Metaphors We Ought Not Live By:
Rush Limbaugh in the Age of Cognitive Science
Tim Adamson, Greg Johnson, Tim Rohrer and Howard Lam
University of Oregon Philosophy Department
Brought to you by the Metaphor Center Online
Comments are welcome to Greg Johnson (gregj@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
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Introduction
Rush Limbaugh is one of the most influential voices on the American
political scene today. While many regard his voice as polemical and
bombastic, he nevertheless has a primary role in formulating the metaphors
which shape much of the new Republican Congress' policies. Though many
dismiss his rhetoric as simplistic and intellectually facile, he clearly
taps deep into the American psyche with his visceral language. Viewed from
the perspective of metaphor analysis, Limbaugh's rhetoric is brilliantly
constructed in its use of culturally entrenched metaphors, which resonate
with the emotional feelings of his listeners and readers. In this paper, we
investigate Limbaugh's use of metaphor in his recent book, The Way Things
Ought To Be.[1] We sum up by arguing that Limbaugh's metaphors cohere in
his theory of human nature and a vision of a society built around the
traditional nuclear family. We conclude that liberals are not yet
articulating their own version of human nature and offering some initial
thoughts as to what that might entail.
Contemporary POLITICS IS WAR
According to Limbaugh, America is engaged in a culture war. While liberals
are waging a war to destroy society, conservatives are fighting a rear
guard action to uphold traditional values and maintain a strong society. At
stake in this war is whether our nation and our children will live in
accordance with a certain preordained view of human nature. Limbaugh
believes that this view of human nature is the vision our founding fathers
had in creating the U.S. constitution and is inseparable from our American
way of life. At the core of this view of human nature is a faith in rugged
individuals who provide for the traditional nuclear family. Our capitalist
system is on this view a natural consequence of these individuals competing
to provide the best lives for their families. Liberals, Limbaugh argues,
reject this account of capitalism and society; he claims that their vision
is to replace the capitalist system with a utopian socialist government
that replaces fathers as providers. In advocating a socialist agenda,
liberals are at war not just with conservatives and conservative
ideologies, but with human nature itself. Evidence for the contemporary
POLITICS IS WAR metaphor system follows:
1. Folks, here you have perhaps the best example of the culture
war being waged in our country today. (133)
2. They [liberals] march under different labels now: political
correctness, gender politics, peace studies. But they are all
based on the same misguided premise held by the 60's radicals:
that Utopia is possible. They think that a centralized
governmental authority can bring us Utopia. I say that's bunk. I
think it is Utopian to expect that every citizen will eat equally
well on every day of the year. I think it is Utopian to expect
that every citizen will be provided health care in whatever
amount and whatever degree he wants every day of the year. (262)
3. It's important that people in this country who still hold
sacred our American traditions be made aware of the constant
assault that is being waged on this society by its Utopian
enemies. . . . No one, but the Socialist Utopians don't tell you
that their agenda to end it [poverty] merely spreads the misery
to include more people. . . . . The frightening thing about these
people is their insidious nature. They would present much less
threat to this society if they would simply be honest and open
about their agendas. Instead, they disarm us with such harmless
platitudes as "we are in favor of clean air" or "we are against
poverty." People should be aware of the extent to which our way
of life is under siege by an increasing number of groups with
candy-coated causes, but poisonous agendas. (265)
4. [The media] is "constantly pounding us with doom and gloom
scenarios, which often cast a negative spell over the national
psyche. (300)
5. What they [environmentalists] really want to do is attack our
way of life. Their primary enemy: capitalism. (155)
6. Their appeals and their scare tactics are designed to
transform people into foot soldiers in the army of doomsday
environmentalism. (155)
7. Dioxin at those levels isn't harmful, yet we were bombarded by
TV reports showing people in spacesuits walking through the empty
town. (162)
8. The feminist leadership vowed revenge and retreated to plot a
new destructive and divisive strategy. (190)
9. And Stanford capitulated and abolished the Western
civilization requirement. (204)
In these examples, Limbaugh makes use of the conventional metaphor POLITICS
IS WAR. The mapping for this metaphor follows:
WAR POLITICS
armies political groups
commanders political leaders
soldiers citizens
objective anarchy or stability
weapons policies, ideas
propaganda books, TV, radio, slogans
casualties ordinary citizens (innocent)
war heroes conservatives like Rush
traitors liberals
Limbaugh uses the POLITICS IS WAR metaphor to conceptualize the way in
which he sees liberal left as attacking society. This metaphor is
predominant in his rhetoric concerning the left. Limbaugh believes that he
and his conservative counterparts are generals in this battle against the
left who are trying to recruit ordinary citizens to their cause. In this
war, the primary objective of the conservative movement is to restore
stability amidst the anarchy brought on by liberal attacks. Since liberal
policies are destroying the country, Limbaugh believes that the most
effective way to respond is to launch conservative weapons, i.e.,
conservative policies.
