is a replica of a liberal vision of society--a family of pigs headed by a sow who does not provide for herself but is provided for by others. In such a family, the sustenance that the mother provides for her children is not the result of her own work, since she must rely on another (the government) to provide her with her income.
In a traditional nuclear family, that sustenance is earned by and provided by the father. For Limbaugh illegitimate social programs and illegitimate families are inextricably bound together--concern for illegitimate families fosters illegitimate governmental programs, which in turn foster more illegitimate families by rewarding women for having children and men for abandoning their children. However, Limbaugh's conception of illegitimacy is bound up with his conception of natural law--in his view of human nature, men are supposed to be providers. Thus for the government to assume the father's role is not only illegitimate, but emasculates men by keeping them from fulfilling their natural roles as providers. Evidence for inference #2:
1. The recipients of these programs become dependent on the government and their dignity is destroyed. (72)2. The federal government has assumed the role of the wage-earning father in too much of black America and as a result there are no role models for young blacks growing up in those communities. (224)
3. The federal government has assumed the role of the wage-earning father for a lot of kids... (196)
4. In many cities the federal government has replaced the wage-earning husband and father with a welfare check. The man is no longer essential for financial support. Welfare is given with good intentions, but it has emasculated John Q. Stud. He has reverted to irresponsibility. (196)
A third inference he draws from the SOCIETY AS FAMILY metaphor is that the way to solve the dependency problem is to get people to provide for themselves. The key step in this solution is to stop the government from being the illegitimate provider. Rather than being the kind of parent who continually provides sustenance, the government should play the role of a stern but encouraging father who provides opportunity rather than continual sustenance. In doing so, the government is not usurping the role of the real father, but is encouraging people to be self-sufficient individuals who strive to maximize their potential. With the government playing the role of an encouraging but not providing father, the real father is left with the responsibility to provide for his own family. This shift in the government's role gets people out of the dependency cycle and into the capitalist system. While government still plays the role of the father, it is now playing the legitimate role of a (god)father. Evidence for inference #3:
1. "We need to encourage people to contribute to the economy, not to sit around and bask in self-pity. Encourage them to become economically equal members of this society, rather than a collection of sycophants sidling up to the pig and looking for the biggest nipple they can find." (41)2. "We do, however, need to wean people off the government pig. The country is losing its self-reliance and becoming a subsidy hog." (43)
3. The great prosperity so many people in this country enjoy is available to everybody, if you are just taught how to avail yourself of it, how to believe in yourself, how to be self-sufficient, and how to escape government dependency. (27)
4. We must do something to bring families together. One way to do it is to reform the welfare system so as to remove the disincentives to upward mobility. We must quit rewarding fathers for leaving their families and mothers for having more kids out of wedlock. We must remove government as the father figure support base in these inner city families and provide incentives for the real fathers to stay home. 226
5. They [liberals and the black leadership] should be seeking ways to wean them [the inner-city poor] off the government dependency cycle and, quite frankly, from dependence on the self-serving black leadership. 225
6. He [Clarence Thomas] has succeeded by relying on himself, rather than prostituting himself into the dependency cycle. As a result of eschewing their prescription, he has risen to levels far above what would have been possible for him had he relied on the black leadership's formula for achievement.
