The Power of Metaphor in Uncertain Times

The Long History of Metaphor and Rhetoric

In one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, Juliet reminds Romeo that words themselves are unimportant. Words, the teenage girl attests, simply signify meaning, they are not the meaning themselves: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet 2.1.85-86). Juliet’s impassioned plea (rooted in I-love-you-despite-our-family-issues vibes) anticipates the work of twentieth-century deconstructivism and all the work done to disentwine binaries and culturally-constructed meanings. While, no doubt, these conversations and thoughts loom large among academics in university seminars, it can be easy in our day-to-day lives to forget that while words do matter (and, as we see, can be used to undermine, negate, repel, and divide), they are also simply signifiers. As such, they can be swapped for other words or reappropriated for new usage. Just ask a teen, they do it all the time: at this moment for example, if teens do well they are “eating” and if they are in trouble, they’re “cooked.” Indeed, we shouldn’t loose sight of the fact that Shakespeare’s Juliet is a teenage girl, and while many of her choices are childish and lead to tragic ends, she is certainly on to something with the rose line; it remains one of the most cited among Shakespeare’s oeuvre. Ultimately, a word’s meaning depends entirely on the significance we assign it.

In the current moment, words (think: executive orders) are pulling apart decades of labor, thought, and planning. Words are devastating the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans who find themselves suddenly unemployed (it started with federal employees but has cascaded into the nonprofit and private sectors). One man’s words are, indeed, unsettling the safety, security, and comfort of thousands, if not millions, of Americans. Organizations that receive federal funding—be they science research, environmental, arts, education, or health and human services organizations—face unprecedented uncertainty. In the arts, for example, last week the National Endowment for the Arts sent an email to all grantees stating that they will no longer fund any projects rooted in diversity, equity and inclusion. Rather, the NEA will prioritize projects that “celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States” instead.¹ The statement has left thousands of artists and arts organizations confused, frustrated, and angry. The NEA has been a long-standing funding agency (since 1965 Enabling Legislation for the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965) for many of the nation’s most renowned arts organizations. These organizations, as well as the artists they support, ensure the cultural richness of this country. Artists and organizations alike find themselves asking: Does that mean we can’t talk about race or gender? Does that mean we can’t support and highlight BIPOC² artists? How can we create art about the human experience if a significant portion of the human experience now precludes artists from a massive (and publicly-sourced) funding source? Navigating these questions has become the challenge of the moment.³ But I wonder: Need it be? Should we, perhaps, take a page from Juliet’s book and just change the language, the name?