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Friends,
Though I do not own a TV, I watched the horror of September 11th in person
from one-half mile away.
The President of the USA, the President of France, Mr. Clinton, and others
have said what I am about to say: it looks far worse in person.
It smells of fire and rotting corpses; the fires are still burning and the
odors worsen every day. I don't wear my isolation mask anymore (from one
half mile away), however, people south of Canal Street must wear gas masks
and isolation masks. Photos of the debris look like the "last days of
Pompeii."
When you see from close-up two pairs of human hands (hands that once
belonged to two female flight attendants), and you see how tight the
hijackers bound their hands, and how the explosion's force flung the bound
hands to the top of another roof . . . a mile away. . . you tell me what
other NOUNS you would use to describe the Arabs who pulled off this mission.
My mother died on September 19th a decade ago.
She had cancer and was being nursed by her daughter and sisters at her home.
My mother died in her sleep with her hair freshly washed, in clean clothing,
surrounded by her loved ones.
Is this how you picture your mother dying, at peace?
Or do you see your mother's severed hands, wrenched from their body, wearing
a bracelet of ropes, charred, amidst twisted steel and debris on a roof?
-- Non-StopNY
about the events of September 11 = = intriguing = =
> If you find this of interest, please pass it on over the net to anyone you
> think might also be interested.
>
> Kathleen and I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> George Lakoff
>
>
> George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California
at
> Berkeley and a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute. He is the author
of
> Moral Politics (U. of Chicago Press, 1996), a study of how conservatives
and
> liberals see the world, and ėMetaphor and War,î perhaps the most widely
> distributed critique of the Gulf War, distributed over the Internet during
> its early days. He also studies language, metaphorical thought, and the way
> the mind is embodied.
>
>
>
> September 11, 2001
>
> By George Lakoff
>
>
> 1
>
> The Power of the Images
>
>
> As a metaphor analyst, I want to begin with the power of the images.
>
> There are a number of metaphors for buildings. We see features--eyes, nose
> and mouth--in their windows. The image of the plane going into South Tower
> of the World Trade Center is metaphorically an image of a bullet going
> through someone's head, the flame pouring from the other side blood
spurting
> out. Tall buildings are metaphorically people standing erect. Each tower
> falling was a body falling. We are not consciously aware of the
metaphorical
> images, but they are part of the power and the horror we experience when we
> see them.
>
> Each of us, in the prefrontal cortex of our brains, has what are called
> "mirror neurons." Such neurons fire either when we perform an action or
> when see the same action performed by someone else. There are connections
> from that part of the brain to the emotional centers. Such neural circuits
> are believed to be the basis of empathy.
>
> This works literally--when we see plane coming toward the building and
> imagine people in the building, we feel the plane coming toward us; when we
> see the building toppling toward others, we feel the building toppling
> toward us. It also works metaphorically: If we see the plane going through
> the building, and unconsciously we metaphorize the building as a head with
> the plane going through its temple, then we sense--unconsciously but
> powerfully--being shot through the temple. If we metaphorize the building
as
> a person and see the building fall to the ground in pieces, then we
> sense--again unconsciously but powerfully--that we are falling to the
ground
> in pieces. Our systems of metaphorical thought, interacting with our mirror
> neuron systems, turn external literal horrors into felt metaphorical
> horrors.
>
> Here are some other cases:
>
> Control Is Up: You have control over the situation, you're on top of
things.
> This has always been an important basis of towers as symbols of power. In
> this case, the toppling of the towers meant loss of control, loss of power.
>
> Phallic imagery: Towers are symbols of phallic power and their collapse
> reinforces the idea of loss of power.
>
> Another kind of phallic imagery was more central here. The planes as
> penetrating the towers with a plume of heat. The pentagon, a vaginal image
> from the air, penetrated by the plane as missile.
>
> A Society Is A Building. A society can have a "foundation" which may or may
> not be "solid" and it can "crumble" and "fall." The World Trade Center was
> symbolic of society. When it crumbled and fell, the threat was more than to
> a building.
>
> We think metaphorically of things that perpetuate over time as "standing."
> Bush the Father in the Gulf War kept saying, "This will not stand," meaning
> that the situation would not be perpetuated over time. The World Trade
> Center was build to last ten thousand years. When it crumbled, it
> metaphorically raised the question of whether American power and American
> society would last.
>
> Building As Temple: Here we had the destruction of the temple of capitalist
> commerce, which lies at the heart of our society.
>
>
> Our minds play tricks on us. The image of the Manhattan skyline is now
> unbalanced. We are used to seeing it with the towers there. Our mind
imposes
> our old image of the towers, and the sight of them gone gives one the
> illusion of imbalance, as if Manhattan we sinking. Given the symbolism of
> Manhattan as standing for the promise of America, it appears metaphorically
> as if that promise were sinking.
>
> Then there is the persistent image, day after day, of the charred and
> smoking remains: it is an image of hell.
>
> The World Trade Center was a potent symbol, tied into our understanding of
> our country and ourselves in a myriad of ways. All of what we know is
> physically embodied in our brains. To incorporate the new knowledge
requires
> a physical change in the synapses of our brains, a physical reshaping of
our
> neural system.
>
> The physical violence was not only in New York and Washington. Physical
> changes--violent ones--have been made to the brains of all Americans.
>
>
> 2
>
> How The Administation Frames the Event
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