Just before a previous war against Iraq, George Lakoff circulated the
email I paste below. It still strikes as timely (as far as I know it is
in the public domain)........djc
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To Friends and Colleagues on the Net:
>From George Lakoff,
Professor of Linguistics,
University of California at Berkeley
(lakoff@cogsci.berkeley.edu)
January 15 is getting very close. As things now stand, President
Bush seems to have convinced most of the country that
war in the gulf is morally justified, and that
it makes sense to think of ``winning'' such a
war.
I have just completed a study of the way the war has
been justified. I have found that the justification is
based very largely on a metaphorical system
of thought in general use for understanding foreign policy.
I have analyzed the system, checked it to see what
the metaphors hide, and have checked to the best of my
ability to see whether the metaphors fit the situation in the
gulf, even if one accepts them. So far as I can see,
the justification for war, point by point,
is anything but clear.
The paper I have written is relatively short -- 7,000 words.
Yet it is far too long for the op-ed pages, and January
15 is too close for journal or magazine publication.
The only alternative I have for getting these ideas out
is via the various computer networks.
While there is still time, it is vital that debate over
the justification for war be seriously revived.
I am therefore asking your help. Please look over the
enclosed paper. If you find it of value, please
send it on to members of your newsgroup, to friends,
and to other newsgroups. Feel free to distribute it to
anyone interested.
More importantly, if you feel strongly about this issue,
start talking and writing about it yourself.
Computer networks have never before played an important
role in a matter of vital public importance. The time has come.
The media have failed to question what should be questioned.
It is up to us to do so. There are a lot of us connected by
these networks, and together we have enormous influence.
Just imagine the media value of a major computerized debate over
the impending war!
We have a chance to participate in the greatest experiment
ever conducted in vital, widespread, instantaneous democratic
communication. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake.
During the next two weeks there is nothing more important
that we can send over these networks than a fully open and
informed exchange of views about the war.
Here is the first contribution. Pass it on!
------------------------------------------
Metaphor and War:
The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf
George Lakoff
Linguistics Department University of California at
Berkeley (lakoff@cogsci.berkeley.edu)
Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether we should go to
war in the gulf is a panorama of metaphor. Secretary of State
Baker sees Saddam as ``sitting on our economic lifeline.''
President Bush sees him as having a ``stranglehold'' on our econ-
omy. General Schwartzkopf characterizes the occupation of Kuwait
as a ``rape'' that is ongoing. The President says that the U. S. is
in the gulf to ``protect freedom, protect our future, and protect
the innocent'', and that we must ``push Saddam Hussein back.''
Saddam is seen as Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to
understand just what role metaphorical thought is playing in
bringing us to the brink of war. Metaphorical thought, in it-
self, is neither good nor bad; it is simply commonplace and ines-
capable. Abstractions and enormously complex situations are rou-
tinely understood via metaphor. Indeed, there is an extensive,
and mostly unconscious, system of metaphor that we use automati-
cally and unreflectively to understand complexities and abstrac-
tions. Part of this system is devoted to understanding interna-
tional relations and war. We now know enough about this system to
have an idea of how it functions. The metaphorical understanding
of a situation functions in two parts. First, there is a
widespread, relatively fixed set of metaphors that structure how
we think. For example, a decision to go to war might be seen as
a form of cost-benefit analysis, where war is justified when the
costs of going to war are less than the costs of not going to
war. Second, there is a set of metaphorical definitions that that
allow one to apply such a metaphor to a particular situation. In
this case, there must be a definition of ``cost'', including a
means of comparing relative ``costs''. The use of a metaphor
with a set of definitions becomes pernicious when it hides reali-
ties in a harmful way. It is important to distinguish what is
metaphorical from what is not. Pain, dismemberment, death, star-
vation, and the death and injury of loved ones are not metaphori-
cal. They are real and in a war, they could afflict tens,
perhaps hundreds of thousands, of real human beings, whether Ira-
qi, Kuwaiti, or American.
