As Jon N Hall takes a metaphor to the ultraextreme edges of metaphordom!!
On the economy, here’ show he ends, but you should just click through and read the whole thing.
Despite its enormous costs, the “government cure” is one of palliatives that only mask symptoms. The economy has gotten hooked on government methadone and now needs to go cold turkey. Had America taken the “do-nothing cure” one thing is sure, we wouldn’t have racked up so many trillions in new debt. And that new debt will put a drag on recovery. That is, if America ever has a real recovery.
If real health is all about homeostasis (equilibrium), then our economy’s cycle of boom and bust is disease-ridden. Perhaps sectors of our diseased economy need to lie fallow for a while, like a farmer’s overworked field.
Sometimes difficulty in understanding isn’t just due to the thorniness of the problems themselves, but to the misuse of the conceptual devices and models we employ to explain them. Folks can spend more effort trying to make their metaphors work properly than in trying to understand their problems directly. Metaphors can clarify, but they can also cloud. Sometimes metaphor is a lens, but at other times it is a disease. (Hey, I just used a metaphor to describe metaphor itself. Is that legal?)
Although our complex economy’s prognosis is dire, the prescription may actually be quite simple — diet and exercise. That, and to take more care with our metaphors.
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