Pick your national metaphor
Image: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
I was listening to a visiting American political analyst on the radio the other day talking about the differences between Australian and American political language.
He said he was struck by how violent our political metaphors were. What with former John Howard adviser Grahame Morris suggesting the electorate ‘ought to be kicking [the Prime Minister] to death’ and MP Christopher Pyne observing that ‘Julia Gillard has unfortunately become the weak wildebeest in the herd’, the bloodthirsty imagery can get a bit much at times.
By contrast, in the US the preferred imagery is of the sporting variety, where struggling politicians can find themselves at the ‘bottom of the ninth’, taking a ‘swing and a miss’.
And while some in the Australian Parliament might be wishing Craig Thomson would ‘fall on his sword’, in America they might be suggesting he ‘take one for the team’.
So do these highly unscientific examples demonstrate any deeper truths? Perhaps we Australians are a savage lot, borne of our brutal convict origins, and so we search out commensurately combative language; whereas the Americans, with their Puritan foundational myths and love of competition seek metaphors of a softer variety?
While it’s fun to do so, I’m suspicious of sweeping conclusions about an entire nation. However, I do think the metaphors we choose reveal a lot about our thinking, attitude and approach to life. As the ancient wisdom says, ‘Watch your words, for they become your actions.’