War as Politics; Politics as Business
Military and international relations strategists do use a cost-
benefit analysis metaphor. It comes about through a metaphor that
is taken as definitional by most strategic thinkers in the area
of international politics. Clausewitz's Metaphor: WAR IS POLI-
TICS PURSUED BY OTHER MEANS. Karl von Clausewitz was a Prussian
general who perceived war in terms of political cost-benefit
analysis. Each nation-state has political objectives, and war
may best serve those objectives. The political ``gains'' are to
to be weighed against acceptable ``costs.'' When the costs of war
exceed the political gains, the war should cease. There is anoth-
er metaphor implicit here: POLITICS IS BUSINESS where efficient
political management is seen as akin to efficient business
management. As in a well-run business, a well-run government
should keep a careful tally of costs and gains. This metaphor
for characterizing politics, together with Clausewitz's metaphor,
makes war a matter of cost-benefit analysis: defining beneficial
``objectives'', tallying the ``costs'', and deciding whether
achieving the objectives is ``worth'' the costs. The New York
Times, on November 12, 1990, ran a front-page story announcing
that ``a national debate has begun as to whether the United
States should go to war in the Persian Gulf.'' The Times
described the debate as defined by what I have called
Clausewitz's metaphor (though it described the metaphor as
literal), and then raised the question, ``What then is the
nation's political object in the gulf and what level of sacrifice
is it worth?'' The ``debate'' was not over whether Clausewitz's
metaphor was appropriate, but only over how various analysts cal-
culated the relative gains and losses. The same has been true of
the hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where
Clausewitz's metaphor provides the framework within which most
discussion has taken place. The broad acceptance of Clausewitz's
metaphor raises vital questions: What, exactly, makes it a meta-
phor rather than a literal truth? Why does it seem so natural to
foreign policy experts? How does it fit into the overall meta-
phor system for understanding foreign relations and war? And,
most importantly, what realities does it hide? To answer these
questions, let us turn to the system of metaphorical thought most
commonly used by the general public in comprehending internation-
al politics. What follows is a two-part discussion of the role
of metaphorical reasoning about the gulf crisis. The first part
lays out the central metaphor systems used in reasoning about the
crisis: both the system used by foreign policy experts and the
system used by the public at large. The second part discusses how
the system has been applied to the crisis in the gulf.
Part 1: The Systems
The State-as-Person System
A state is conceptualized as a person, engaging in social rela-
tions within a world community. Its land-mass is its home. It
lives in a neighborhood, and has neighbors, friends and enemies.
States are seen as having inherent dispositions: they can be
peaceful or aggressive, responsible or irresponsible, industrious
or lazy.
Well-being is wealth. The general well-being of a state is under-
stood in economic terms: its economic health. A serious threat
to economic health can thus be seen as a death threat. To the
extent that a nation's economy depends on foreign oil, that oil
supply becomes a `lifeline' (reinforced by the image of an oil
pipeline).
Strength for a state is military strength.
Maturity for the person-state is industrialization. Unindustri-
alized nations are `underdeveloped', with industrialization as a
natural state to be reached. Third-world nations are thus imma-
ture children, to be taught how to develop properly or discip-
lined if they get out of line. Nations that fail to industrial-
ize at a rate considered normal are seen as akin to retarded
children and judged as ``backward'' nations.
Rationality is the maximization of self-interest.
There is an implicit logic to the use of these metaphors: Since
it is in the interest of every person to be as strong and healthy
as possible, a rational state seeks to maximize wealth and mili-
tary might. Violence can further self-interest. It can be
stopped in three ways: Either a balance of power, so that no one
in a neighborhood is strong enough to threaten anyone else. Or
the use of collective persuasion by the community to make
violence counter to self-interest. Or a cop strong enough to
deter violence or punish it. The cop should act morally, in the
community's interest, and with the sanction of the community as a
whole. Morality is a matter of accounting, of keeping the moral
books balanced. A wrongdoer incurs a debt, and he must be made to
pay. The moral books can be balanced by a return to the situation
prior to the wrongdoing, by giving back what has been taken, by
recompense, or by punishment. Justice is the balancing of the
moral books. War in this metaphor is a fight between two people,
a form of hand-to-hand combat. Thus, the U. S. might seek to ``push
Iraq back out of Kuwait'' or ``deal the enemy a heavy blow,'' or
``deliver a knockout punch.'' A just war is thus a form of combat
for the purpose of settling moral accounts. The most common
discourse form in the West where there is combat to settle moral
accounts is the classic fairy tale. When people are replaced by
states in such a fairy tale, what results is a scenario for a
just war.
The Fairy Tale of the Just War
Cast of characters: A villain, a victim, and a hero. The victim
and the hero may be the same person. The scenario: A crime is
committed by the villain against an innocent victim (typically an
assault, theft, or kidnapping). The offense occurs due to an im-
balance of power and creates a moral imbalance. The hero either
gathers helpers or decides to go it alone. The hero makes sacri-
fices; he undergoes difficulties, typically making an arduous
heroic journey, sometimes across the sea to a treacherous ter-
rain. The villain is inherently evil, perhaps even a monster, and
thus reasoning with him is out of the question. The hero is left
with no choice but to engage the villain in battle. The hero de-
feats the villain and rescues the victim. The moral balance is
restored. Victory is achieved. The hero, who always acts honor-
ably, has proved his manhood and achieved glory. The sacrifice
was worthwhile. The hero receives acclaim, along with the grati-
tude of the victim and the community.
