Else Whats a Metaphor

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Else Whats a Metaphor?

• McLuhans Use of Language
• (metaphor.doc)

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• Poetry remains unintelligible so long as we
  separate words from their meanings and treat them
  as mere signs.
• I.A. Richards

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• The right word is not the one that names the
  thing but the word that gives the effect of the
  thing.
• Take Today The Executive as Dropout, p. 42

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A drunk goes into a bar one day

• What cant be coded can be decorded if an ear
  aye seize what no eye ere grieved for. Now, the
  doctrine obtains, we have occasioning cause
  causing effects and affects occasionally
  recausing alter-effects.
• James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

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What Does This Mean?

• O S H U E
• H O U S E

H
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McLuhan Says

• Words are complex systems of metaphors and
  symbols that translate experience into our
  uttered or outered senses.
• They are a technology of explicitness. By means
  of translation of immediate experience into vocal
  symbols the entire world can be evoked and
  retrieved at any instant.
• Understanding Media, p. 57

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Robert Browning
A mans reach should exceed his grasp,or whats
a heaven for? The Faultless Painter
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Apologies to Robert Browning

• A mans reach must exceed his grasp,or whats a
  metaphor?

MMcL The spoken word was the first technology
by which man was able to let go of his
environment in order to grasp it in a new
way. Understanding Media, p. 57
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McLuhan Says

• All media are active metaphors in their power to
  translate experience into new forms.
• Understanding Media, p. 57

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McLuhan Says

• Money is a language for translating the work of
  the farmer into the work of the barber, doctor,
  engineer, or plumber.
• Time is money, and money is the store of other
  peoples time and effort
• Understanding Media, Ch. 14, p. 127 ff.

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Believing is Seeing
Seeing is Believing

• When truth is reduced to mere matching of inner
  and outer, any statement can be questioned.
• From Cliché to Archetype, p. 30

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What is Truth?

• Today the multimedia have demobilized
  consciousness. We speak of lie as credibility
  gap. Truth once again becomes trust, not
  Cartesian certainty.
• From Cliché to Archetype, p. 34
• Truth is whatever upsets the apple cart.
• Agatha Christie, Parker Pyne, Detective

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Words / Thoughts Control Thoughts / Words

• Dont you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is
  to narrow the range of thought? In the end we
  shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible,
  because there will be no words in which to
  express it.
• Every concept that can ever be needed will be
  expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning
  rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings
  rubbed out and forgotten.
• Every year, fewer and fewer words, and the range
  of consciousness always a little smaller
• George Orwell, 1984 A Novel

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Group Exercise

• What are some other ways in which language is
  used to control thought? (of which most may well
  be unaware!)

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Bushspeak

• But let us be candid about the consequences of
  leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We're seeking
  all the facts. Already, the Kay Report identified
  dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related
  program activities Had we failed to act, the
  dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs
  would continue to this day.
• G. W. BushState of the Union Address, 20 Jan
  2004

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Bushspeak

• But let us be candid about the consequences of
  leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We're seeking
  all the facts. Already, the Kay Report identified
  dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related
  program activities Had we failed to act, the
  dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs
  would continue to this day.
• G. W. BushState of the Union Address, 20 Jan
  2004

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Bushspeak

• We have faced serious challenges together, and
  now we face a choice We can go forward with
  confidence and resolve, or we can turn back to
  the dangerous illusion that terrorists are not
  plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us.
  We can press on with economic growth, and reforms
  in education and Medicare, or we can turn back to
  old policies and old divisions.
• G. W. BushState of the Union Address, 20 Jan
  2004

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Bushspeak

• We have faced serious challenges together, and
  now we face a choice We can go forward with
  confidence and resolve, or we can turn back to
  the dangerous illusion that terrorists are not
  plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us.
  We can press on with economic growth, and reforms
  in education and Medicare, or we can turn back to
  old policies and old divisions.
• G. W. BushState of the Union Address, 20 Jan
  2004

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Bushspeak

• Youre either with us, or against us.

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Cliché as Soporific
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Breakdown as Breakthrough

• Every emperor must have his clown In rigid
  hierarchical societies only this licensed
  character dare exercise the probe of free speech.
  The clown is indispensable as audience-checker
  without his clown, the emperor has no means of
  contact with the public
• From Cliché to Archetype, p. 133

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McLuhan Says

• Social anger and sensitivity sharpen the
  awareness of the funny man so that his jokes
  are stabs or probes into the cultural matrix that
  plagues him.
• From Cliché to Archetype, p. 132

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• What do Attila the Hun and John the Baptist have
  in common?
• Why did the barber win the race?
• Where did Napoleon keep his armies?

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• What do Attila the Hun and John the Baptist have
  in common?
• Why did the barber win the race?
• Where did Napoleon keep his armies?

Ground becomes figure
Homophone as probe
Unpack the word and sharpen
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Shakespeare

• All the worlds a stage,
• And all the men and women merely players.
• They have their exits and their entrances.
• And one man in his time plays many parts,
• His acts being seven ages.
• As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII

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With Apologies to Shakespeare

• All the stage is a world,
• And all the players, merely men and women
• They have their excitements and their trances.
• And one part in its time is played by many
  actors,
• It ages. A being in many acts.
• How Do You Like It?

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Sharpening Clichés

• A teacher asked her class to use a familiar word
  in a new way. One boy read The boy returned
  home with a cliché on his face. Asked to explain
  his phrase, he said, The dictionary defines
  cliché as a worn out expression.
• From Cliché to Archetype, p. 54

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Into Probes

• Punning / word association

• Spoonerisms / interchange ofwords phrases

Sir, you have tasted two whole worms you have
hissed all my mystery lectures and been caught
fighting a liar in the quad you will leave by
the next town drain.

• Homophones or homographs

Knowledge Economy ? No-ledge economy

• Superfices

Francisco Franco The reign (rain) in
Spain Time flies like an arrow.Fruit flies like
a banana.
The Green house, the green house,the greenhouse

• Synonyms for words in the cliché

Value statement ? value invoice

• Retrieve an old cliché into a new contextas an
  archetype.

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McLuhanisms

• Diaper backwards spells repaid.
• Food for the mind is like food for the body. The
  outputs are never the same as the inputs.
• Invention is the mother of necessity.
• Leaders seek audiences. Emperors give audiences.
• Nothing exceeds like excess.

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McLuhanisms

• A man wrapped up in himself makes a small
  package.
• The future of the future is the present.
• The ignorance of how to use new knowledge
  stockpiles exponentially.
• When a thing is current it creates currency.

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Individual Playtime!

• Take the cliché that you brought and sharpen it
  into one or more probes.

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Probing a Cliché, eh?
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For Next Time(Think aloud on the weblog)

• Readings
• Understanding Media, Ch. 8 9 (Spoken Written
  Words)
• From Cliché to Archetype, Cliché as Probe.
• (Optional) The Virtual Marshall McLuhan, McLuhan
  as trickster The poetry of cliché.
• Weblog
• Select one or two clichés that are common in your
  field or discipline (verbal, procedural,
  approaches, etc.) and sharpen into probes and use
  them to discover a new insight into an issue.
• Select one paragraph or passage from the
  readings, and probe its applicability to your
  ground.