7. Helping people to become self-sufficient is much more compassionate than drugging them with the narcotic of welfare. (73)
8. For the country to fulfill its potential, you need individuals to be the best they can be--not the government taking care of people. (27)
Limbaugh believes that if the corrective measure is not taken, then the government is going to perish. That is, if we do not get people to become more self-sufficient and less dependent on the government, then they will continue to take from the government without giving anything back. As it is, the government is pushed to its limits. It is not strong and flourishing. The subsidy hog is dying. It can continue to exist as a provider to society's poor so long as there are enough tax payers to foot the bills for all of the social programs which drain it of its resources. But when the demands for entitlements outnumber the tax dollars, the government will no longer be able to function as a provider of benefits. Should that happen, it will not be just the poor who will be adversely affected; the taxpayers will be hurt as well. The government will eventually take so much from the taxpayers that the taxpayers themselves will have to become reliant upon government sunsidies in order to survive. Ultimately this absurdity will force the government to perish since no one will be left to pay the tax bill. Evidence for inference #4:
1. Everyone is going to have to tighten their belts or the whole system will collapse in about forty years (147)2. "The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the mother pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of this government and they give nothing back. Nothing. They're the ones who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones who are always pandered to." (40)
3. "And do the poor pay anything back? Do they pay any taxes? No. They don't pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country. They do nothing but take from it. There are people who are putting into this economy. There are people who are working hard every day, playing by the rules and contributing. They are the givers. Who are the takers? The poor." (40)
4. "Instead of supporting your own kids, you are supporting a giant bloated pig in Washington, DC, and you're just trying to get your face into the nipple so that you can get some of it back. We've all become a bunch of little piglets trying to get to the mother pig and then trying to squeeze in and get our share." (39)
5. "We're getting to the point where the tax producers will someday be outnumbered by the tax eaters in this country. Those who choose to accept the responsibility of life have had enough of being told that they should give more to those who don't shoulder those responsibilities." (47)
6. Of course, the large sow is near death. She's not fat and flourishing, she's emaciated." (146)
As we saw in the analysis of his war metaphors, Limbaugh views liberals as dangerous and as threats to American society, much as a foreign army is an obvious threat to the nation during war time. Those who wish to preserve the American way of life, he argues, must defend themselves against the attacks from the agenda-armed left, fight back, devise strategies, etc. We have also seen how, in Limbaugh's view, "liberal" programs such as welfare actually serve to harm the people they affect. His arguments for this depend heavily on certain models of the family, on the notion that women and men have certain pre-ordained and natural roles in raising families. Liberal programs, according to Limbaugh, break apart this "legitimate" family, both at the level of individuals and at the level of government, which also has a "parental" role in relation to the nation.
Another prominent and related metaphor Limbaugh employs is that of LIBERALS AS CRIMINALS. Whereas in the war metaphors liberals were seen as a foreign army, here they are seen as individual thieves and thugs, or as gangs that intimidate and attack innocent citizens. This metaphor shares entailments with the war metaphor in that both depict liberals as aggressors and threats to America. This metaphor also coheres with Limbaugh's vision of traditional family as the natural model of society. In challenging the traditional family, liberals break natural law and thus become criminals in Limbaugh's eyes.
1. This [banning school prayer] is nothing less than depriving children of their moral and mental nutrients during their formative years. (150)2. And the primary targets of their revenge are our children. They are taking it out on our kids by filling their minds with mush and teaching them how horrible America is. (211)
3. Allison Weatherfield, a crony of Ms. Weathers at the NOW gang... (139)
4. I got into a knock-down-drag-out fight with the NOW gang there. (191)
5. The fingerprints of junk scientists are all over the environmental movement. (162-3)
6. The profile of the NOW woman came to be that of a loud, militant person whose views were based on a belief that women no longer needed men.... They set out to avoid and attack the traditional role for women because they believed it was responsible for making them subservient to men. (190)
7. Radical feminists want to use issues like sexual harassment to intimidate and terrorize people and secure power for themselves. (124-5)
8. A few very vocal, ideological, agenda-armed scientists are trying to buffalo the American people into accepting their view of the world..... (162-3)
9. Helping people to become self-sufficient is much more compassionate than drugging them with the narcotic of welfare. 73
10. Yet, the myths continue, and in the name of protecting our youth, the condom pushers are putting their lives at risk. 136
11. Multiculturalism is billed as a way to make Americans more sensitive to the diverse cultural backgrounds of people in this country. It's time we blew the whistle on that. (204)
12. Liberals ask that we trust them to make sure the money we give government is spent properly. Well, people are tired of that con game. (150)
13. The frightening thing about these people is their insidious nature. They would present much less threat to this society if they would simply be honest and open about their agendas. Instead, they disarm us with such harmless platitudes as "we are in favor of clean air" or "we are against poverty." People should be aware of the extent to which our way of life is under siege by an increasing number of groups with candy-coated causes, but poisonous agendas. (265)
Limbaugh portrays liberals as many different kinds of criminals: mob leaders; child abusers; drug pushers; gangs; bullies; terrorists; muggers; thieves; con artists; and professional/wanted criminals. In most of these cases, liberal groups or their policies are personified as individuals. Thus welfare, for example, is represented as a drug pusher who attempts to hook children on a narcotic. Environmental science is portrayed as a criminal who leaves fingerprints all over the "crime scene" of his or her scientific field. Personification is a powerful way to make political ideas and public policies more immediately tangible and accessible to the imagination. We think about broad national policies and abstract political ideas as though they were individuals who either contribute to society or threaten and harm it. In this case, the personification brings the many claims, agendas, and policies of liberals into focus by portraying liberals as dangerous criminals.