As mentioned, Limbaugh believes the country is under attack. So, when he
attempts to justify his aggressive rhetoric or the implementation of
harsh-sounding conservative policies, he is doing so because he thinks the
war against the left justifies these "responses." The cause for which he
and those like him are fighting is to save this country from liberal
takeover. He thinks that holding back this liberal aggression must be
accomplished at all costs.
Limbaugh is aware of the need to use propaganda to justify the conservative
cause. He skillfully employs TV, radio, and his books to advance the
conservative counter-offensive. The liberals, he says, use books, radio,
and TV to spread their message, so he must do the same. He knows that his
rhetorical tactics will result in political casualties. His personal
attacks are directed against the leaders of the liberal left. He thinks he
is justified in assassinating their characters, because the political
deaths of a few liberals in no way compare to the casualties of many
(innocent) civilians who suffer from liberal policies.
Finally, there is an extension concerning the role of war heroes. Every war
has its heroes, and the war over America is no exception. A logical
extension of this metaphor is that conservative leaders are war heroes who,
if called upon, would sacrifice themselves for their country. Notice that
this metaphor could extend to Limbaugh himelf. In contrast, liberals are
portrayed as traitors to the American way of life.
Limbaugh believes that some enemies that are more dangerous than others. He
declares that the women's movement is the most significant threat to
America. He labels radical feminists "feminazis." Even though he admits
that there are only a few feminazis, the mere allusion to Nazis suggests an
unspeakable evil. The labeling of women as feminazis is a metaphorical
extension of POLITICS AS WAR. Limbaugh sees feminism as the vanguard of the
liberal attack in that feminists seek to subvert the natural order of the
nuclear family by fostering confusion between the nurturing role of the
mother and the providing role of the father.
SOCIETY IS A FAMILY
Limbaugh's use of the SOCIETY IS A FAMILY metaphor is rather perplexing.
The following quote illustrates some of the connections between the SOCIETY
IS A FAMILY metaphor and the POLITICS IS WAR metaphor. Limbaugh writes:
The main ideological battle in this country is between those who think the
government should be the primary allocator of benefits in society and those
who believe the private sector should have that function. (148)
He uses a special case of the SOCIETY IS A FAMILY metaphor to argue that
the government should not play the role of a provider in society. Under
this special case of the metaphor, American society under liberal
leadership is understood as a dysfunctional family of lazy and dependent
pigs. His purpose in portraying the liberal vision of society as a family
of pigs is to show the illegitimacy of a government that replaces the
father as provider. According to Limbaugh, traditional families should be
the model for society. They should be independent, self-sufficient, and
contributing members of a capitalist society. Evidence for the LIBERAL
SOCIETY IS A FAMILY OF PIGS metaphor follows:
1. We need to replace the eagle with a huge sow that has a lot of
nipples and a bunch of fat piglets hanging on them, all trying to
suckle as much nourishment from them as possible. (146)
2. Of course, the large sow is near death. She's not fat and
flourishing, she's emaciated. A lot of the piglets have dropped
off and are running around lost because they can't get any more
nourishment. (146)
3. The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the mother
pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of this
government and they give nothing back. Nothing. They're the ones
who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones who
are always pandered to. (40)
4. And do the poor pay anything back? Do they pay any taxes? No.
They don't pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country.
They do nothing but take from it. There are people who are
putting into this economy. There are people who are working hard
every day, playing by the rules and contributing. They are the
givers. Who are the takers? The poor. (40)
5. Instead of supporting your own kids, you are supporting a
giant bloated pig in Washington, DC, and you're just trying to
get your face into the nipple so that you can get some of it
back. We've all become a bunch of little piglets trying to get to
the mother pig and then trying to squeeze in and get our share.
(39)
6. We need to encourage people to contribute to the economy, not
to sit around and bask in self-pity. Encourage them to become
economically equal members of this society, rather than a
collection of sycophants sidling up to the pig and looking for
the biggest nipple they can find. (41)
7. We do, however, need to wean people off the government pig.
The country is losing its self-reliance and becoming a subsidy
hog. (43)
8. We're going to have to wean people away from entitlements;
wean them off the sow. (147)
The following is the mapping for the special case metaphor LIBERAL SOCIETY
AS A FAMILY OF PIGS:
PORCINE FAMILY LIBERAL SOCIETY
sow government
piglets poor people
nipples, teats social programs
milk, nourishment entitlements
food for the sow tax money
providers of the food tax payers
Limbaugh uses this metaphor to satirize the liberal vision of society. The
government as a sow is an illegitimate provider, for it does not
independently produce what it provides. The sow, like the government, is
not self-sufficient. The domesticated sow relies upon someone else to
provide food for it; likewise, the government cannot exist without
tax-payers providing tax dollars. So, just as the milk that the sow
provides for the piglets comes from the food provided by the farmer, the
entitlements the government provides for the poor that the government
provides for the poor comes from the money provided by the tax payers.
