More Exclusive

Early yesterday I read an article online. It occurred to me, while reading this article, that in some social context words can gain meaning which are more exclusive than they would otherwise be. This particular article was trying to persuade its readers to sign an online petition on the issue of animal rights. In the article read the following "If you are against animal abuse, sign our petition." The context of the article suggests that they would not be petitioning against the cruelty towards all animals; instead it was a petition against the abuse of cats and dogs. The article in no way supported the fight against the abuse of animals in the farm industry. I find this to be slightly bothersome, given that all the people who sign that are not against the abuse of animals; they are, instead, against the abuse of animals who are more frequently domesticated in western civilization.

Anthropocentrism Takes It

In response to Krystal - full post here

The good news is that anthropocentrism  doesn't frequent the literary scene very often because anthropomorphism, as you have stated, is much more appealing to readers. Anthropocentrism, instead, comes into play during the critique or analysis; we don't want people actually thinking that pigs and cows and whales can think, otherwise we may lose fishing, and meat industries. Anthropocentrism is very powerful; though writers will write about intelligent pigs (Charlotte's Web, for instance), people do not actually believe that pigs can be that intelligent. It may be a slight over exaggeration, but pigs are fairly intelligent, sadly, we don't give them their proper worth, with the exception of literature. Though, to be honest, I do not think that the anthropomorphism means much to the pigs who are slaughtered by the hundred thousands to be consumed by humans; Anthropocentrism plays a large part in the meat industry.

Metaphor v. Simile v. Comparison

In response to Kyle - full post here

I do not think that it is particularly fair to use this as an example of bad metaphors. If I saw any of those examples which you have listed here, I would not say that they are bad metaphors, rather I would say that they are not metaphors at all. The first one is a simile and all the others are simply comparisons. Therefore, I think, we cannot judge them as any quality of metaphor. It would be akin to judging humans as bad lions. I think there certainly can be bad metaphors, it's simply that these are not metaphors.

Act MDCCLXXXIX

What is a person? Well, etymology would tell us that a person comes from Latin roots meaning 'mask.' Sociology (thanks to Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and William Shakespeare) can tell us, not that I necessarily agree, that this signifies that a person is an individual, not necessarily human who has to act differently and play different roles to the audience of all the people they will ever encounter. Every person will put on an act, no matter how slight, for different people.

The entire world is a stage and people are the actors. The Beatles tell us that Eleanor Rigby keeps her faces in a jar by the door, so that when she goes out other people will see her differently.