The fairy tale has an asymmetry built into it. The hero is moral
and courageous, while the villain is amoral and vicious. The hero
is rational, but though the villain may be cunning and calculat-
ing, he cannot be reasoned with. Heroes thus cannot negotiate
with villains; they must defeat them. The enemy-as-demon metaphor
arises as a consequence of the fact that we understand what a
just war is in terms of this fairy tale. The most natural way to
justify a war on moral grounds is to fit this fairy tale struc-
ture to a given situation. This is done by metaphorical defini-
tion, that is, by answering the questions: Who is the victim? Who
is the villain? Who is the hero? What is the crime? What counts
as victory? Each set of answers provides a different filled-out
scenario. As the gulf crisis developed, PresPresident Bush tried to
justify going to war by the use of such a scenario. At first, he
couldn't get his story straight. What happened was that he was
using two different sets of metaphorical definitions, which
resulted in two different scenarios: The Rescue Scenario: Iraq is
villain, the U. S. is hero, Kuwait is victim, the crime is kidnap
and rape. The Self-Defense Scenario: Iraq is villain, the U. S. is
hero, the U. S. and other industrialized nations are victims, the
crime is a death threat, that is, a threat to economic health.
The American people could not accept the second scenario, since
it amounted to trading lives for oil. The administration has
settled on the first, and that seems to have been accepted by the
public, the media, and Congress as providing moral justification
for going to war.
The Ruler-for-State Metonymy
There is a metonymy that goes hand-in-hand with the State-as-
Person metaphor:
The Ruler Stands For The State
Thus, we can refer to Iraq by referring to Saddam Hussein, and so
have a single person, not just an amorphous state, to play the
villain in the just war scenario. It is this metonymy that is in-
voked when the President says ``We have to get Saddam out of
Kuwait.'' Incidentally, the metonymy only applies to those
leaders perceived as rulers. Thus, it would be strange for us,
but not for the Iraqis, to describe an American invasion of
Kuwait by saying, ``George Bush marched into Kuwait.''
The Experts' Metaphors
Experts in international relations have an additional system of
metaphors that are taken as defining a ``rational'' approach.
The principal ones are the Rational Actor metaphor and
Clausewitz's metaphor, which are commonly taught as truths in
courses on international relations. We are now in a position to
show precisely what is metaphorical about Clausewitz's metaphor.
To do so, we need to look at a system of metaphors that is
opposed by Clausewitz's metaphor. We will begin with an
everyday system of metaphors for understanding causation:
The Causal Commerce System
The Causal Commerce system is a way to comprehend actions intend-
ed to achieve positive effects, but which may also have negative
effects. The system is composed of three metaphors:
Causal Transfer: An effect is an object transferred from a cause
to an affected party. For example, sanctions are seen as ``giv-
ing'' Iraq economic difficulties. Correspondingly, economic dif-
ficulties for Iraq are seen as ``coming from'' the sanctions.
This metaphor turns purposeful actions into transfers of objects.
The Exchange Metaphor for Value: The value of something is what
you are willing to exchange for it. Whenever we ask whether it
is ``worth'' going to war to get Iraq out of Kuwait, we are using
the Exchange Metaphor for Value plus the Causal Transfer meta-
phor.
Well-being is Wealth: Things of value constitute wealth.
Increases in well-being are ``gains''; decreases in well-being
are ``costs.'' The metaphor of Well-being-as-Wealth has the ef-
fect of making qualitiative effects quantitative. It not only
makes qualitatively different things comparable, it even provides
a kind of arithmetic calculus for adding up costs and gains. Tak-
en together, these three metaphors portray actions as commercial
transactions with costs and gains. Seeing actions as transac-
tions is crucial to applying ideas from economics to actions in
general.
Risks
A risk is an action taken to achieve a positive effect, where the
outcome is uncertain and where there is also a significant proba-
bility of a negative effect. Since Causal Commerce allows one to
see positive effects of actions as ``gains'' and negative effects
as ``costs'', it becomes natural to see a risky action metaphori-
cally as a financial risk of a certain type, namely, a gamble.
Risks are Gambles
In gambling to achieve certain ``gains'', there are ``stakes''
that one can ``lose''. When one asks what is ``at stake'' in go-
ing to war, one is using the metaphors of Causal Commerce and
Risks-as-Gambles. These are also the metaphors that President
Bush uses when he refers to strategic moves in the gulf as a
``poker game'' where it would be foolish for him to ``show his
cards'', that is, to make strategic knowledge public.