Further, just the primary concern of the piglets is getting milk from the
nipple, the primary concern of the poor is securing entitlements and
benefits from governmental programs. That the milk comes out of the sow
does not change the fact that it is the food providers who keep the sow
alive. Similarly, the entitlements that are disbursed by the government
depend on the tax payers, who shoulder the cost of government.
Both the metaphor of SOCIETY IS A FAMILY in general and the special case in
which liberal society is a family of pigs are vital to Limbaugh's reasoning
about social policy. The first inference that Limbaugh draws from this
metaphor is that liberal social programs are based on an internal
contradiction. The tax payers are the people who are making the existence
of society possible, and yet the liberals are belittling that fact by
making the government into the primary provider for the society. However,
since the tax payers provide funds for the government, ultimately the
government cannot even provide for itself, much less for others.
In assuming the role of the provider to the poor, the government must tax
the middle class to raise the necessary funds. Limbaugh believes that this
tax practice is unfair since the government takes money from the real
providers and gives it to the poor, who contribute nothing to the
government. As the government has takes more funds out of the wallets of
the middle class, the tax-paying members of society gradually become the
poor and clamour for federal assistance as well. At the same time, since
the poor are getting what they want without having to work for it, they
have no incentive to do anything except continue to depend on the
government. The nub of the contradiction is that in the name of helping the
poor escape poverty, those same liberal programs create more poverty.
Limbaugh believes that the liberal programs turn the taxpaying,
contributing citizens into the poor by creating an artificial situation in
which the poor become the lesiure class and the middle class chooses to
emulate the poor. Limbaugh argues that liberal policies create an absurd
situation and should therefore be abandoned. Evidence for the first
inference:
1. "The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the
mother pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of
this government and they give nothing back. Nothing. They're the
ones who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones
who are always pandered to." (40)
2. "And do the poor pay anything back? Do they pay any taxes? No.
They don't pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country.
They do nothing but take from it. There are people who are
putting into this economy. There are people who are working hard
every day, playing by the rules and contributing. They are the
givers. Who are the takers? The poor." (40)
3. "Of course, the large sow is near death. She's not fat and
flourishing, she's emaciated. A lot of the piglets have dropped
off and are running around lost because they can't get any more
nourishment." (146)
4. "Instead of supporting your own kids, you are supporting a
giant bloated pig in Washington, DC, and you're just trying to
get your face into the nipple so that you can get some of it
back. We've all become a bunch of little piglets trying to get to
the mother pig and then trying to squeeze in and get our share."
(39)
5. "We're getting to the point where the tax producers will
someday be outnumbered by the tax eaters in this country. Those
who choose to accept the responsibility of life have had enough
of being told that they should give more to those who don't
shoulder those responsibilities." (47)
6. "Working people are striving against the odds to make it in
this country, and all the government can do is view them as a
revenue target." (46)
7. "The sympathy in this country is never for those on whose
shoulders the burden actually rests: the diligent middle class."
(48)
8. "Yet we are encouraged by such "leaders" as Jesse Jackson to
reduce ourselves to the lowest common denominator; to emulate the
poor, rather than encourage them to emulate those who produce."
(42)
A second inference Limbaugh derives from the metaphor is that liberal
social programs both foster illegitimacy and are illegitimate themselves.
Limbaugh believes that in taking from the taxpayers to give to the poor,
the government is illegitimately usurping the role of the providing father
in the nuclear family. By giving the poor what they want but did not earn
for themselves, the government is fostering illegitimacy, dependency, and
laziness. This dependency is exhibited in the proliferation of fatherless
families. That is, since the government is providing them with the income
that is normally provided by fathers, these families can subsist without
fathers. Further, a fatherless family is a replica of a liberal vision of
society--a family of pigs headed by a sow who does not provide for herself
but is provided for by others. In such a family, the sustenance that the
mother provides for her children is not the result of her own work, since
she must rely on another (the government) to provide her with her income.
