Metaphors green and healthy

Whither the environmental movement? III | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine: "We think in metaphor. The conceptual frameworks that structure our reality are robust; if we are confronted with data that does not fit in them, it is the data that is discarded, not the framework." -Insight from a book called Philosophy in the Flesh ...
Of course we kind of knew this already but this was picked up in a plea to the green movements to change their way of communication. Stop giving facts, start creating metaphor and being aware how conservatives have employed language and metaphor to neutralise our concerns.

[I once discovered this when involved in a diocesan mini-conference on baptism reform. Our publicity fairly cleverly framed the issue in the words "principled baptism policy" -this clearly rattled the cage of at least one 'open baptism policy' priest who ddin't like th eimplication that he didn't have principles [and I could see his point though strongly disagrreing with him. Tecently, full-circle-wise, I have been in the presence of a priest calling himself a 'baptism slut' ...]

Anyway, I digress. A key point is this:
'The term "the environment" suggests that this is an area of life separate from other areas of life like the economy and jobs, or health, or foreign policy. By not linking it to everyday issues, it sounds like a separate category, and a luxury in difficult times.'

So a counter bid could look like this: 'Instead of the "environment," why don't we say we that ours is the movement for resource rights - air rights, water rights, land rights? Children have the right to breathe clean air; coastal fishing communities have the right to protect their waters from rapacious, destructive industries; all of us have the right to make decisions about resources we have no choice but to share.'

In fact the best manifesto, using this kind of idea, is towards the end of the article: 'What we need is a positive, forward-looking set of frames built around reducing the poisons in our communities, stimulating the next wave of technological progress, and getting creating a better, more modern, and yes, more stylish lifestyle with fewer resources. These are historical challenges and they call upon people's ingenuity and optimism rather than their guilt.'

Of course, in Britain, we are a little wary of this because it smacks of spin doctoring and the foibles of style over substance associated with the new Labour project. But I'm not convinced that this need be in the same league. This isn't just about presentation; there really is substance under the style and substance that needs to be communicated effectively.

PS. Clearly there are ramifications too for the way we present the gospel. Have we been too defined by the discourse that others impose on us? HAve we been able to readapt language which doesn't have negative connotations for others? Arguably the apostle Paul did this in reframing the gospel message several times in differnt circumstances for differnt audiences [compare Romans with Colossians, for example and read through the lastter half of the book of Acts].

And in this context I commend you to Justin Baeder's little project ' Grid::Blog::Gospel project' on reframing the gospel for our contemporaries [I'm thinking about it Justin -just haven't managed to get it all together yet].