Could Trouble With Metaphors Affect Trouble With Criticism?

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DGuru
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13 Nov 2010, 3:05 pm

Think about it. As a child if you're too sensitive or reactive to criticism people will refer to you as "always having to be right" when what they literally mean is "always having to be seen as right".

If you can't understand metaphors you'll take that literally and won't see the problem, because of course in every instance it comes up you're going to believe you were right(and maybe you were), since everyone automatically believes that they are right or they wouldn't technically believe it in the first place.

I actually remember it took me several years to get that when my mom said things like "you know, you don't always have to be right" she actually was referring "always having to be seen as right". I only realized it when she said "of course either way you think you're right, otherwise it wouldn't be your opinion."

If you think about it it's not a very good metaphor from a sociolinguistic standpoint, since it equates "being seen as right" with "being right". Even if you understand the metaphor the subtle implication is in the language and leads to attitudes that in order to be "right" you need people's approval. Not having to consciously think about the metaphor would make it easier to get effected by it subconsciously. Might explain why NTs are so worried about their "image" and are always chasing after fame and fortune. Might even explain a huge chunk of social brainwashing. If it's subtle but you pick up on it you don't consider it logically and just accept the implications as true. The very existance of a culture that stresses conformity in opinions (even while ostensibly pretending not to) might lead an individual to invent that metaphor and then for it to catch on. In this way the superstructure creates uses of speech and language that help perpetuate its values, which are shaped by its material interests.

I'm definitely not using that metaphor with my children, NT or not.



auntblabby
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14 Nov 2010, 1:16 am

some of us decline to participate in that particular matrix.