In a traditional nuclear family, that sustenance is earned by and provided
by the father. For Limbaugh illegitimate social programs and illegitimate
families are inextricably bound together--concern for illegitimate families
fosters illegitimate governmental programs, which in turn foster more
illegitimate families by rewarding women for having children and men for
abandoning their children. However, Limbaugh's conception of illegitimacy
is bound up with his conception of natural law--in his view of human
nature, men are supposed to be providers. Thus for the government to assume
the father's role is not only illegitimate, but emasculates men by keeping
them from fulfilling their natural roles as providers. Evidence for
inference #2:
1. The recipients of these programs become dependent on the
government and their dignity is destroyed. (72)
2. The federal government has assumed the role of the
wage-earning father in too much of black America and as a result
there are no role models for young blacks growing up in those
communities. (224)
3. The federal government has assumed the role of the
wage-earning father for a lot of kids... (196)
4. In many cities the federal government has replaced the
wage-earning husband and father with a welfare check. The man is
no longer essential for financial support. Welfare is given with
good intentions, but it has emasculated John Q. Stud. He has
reverted to irresponsibility. (196)
A third inference he draws from the SOCIETY AS FAMILY metaphor is that the
way to solve the dependency problem is to get people to provide for
themselves. The key step in this solution is to stop the government from
being the illegitimate provider. Rather than being the kind of parent who
continually provides sustenance, the government should play the role of a
stern but encouraging father who provides opportunity rather than continual
sustenance. In doing so, the government is not usurping the role of the
real father, but is encouraging people to be self-sufficient individuals
who strive to maximize their potential. With the government playing the
role of an encouraging but not providing father, the real father is left
with the responsibility to provide for his own family. This shift in the
government's role gets people out of the dependency cycle and into the
capitalist system. While government still plays the role of the father, it
is now playing the legitimate role of a (god)father. Evidence for inference
#3:
1. "We need to encourage people to contribute to the economy, not
to sit around and bask in self-pity. Encourage them to become
economically equal members of this society, rather than a
collection of sycophants sidling up to the pig and looking for
the biggest nipple they can find." (41)
2. "We do, however, need to wean people off the government pig.
The country is losing its self-reliance and becoming a subsidy
hog." (43)
3. The great prosperity so many people in this country enjoy is
available to everybody, if you are just taught how to avail
yourself of it, how to believe in yourself, how to be
self-sufficient, and how to escape government dependency. (27)
4. We must do something to bring families together. One way to do
it is to reform the welfare system so as to remove the
disincentives to upward mobility. We must quit rewarding fathers
for leaving their families and mothers for having more kids out
of wedlock. We must remove government as the father figure
support base in these inner city families and provide incentives
for the real fathers to stay home. 226
5. They [liberals and the black leadership] should be seeking
ways to wean them [the inner-city poor] off the government
dependency cycle and, quite frankly, from dependence on the
self-serving black leadership. 225
6. He [Clarence Thomas] has succeeded by relying on himself,
rather than prostituting himself into the dependency cycle. As a
result of eschewing their prescription, he has risen to levels
far above what would have been possible for him had he relied on
the black leadership's formula for achievement.
7. Helping people to become self-sufficient is much more
compassionate than drugging them with the narcotic of welfare.
(73)
8. For the country to fulfill its potential, you need individuals
to be the best they can be--not the government taking care of
people. (27)
Limbaugh believes that if the corrective measure is not taken, then the
government is going to perish. That is, if we do not get people to become
more self-sufficient and less dependent on the government, then they will
continue to take from the government without giving anything back. As it
is, the government is pushed to its limits. It is not strong and
flourishing. The subsidy hog is dying. It can continue to exist as a
provider to society's poor so long as there are enough tax payers to foot
the bills for all of the social programs which drain it of its resources.
But when the demands for entitlements outnumber the tax dollars, the
government will no longer be able to function as a provider of benefits.
Should that happen, it will not be just the poor who will be adversely
affected; the taxpayers will be hurt as well. The government will
eventually take so much from the taxpayers that the taxpayers themselves
will have to become reliant upon government sunsidies in order to survive.
Ultimately this absurdity will force the government to perish since no one
will be left to pay the tax bill. Evidence for inference #4:
1. Everyone is going to have to tighten their belts or the whole
system will collapse in about forty years (147)
2. "The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the
mother pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of
this government and they give nothing back. Nothing. They're the
ones who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones
who are always pandered to." (40)
3. "And do the poor pay anything back? Do they pay any taxes? No.
They don't pay a thing. They contribute nothing to this country.
They do nothing but take from it. There are people who are
putting into this economy. There are people who are working hard
every day, playing by the rules and contributing. They are the
givers. Who are the takers? The poor." (40)
4. "Instead of supporting your own kids, you are supporting a
giant bloated pig in Washington, DC, and you're just trying to
get your face into the nipple so that you can get some of it
back. We've all become a bunch of little piglets trying to get to
the mother pig and then trying to squeeze in and get our share."