The Mathematicization of Metaphor
The Causal Commerce and Risks-as-Gambles metaphors lie behind our
everyday way of understanding risky actions as gambles. At this
point, mathematics enters the picture, since there is mathematics
of gambling, namely, probability theory, decision theory, and
game theory. Since the metaphors of Causal Commerce and Risks-
as-Gambles are so common in our everyday thought, their metaphor-
ical nature often goes unnoticed. As a result, it is not uncom-
mon for social scientists to think that the mathematics of gam-
bling literally applies to all forms of risky action, and that it
can provide a general basis for the scientific study of risky ac-
tion, so that risk can be minimized.
Rational Action
Within the social sciences, especially in economics, it is common
to see a rational person as someone who acts in his own self-
interest, that is, to maximize his own well-being. Hard-core ad-
vocates of this view may even see altruistic action as being ones
self-interest if there is a value in feeling righteous about al-
truism and in deriving gratitude from others. In the Causal Com-
merce system, where well-being is wealth, this view of Rational
Action translates metaphorically into maximizing gains and minim-
izing losses. In other words:
Rationality is Profit Maximization
This metaphor opposes Causal Commerce plus Risks-as-Gambles,
and brings with it the mathematics of gambling as applied to ri-
sky action. It has the effect of turning specialists in mathemat-
ical economics into ``scientific'' specialists in acting ration-
ally so as to minimize risk and cost while maximizing gains.
Suppose we now add the State-as-Person metaphor to the
Rationality-as-Profit-Maximization metaphor. The result is:
International Politics is Business
Here the state is a Rational Actor, whose actions are transac-
tions and who is engaged in maximizing gains and minimizing
costs. This metaphor brings with it the mathematics of cost-
benefit calculation and game theory, which is commonly taught in
graduate programs in international relations. Clausewitz's meta-
phor, the major metaphor preferred by international relations
strategists, opposes this system. Clausewitz's Metaphor: War
is Politics, pursued by other means. Since politics is business,
war becomes a matter of maximizing political gains and minimizing
losses. In Clausewitzian terms, war is justified when there is
more to be gained by going to war than by not going to war.
Morality is absent from the Clausewitzian equation, except when
there a political cost to acting immorally or a political gain
from acting morally. Clausewitz's metaphor only allows war to be
justified on pragmatic, not moral, grounds. To justify war on
both moral and pragmatic grounds, the Fairy Tale of the Just War
and Clausewitz's metaphor must mesh: The ``worthwhile sacri-
fices'' of the fairy tale must equal the Clausewitzian ``costs''
and the ``victory'' in the fairy tale must equal the Clausewitzi-
an ``gains.'' Clausewitz's metaphor is the perfect expert's meta-
phor, since it requires specialists in political cost-benefit
calculation. It sanctions the use of the mathematics of econom-
ics, probability theory, decision theory, and game theory in the
name of making foreign policy rational and scientific.
Clausewitz's metaphor is commonly seen as literally true. We are
now in a position to see exactly what makes it metaphorical.
First, it uses the State-as-Person metaphor. Second, it turns
qualitative effects on human beings into quantifiable costs and
gains, thus seeing political action as economics. Third, it sees
rationality as profit-making. Fourth, it sees war in terms of
only one dimension of war, that of political expediency, which is
in turn conceptualized as business.
War as Violent Crime
To bear in mind what is hidden by Clausewitz's metaphor, we
should consider an alternative metaphor that is not used by pro-
fessional strategists nor by the general public to understand war
as we engage in it. WAR IS VIOLENT CRIME: MURDER, ASSAULT, KID-
NAPPING, ARSON, RAPE, AND THEFT. Here, war is understood only in
terms of its moral dimension, and not, say, its political or
economic dimension. The metaphor highlights those aspects of war
that would otherwise be seen as major crimes. There is an Us-
Them asymmetry between the public use of Clausewitz's metaphor
and the War-as-Crime metaphor. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is
reported on in terms of murder, theft and rape. The planned Amer-
ican invasion is never discussed in terms of murder, assault, and
arson. Moreover, the U. S. plans for war are seen, in Clausewitzian
terms, as rational calculation. But the Iraqi invasion is dis-
cussed not as a rational move by Saddam, but as the work of a
madman. We see U. S. as rational, moral, and courageous and Them as
criminal and insane.
