'Pathway' campaign metaphor blinds us

The media’s coverage of the 2016  presidential nominating campaigns is wedded to the “pathway” metaphor. Like all metaphors, this one locks us into unchallenged and misleading assumptions.

Pathways are “narrow,” “wide,” “closed” or “clear of obstacles.” They promise inevitability.

Oh really?

Has Bernie Sander’s “pathway” now disappeared? End of story?

Are the anti-Trump candidates on the Republican side also left with no path to nomination? Or a very, very “narrow” path?

Beware the metaphorical story line; reality has its own narrative.

For instance, there’s just enough vitriol and talk of violence in this campaign, that some insane act could alter events. In these United States, it has been known to happen. Think Bobby Kennedy. For that matter, think JFK.

Then, as a friend pointed out, the whole course of the campaigns could be upended by an act of terrorism here. What would a 9-ll, or worse, heaven forbid, do to the campaigns and voter sentiment?

Nor is mayhem all that could change the story line.

Consider that the Democratic Convention will be held in late July, three months from now. What might happen if the intervening polls show Trump actually beating Clinton in November? Suppose that with each new poll the gap between the two widens?

Frankly, it’s not hard to imagine. Clinton has all the charisma of an Oregon slug. Her surrogates are nearly as offensive as Trump. In an anti-establishment year, her ties to the political elites (financial and otherwise) become more and more suspect. What DID she tell those folks at Goldman-Sachs?

Meanwhile Trump, for all his ignorance and bigotry, seems impervious to criticism largely because he is the darling of frustrated, irrational and angry hordes who are weary of political elites of all stripes.

And then there is Trump’s media-savvy theatrics. Who draws the bigger audience and the largest media profits? Clinton or Trump? No contest. Schedule him!

Meanwhile disaffected, despairing Sanders’ supporters might support Trump (a "new Trump"). Any appeals for their votes by a distrusted Clinton could be seen as insincere pandering.

Trump is at least sincere, foremost about himself.

And so Democratic Party super-delegates may witness a widening polling spread between a tanking “weak” Clinton and ascendant “strong” Trump. Couple that with polls continuing to show Sanders clobbering Trump in November.
That scenario could well inspire some serious rethinking at the Philadelphia Democratic convention.

How do any of these narratives fit with the “pathway” metaphor? They don’t.

"The Civil War" — unworthy of Oregon

Each year in the week before the UO/OSU "Civil War,” I rail against this over-the-top name for a simple football rivalry.

I argue that the universities' stature is lessened because of their rivalry’s appellation.

Today’s Oregonian sports page gave me a “peg” for this year’s lament.

The headline reads, “It’s not civil nor is it war.”

Well, duh, if it’s not civil and not a war, in the name of mere accuracy, LET'S CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE!

The Oregonian's writer, Ryan White, tells those of us who are agitated (outraged?) by this abominable name, to lighten up. It’s only a metaphor. He might have added that “Beavers” aren’t really beavers, and “Ducks” aren’t really ducks.

Problem is, thanks to “The Civil War” and the name's inhumanity, I’m not so sure.

To Ryan, I recommend George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s little book, “Metaphors We Live By.” Metaphors (and words, for that matter) shape how we think about our world. When we say “I fell in love,” we do in a way surrender ourselves to the helplessness of falling.

Metaphors reinforce and even guide how we behave, write Lakoff and Johnson.

“The Civil War,” as a name for a mere intercollegiate rivalry, also cheapens the word “War.” It also dishonors the 500,000 American lives lost in the real American Civil War.

Worse it suggests an ignorance and lack of respect for that event by the faculty, administration, students and alumni of Oregon’s two major universities.

After 9/11, I actually wrote the presidents of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University to urge them to drop the name once and for all because of anguish about real war, violence and terror. To my surprise, the president of OSU wrote to say that the administration had taken the name change under consideration. Nothing became of it.

White’s story in today’s Oregonian refers to an enlightened past sports editor who banished the term from the sports page. Writes White, “The Civil War, he told reporters, was between the North and the South and took place between 1861 and 1865.”

Exactly.

White doesn’t tell us the name of the editor, but it should be inscribed on the tombstone of Oregon's "Civil War.” Metaphorically speaking, of course.