A better metaphor for American debate

Stories that run deep within a culture arise out of the basic and unquestioned metaphors and archetypes that provide the foundation for a culture.  This is true in all kinds of communities, including nation-states and villages, organizations and families.  You can discover some of those foundational metaphors in your own communities by asking yourself “We are a community and that means…”

As someone who has been working with the cultural narratives of the United States over the past few years, Rob Paterson has cast his eye on the way out of the rhetorical tennis match that passes for conversation on immigration in the US.  In this great post, he finds a better metaphor for the conversation about immigration in the United States:

For our debates about immigration and all  important  aspects of life today are rooted in beliefs and not in knowledge. Two great tribes struggle for power. Their ideology affects everything.

“Secure the Border” is a cultural and tribal battle cry as is “Racists”.

Neither side can hear the truth in the other. Both sides make the other angry. The result is that America is splitting apart. Civic discourse is dying and it is nearly impossible to get anything done anymore.

So how do we escape this trap?

I think that we need to change the rules of the game entirely. What might help is to shift the underlying  metaphor.

The  metaphor  we use today is “Fortress America”.

In the Fortress you are in or out. There is a wall. All that matters is the wall. You make it perfect or you leave holes in it. Motive or the circumstances for people outside the wall or inside the wall mean nothing. This is a mechanical and a simple model that is not suited to a complex and organic problem.

Being simple, such a metaphor insists on a right or a wrong answer and so can never produce what is demanded in a complex problem.

It is like 14th  century  Catholicism  when confronted by Galileo. Facts mean nothing. Only dogma and tribal  loyalty  count.

You can’t argue with dogma. Facts mean nothing.

Competing dogmas can only fight.

Don’t we have to find another way of seeing the issue that does not trigger a tribal response?

I think that a better metaphor might allow this. I think that a better metaphor might enable us to keep our tribal beliefs but to agree with others about things that do not need beliefs to understand and agree on.

A better metaphor is our body and our immune system. It represents the dynamic  reality  of America and Immigration much better than a wall. It can show us ways of seeing our response that are not in the realm of ethics but in the realm of system dynamics.

For our body, like all real systems has not a sealed but a  porous  border. It has open portals such as our nose and mouth and a porous skin.

The most important line of  defence  that we have is  inside  the body is our immune system. It is our immune system that regulates our body and that reacts to “newcomers”. It is our immune system that allows the familiar and rejects the unknown.

The healthier it is, the more it can defend you against real threats and the less it will overreact to small threats or even to good things.  A Balanced immune system will protect you from flu and will not over react and kill you from toxic shock if you eat a peanut.

The Immune System is also affected by the scale and the power of the newcomer. Large scale and sudden intrusions will cause a reaction. Small and slow will tend not to.

Newcomers who want to enter our body have their own dynamics too. They have pathways, life cycles, reasons to get inside and reasons to leave where they were.

Our bodies are a dynamic system that interacts inside and with the outside. So is America.

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