Metaphor, secret complitities

Random notes on rhetoric and metaphor

First – hybridity. The metaphor of a hybrid seems to be appearing in several places – cars primary among them. I won’t pretend to know the origins of the term – if it appeared in biological discourse first, or any such thing, but the implications for the metaphor seem to derive primarily from this context. There are other potential metaphors available for describing the system of car propulsion that uses electricity and gas – a duality metaphor, a supplementary metaphor, any other number of metaphors that highlight difference and contrasts within the system itself. The hybridity metaphor accomplishes what these cannot: it erases the similarities between hybrid cars and non-hybrid cars by constructing a coherent, unified organism. Hybridity in the biological/scientific context implies seamless unity, a 3^rd organism more than the sum of parts for its completeness. ‘Hybrid cars’ become untethered from the problematic dimensions of their production by appearing to seamlessly integrate different technologies into an entirely new type of vehicle. This perhaps accounts for the self assurance with which hybrid car drivers approach the still troubling process of driving, and the political cover ‘hybridity’ draws for some car manufacturers and vehicles – a ‘hybrid’ SUV for example.

Second – valorization, almost a repressive hypothesis. I’ve written about sex before, about the lines we draw around sex/not sex, but I may have left out of that discussion the question of depth and penetration (no pun) ascribed to sex. For whatever reason, people believe sex to be particularly important vis-à-vis other activities, a valorized (or demonized) practice that implies a special type of access to a person’s humanity that cannot be found in other activities. Sex implies intimacy, or at least exception, in contrast with other activities. In certain discourses, this authorizes the injunction to regulation and control of sex – particularly in conjunction with traditional quasi Christian morality, but also the sex-industry on the whole which commodifies sex by emphasizing its importance in relationships and constructing its centrality to a fulfilled existence. The treatment of childhood is an analogue for this process in the treatment of childhood in many discourses. The valorization of childhood authorizes its control. For reasons unknown, we suffer from an illusion of the liberated, exceptionally important childhood. This involves an idealization of childhood – an illusion of being free from obligations and responsibilities, a free state in comparison with adulthood, combined with a developmental exceptionality that capititalizes on medical and psychiatric discourses to create childhood as a uniquely significant part of someone’s life. These converge around the need to closely regulate a child’s life – for safety (psychiatric or otherwise), but also for quality (in the mind of parents, primarily involving their participation in social/cultural/etc. activities).

Duncan