Reflection of Sontag 3/25/20

In reading Susan Sontag’s AIDS and its metaphor, I found a new way of looking and interpreting thinking.  When comparing two ideas or concepts in the midst of a conversation I would not typically pause or think to classify my point as a metaphor. However, this is exactly what Sontag is suggesting exists. Metaphors are used to help explain a concept or describe phenomena in a new way. While discussing the use and existence of metaphors in speech I think we must be aware of the benefits of this kind of diction. Using politics or economics to describe a complex system (and vice versa) does not seem to me to be an inherently bad thing. As someone who knows and understands little about the field of science, employing a metaphor to explain a scientific concept would help me understand the concept. Yet, I can also see how metaphors can from time to time be problematic as Sontag argues in this piece.

Furthermore, she suggests that humans do this in the head even without having a conversation and that some of these comparisons – these metaphors – that are conjured up in our heads should be “retired.” In citing examples, she looks to politics and history. The concept of right and left as a metaphor shocked me. As a Politics and International Affairs major, I use the terms “right” and “left” constantly to describe where on the ideological spectrum a person or belief lies. Never have I once paused to think these descriptors are representative of my “body’s orientation in space.” Even still, I am not sure I agree with this metaphor because while left and right describe movement and space, they also describe opposing sides in a theoretical framework.

More so than anything else in this article, the idea of military metaphors in everyday language shocked me. I have been aware of the implementation of militaristic vocabulary to explain non-violent concepts. For example, politicians and the media have described the reforms instituted to change the course of drugs and poverty in society as “the war on poverty” or “to combat the drug crisis.” These metaphors allow for the unrealistic to become realistic as Sontag points out on page 11. Sontag also suggests that this is an unavoidable side effect of living in a capitalist society, a claim I would have to disagree with because not only are metaphors like “victim,” “conflict,” and “enemy” are used in non-capitalists countries like Cuba but also because the United States has not always used the military metaphor throughout history. Nevertheless, these metaphors perpetuate stereotyping and stigmatism of disease and various groups of people. In doing so the gap between myth and reality expands. Sontag cites numerous examples of this, such as understanding AIDS as an illness versus a medical condition.