In 1980, a little book called Metaphors We Live By sparked a revolution in the study of the human mind. In it George Lakoff and Mark Johnson show how most of our thoughts and actions are fundamentally shaped by metaphor.
Once considered to be a device only of the poetic, metaphors have proved to stake a much deeper claim. Take the recent discourse on the national schools pledge: most people do not even realise that the notion of a “pledge of allegiance” rests on a metaphorical basis.
Our involvement with the Constitution is understood as a “relationship” and the “pledging of allegiance” specifies this relationship as a matter of “taking sides” — you vow to be “on the side” of an abstract entity. But “allegiance” also carries with it certain politico-military connotations, because it assumes the existence of “warring factions”.
The current pledge proposal, naturally, follows suit: there is speak of “respecting and protecting” and “standing up” for justice; and a declaration that we shall “uphold” certain rights and values.
Underlying and qualifying this “allegiance” jargon is a distinct metaphorical conception of struggle or battle: we are in the middle of war and as allies we fight, by its side, for the Constitution.
Yet one single metaphor illuminates any concept in a very specific manner. Framing our attachment to the Constitution as only a matter of “allegiance” in “battle” tends to obscure other crucial aspects involved. Our relation with the Constitution can, just as well, be envisioned as some loving friendship.
Instead of pledging allegiance we can be urged to embrace lovingly the values of the Constitution. The relation can also be described as one of committed servitude. Not military “service” of any sort, but the revering work that a servant would offer a beloved master.
Such “counter” metaphors should ideally form part of an entire group of images, working in unison against the one-sided perspective that a solitary metaphor would provide. But, in the pledge discourse, an even deeper bias is seemingly at stake, for it is concerned simply with our side of the “relationship”. Can we not also say that the Constitution, in turn, embraces and serves the citizen?
The other side of the coin is that the Constitution, by the very nature of what it is, inherently pledges its allegiance to us. It fights for us. It can be seen as a guardian, “respecting and protecting”, “upholding” and “standing up” for each and every individual of this country — whether we want it or not.
The schools pledge proposal therefore does not only convey a principal favouring of certain “war” imageries, but also hides the fact that the values of the Constitution pre-exist and even presuppose our “allegiance” to it.
Its metaphorical logic leads us to experience the Constitution as in some way being dependent upon our allegiance — forgetting that the Constitution first commits to us, without asking a pledge in return.
Let us therefore be wary of one-sided distortions in the metaphors by which we pledge.
Martin Rossouw is a research associate of the department of philosophy, University of the Free State