(39)
5. "We're getting to the point where the tax producers will
someday be outnumbered by the tax eaters in this country. Those
who choose to accept the responsibility of life have had enough
of being told that they should give more to those who don't
shoulder those responsibilities." (47)
6. Of course, the large sow is near death. She's not fat and
flourishing, she's emaciated." (146)
Liberals as Criminals
As we saw in the analysis of his war metaphors, Limbaugh views liberals as
dangerous and as threats to American society, much as a foreign army is an
obvious threat to the nation during war time. Those who wish to preserve
the American way of life, he argues, must defend themselves against the
attacks from the agenda-armed left, fight back, devise strategies, etc. We
have also seen how, in Limbaugh's view, "liberal" programs such as welfare
actually serve to harm the people they affect. His arguments for this
depend heavily on certain models of the family, on the notion that women
and men have certain pre-ordained and natural roles in raising families.
Liberal programs, according to Limbaugh, break apart this "legitimate"
family, both at the level of individuals and at the level of government,
which also has a "parental" role in relation to the nation.
Another prominent and related metaphor Limbaugh employs is that of LIBERALS
AS CRIMINALS. Whereas in the war metaphors liberals were seen as a foreign
army, here they are seen as individual thieves and thugs, or as gangs that
intimidate and attack innocent citizens. This metaphor shares entailments
with the war metaphor in that both depict liberals as aggressors and
threats to America. This metaphor also coheres with Limbaugh's vision of
traditional family as the natural model of society. In challenging the
traditional family, liberals break natural law and thus become criminals in
Limbaugh's eyes.
1. This [banning school prayer] is nothing less than depriving
children of their moral and mental nutrients during their
formative years. (150)
2. And the primary targets of their revenge are our children.
They are taking it out on our kids by filling their minds with
mush and teaching them how horrible America is. (211)
3. Allison Weatherfield, a crony of Ms. Weathers at the NOW
gang... (139)
4. I got into a knock-down-drag-out fight with the NOW gang
there. (191)
5. The fingerprints of junk scientists are all over the
environmental movement. (162-3)
6. The profile of the NOW woman came to be that of a loud,
militant person whose views were based on a belief that women no
longer needed men.... They set out to avoid and attack the
traditional role for women because they believed it was
responsible for making them subservient to men. (190)
7. Radical feminists want to use issues like sexual harassment to
intimidate and terrorize people and secure power for themselves.
(124-5)
8. A few very vocal, ideological, agenda-armed scientists are
trying to buffalo the American people into accepting their view
of the world..... (162-3)
9. Helping people to become self-sufficient is much more
compassionate than drugging them with the narcotic of welfare. 73
10. Yet, the myths continue, and in the name of protecting our
youth, the condom pushers are putting their lives at risk. 136
11. Multiculturalism is billed as a way to make Americans more
sensitive to the diverse cultural backgrounds of people in this
country. It's time we blew the whistle on that. (204)
12. Liberals ask that we trust them to make sure the money we
give government is spent properly. Well, people are tired of that
con game. (150)
13. The frightening thing about these people is their insidious
nature. They would present much less threat to this society if
they would simply be honest and open about their agendas.
Instead, they disarm us with such harmless platitudes as "we are
in favor of clean air" or "we are against poverty." People should
be aware of the extent to which our way of life is under siege by
an increasing number of groups with candy-coated causes, but
poisonous agendas. (265)
Limbaugh portrays liberals as many different kinds of criminals: mob
leaders; child abusers; drug pushers; gangs; bullies; terrorists; muggers;
thieves; con artists; and professional/wanted criminals. In most of these
cases, liberal groups or their policies are personified as individuals.
Thus welfare, for example, is represented as a drug pusher who attempts to
hook children on a narcotic. Environmental science is portrayed as a
criminal who leaves fingerprints all over the "crime scene" of his or her
scientific field. Personification is a powerful way to make political ideas
and public policies more immediately tangible and accessible to the
imagination. We think about broad national policies and abstract political
ideas as though they were individuals who either contribute to society or
threaten and harm it. In this case, the personification brings the many
claims, agendas, and policies of liberals into focus by portraying liberals
as dangerous criminals.
The generic-level mapping of the LIBERALS ARE CRIMINALS metaphoris shown in
the following table. Note that both personification and the metaphor of
MORAL LAWS AS CIVIL LAWS play roles in the mapping.
