Ancestral voices

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far,
Ancestral voices prophesying war

Metaphor may be the thing of poets, but few of us are poets and in common speech and the level below that, called journalism, metaphors become malignant but somehow unnoticed cancers, eating away at language. I can't stop people from their fetishistic obsession with the stale and metastatic metaphor "impact" any more than I can stop malignant politicians from forcing every policy from drug use to terrorism into the procrustean bed of the war metaphor.

No one will sacrifice for a policy or an effort, nor will they look the other way as their liberty is infringed for an attempt, but war is such an ancient part of culture, shaped by countless tales of glory that it sets the young heart beating and the old heart scheming. It makes milquetoast reporters into war correspondents and failed presidents into "war-presidents" and gives second tier entertainers a big stage to perform on; it gives corporate interests what they want and gives military, security and enforcement interests the kind of power and budget they live for. War, even in itself isn't often the best way to deal with anything, but all in all, you can get people to go along with being exploited so that they can support the troops and display flags and feel part of something bigger than themselves.

Obvious? Of course it is, but then obvious things are what we're least likely to notice; the commonplace is what we're least likely to examine. I enjoy reading people who like to disassemble language and logic and what started me off on this second-hand rant this morning was a post at The Rhetoric Garage where you can see the things people say and do in various states of disassembly.