The generic-level mapping of the LIBERALS ARE CRIMINALS metaphoris shown in the following table. Note that both personification and the metaphor of MORAL LAWS AS CIVIL LAWS play roles in the mapping.
CRIMINALS LIBERALS
Victims Citizens, groups of citizens
Civil Laws Moral laws. Naturally defined roles and
truths
Crimes: Two aspects
Harming individuals Breaking civil laws
Harming society Breaking moral laws
Legislators Nature, God
Police, law enforcement Conservatives, Limbaugh
Crime strategies Liberal strategies
Gangs Liberal groups
Criminal profile A description of liberal patterns of
behavior
An interesting feature of this mapping is that it allows conservatives like Limbaugh to appear not only as innocent victims but also as police officers who are charged with tracking and nabbing the criminal liberals. Limbaugh finds the "fingerprints" of "junk" scientists all over the environmental movement, as though he were a kind of detective or criminal investigator. Similarly, he describes the "profile" of the "militant feminist" and in doing so becomes a metaphorical FBI agent who studies professional criminals and their behaviors. He also tells his readers that "we have to blow the whistle" on multiculturalism and its revisionist histories, thus providing the image of Limbaugh the beat cop, or of a group of vigilant citizens keeping their streets safe against muggers or thieves.
Limbaugh's use of the metaphor LIBERALS ARE DRUG PUSHERS brings several issues together. It allows abstract policies to be personified. Welfare policies, for example, "hook" people, just as drugs create addiction. Liberals, in promoting the policies that create welfare, are the evil drug pushers who tempt child-like citizens with "candy coated causes" which turn out to contain "poisonous agendas." In this last image liberals are tempters of children and threats to the family. This image draws on a related metaphor: LIBERALS ARE CHILD ABUSERS. Limbaugh believes liberals are "depriving children of their moral and mental nutrients [school prayer]" (150) and are "taking it out on our kids by filling their minds with mush. [multiculturalism]" (211) Liberals are thus defective parents and child abusers by virtue of the educational policies they advocate. If there is one natural way things are and ought to be, as Limbaugh believes there is, then it is abusive to advocate educational or social policies that would lead kids in other directions. Finally, his image of liberal educators as "condom pushers" brings both of these metaphors together. In advocating the use of condoms, liberals are both "pushers" who target children and child-abusers who are "putting their lives at risk" (i.e., by teaching children that sex outside of marriage is not unnatural) (p. 136).
We might use this last example to summarize the logic at work in Limbaugh's LIBERALS ARE CRIMINALS metaphor: There is a way things ought to be, and this is expressed in the metaphor NATURE IS A LAW OR SYSTEM OF LAWS, which is a deep-seated metaphor in our society. Via this metaphor, we gain the notion of NATURAL LAWS. Those who act against natural laws--liberals--are criminals. In advocating the use of condoms, liberals break the natural law that tells us that teenagers should not have sex. At the same time, personification allows Limbaugh to portray liberal policies as individual criminals. Not only are liberals breaking natural laws, but they are also threatening social harmony in the same way that criminals threaten society. The effects of their policies on the nation are the same effects that drug pushers have on individuals, families, and communities.
Limbaugh believes that there is one morally correct and natural kind of family and that other kinds of families are unnatural. Liberals are criminals who threaten law-abiding families and society as a whole by breaking the laws of nature, which prescribe "the way things ought to be." The core of Limbaugh's vision of "the way things ought to be" is consituted by his metaphor SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY, which he argues is the (compulsory) alternative to the liberal vision of society as a illegitimate family.