War as a Competitive Game
It has long been noted that we understand war as a competitive
game like chess, or as a sport, like football or boxing. It is a
metaphor in which there is a clear winner and loser, and a clear
end to the game. The metaphor highlights strategic thinking,
team work, preparedness, the spectators in the world arena, the
glory of winning and the shame of defeat. This metaphor is taken
very seriously. There is a long tradition in the West of train-
ing military officers in team sports and chess. The military is
trained to win. This can lead to a metaphor conflict, as it did
in Vietnam, since Clausewitz's metaphor seeks to maximize geopol-
itical gains, which may or may not be consistent with absolute
military victory. The situation at present is that the public has
accepted the rescue scenario of the just war fairy tale as pro-
viding moral justification. The President, for internal political
reasons, has accepted the competitive game metaphor as taking
precedence over Clausewitz's metaphor: If he must choose, he will
go for the military win over maximizing geopolitical gains. The
testimony of the experts before Congress falls largely within
Clausewitz's metaphor. Much of it is testimony about what will
maximize gains and minimize losses. For all that been questioned
in the Congressional hearings, these metaphors have not. It im-
portant to see what they hide.
Is Saddam Irrational?
The villain in the Fairy Tale of the Just War may be cunning, but
he cannot be rational. You just do not reason with a demon, nor
do you enter into negotiations with him. The logic of the meta-
phor demands that Saddam be irrational. But is he? Administra-
tion policy is confused on the issue. Clausewitz's metaphor, as
used by strategists, assumes that the enemy is rational: He too
is maximizing gains and minimizing costs. Our strategy from the
outset has been to ``increase the cost'' to Saddam. That assumes
he is rational and is maximizing his self-interest. At the same
time, he is being called irrational. The nuclear weapons argument
depends on it. If he is rational, he should follow the logic of
deterrence. We have thousands of hydrogen bombs in warheads. Is-
rael is estimated to have between 100 and 200 deliverable atomic
bombs. It would take Saddam at least eight months and possibly
five years before he had a crude, untested atomic bomb on a
truck. The most popular estimate for even a few deliverable nu-
clear warheads is ten years. The argument that he would not be
deterred by our nuclear arsenal and by Israel's assumes irra-
tionality. The Hitler analogy also assumes that Saddam is a vil-
lainous madman. The analogy opposes a Hitler myth, in which
Hitler too was an irrational demon, rather than a rational self-
serving brutal politician. In the myth, Munich was a mistake and
Hitler could have been stopped early on had England entered the
war then. Military historians disagree as to whether the myth is
true. Be that as it may, the analogy does not hold. Whether or
not Saddam is Hitler, Iraq isn't Germany. It has 17 million peo-
ple, not 70 million. It is economically weak, not strong. It
simply is not a threat to the world. Saddam is certainly im-
moral, ruthless, and brutal, but there is no evidence that he is
anything but rational. Everything he has done, from assassinat-
ing political opponents, to using poison gas against his politi-
cal enemies, the Kurds, to invading Kuwait can be see as further-
ing his own self-interest.
Kuwait as Victim
The classical victim is innocent. To the Iraquis, Kuwait was any-
thing but an innocent ingenue. The war with Iran virtually ban-
krupted Iraq. Iraq saw itself as having fought that war partly
for the benefit of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where Shiite citizens
supported Khomeini's Islamic Revolution. Kuwait had agreed to
help finance the war, but after the war, the Kuwaitis insisted on
repayment of the ``loan.'' Kuwaitis had invested hundreds of bil-
lions in Europe, America and Japan, but would not invest in Iraq
after the war to help it rebuild. On the contrary, it began what
amounted to economic warfare against Iraq by overproducing its
oil quota to hold oil prices down. In addition, Kuwait had
drilled laterally into Iraqi territory in the Rumailah oil field
and had extracted oil from Iraqi territory. Kuwait further took
advantage of Iraq by buying its currency, but only at extremely
low exchange rates. Subsequently, wealthy Kuwaitis used that
Iraqi currency on trips to Iraq, where they bought Iraqi goods at
bargain rates. Among the things they bought most flamboyantly
were liquor and prostitutes-widows and orphans of men killed in
the war, who, because of the state of the economy, had no other
means of support. All this did not endear Kuwaitis to Iraqis,
who were suffering from over 70% inflation. Moreover, Kuwaitis
had long been resented for good reason by Iraqis and Moslems from
other nations. Capital rich, but labor poor, Kuwait imported
cheap labor from other Moslem countries to do its least pleasant
work. At the time of the invasion, there were 400,000 Kuwaiti ci-
tizens and 2.2 millions foreign laborers who were denied rights
of citizenry and treated by the Kuwaitis as lesser beings. In
short, to the Iraqis and to labor-exporting Arab countries,
Kuwait is badly miscast as a purely innocent victim. This does
not in any way justify the horrors perpetrated on the Kuwaitis by
the Iraqi army. But it is part of what is hidden when Kuwait is
cast as an innocent victim. The ``legitimate government'' that
we seek to reinstall is an oppressive monarchy.
What is Victory?