CRIMINALS LIBERALS
Victims Citizens, groups of citizens
Civil Laws Moral laws. Naturally defined roles and
truths
Crimes: Two aspects
Harming individuals Breaking civil laws
Harming society Breaking moral laws
Legislators Nature, God
Police, law enforcement Conservatives, Limbaugh
Crime strategies Liberal strategies
Gangs Liberal groups
Criminal profile A description of liberal patterns of
behavior
An interesting feature of this mapping is that it allows conservatives like
Limbaugh to appear not only as innocent victims but also as police officers
who are charged with tracking and nabbing the criminal liberals. Limbaugh
finds the "fingerprints" of "junk" scientists all over the environmental
movement, as though he were a kind of detective or criminal investigator.
Similarly, he describes the "profile" of the "militant feminist" and in
doing so becomes a metaphorical FBI agent who studies professional
criminals and their behaviors. He also tells his readers that "we have to
blow the whistle" on multiculturalism and its revisionist histories, thus
providing the image of Limbaugh the beat cop, or of a group of vigilant
citizens keeping their streets safe against muggers or thieves.
Limbaugh's use of the metaphor LIBERALS ARE DRUG PUSHERS brings several
issues together. It allows abstract policies to be personified. Welfare
policies, for example, "hook" people, just as drugs create addiction.
Liberals, in promoting the policies that create welfare, are the evil drug
pushers who tempt child-like citizens with "candy coated causes" which turn
out to contain "poisonous agendas." In this last image liberals are
tempters of children and threats to the family. This image draws on a
related metaphor: LIBERALS ARE CHILD ABUSERS. Limbaugh believes liberals
are "depriving children of their moral and mental nutrients [school
prayer]" (150) and are "taking it out on our kids by filling their minds
with mush. [multiculturalism]" (211) Liberals are thus defective parents
and child abusers by virtue of the educational policies they advocate. If
there is one natural way things are and ought to be, as Limbaugh believes
there is, then it is abusive to advocate educational or social policies
that would lead kids in other directions. Finally, his image of liberal
educators as "condom pushers" brings both of these metaphors together. In
advocating the use of condoms, liberals are both "pushers" who target
children and child-abusers who are "putting their lives at risk" (i.e., by
teaching children that sex outside of marriage is not unnatural) (p. 136).
We might use this last example to summarize the logic at work in Limbaugh's
LIBERALS ARE CRIMINALS metaphor: There is a way things ought to be, and
this is expressed in the metaphor NATURE IS A LAW OR SYSTEM OF LAWS, which
is a deep-seated metaphor in our society. Via this metaphor, we gain the
notion of NATURAL LAWS. Those who act against natural laws--liberals--are
criminals. In advocating the use of condoms, liberals break the natural law
that tells us that teenagers should not have sex. At the same time,
personification allows Limbaugh to portray liberal policies as individual
criminals. Not only are liberals breaking natural laws, but they are also
threatening social harmony in the same way that criminals threaten society.
The effects of their policies on the nation are the same effects that drug
pushers have on individuals, families, and communities.
Human Nature and SOCIETY IS A FAMILY revisited
Limbaugh believes that there is one morally correct and natural kind of
family and that other kinds of families are unnatural. Liberals are
criminals who threaten law-abiding families and society as a whole by
breaking the laws of nature, which prescribe "the way things ought to be."
The core of Limbaugh's vision of "the way things ought to be" is consituted
by his metaphor SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY, which he argues is the
(compulsory) alternative to the liberal vision of society as a illegitimate
family.
Limbaugh has a view of human nature which is grounded in a traditional view
of the family. In his vision of the traditional nuclear family, the male
parent provides for the family while the female parent nurtures the
children. According to Limbaugh, these roles emerge from human nature and
are part of natural being of things. However, rather than rely on
evolutionary language such as sociobiology, Limbaugh believes that these
innate gender roles are ordained by God. Such theological language, along
with his belief in Creationism, provide a basis for the mapping between
natural and moral law. Also consistent with fundamentalist doctrine,
Limbaugh believes that nature is a resource to be used by humans--that
humans have been given dominion and control over the earth and are superior
to all other creatures. While we have evolved to be the way we are now, he
has no strict biological notion of blind evolution but rather a belief that
all life evolves toward God's final design. Capitalism and the American way
of life are both part of this design and in accordance with human nature,
while socialism and liberalism are not. Evidence for Limbaugh's use of the
SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY metaphor:
1. Certain differences between men and women exist in nature. (3)
2. Our morality emanates from a divine Creator, whose laws are
not subject to amendment, modification, or rescission by man. (3)
3. What they [environmentalists] really want to do is attack our
way of life. Their primary enemy: capitalism. (155)
4. [On environmentalism:] However, I refuse to believe it is
necessary to attack the American way of life or to punish people
for simply being themselves. (156)
5. But environmentalists paint humans as an aberration; as the
natural enemy of nature. (153)
