Picture an advertisement: “Mountains, deserts, and rolling hills: Now, exceptionally priced”.
Now imagine what that says about our access to these great outdoors.
To experience the world, one simply must have the proper tools and technology to do so. We’re not savages, you know. The days of being hunter/gatherers are over; one must outfit themselves properly to experience the great outdoors. With smart shopping, however, one can experience nature for the best price possible and prove to their friends that they are the epitome of a modern hunter-gatherer: A savvy shopper.
Metaphors are powerful weapons in the war of words. We evolved from primates wandering the plains, but now we must buy the proper SUV to roam mountains and deserts?
This is a way of seeing, but is it a way we want to see? Commodifying the great outdoors? Metaphors can be used for powerful positive reasons, but here is an example of a negative use of metaphors. It illustrates the power of a metaphor, however, and that’s the point that Postman was trying to get at in today’s reading. The power of words, the power of naming things, of granting them a name, classifying them, and therefore providing them a solid place in our mental framework to put them in. Ray Bradbury had a similar concept in the Martian Chronicles, a mildly dystopian SF novel he wrote in the 1950′s.
Once something is named, it’s a round peg to fit in a round hole. We can classify it. We can place it in our comfort zone. That’s the power of a metaphor.
