Darmok and Jalad On The Ocean

Mar 25, 2020 | Covid-19 Diary, Dead Water

I read a tweet earlier this afternoon that said ‘the virus is coming for all of us’. It’s a useful way into something I’ve been trying to write for a couple of days, about the way the Covid-19 virus is discussed using language that is anything but clinical and instead draws on other imagery. As I type this, the Prime Minister has just talked again about efforts to ‘defeat’ the virus and thanked those who are on ‘the front line of the fight against coronavirus’.

This is not confined to the UK, of course:

Now and ongoing in this space: COVID-19 Metaphor Watch. Over the weekend, Trump likened the efforts to contain the virus to a “war”; today, @washingtonpost characterized the virus itself as an “evil genius” https://t.co/Jx2OVS6Mv0

— Paul_R_Elie (@Paul_R_Elie) 23 March 2020

Spot the metaphor(s)

My introduction to thinking about the metaphors surrounding disease was Susan Sontag’s AIDS And It’s Metaphors. My UK Penguin paperback is a first impression, so that dates it to 1989. It follows her earlier Illness as Metaphor. Both books look primarily at the role of diseases themselves as metaphors, specifically TB, Cancer and AIDS (accepting that AIDS is a condition not a disease), but she also looks at the ways in which language frames diseases, notably the military metaphors often employed, for example by the Prime Minister 15 minutes ago. Both books, by the way, are short and easy to read, and one doesn’t find oneself bludgeoned by her articulacy as one might in some of her other essays.

The books have their share of critics, but the criticisms I have seen don’t go to the root of Sontag’s arguments; rather, they go to the detail and appropriateness of some of her examples. The case for use of metaphor with relation to Covid-19 is unarguable, though. It’s coming for us all, said the Tweeter I mentioned, as though the virus were an invader with a single, insidious purpose. The virus probes our defences looking for a way in; it is Blofeld to our Bond, Moriarty to our Holmes. There’re more, and there’s an international list being compiled (see Prof. Brigitte Nerlich’s blog for more and links).

where metaphor and cliche meet

This is not to argue against the use of metaphor (or simile, imagery, analogy or, at a push, allegory); in this context, such language can explain things in simple and accessible ways, such as a practical grasp of what is meant by exponential growth, or, indeed, ‘flattening the curve’. Some metaphors are absorbed into language almost without our notice. London is ‘in standby mode’ writes Barney Ronay in the Guardian; we are in ‘lockdown’; the US is becoming the ‘Epicentre’ of the virus (when epicentre adds nothing to ‘centre’ other than faux ‘scientific’ pixie dust).

But our choice of metaphor, as well as illuminating underlying concepts, shapes our response, as do the stories that mould our understanding. I have seen news items reporting the deaths of patients ‘despite being young and in otherwise good health’. This is not far away from thinking that it would be preferable were that fate to fall on those who are not young or in good health, that the young are undeserving as though there were some moral algebra at play.

And we can see, playing out in front of us, the language used to describe the virus. The idea that it is a devious oriental thing feeds into barely disguised, sometimes undisguised, racism of people who think in terms of walls to keep undesireables out. Nor is coronavirus (actually a class of viruses, some of which are benign) ‘a metaphor for our vulnerability over Huawei‘.

The consensus view is that a virus cannot be described as being ‘alive’. A virus does not have sentience, objective or purpose. It no more probes for flaws in our bodies than rainwater probes for flaws in the roof. It is not devious and it is not coming for us. It is not an invader or a coloniser.

What is the point I’m groping for here? I think it is that the virus has no meaning. It is a physical thing (a subcellular genetic parasite)  that leads to physical consequences once inside a human body (a body that is not a fortress). The aim is to ensure that our bodies do not encounter the virus, not least because death is one possible outcome of such an encounter, entirely free of any notion of young or old, deserving or undeserving. The virus is not ‘coming for us’ like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger or the Red Menace or the Yellow Peril, and we must be careful that metaphors that play into apocalyptic scenarios don’t inadvertently become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Language matters.

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Today’s exercise bike cycle means that from a standing start on Sunday, I’ve gone from 15 minutes at a stately pace to 20 minutes at a faster pace and feel good for it. I’ll ‘rest’ tomorrow, then repeat today’s ride on Friday before notching up the resistance on the bike. Without, as my Mum would say, tempting fate, I’d like to come out of this in better shape than I went in.

Tonights music is for Darmok and Jalad 🙂