The violence which manifests
everywhere in North American culture
is in no way surprising.
People get sick if they
drink bad water.
What IS surprising is the blind
refusal to face the primary problem
of cause.
What is making the water bad?
Think of metaphor here as the transfer of
similarity in difference,
the X IS Y of comparison.
For example, ‘moral compass’ maps the
similarity of the need to orient and navigate
in the world of abstract ethical principles on to
the clear and simple physical magnetic north
of the compass.
At a deep, unconscious level, metaphor forms
our perception and behavior.
Which metaphors are active in this
formative way is a central question
of metaphysics.
Consider:
Music is play.
Or: Music is sport, or game, or competition.
Or: Music is love, or love-making.
Or: Music is war, is conflict, is fighting.
Pondering formative metaphor reveals
meaning, both good and bad. Saying music
is good or bad is largely meaningless if we
do not first address the much larger question
of these deeper formative forces, and whether
they are essentially creative, or destructive.
Friendship is only friendship when it is
rooted in place. Like a tree we come back
to again and again, after many, many lifetimes,
it has weathered the storms, it still embraces
the light of each turning day.