Content warning: metaphorical depiction of bodily violence
Austerity is a horrible yet captivating story. As a narrative it’s cohesive, has strong emotional images and an active message – elements which clearly resonate with the public and lend legitimacy to government cuts.
The left’s response, for all its logical and ethical weight, remains fragmentary, dry and largely reactive. We are, in the words of Mark Fisher, merely firefighting the effects of government cuts, always left on the back foot. To create a stronger alternative, we need to build a vibrant, cohesive narrative to carry those logical and ethical arguments.
The recent #economicviolence Twitter hashtag provides us with a potential starting point:
https://twitter.com/doloresonthedot/status/421693363666948097
https://twitter.com/cdaae/statuses/421762931382972416
https://twitter.com/acjf37/statuses/421734303446233088
The strength of the metaphor should be clear from the huge amount of participation it generated – over 30,000 tweets in 24 hours. It’s a visceral image, and it’s not just reactive to an individual policy or comment by a politician, but carries a broader ethical message. And though this is only an individual metaphor, it could also be used to structure a wider matrix of metaphors, as the framework for a cohesive anti-austerity narrative.
There have been some attempts along these lines, such as the New Economics Foundation’s Framing the economy: the austerity story, featuring contributions from @OwenJones84 and Shami Chakrabarti. Their conclusion however misses the important element of coherence. They outline 7 frames to counter the dominant narrative, including casino banking, the economy treading water and austerity as a smokescreen. These are all strong images, but they don’t cohere into any sort of single overarching story – swimming, betting and smoke have no obvious connecting theme.
In contrast, the austerity narrative and its metaphors are tightly interlinked. Take this phrase we’ve heard a number of times over the past few years:
“The nation has maxed out its credit card”
The image is vivid of itself, but it also quietly meshes with (and thus reinforces) other austerity metaphors and narrative elements, via the overarching metaphor of THE NATION IS A PERSON/HOUSEHOLD:
- someone in debt is ‘broke’, so therefore the nation is broke.
- personal debt is very dangerous and usually the main priority, therefore national debt is very dangerous and our main priority.
- personal debt can be the result of overspending, and so government spending is to blame, including big government is bad and this is Labour’s mess.
- a household mess is something that needs cleaning up, so we need good housekeeping.
- if people are in debt, and likewise the country is in debt, then we are all in this together.
It’s this kind of tight mapping that’s necessary for a strong narrative. Whilst I think the NEF report failed in this, I’ve nonetheless used their conclusions as a starting point for an ‘economic violence’ metaphor structure. So here’s my suggestion: frame the economy as a body, and the cuts as an attack on that body.
- CUTS HAVE BLED US DRY – they have been violent both figuratively in terms of their speed and extent, but also literally in terms of the physical and emotional violence on individuals.
- THE ECONOMY IS STAGGERING – we’re not ‘treading water’, we’re slow and staggering because of pain and weakness.
- THE ECONOMY IS A VULNERABLE BODY – exploited and manipulated by bankers, unscrupulous employers and the government. This metaphor also links into the real physical effects of the cuts on vulnerable people. Instead of the unstable, easily manipulated economy being framed as a casino, frame it as a weakened body pushed around by the rich.
- AGGRESSORS – the government and banks are the primary aggressors. It was the banks who first knocked us down, and then the government set upon us.
- DON’T TRUST THE CONSERVATIVES – they tricked the staggering, vulnerable country with promises to protect the NHS and improve the economy, only to do what they had always intended to do. The Tories have shown they are back-stabbers.
- MEDICAL TREATMENT – we can give medical treatment to the economy (another handy NHS blend). We can restore its life blood, patch up its wounds and provide injections of investment. Wealth redistribution could even be framed as blood transfusion. The country will nonetheless take time to heal.
Just to be clear, these aren’t suggested stock phrases, but metaphors for structuring arguments. You’re unlikely to hear Cameron say “The economy is like a household, therefore …”, but you will hear arguments which presuppose the whole nation-as-household frame: e.g. “the nation has maxed out its credit card”.
Of course, reframing narratives alone won’t end the cuts, and the ethical and logical elements of anti-cuts arguments remain very important. But to move beyond defensive manoeuvres and form a powerful response to the cuts, these need to be carried within a consistent, vivid and emotionally engaging narrative.
Nice work. We are a story telling animal. Narrative is important to I us and helps arguments sink in by putting them in easy to understand non technical terms.
You’re right, and I think this is something conservatives and the rightwing media has come to understand much quicker than the left has. I can understand people’s hesitation – stories and metaphors *can* be used for sensationalism and obscuring facts, but they really don’t have to be. Once you start looking for them, you realise our everyday talk is FULL of stories and metaphors! It’s just a matter of focusing them, and not being afraid of bringing emotional images into a discussion, as long as you’re still backed up by ethical intentions and solid arguments.
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