In a fairy tale or a game, victory is well-defined. Once it is
achieved, the story or game is over. Neither is the case in the
gulf crisis. History continues, and ``victory'' makes sense only
in terms of continuing history. The President's stated objec-
tives are total Iraqi withdrawal and restoration of the Kuwaiti
monarchy. But no one believes the matter will end there, since
Saddam would still be in power with all of his forces intact.
General Powell said in his Senate testimony that if Saddam with-
drew, the U. S. would have to ``strengthen the indigenous countries
of the region'' to achieve a balance of power. Presumably that
means arming Assad, who is every bit as dangerous as Saddam.
Would arming another villain count as victory? If we go to war,
what will constitute ``victory''? Suppose we conquer Iraq, wip-
ing out its military capability. How would Iraq be governed? No
puppet government that we set up could govern effectively since
it would be hated by the entire populace. Since Saddam has wiped
out all opposition, the only remaining effective government for
the country would be his Ba'ath party. Would it count as a victo-
ry if Saddam's friends wound up in power? If not, what other
choice is there? And if Iraq has no remaining military force, how
could it defend itself against Syria and Iran? It would certainly
not be a ``victory'' for us if either of them took over Iraq. If
Syria did, then Assad's Arab nationalism would become a threat.
If Iran did, then Islamic fundamentalism would become even more
powerful and threatening. It would seem that the closest thing
to a ``victory'' for the U. S. in case of war would be to drive the
Iraqis out of Kuwait; destroy just enough of Iraq's military to
leave it capable of defending itself against Syria and Iran;
somehow get Saddam out of power, but let his Ba'ath party remain
in control of a country just strong enough to defend itself, but
not strong enough to be a threat; and keep the price of oil at a
reasonably low level. The problems: It is not obvious that we
could get Saddam out of power without wiping out most of Iraq's
military capability. We would have invaded an Arab country,
which would create vast hatred for us throughout the Arab world,
and would no doubt result in decades of increased terrorism and
lack of cooperation by Arab states. We would, by defeating an
Arab nationalist state, strengthen Islamic fundamentalism. Iraq
would remain a cruel dictatorship run by cronies of Saddam. By
reinstating the government of Kuwait, we would inflame the hatred
of the poor toward the rich throughout the Arab world, and thus
increase instability. And the price of oil would go through the
roof. Even the closest thing to a victory doesn't look very vic-
torious. In the debate over whether to go to war, very little
time has been spent clarifying what a victory would be. And if
``victory'' cannot be defined, neither can ``worthwhile sacri-
fice.''
The Arab Viewpoint
The metaphors used to conceptualize the gulf crisis hide the most
powerful political ideas in the Arab world: Arab nationalism and
Islamic fundamentalism. The first seeks to form a racially-based
all-Arab nation, the second, a theocratic all-Islamic state.
Though bitterly opposed to one another, they share a great deal.
Both are conceptualized in family terms, an Arab brotherhood and
an Islamic brotherhood. Both see brotherhoods as more legitimate
than existing states. Both are at odds with the state-as-person
metaphor, which sees currently existing states as distinct enti-
ties with a right to exist in perpetuity. Also hidden by our
metaphors is perhaps the most important daily concern throughout
the Arab world: Arab dignity. Both political movements are seen
as ways to achieve dignity through unity. The current national
boundaries are widely perceived as working against Arab dignity
in two ways: one internal and one external. The internal issue is
the division between rich and poor in the Arab world. Poor Arabs
see rich Arabs as rich by accident, by where the British happened
to draw the lines that created the contemporary nations of the
Middle East. To see Arabs metaphorically as one big family is to
suggest that oil wealth should belong to all Arabs. To many
Arabs, the national boundaries drawn by colonial powers are il-
legitimate, violating the conception of Arabs as a single
``brotherhood'' and impoverishing millions. To those impover-
ished millions, the positive side of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait
was that it challenged national borders and brought to the fore
the divisions between rich and poor that result from those lines
in the sand. If there is to be peace in the region, these divi-
sions must be addressed, say, by having rich Arab countries make
extensive investments in development that will help poor Arabs.
As long as the huge gulf between rich and poor exists in the Arab
world, a large number of poor Arabs will continue to see one of
the superstate solutions, either Arab nationalism or Islamic fun-
damentalism, as being in their self-interest, and the region will
continue to be unstable. The external issue is the weakness.
The current national boundaries keep Arab nations squabbling
among themselves and therefore weak relative to Western nations.
To unity advocates, what we call ``stability'' means continued
weakness. Weakness is a major theme in the Arab world, and is
often conceptualized in sexual terms, even more than in the West.
