Metaphor In American Politics

The prevailing metaphorical description of the variety of political beliefs and stances is as a spectrum of distance between Left and Right -- a version of one of the orange meme's favorite metaphors.

This metaphor results in certain inferences about politics:

• There can be no Left without Right, or vice versa. The two ends of the spectrum form an "internal dyad," defined by a constitutive relationship between the two that results in their inseparability.
• The position of a particular belief on the spectrum is relative. Left and right, in physical directional terms, are relational and depend on comparison to both a location and a direction or facing. Similarly, in political terms, what constitutes the Left and the Right depends on what you compare to.
• Left and Right are naturally defined in relation to the speaker's own beliefs. Just as physical left and right are naturally defined in relation to the location of our bodies, so too are political left and right naturally defined in relation to our own (metaphorical) position.
• Left and Right are destinations which can be arrived at. By analogy with the spectrum of physical distance between "far left" and "far right," the political spectrum also consists of a range of physical locations which one can move to. So, for example, one can be "moving to the right," or there can be a collective "shift to the left."
  
• Either the Left or the Right has value, but not both. If positions on the political spectrum are destinations that can be arrived at, then the metaphor entails that the path to a particular point is to go either left or right, but not both -- one direction will clearly get us "closer" and one will take us "farther away." If we want to get somewhere, that place must have some value to us, so getting closer is good and getting farther away is bad. Thus, only one of end of the political spectrum can have value.
• Moderates are indecisive or apathetic. If political positions are destinations that have value, then people who stay in "the middle" can't decide which place they want to go, don't care where they end up, or are happy right where they are.
  

These particular inferences about politics are consequences of the particular metaphor chosen. Choosing a different metaphor -- such as the blue meme's presence/absence or the green meme's figure/ground -- results in a completely different picture of politics.