Metaphors and the Cold War Idealists

1
Metaphors and the Cold War Idealists

• Based on Robert L. Ivie. Metaphor and the
  Rhetorical Invention of Cold War Idealists.
  Communication Monographs 54 (June 1987).

2
The Dual Problem of Cold-War Rhetoric

• Chauvinism Trumans get tough policy,
  Johnsons Americanization of the Vietnam War
  and peace through strength create a dangerous
  world.
• Pacificism U.S. disarmament might lead to a loss
  of national power and freedom as the Russians
  take advantage of us as a disarmed nation.

3
Identifying Key Metaphors

• Become familiar with the text and context.
• Select representative texts for identifying
  vehicles.
• Arrange the marked vehicles into clusters.
• Create a separate file for each cluster.
• Analyze each cluster file one-by-one.

4
Henry Wallace1948 Presidential Candidate

• The most prominent critic of Americas get
  tough policy.
• As progressive party candidate he received only
  2 of the total vote.
• Five texts were examined for metaphors.

5
Metaphors in Wallaces Rhetoric

• GAME
• FORCE
• Interface of GAME and FORCE created
• Dark-Light
• Sick
• Money
• Breed-plant
• Preach

6
GAME

• game
• race
• cards
• competition
• play
• vie
• paun
• team

7
FORCE

• drive, grind, flood, bully, fight,
  slam, hammer.
• Negative Force little handful of warmongers,
  preaching force and deceit, faith in force as
  the ultimate arbiter.
• Positive Force constructive force of the Lord,
  Gideons army, powerful in conviction, ready for
  action.

8
Metaphors created by Game Force

• Dark Light
• Sick
• Money
• Breed Plant
• Preach

9
DARK LIGHT

• Down, dark, fog, blind, shadow, nightmare, dawn,
  light, tourch bearers, vision, dreams
• Images of dark were associated with negative
  force.
• Images of light were associated positive force.

10
SICK

• Neurotic, symptoms, sick, afflicted, obsessed,
  psychopathic, infection, rot, suicide, graveyard.
  
• SICK was associated with negative force

11
MONEY

• Price, cost, bought, bankrupt, cheap, buy, pay,
  coin, social and moral bankruptcy. . .
• MONEY terms were used to denigrate negative
  force.

12
BREED --PLANT

• incubate, stagnate, breed, cesspool, cultivate,
  circulate, fertilize, seed, fruit, harvest. . .
• BREED terms portrayed negative force (stagnant
  pools of capital breed unemployment and
  degeneracy)
• PLANT terms reinforced positive force (the UN
  needed the courage to fertilize the thought of
  the world.

13
PREACH

• missionary, minister, spirit, preach, crusade.
• PREACH advanced positive force as the key to
  world peace.

14
Wallaces Message was Flawed

• Blamed Americans and capitalists exclusively for
  the Cold War.
• Characterized Russia only as responsible
  players.
• Rejected by Americans
• Later recanted by Wallace himself.

15
J. William FulbrightU. S. Senator from Arkansas

• A staunch critic of Wallace until 30 years later.
• Books The Arrogance of Power, Old Myths and New
  Realities, and The Crippled Giant.

16
Fulbrights Rejection of GAME

• Even the most dazzling success in the game of
  power politics does nothing to make life more
  meaningful. . .
• Johnson Nixon made the mistake of fighting a
  mindless game of power politics.
• Power conceptualized as a game put too much
  emphasis on winning and losing.

17
Fulbrights Rejection of Crusade Metaphor

• Crusading spirit has wrought havoc, bringing
  misery to intended beneficiaries and destruction
  to themselves.
• The U. S. should not pursue an anti-communist
  crusade.

18
Fulbrights Psychology Metaphor

• Psychotic, delusions of grandeur, pathology,
  arrogance, irrational pressure, insane, nervous
  breakdown.
• The causes and consequences of war may have more
  to do with pathology than politics.
• the reconciliation of East and West was
  primarily a psychological problem.

19
Flaws in Fulbrights Metaphors

• Stressed the culpability of the U. S. almost
  exclusively.
• Did not simultaneously take account of Soviet
  behavior confrontation, subversion,
  totalitarianism.

20
Helen CaldicottAnti-nuclear Activist

• An Australian activist organizing against all
  forms of nuclear power and weapons.
• Nuclear Madness What You Can Do, If You Love
  This Planet, Missile Envy The Arms Race and
  Nuclear War.

21
CALDICOTTS MADNESS METAPHOR

• Crazy, deranged, madness, insane, pathogenesis,
  mad lust, paranoia, fantasy, psychic numbing,
  suicide, egocentric. . .
• These metaphors amplified WallacEs SICK cluster
  and Fulbrights PSYCHOLOGY CLUSTER.

22
CALDICOTTS FAILURE

• Presented America as the exclusively culpable and
  presenting Russia as the victim.
• Unable to find a balance between toughness and
  compromise

23
FAILURE OF THE IDEALISTS

• The Idealists turned savagery inward, away from
  the USSR and toward the US
• This inward savagery prompted the realists to
  further intensify their decivilizing imagery of
  the USSR. It is time for a war-leader speech
  rather than a peace-seeker speech (Walt Rostow
  NSA)
• Savagery rhetoric was extended to the War in
  Vietnam.
• We needed to break the cycle of savagery
  rhetoric, not extend it.