American officials, in speaking of the ``rape'' of Kuwait, are
conceptualizing a weak, defenseless country as female and a
strong militarily powerful country as male. Similarly, it is
common for Arabs to conceptualize the colonization and subsequent
domination of the Arab world by the West, especially the U. S., as
emasculation. An Arab proverb that is reported to be popular in
Iraq these days is that ``It is better to be a cock for a day
than a chicken for a year.'' The message is clear: It is better
to be male, that is, strong and dominant for a short period of
time than to be female, that is, weak and defenseless for a long
time. Much of the support for Saddam among Arabs is due to the
fact that he is seen as standing up to the U. S., even if only for a
while, and that there is a dignity in this. If upholding dignity
is an essential part of what defines Saddam's ``rational self-
interest'', it is vitally important for our government to know
this, since he may be willing to go to war to ``be a cock for a
day.'' The U. S. does not have anything like a proper understanding
of the issue of Arab dignity. Take the question of whether Iraq
will come out of this with part of the Rumailah oil fields and
two islands giving it a port on the gulf. From Iraq's point of
view these are seen as economic necessities if Iraq is to re-
build. President Bush has spoken of this as ``rewarding aggres-
sion'', using the Third-World-Countries-As-Children metaphor,
where the great powers are grown-ups who have the obligation to
reward or punish children so as to make them behave properly.
This is exactly the attitude that grates on Arabs who want to be
treated with dignity. Instead of seeing Iraq as a sovereign na-
tion that has taken military action for economic purposes, the
President treats Iraq as if it were a child gone bad, who has be-
come the neighborhood bully and should be properly disciplined by
the grown-ups. The issue of the Rumailah oil fields and the two
islands has alternatively been discussed in the media in terms of
``saving face.'' Saving face is a very different concept than up-
holding Arab dignity and insisting on being treated as an equal,
not an inferior.
What is Hidden By Seeing the State as a Person?
The State-as-Person metaphor highlights the ways in which states
act as units, and hides the internal structure of the state.
Class structure is hidden by this metaphor, as is ethnic composi-
tion, religious rivalry, political parties, the ecology, the in-
fluence of the military and of corporations (especially multi-
national corporations). Consider ``national interest.'' It is in
a person's interest to be healthy and strong. The State-as-Person
metaphor translates this into a ``national interest'' of economic
health and military strength. But what is in the ``national in-
terest'' may or may not be in the interest of many ordinary ci-
tizens, groups, or institutions, who may become poorer as the GNP
rises and weaker as the military gets stronger. The ``national
interest'' is a metaphorical concept, and it is defined in Ameri-
ca by politicians and policy makers. For the most part, they are
influenced more by the rich than by the poor, more by large cor-
porations than by small business, and more by developers than
ecological activists. When President Bush argues that going to
war would ``presserve our vital national interests'', he is using a
metaphor that hides exactly whose interests would be served and
whose would not. For example, poor people, especially blacks and
Hispanics, are represented in the military in disproportionately
large numbers, and in a war the lower classes and those ethnic
groups will suffer proportionally more casualties. Thus war is
less in the interest of ethnic minorities and the lower classes
than the white upper classes. Also hidden are the interests of
the military itself, which are served when war is justified.
Hopes that, after the cold war, the military might play a smaller
role have been dashed by the President's decision to prepare for
war. He was advised, as he should be, by the national security
council, which consists primarily of military men. War is so aw-
ful a prospect that one would not like to think that military
self-interest itself could help tilt the balance to a decision
for war. But in a democratic society, the question must be asked,
since the justifications for war also justify continued military
funding and an undiminished national political role for the mili-
tary.
Energy Policy
The State-as-Person metaphor defines health for the state in
economic terms, with our current understanding of economic health
taken as a given, including our dependence on foreign oil. Many
commentators have argued that a change in energy policy to make
us less dependent on foreign oil would be more rational than go-
ing to war to erve our supply of cheap oil from the gulf.
This argument may have a real force, but it has no metaphorical
force when the definition of economic health is taken as fixed.
After all, you don't deal with an attack on your health by chang-
ing the definition of health. Metaphorical logic pushes a change
in energy policy out of the spotlight in the current crisis. I
do not want to give the impression that all that is involved here
is metaphor. Obviously there are powerful corporate interests
lined up against a fundamental restructuring of our national en-
ergy policy. What is sad is that they have a very compelling sys-
tem of metaphorical thought on their side. If the debate is
framed in terms of an attack on our economic health, one cannot
argue for redefining what economic health is without changing the
grounds for the debate. And if the debate is framed in terms of
rescuing a victim, then changes in energy policy seem utterly be-
side the point.
