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Metaphor and Cultural Coherence

The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture. As an example, let us consider some cultural values in our society that are coherent with our up-down spatialization metaphors and whose oppo­sites would not be.

"More is better" is coherent with more is up and good is up. "Less is better" is not coherent with them.

"Bigger is better" is coherent with more is up and good is up. "Smaller is better" is not coherent with them.

"The future will be better" is coherent with the future is up and good is up. "The future will be worse" is not.

"There will be more in the future" is coherent with more is up and the future is up.

"Your status should be higher in the future" is coherent with

HIGH STATUS IS UP and THE FUTURE IS UP.

These are values deeply embedded in our culture. "The future will be better" is a statement of the concept of prog­ress. "There will be more in the future" has as special cases the accumulation of goods and wage inflation. "Your status should be higher in the future" is a statement of careerism. These are coherent with our present spatialization metaphors; their opposites would not be. So it seems that our values are not independent but must form a coherent system with the metaphorical concepts we live by. We are not claiming that all cultural values coherent with a

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METAPHOR AND CULTURAL COHERENCE                    23

metaphorical system actually exist, only that those that do exist and are deeply entrenched are consistent with the metaphorical system.

The values listed above hold in our culture generally all things being equal. But because things are usually not equal, there are often conflicts among these values and hence conflicts among the metaphors associated with them. To explain such conflicts among values (and their metaphors), we must find the different priorities given to these values and metaphors by the subculture that uses them. For instance, more is up seems always to have the highest priority since it has the clearest physical basis. The priority of more is up over good is up can be seen in I examples like "Inflation is rising" and "The crime rate is going up." Assuming that inflation and the crime rate are bad, these sentences mean what they do because more is up always has top priority.

In general, which values are given priority is partly a matter of the subculture one lives in and partly a matter of personal values. The various subcultures of a mainstream culture share basic values but give them different priorities. For example, bigger is better may be in conflict with there will be more in the future when it comes to the question of whether to buy a big car now, with large time payments that will eat up future salary, or whether to buy a smaller, cheaper car. There are American subcultures where you buy the big car and don't worry about the future, and there are others where the future comes first and you buy the small car. There was a time (before inflation and the energy crisis) when owning a small car had a high status within the subculture where virtue is up and saving re­sources is virtuous took priority over bigger is better. Nowadays the number of small-car owners has gone up drastically because there is a large subculture where sav­ing money is better has priority over bigger is better.

In addition to subcultures, there are groups whose defin­ing characteristic is that they share certain important values

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that conflict with those of the mainstream culture. But in less obvious ways they preserve other mainstream values. Take monastic orders like the Trappists. There less is bet­ter and smaller is better are true with respect to mate­rial possessions, which are viewed as hindering what is im­portant, namely, serving God. The Trappists share the mainstream value virtue is up, though they give it the highest priority and a very different definition. more is still better, though it applies to virtue; and status is still up, though it is not of this world but of a higher one, the Kingdom of God. Moreover, the future will be better is true in terms of spiritual growth (up) and, ultimately, salvation (really up). This is typical of groups that are out of the mainstream culture. Virtue, goodness, and status may be radically redefined, but they are still up. It is still better to have more of what is important, the future will be better with respect to what is important, and so on. Relative to what is important for a monastic group, the value system is both internally coherent and, with respect to what is important for the group, coherent with the major orientational metaphors of the mainstream culture.

Individuals, like groups, vary in their priorities and in the ways they define what is good or virtuous to them. In this sense, they are subgroups of one. Relative to what is im­portant for them, their individual value systems are coher­ent with the major orientational metaphors of the main­stream culture.

Not all cultures give the priorities we do to up-down orientation. There are cultures where balance or centrality plays a much more important role than it does in our cul­ture. Or consider the nonspatial orientation active-passive. For us active is up and passive is down in most matters. But there are cultures where passivity is valued more than activity. In general the major orientations up-down, in-out, central-peripheral, active-passive, etc., seem to cut across all cultures, but which concepts are oriented which way and which orientations are most important vary from culture to culture.