Limbaugh has a view of human nature which is grounded in a traditional view of the family. In his vision of the traditional nuclear family, the male parent provides for the family while the female parent nurtures the children. According to Limbaugh, these roles emerge from human nature and are part of natural being of things. However, rather than rely on evolutionary language such as sociobiology, Limbaugh believes that these innate gender roles are ordained by God. Such theological language, along with his belief in Creationism, provide a basis for the mapping between natural and moral law. Also consistent with fundamentalist doctrine, Limbaugh believes that nature is a resource to be used by humans--that humans have been given dominion and control over the earth and are superior to all other creatures. While we have evolved to be the way we are now, he has no strict biological notion of blind evolution but rather a belief that all life evolves toward God's final design. Capitalism and the American way of life are both part of this design and in accordance with human nature, while socialism and liberalism are not. Evidence for Limbaugh's use of the SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY metaphor:
1. Certain differences between men and women exist in nature. (3)2. Our morality emanates from a divine Creator, whose laws are not subject to amendment, modification, or rescission by man. (3)
3. What they [environmentalists] really want to do is attack our way of life. Their primary enemy: capitalism. (155)
4. [On environmentalism:] However, I refuse to believe it is necessary to attack the American way of life or to punish people for simply being themselves. (156)
5. But environmentalists paint humans as an aberration; as the natural enemy of nature. (153)
6. If the owl can't adapt to the superiority of humans, screw it. (160)
7. These women had been conditioned to accept the whole feminist ideology, which went way beyond equal opportunity. The roles defined by nature for men and women had become clouded in their minds. (190)
8. Men and women eventually didn't know how to function around one another. It degenerated to the point that .... Chivalry had become synonymous with male chauvinism. Roles, defined by nature, were now obliterated.... (190)
9. I believe that nature has defined behavioral roles for men and women. These roles are ordained in large part and are not easily altered. (194)
10. Women have played a very powerful role in civilizing men. (196)
11. I don't believe that women should be in combat roles even if they can do the job. Why? you ask. Simple. Women have a civilizing role in society. War is that last cruel option in human relations. It isn't about career opportunities. Women have definite societal roles that are crucial to the continuation of mankind.... (200)
12. We just accept the fact that women have it in their nature to nurture children, we strive to accommodate that. (198)
13. Gilder's theory is that civilization would not have developed unless the natural tendencies of men were subordinated to the natural tendencies of women. Women, he explained, are by nature more nurturing and caring. Men. if left to their predisposition, are prone to roam, and to avoid taking responsibility for anything but their own desires. But when a man and a woman mated and the woman gave birth, the man was forced to assume responsibility and subordinate his natural tendencies. (195)
A mapping for the SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY metaphor follows:
NATURAL FAMILY SOCIETY natural family society nature God natural laws moral laws biological sex difference gender roles authority structure of traditional government family (patriarchy) nurturing impulse civilizing impulse self-suffiency impulse governing impulse
Limbaugh's use of the SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY metaphor engenders his inferences about policy-making. For example, he believes that environmentalists and animal rights activists are confused people who do not understand human nature. To be our human selves is to engage in the American way of life and be capitalists. Capitalism is grounded in men's desire to be self-sufficient beings who roam; civilization is grounded in women's desire to nurture children and have them well provided for. Women tame men to provide for them and their families, but men teach male children to become self-sufficient adults so they can have their lives back and roam again. In order to provide for their families, men have a natural right to use the environment. If our capitalist system occasionally destroys a creature who cannot adapt, our God-given superiority to other creatures and life forms justifies our actions. In fact, men cannot help to do otherwise because men are part of nature and it is in their nature to provide for their families. Consequently Limbaugh concludes that God must have designated the spotted owl to become extinct. Sound government policy policy on the environment would be to encourage private property ownership since if no one owns the land no one has an incentive to keep the environment whole.[2]
Limbaugh believes that gender roles reflect human nature, and that America's moral decline stems from ignoring those gender roles. Liberal social programs are a societal manifestation of this confusion about innate gender roles; the government has become a government of nurturers seeking to illegitimately usurp the rightful place of the father. Limbaugh lays the blame at the door of feminists and liberals who create confusion about gender roles and social programs which perpetuate that confusion. His policy suggestions, by contrast, are inferences which are in accord with human nature. Consider the rhetorical power with which he weaves together his views about capitalism, gender roles and SOCIETY AS A NATURAL FAMILY in the following passage:
We must realize that the liberal approach of equalizing outcomes or wealth simply cannot and will not work. What we need to work on is equalizing opportunity. Values are principally learned at home. That's why any sensible approach to our declining moral base must start with the family. We must do something to bring families together. One way to do it is to reform the welfare system so as to remove the disincentives to upward mobility. We must quit rewarding fathers for leaving their families and mothers for having more kids out of wedlock. We must remove government as the father figure support base in these inner city families and provide incentives for the real fathers to stay home. (226)
Limbaugh believes that liberal methods, such as equalizing outcomes, cannot work because they violate an important tenet of natural law: the desire to become self-sufficient.
