Metaphor
What's left without it?
https://collider.com/henry-fonda-once-upon-a-time-in-the-west/
Fonda was cast in that role to shock, to bitch slap people into THINKING
Back then people were still capable of thought (It was modeled for them everywhere), including the thought that what you think you know just isn’t so.
From the article:
For over three decades leading up to Once Upon A Time In The West, Henry Fonda had been playing the strong, stately American hero on screen. In John Ford's My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, and Drums Along The Mohawk, Fonda played stern, stoic, but nevertheless principled Western protagonists. Outside the Western, he also portrayed Abraham Lincoln and Tom Joad in Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and The Grapes Of Wrath, respectively, as well as the sole voice of reasonable dissent in Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. While John Wayne could sometimes come off as a maverick cowboy and Jimmy Stewart a simplistic everyman, Fonda was a consistent force of assertive, yet benevolent righteousness.
…
Leone had no intention of casting Fonda as the protagonist, though. Instead, he gave Fonda the part of Frank, a ruthless, gunslinging assassin, who enters the film by leading a group of bandits in the slaughter of an innocent family. When only the family's youngest son remains, the aggressors emerge from the sagebrush and the camera slowly wraps around the group's obvious leader standing in the middle, eventually revealing it to be Fonda — clean-shaven face, baby-blue eyes, and all. He kills the unarmed boy point-blank. This unforgettable introduction likely wowed audiences back in 1968, who had nary seen Fonda play anything but a respectable figure. It let the audience know that this was not a typical Henry Fonda role, and by extension, Once Upon A Time was not going to be a typical American Western.
https://collider.com/henry-fonda-once-upon-a-time-in-the-west/
In 1981 or so I was in 8th grade, in public middle school. The standard curriculum taught us metaphor. It was in the lesson plans, the readings. It was brought to our attention. What it is, how it’s used (I mean by example), what it’s for. Metaphor, simile, analogy…
None of the details hold in the memory or matter. It’s just the fact that it exists, and that it was deemed worth pointing out to us. That’s formative, foundational to being minimally educated.
I think it’s been erased.
Imagine you read a book, a story, watch a film, and you’re equipped only to interpret it literally. It never occurs to you that things, people, events, are stand-ins representing other stories that are real, and bigger.
Worse is what follows, the idea is put into you that anything that can be told must be told and can only be told as a 1:1 literal reproduction of all things exactly as they were. This is impossible. Thought and perception don’t work that way. Already then you’re discombobulated, attempting to internalize an impossible premise that you’re boxed into accepting anyway.
This is pre-amble to a complete program to dismantle, the mind. As your mind falls away, from abuse, surrender, disuse, and atrophy, meaning outstrips you. You stop reaching for it. And later you’re unable to reach. You’re de-equipped for reaching.
And you have no memory. You know no history. You know nothing. And so for you you have nothing to reach for anyway. You’re a vegetable. Nothing means anything.
You’re habituated to snippets. The horizon of your imagination is scoped to tiny nothings you can digest in a couple of seconds.
Horror.
Douglas Hofstadter’s book (bot summary):
Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking
Book by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander
Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander argues that analogy is the fundamental mechanism of human thought, not just a tool for creativity, but the very core of cognition. The book posits that our brains constantly make unconscious analogies, linking new experiences to old ones to find patterns, create categories, and make sense of the world, from simple word recognition to complex scientific breakthroughs. It explores how this incessant quest for similarity, often hidden from view, drives everything from language to memory and consciousness.
Key concepts
Analogy as core cognition:
The central thesis is that analogy-making is not a special skill but the engine of all thinking, operating constantly and unconsciously.
“Surfaces” and “Essences”:
The title refers to the idea that we perceive surface-level details but are always searching for deeper, essential similarities to past experiences.
Ubiquitous and powerful:
The authors argue that analogies are everywhere, from the simplest categorization (seeing a new dog as a “dog”) to complex idioms and algorithms.
A new vision of the mind:
The book presents a radical view of the mind as a ceaseless analogy-making machine, revealing the hidden cognitive mechanisms behind our understanding.
Here’s a counter example, a mind at work:
Among other things, that is hilarious.
The footnotes are not the funniest part but I copy them here:
One person in Rogers’s list is not like the others. Imran Ahmed, who heads the CCDH, lives in the United States with his American wife and children, and he is now facing imminent deportation – which he is fighting in court. Ahmed’s surprisingly amateurish and hamfisted enterprise has earned the enmity of the Trump administration, among other things for including U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a cringe “Disinformation Dozen” list of anti-vaxxers and setting “killing Musk’s Twitter” as a top priority for 2024. The Americans have not revoked Ahmed’s visa just to send a message; the Americans have revoked his visa because he is a fucking creep and an enemy and they want him out.
Symbiotic opposition happens when two opposed parties choose to maintain a conflict rather than resolve it, because the conflict itself proves mutually beneficial and/or the resources required for resolution are judged too extravagant an expense. So, for example, if I am really angry with you but doing something about it is not worth the risk, I might punch you but not very hard. Because you don’t want to invite harder punches, you sell my punch as the worst thing ever. This allows me to claim to my supporters (who also hate you) that I’m kicking your ass, and it allows you to claim to your supporters (who think I am the worst person ever) that you’re being brutally victimised. In truth, both of us are engaging in a low-risk and ultimately meaningless professional wrestling-style ritual. Kayfabe situations like these can arise spontaneously without either party explicitly arranging or planning them in advance. They are often unstable and can easily devolve into real, existential hostilities.
Do read “Ahmed’s surprisingly amateurish and hamfisted enterprise”.
This is the outcome.
A mind believing itself productive while a toy plastic beach bucket packed with dog shit generates more coherent thought.