The ``Costs'' of War
Clausewitz's metaphor requires a calculation of the ``costs'' and
the ``gains'' of going to war. What, exactly, goes into that cal-
culation and what does not? Certainly American casualties, loss
of equipment, and dollars spent on the operation count as costs.
But Vietnam taught us that there are social costs: trauma to fam-
ilies and communities, disruption of lives, psychological effects
on veterans, long-term health problems, in addition to the cost
of spending our money on war instead of on vital social needs at
home. Also hidden are political costs: the enmity of Arabs for
many years, and the cost of increased terrorism. And barely dis-
cussed is the moral cost that comes from killing and maiming as a
way to settle disputes. And there is the moral cost of using a
``cost'' metaphor at all. When we do so, we quantify the effects
of war and thus hide from ourselves the qualitative reality of
pain and death. But those are costs to us. What is most ghoul-
ish about the cost-benefit calculation is that ``costs'' to the
other side count as ``gains'' for us. In Vietnam, the body counts
of killed Viet Cong were taken as evidence of what was being
``gained'' in the war. Dead human beings went on the profit side
of our ledger. There is a lot of talk of American deaths as
``costs'', but Iraqi deaths aren't mentioned. The metaphors of
cost-benefit accounting and the fairy tale villain lead us to de-
value of the lives of Iraqis, even when most of those actually
killed will not be villains at all, but simply innocent draftees
or reservists or civilians.
America as Hero
The classic fairy tale defines what constitutes a hero: it is a
person who rescues an innocent victim and who defeats and pun-
ishes a guilty and inherently evil villain, and who does so for
moral rather than venal reasons. If America starts a war, will it
be functioning as a hero? It will certainly not fit the profile
very well. First, one of its main goals will be to reinstate
``the legitimate government of Kuwait.'' That means reinstating
an absolute monarchy, where women are not accorded anything
resembling reasonable rights, and where 80% of the people living
in the country are foreign workers who do the dirtiest jobs and
are not accorded the opportunity to become citizens. This is not
an innocent victim whose rescue makes us heroic. Second, the ac-
tual human beings who will suffer from an all-out attack will,
for the most part, be innocent people who did not take part in
the atrocities in Kuwait. Killing and maiming a lot of innocent
bystanders in the process of nabbing a much smaller number of
villains does not make one much of a hero. Third, in the self-
defense scenario, where oil is at issue, America is acting in its
self-interest. But, in order to qualify as a legitimate hero in
the rescue scenario, it must be acting selflessly. Thus, there is
a contradiction between the self-interested hero of the self-
defense scenario and the purely selfless hero of the rescue
scenario. Fourth, America may be a hero to the royal families of
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, but it will not be a hero to most Arabs.
Most Arabs do not think in terms of our metaphors. A great many
Arabs will see us as a kind of colonial power using illegitimate
force against an Arab brother. To them, we will be villains, not
heroes. America appears as classic hero only if you don't look
carefully at how the metaphor is applied to the situation. It is
here that the State-as-Person metaphor functions in a way that
hides vital truths. The State-as-Person metaphor hides the inter-
nal structure of states and allows us to think of Kuwait as a un-
itary entity, the defenseless maiden to be rescued in the fairy
tale. The metaphor hides the monarchical character of Kuwait,
and the way Kuwaitis treat women and the vast majority of the
people who live in their country. The State-as-Person metaphor
also hides the internal structures of Iraq, and thus hides the
actual people who will mostly be killed, maimed, or otherwise
harmed in a war. The same metaphor also hides the internal
structure of the U. S., and therefore hides the fact that is the
poor and minorities who will make the most sacrifices while not
getting any significant benefit. And it hides the main ideas that
drive Middle Eastern politics.
Things to Do
War would create much more suffering than it would alleviate, and
should be renounced in this case on humanitarian grounds. There
is no shortage of alternatives to war. Troops can be rotated out
and brought to the minimum level to deter an invasion of Saudi
Arabia. Economic sanctions can be continued. A serious system of
international inspections can be instituted to prevent the
development of Iraq's nuclear capacity. A certain amount of
``face-saving'' for Saddam is better than war: As part of a
compromise, the Kuwaiti monarchy can be sacrificed and elections
held in Kuwait. The problems of rich and poor Arabs must be ad-
dressed, with pressures placed on the Kuwaitis and others to in-
vest significantly in development to help poor Arabs. Balance of
power solutions within the region should always be seen as moves
toward reducing, not increasing armaments; positive economic in-
centives can used, together with the threat of refusal by us and
the Soviets to supply spare parts needed to keep hi-tech military
weaponry functional. If there is a moral to come out of the
Congressional hearings, it is that there are a lot of very
knowledgeable people in this country who have thought about al-
ternatives to war. They should be taken seriously.
Don Cunningham
Indiana University
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