I Is An Other: The Secret Life Of Metaphor And How It Shapes The Way We See The World (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
(warning: this is not a review per se, so much as a reaction)I loved this book but It's far from perfect. It had a powerful impact on me personally, but for what it leaves out as much as what it includes. I'm fascinated by the gulf between religious and non-religious thinking (I happen to be non-religious if it matters to you) and it seems to me that what this book has to offer is essentially an explanation of that gulf. And yet it never mentions religion once. The premise is in the subtitle; how metaphor shapes the way we see the world. We use metaphor so relentlessly and constantly that it often becomes invisible to us. Most metaphors are cliches that we barely process, their meaning so ingrained as to be inseparable from our language. Indeed everything with a name had to borrow that name from an older word when it was new. Names themselves are metaphors and language, as Emerson said, "is fossil poetry". Saying the book had a powerful impact on me does not mean it fell from a fifth story window and struck me on the headGeary explores the power of this fact and sprinkles his book with examples in every walk of life from science and economics, to marketing and therapy. The best chapters explore some recent ideas in neuroscience about how metaphor may play a central role in the emergence of consciousness itself. But after a while the examples grow a bit tiresome. It becomes one of those books that skips from one series of factoids and examples to more of the same only different, the kind of book you might keep near the toilet for an interesting snippet or two when your indisposed, without ever building toward a larger idea or a more challenging thesis.The thesis that it lead me to, and for which I will be forever indebted to the author, is that religion itself is metaphor. But far from weakening religion this makes it stronger. We mistake metaphor for fact as often as we mistake it for nonsense. It is neither. Truth is a slippery word but I would posit that metaphor is how we get there. Everyone recognizes that art can represent truth even if it isn't true, and literature shouldn't be taken literally.Long before science came along along religion interpreted the world around us and told us what it meant. Science deprived religion of its factual assertions, but factual assertions were never the point. And science never gave us any meaning. It was and remains merely a tool. The most powerful tool ever devised by clever apes but still, just a tool. Art survived unscathed because art was always a liar, and never pretended otherwise. But religion asserted truth. Worse it claimed sole ownership of the Truth. That was going too far. But religion as metaphor still has power. If we acknowledge that metaphor is how we come to understand all things, then the metaphors of religion might claim back some of its former glory without seeming so absurd.I guess someone else will have to write that book. Maybe I'll work on an essay. Ahhh...metaphor. How you are woven into our every thought. Our brains are constantly making comparisons between known and unknown in order to find a pattern. The book suggests that metaphor is at the heart of our thinking, and makes a pretty strong case for it. It's broken down into economics, education, politics, advertising, etc to show the reader how prevalent metaphor is in our everyday world.Fascinating stuff. I'm a geek about how the brain works, so this book is right up my alley!
What do You think about I Is An Other: The Secret Life Of Metaphor And How It Shapes The Way We See The World (2000)?
Another great book about metaphor. I liked it so much that I bought it for myself.
—wendy24
Not an easy read, but thoughtful. Makes you see the world differently.
—Hannah
Really interesting, made reading more fun!
—omidpoya
