Of Hands, Shells, Roots, and Clouds
Examples in the Formative Dimension of Metaphor in Society
There are metaphors, textual or otherwise, from renown philosophical, anthropological and economic contexts that deserve close examination, with a view to pointing out how they spill over and outside the text to become active in society through a process of normalization in common parlance and understanding.
1.
In Book 4, Chapter 2 of An Inquiry into the Causes and the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith famously describes the Market as “an invisible hand” capable of self-regulation by virtue of the law of supply and demand. This metaphor has become the iconic definition and explanation of the mechanics of free market economy in classical economic thought.
This image has haunted generations of economists. Some historians have tried to write off the pre-eminence of the “invisible hand” in Smith’s thought, as a “mere” literary device, which after all only appears once in the Inquiry.
This “mere” literary device has nonetheless proven persistent, and has come to epitomize and condense the whole mechanism in the eyes of the advocates of Liberalism, because of the way it works: it makes a set of human, and far from perfect and objective, processes look neutral, objective, natural and rational.
There is no such a thing as a “mere” literary device when it comes to metaphor. There are effective and ineffective metaphors. The “invisible hand” is an example of extremely effective, and even haunting, metaphor that lingers on long past its time.
The “invisible hand” does not account for those hidden processes that make the harmony of the free market all but harmonious and free. On the contrary, its staying power relies on its assumed transparency, and its vague reference to a sort of natural balancing mechanism.
2.
Let us now direct our attention to a particularly interesting case from a remote social context.
In 1922, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski observed and described the Kula Ring in his book Argonauts of the Western Pacific. The Kula Ring was an economic and social system that connected a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. It involved the ceremonial exchange of red shell necklaces and white shell bracelets. These two kinds of jewels moved clockwise and counter clockwise respectively along the circular trajectory of exchange among the islands, and by no means could the direction of their respective movements be inverted.
They passed from hand to hand, in time going back to the initial owners. Along the way, economic transactions were construed and, most importantly, embedded in an emergent, complex web of social bonds among the people involved.
This system was founded on reciprocity: the obligation to give, receive and give back. It had two main consequences: the redistribution of wealth and its continual flow on one hand; a sense of reciprocal responsibility resulting in social cohesion on the other.
Many collateral activities, both ritual and economic, accompanied such exchange. The shell necklaces and bracelets, however, had no practical use. Yet, their temporary possession was highly valued in that society, because such useless objects embodied the spirit of wealth flow and prestige associated to generosity. In fact, among those islanders, generosity, not accumulation, was the basis of economy.
The shell necklaces and bracelets of the Kula Ring are an example of non-textual metaphor: concrete, common objects — shells — became the physical embodiment of a system of values, and the symbolic containers, or objective correlatives, of a whole social and kinship system.
3.
Back in Europe, French philosopher Simone Weil wrote about “the need for roots” in her homonymous book, published in 1949, after her death.
Her “roots” are an organic metaphor for a sense of belonging and moral accountability in a specific social and ecological context. She envisioned such “roots” as an antidote to modern “rootlessness.”
Because of the contextual embeddedness it signifies, this word is more than “only” a metaphor. This metaphor is constitutive, in that it is not a decorative embellishment applied to the text externally, as an afterthought. It anchors readers’ understanding into the organic and embodied feelings and contexts of life, as opposed to the mechanical dimension of the bureaucratic, impersonal State.
There is no other word that can express this much and sit in the readers’ consciousness embodying so precisely what is located at the juncture between the agency of the individual person and that of the environment, in a dynamic relationship of mutual respect and aid.
Here a metaphoric expression becomes utterly concrete, and capable of shaping and directing consciousness and, therefore, capable of informing new action.
4.
In his book Techno-Feudalism (2023), economist Yanis Varoufakis outlines the passage to Cloud Capitalism and beyond.
“Cloud” commonly refers to the online data archives that are available everywhere at all times through the synchronization of devices and worldwide Internet connectivity.
This word is a metaphor that has become literalized, as we seldom remember what is behind the aerial state of affairs it describes: online data centres, with countless wires and cables crisscrossing entire locations around the globe, whereby our encrypted data travel, and become constantly retrievable.
Here we use a word from the natural realm to signify something disembodied and virtual, while erasing the concreteness of entangled, expensive and environmentally unfriendly, infrastructural elements.
The “Cloud” has become such an ubiquitous metaphor that people hardly perceive its irony; it has naturalized and normalized into a self-evident concept that many take for granted.
By way of… beginning (anew)
The four examples above show how metaphorical language can work on and shape social contexts in ways that are nothing short of mindset shifts.
The crux of the matter now is to conceive metaphors that can seed new concepts, understandings, and actions in support of a social framework that upholds the inherent dignity of humans and non-humans alike on this planet.
Listening to indigenous ways of being in the world, as well as retrieving ancient ones from a perspective of relevance to our time, can be a fruitful direction, provided we are discerning towards those attempts that seek to turn them into the precursors of ideologized versions of “progress.”
What if metaphor itself could help us plant seeds that make a new eco-attuned version of “reality” sprout into being? What if we returned to the “vineyard,” for a start?
I couldn’t agree more with your sense of the importance of metaphors as devices that organize and shape our thinking — social, political, and otherwise.
I’ve spent well over a decade elaborating the role of literary metaphors in political rhetoric (writing on the complicated political philosophy of Osip Mandelstam’s late poetry, vis-à-vis the Soviets). Much of what I do now could also be described as quarrying my native folk tradition for indigenous metaphorics of sustainable and just participation in the world, including an emancipation of agency from dependencies on the state.
From this perspective, I can see the appeal of the “vineyard”: a connection with the soil, with a place, something cultivated communally, its fruits also to be enjoyed convivially… And at the same time: a monoculture, pre-planned linear rows, the invisible behind-the-scenes battle against the pests, against the soil itself, all comprehensively managed from a single point.
This isn’t to try undermining this particular metaphor, but to suggest that every metaphor (I believe) comes with a certain limited scope, beyond which its meaning begins to break down and suggest things it wasn’t meant to suggest — something we constantly see being exploited in political life. The bottom line, as I see it, is that we never really land on the “right” metaphor once and for all — but need to be continually watchful of what our words imply, correcting as necessary, tending the language, very much as an eco-system of meanings.
Thank you for opening up this avenue, and once again I do think you’re entirely right to draw attention to the implications of language with these four brief but rich and salient case studies.