6. If the owl can't adapt to the superiority of humans, screw it.
(160)
7. These women had been conditioned to accept the whole feminist
ideology, which went way beyond equal opportunity. The roles
defined by nature for men and women had become clouded in their
minds. (190)
8. Men and women eventually didn't know how to function around
one another. It degenerated to the point that .... Chivalry had
become synonymous with male chauvinism. Roles, defined by nature,
were now obliterated.... (190)
9. I believe that nature has defined behavioral roles for men and
women. These roles are ordained in large part and are not easily
altered. (194)
10. Women have played a very powerful role in civilizing men.
(196)
11. I don't believe that women should be in combat roles even if
they can do the job. Why? you ask. Simple. Women have a
civilizing role in society. War is that last cruel option in
human relations. It isn't about career opportunities. Women have
definite societal roles that are crucial to the continuation of
mankind.... (200)
12. We just accept the fact that women have it in their nature to
nurture children, we strive to accommodate that. (198)
13. Gilder's theory is that civilization would not have developed
unless the natural tendencies of men were subordinated to the
natural tendencies of women. Women, he explained, are by nature
more nurturing and caring. Men. if left to their predisposition,
are prone to roam, and to avoid taking responsibility for
anything but their own desires. But when a man and a woman mated
and the woman gave birth, the man was forced to assume
responsibility and subordinate his natural tendencies. (195)
A mapping for the SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY metaphor follows:
NATURAL FAMILY SOCIETY
natural family society
nature God
natural laws moral laws
biological sex difference gender roles
authority structure of traditional government
family (patriarchy)
nurturing impulse civilizing impulse
self-suffiency impulse governing impulse
Limbaugh's use of the SOCIETY IS A NATURAL FAMILY metaphor engenders his
inferences about policy-making. For example, he believes that
environmentalists and animal rights activists are confused people who do
not understand human nature. To be our human selves is to engage in the
American way of life and be capitalists. Capitalism is grounded in men's
desire to be self-sufficient beings who roam; civilization is grounded in
women's desire to nurture children and have them well provided for. Women
tame men to provide for them and their families, but men teach male
children to become self-sufficient adults so they can have their lives back
and roam again. In order to provide for their families, men have a natural
right to use the environment. If our capitalist system occasionally
destroys a creature who cannot adapt, our God-given superiority to other
creatures and life forms justifies our actions. In fact, men cannot help to
do otherwise because men are part of nature and it is in their nature to
provide for their families. Consequently Limbaugh concludes that God must
have designated the spotted owl to become extinct. Sound government policy
policy on the environment would be to encourage private property ownership
since if no one owns the land no one has an incentive to keep the
environment whole.[2]
Limbaugh believes that gender roles reflect human nature, and that
America's moral decline stems from ignoring those gender roles. Liberal
social programs are a societal manifestation of this confusion about innate
gender roles; the government has become a government of nurturers seeking
to illegitimately usurp the rightful place of the father. Limbaugh lays the
blame at the door of feminists and liberals who create confusion about
gender roles and social programs which perpetuate that confusion. His
policy suggestions, by contrast, are inferences which are in accord with
human nature. Consider the rhetorical power with which he weaves together
his views about capitalism, gender roles and SOCIETY AS A NATURAL FAMILY in
the following passage:
We must realize that the liberal approach of equalizing outcomes or wealth
simply cannot and will not work. What we need to work on is equalizing
opportunity. Values are principally learned at home. That's why any
sensible approach to our declining moral base must start with the family.
We must do something to bring families together. One way to do it is to
reform the welfare system so as to remove the disincentives to upward
mobility. We must quit rewarding fathers for leaving their families and
mothers for having more kids out of wedlock. We must remove government as
the father figure support base in these inner city families and provide
incentives for the real fathers to stay home. (226)
Limbaugh believes that liberal methods, such as equalizing outcomes, cannot
work because they violate an important tenet of natural law: the desire to
become self-sufficient.
By contrast, Limbaugh's conservative policy recommendations are in line
with natural law. To change society government policy must start with the
foundation of society, the family. Sound government policy must strive to
foster strong families and yet remain in accordance with natural law.
Children in poverty need a role model in order to learn self-sufficiency,
so the government cannot continue to provide welfare in a way which
substitutes itself for the father. Instead, Limbaugh recommends that the
government provide incentives fathers to stay at home and allow them to to
realize their full potential as human beings. He is characteristically
vague on what incentives he would have the government offer, but presumably
doing nothing would have some natural incentive. However, since men have to
have a way to provide for their families, he argues for stimulating the
private sector to provide jobs--and doing it "naturally" by cutting taxes
for business which locate in poverty stricken regions. The policy
suggestions he offers are explicitly anti-feminist and implicitly
anti-women; as they are rooted in his belief in human nature suggest that
only men are fit to head and families and only men can provide adequate
models of self-sufficency.
