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The Magical Influence of Words

Assignment
Mr. Pack
- If you have not read the story yet, read it now. Everything on this page makes much more sense if you read the story first. If you do not read the story first, you will only be able to comprehend, not apprehend, the following ideas and concepts.
Love is construction/ magic
Metaphors We Live By
Symptoms

Assignment: My Former-self Word Use

Analyze a former writing = 100 points

Find a paper you once wrote
- The older the better, but nothing earlier than high school
- Not something to formal
- Choose one of your writings where yuor words flowed freely.
Analyze every word for metaphors
- See the Metaphor section below
Highlight or encircle words that you deem as similiar, that is, being in the same container
Determine container words for sets of similiar metphorical words
Analyze each container grouping as a symptom in American culture.

Why are we doing this assignment

While many of us hone our skills at debate or argument (for or against) various life issues, few people focus on the words being used in those debates or arguments.
Even if we agree on the same beliefs and ideologies during a discussion, word choice and word use allow one person to stealthily bias the other person's reasoning and broader belief system.
Being vigilant of other's word use (which carries inherently within those words far ranging and thought altering metaphors) positions a person to operate a defense against indisious metaphors during a discussion, debate, or arguement of a particular position

Mr Pack, a story about words

Read the story Mr. Pack
- If you have not read the story yet, read it now. Everything on this page makes much more sense if you read the story first. If you do not read the story first, you will only be able to comprehend, not apprehend, the following ideas and concepts.
- We already read this story in class. Like any story, this story can enter our mind and shape what we think. However, most people engaged with any story already have a for/against critical mindset of what they agree with and what they disagree with.
- While that for/against more than likely derives from one's family, religion, political views, peer-group/ comfort circle, and wider culture, what most people are not critical of is the words being used within those stories (indeed, it takes a measure of training for one's ear and eye to be vigilant to words use).
- As a species, we are constantly vigilant of our surroundings. This vigilance heightens when we are in danger and/or when the situation is unknown, and this vigilance lessens when we are safe and/or in a known situation. This vigilance iinforms our for/against engagement, sometimes offering knee-jerk reactions, which was eminently useful for survival in the deadly world of pre-historic peoples.

Containers of Metaphors

Love/relationships as	Construction	Magic
	We build our relationship	She bewitches me
	on a foundation of trust	and I am contiually charmed by
	buttressing that with honesty	her ability to hypnotize my every thought
	and supporting each other	enchanting me with her humor and thoughts
	through the continued development	until I am spell bound by her entirety

A series of metahpors, connected by a comon theme is a called a conceit
There two conceits above: Construction and Magic.
Each conceit carries within it a series of assumptions.

The conceit of	Construction	Magic
	Logic and reasoning	illogical and irrational
	process-oriented	spontaneous
	mathematical and known	arcane and unknown
	based on skill	experience based
	utilitarian	whimsical

While we can both agree on the positive aspects of relationships, the words in the two containrs (the conceits) alter the reciever's perception of love/relationships.
The Construction container (conceit) suggests love/relationshisp is concept that is logical, process-oriented, mathematical, and useful.
The Magic container (conceit) suggests an irrational, arcane amd whimsical view of love/relationships.
Using either of those containers in speech or writing, we could bias a person's view of love/relationships by implanting into their mind those subtley placed words.
Discussing love/relationships with only the Construction container will, like how you apprehended the name of the animal in the story Mr. Pack from all of the associated words, make them start thinking of love/relationships as logical, process-oriented, etc.
Discussing love/relationships with only the Magic container will, like how you apprehended the name of the animal in the story Mr. Pack from all of the associated words, make them start thinking of love/relationships as an irrational, arcane, etc.

Lakoff and Johnson and Metaphors We Live By

Language Codes

Videos

Writings

Linguistic expressions that are symptoms of ideology

(Doctors do not look for the disease, they look for symptoms which indicate the appropriate disease.)

There are many many "diseases" causing the symptoms. Patriarchy, Religion, Capitlaism, are but a few large scale ones.

The lesser ones though sneak under the radar, such as need for control, need for power over others, lack of education/reasoning, everything must have a purpose, or worth, or usefulness.

There are too many to list.

Symptom: It's not practical; it's just book smart; you need street smarts

"Everything you are able to do should be more useful to other people than to yourself "
Those three phrases are the rallying cries of the exploited attempting to make others exploitable.
No. A skill. An activity. Learning. All of those do NOT need to be useful to anyone but you. If you enjoy something, if it enhances what in life YOU want enhanced (and hurts no others), you are morally free and to enjoin in that skill, or activity, or learning.
"A tool is practical; are you a tool?"
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

Symptom: Back in the day

"I have no idea what I am talking about, so I am just gonna say 'Back in the Day' to convince you"
Means the person is now about to cite some alleged historical example as a means of persuading you of the legitimacy of their point; however, they don't actually know when in history (or really, if in history) such an event occurred; the event just allegedly occurred "back on some day in some past time and I don't really know when, or if, because I'm not intellectually curious enough to actually research history; all I want right now is for you to agree with me based on my 'proof'"
When someone says "back in the day" immediately interrupt and say "Excuse me, when was that?"

respect

"I am the judge of who is the moral authority here, and it's me"
This is a pure power play that assumes the person's authority over the subject and over you. By saying "respect," the person means that "you must kow-tow, bend down, lower yourself before me because I am more powerful than you." The utterance of the word "respect" is to say "I am now going to be the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong, moral or immoral, and thus you must be subservient to me"
If the person does not mean "respect" in the aforementioned way; the person should be easily able to say the same statement but without using the word respect
When someone says "respect" immediately ask for a re-phrase without the word respect.
- You need to respect this car I gave you.
- You need to properly maintain this car I gave you.

disgusting

"I am the judge of morals, and my morals are based on how I feel, and immoral people or acts are less than human."
Often the term is used in "moral" arguments to suggest something that doesn't match that person's moral view. By using a visceral term such as disgusting, they are able to remove the discussion from the realm of discussion and into the realm of visceral body experience to the point of being anti-intellectual. If you think of a food that makes you immediately recoil (due to smell or sight), you'll realize that no depth of intellection will grant you acceptance of that food; at best, you'll be able to fake a stoicism. The person using the word disgusting in relation to moral views aims for you to have their same gut response.
People who utilize this word in relation to morals often use the word in relation to anything else they dislike.