By contrast, Limbaugh's conservative policy recommendations are in line with natural law. To change society government policy must start with the foundation of society, the family. Sound government policy must strive to foster strong families and yet remain in accordance with natural law. Children in poverty need a role model in order to learn self-sufficiency, so the government cannot continue to provide welfare in a way which substitutes itself for the father. Instead, Limbaugh recommends that the government provide incentives fathers to stay at home and allow them to to realize their full potential as human beings. He is characteristically vague on what incentives he would have the government offer, but presumably doing nothing would have some natural incentive. However, since men have to have a way to provide for their families, he argues for stimulating the private sector to provide jobs--and doing it "naturally" by cutting taxes for business which locate in poverty stricken regions. The policy suggestions he offers are explicitly anti-feminist and implicitly anti-women; as they are rooted in his belief in human nature suggest that only men are fit to head and families and only men can provide adequate models of self-sufficency.
In this paper we've made a first attempt at analyzing some of the dominant metaphorical themes in Limbaugh's book. While we all reaffirmed an old-found distate for Limbaugh's message, we all have a new-found respect for his rhetorical abilities. As one of us put it: "The man is anything but stupid." Other than that mildly startling insight, we are all a little stumped by the important question: why did we do this project? Isn't this kind of metaphor analysis just negative, solely deconstruction without any reconstuctive project? What is the point of metaphor analysis?
The point is that Limbaugh's choice and use of metaphors is not accidental. They are deeply seated in our human conceptual system. Yet that is not to say that there are no other options. For example, some of us suspect that the Kennedy-Johnson liberal vision of society may have been informed by a SOCIETY IS A MACHINE metaphor, though we haven't done any research to support this claim. Part of a reconstructive project could look at resurrecting some of the old-line liberal ideas. Another part might be to extend the metaphor of society as a family in ways not expected by the conservatives, mainly by focusing on families which are successful, happy, and yet do not fit the traditional model of a nuclear family. However, the mass appeal of such a family as a model for society may be limited as most people in American culture would rather raise children in a two-parent family. Or as George Lakoff suggests in a forthcoming book, liberals might also extend the society as a familiy metaphor in ways which highlight moral nurturance and tolerance rather than moral strength and obedience. But such efforts must be and should be rooted in a vision of human nature as cooperative, caring, and compassionate rather than competitive, fierce and authoritarian. To do this will require a fictional history as appealing and as metaphorically articulate as the Hobbesian state of nature to which conservatism appeals.
In short, we feel that the real challenge is to articulate a different theory of human nature. Such a theory would have to appreciate sexual difference while maintaining flexibility in gender roles; it would have to establish that compassion and teaching are inseparable; it would have to establish a view of nature that is dialogic rather than law-like; it would have to stress that negotiation and nurturance are more important skills than iron wills and denial. Liberals need to recover fatherhood without succumbing to conservative paternalism. If we look to American history, precisely a century ago the political debate was between liberalism and paternalism[3] --that might be a redefinition of the debate which would reinvigorate liberalism.
Limbaugh is also particularly fond of speaking of America as an ill patient, suffering from an infection of liberal ideology. The MORAL HEALTH metaphor is drawn from the commonly understood SOCIETY AS A BODY metaphor. Some beginning examples of this metaphor system follow:
1. Before feminism infested American life, there were clear rules between the sexes. (147)2. It would be easy to understate the significance of society's recent infatuation with condoms by saying that it is just symptomatic of the larger moral decline in our societal values. (136)
3. It [children's fascination with mass murderer trading cards] probably has to do with the overall decay of values in society, a cheapening of human life to the point where there is no more concern or respect for the sanctity of life. (173)
4. Of course I do, but the cards are symptoms of our declining moral base, not the cause of it. The simple fact of the matter is that these kids have been desensitized to such things. (174) This is nothing less than depriving children of their moral and mental nutrients during their formative years. (150)
5. ... the only way to clean up Congress is to make sure that fresh blood is pumped through it on a regular basis. (98)
6. Remember this about liberals: They survive and thrive on the belief that the average American is an idiot--stupid, ignorant, uninformed, unintelligent, incapable of knowing what' s good for him, what's good for society, what's right and what's wrong. Liberals believe their mission is to save people from themselves; not to help them become the best they can be, but to keep them from degenerating to the point that their naturally helpless condition would lead them without the liberals' intervention. So they impose affirmative action, quotas, welfare. (176)
7. People are going to have to start accepting responsibility for their actions and stop bleeding the people[4] in this country who accept the responsibilities and who see to it that the country works. (___)
The mapping for this metaphor is the following:
HEALTH MORALITY
body society
health stability
disease, sickness moral decline, moral decay
symptoms violence, condoms in schools
viruses, germs liberals
infestations liberal policies
cures conservative policies
nutrients school prayer
doctor politicians and pundits
(conservative)
quack politicians and pundits (liberal)