Conclusions
In this paper we've made a first attempt at analyzing some of the dominant
metaphorical themes in Limbaugh's book. While we all reaffirmed an
old-found distate for Limbaugh's message, we all have a new-found respect
for his rhetorical abilities. As one of us put it: "The man is anything but
stupid." Other than that mildly startling insight, we are all a little
stumped by the important question: why did we do this project? Isn't this
kind of metaphor analysis just negative, solely deconstruction without any
reconstuctive project? What is the point of metaphor analysis?
The point is that Limbaugh's choice and use of metaphors is not accidental.
They are deeply seated in our human conceptual system. Yet that is not to
say that there are no other options. For example, some of us suspect that
the Kennedy-Johnson liberal vision of society may have been informed by a
SOCIETY IS A MACHINE metaphor, though we haven't done any research to
support this claim. Part of a reconstructive project could look at
resurrecting some of the old-line liberal ideas. Another part might be to
extend the metaphor of society as a family in ways not expected by the
conservatives, mainly by focusing on families which are successful, happy,
and yet do not fit the traditional model of a nuclear family. However, the
mass appeal of such a family as a model for society may be limited as most
people in American culture would rather raise children in a two-parent
family. Or as George Lakoff suggests in a forthcoming book, liberals might
also extend the society as a familiy metaphor in ways which highlight moral
nurturance and tolerance rather than moral strength and obedience. But such
efforts must be and should be rooted in a vision of human nature as
cooperative, caring, and compassionate rather than competitive, fierce and
authoritarian. To do this will require a fictional history as appealing and
as metaphorically articulate as the Hobbesian state of nature to which
conservatism appeals.
In short, we feel that the real challenge is to articulate a different
theory of human nature. Such a theory would have to appreciate sexual
difference while maintaining flexibility in gender roles; it would have to
establish that compassion and teaching are inseparable; it would have to
establish a view of nature that is dialogic rather than law-like; it would
have to stress that negotiation and nurturance are more important skills
than iron wills and denial. Liberals need to recover fatherhood without
succumbing to conservative paternalism. If we look to American history,
precisely a century ago the political debate was between liberalism and
paternalism[3] --that might be a redefinition of the debate which would
reinvigorate liberalism.
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Appendix A: One additional mapping
Moral Diseases
Limbaugh is also particularly fond of speaking of America as an ill
patient, suffering from an infection of liberal ideology. The MORAL HEALTH
metaphor is drawn from the commonly understood SOCIETY AS A BODY metaphor.
Some beginning examples of this metaphor system follow:
1. Before feminism infested American life, there were clear rules
between the sexes. (147)
2. It would be easy to understate the significance of society's
recent infatuation with condoms by saying that it is just
symptomatic of the larger moral decline in our societal values.
(136)
3. It [children's fascination with mass murderer trading cards]
probably has to do with the overall decay of values in society, a
cheapening of human life to the point where there is no more
concern or respect for the sanctity of life. (173)
4. Of course I do, but the cards are symptoms of our declining
moral base, not the cause of it. The simple fact of the matter is
that these kids have been desensitized to such things. (174) This
is nothing less than depriving children of their moral and mental
nutrients during their formative years. (150)
5. ... the only way to clean up Congress is to make sure that
fresh blood is pumped through it on a regular basis. (98)
6. Remember this about liberals: They survive and thrive on the
belief that the average American is an idiot--stupid, ignorant,
uninformed, unintelligent, incapable of knowing what' s good for
him, what's good for society, what's right and what's wrong.
Liberals believe their mission is to save people from themselves;
not to help them become the best they can be, but to keep them
from degenerating to the point that their naturally helpless
condition would lead them without the liberals' intervention. So
they impose affirmative action, quotas, welfare. (176)
7. People are going to have to start accepting responsibility for
their actions and stop bleeding the people[4] in this country who
accept the responsibilities and who see to it that the country
works. (___)
The mapping for this metaphor is the following:
HEALTH MORALITY
body society
health stability
disease, sickness moral decline, moral decay
symptoms violence, condoms in schools
viruses, germs liberals
infestations liberal policies
cures conservative policies
nutrients school prayer
doctor politicians and pundits
(conservative)
quack politicians and pundits (liberal)
Appendix B: Quotes
A database of the Limbaugh metaphor quotes contained herein and others is
available to other researchers upon request only.
Comments are welcome to Greg Johnson (gregj@darkwing.uoregon.edu)