Abstract
This chapter proposes some reflections on the lively debate about the use of war metaphors to talk about the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of the reflection is not metaphors and its definitions, but the pervasiveness of the military terminology in public discourse and, more generally, the weight of linguistic choices in crises. The basic assumption is that there are no “right” or “wrong” metaphors regardless of discursive contexts and communication purposes. On this basis, the point is neither to attack nor to defend the war metaphor but to show that the more comprehensive the range of metaphors at our disposal is, the more profound is our experience of the world. Therefore, instead of attacking war metaphors it is more useful to enrich the range of expressions to talk about the pandemic. What is really important is the awareness that expressive choices are not details and words are never just words.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Communicating risk in public health emergencies: a WHO guideline for emergency risk communication (ERC) policy and practice. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
- 2.
Nous sommes en guerre, en guerre sanitaire certes. Nous ne luttons ni contre une armée ni contre une autre nation, mais l’ennemi est là, invisible, insaisissable, et qui progresse. Et cela requiert notre mobilisation générale. Nous sommes en guerre. Toute l’action du gouvernement et du Parlement doit être désormais tournée vers le combat contre l’épidémie, de jour comme de nuit. Rien ne doit nous en divertir. C’est pourquoi j’ai décidé que toutes les réformes en cours seraient suspendues, à commencer par la réforme des retraites. https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2020/03/16/nous-sommes-en-guerre-retrouvez-le-discours-demacron-pour-lutter-contre-le-coronavirus_6033314_823448.html
- 3.
I quote only a few examples to give just an idea of the great interest raised by the issue. Only in Italy, between the end of February and the end of March, we find, among others, the following contributions: Loredana Lipperini, Malattia come metafora, Lipperatura, February 26; Daniele Cassandro, Siamo in guerra! Il Coronavirus e le sue metafore, Internazionale, March 22; Fabrizio Battistelli, Coronavirus: metafore di guerra e confusione di concetti, Micromega, March 24; Federico Faloppa, Sul «nemico invisibile» e altre metafore di guerra, magazine/lingua Italiana, March 25; Sanzia Milesi, La viralità del linguaggio bellico, Vita.it, March 26; Paolo Costa, Emergenza coronavirus: non soldati ma pompieri, SettimanaNews, March 28 marzo; Matteo Pascoletti, Non siamo in guerra e contro il coronavirus serve solidarietà, non la caccia all’untore Valigia Blu, March 29; Annamaria Testa, Smettiamo di dire che è una guerra, Internazionale, March 30; Anna Masera, La pandemia non è una guerra, La Stampa, March 31. Just a few others non-Italian examples, to give a better idea of the dimension of this debate: Brigitte Nerlich, Metaphors in the time of Coronavirus, the blog of the University of Nottingham, March, 17; José Pedro Teixeira Fernandes, Não, Não estamos em guerra (voltamos é a ser Sísifo, Publico.pt. March, 18; Paul Elie, (Against) virus as Metaphor, The New Yorker, March, 09; Simon Tisdall, Lay off those war metaphors, world leaders. You could be the next casualty, The Guardian, March 21; Françoise Heisbourg, Covid-19 at war: between metaphor and reality, Aspenia online, March 23; Nicholas Mulder, The Coronavirus War Economy Will Change the World, Foreingpolicy.com, March, 26; Carlota Moragas-Fernández i Arantxta Capdevila, Vencer al virus el marco metafórico de la Covid-19 en el discurso político Urvactiv@ March, 27; Neil Crowther, The right words save lives. The wrong words kills, Making right makes sense, March 28; Ian Buruma, Virus as Metaphor, The New York Times; March, 28; Yasmeen Serhan, The Case Against Waging ‘War’on the Coronavirus, The Atlantic, March, 31; Laure Bretton, Métaphore de Macron sur la guerre: «Cela exonère le pouvoir de ses responsabiltés,» Libération, March, 30; Kate Yoder, Is waging ‘war’ the only way to take on the Coronavirus? Grist.org, April 15.
- 4.
The most interesting case of using the football metaphor (in a visual modality) for the pandemic is probably the argentine video Vamos Argentina 2020. Quédate en casa (https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1XkgRAVizXqs2xzL83ZHeO5Gs8owP45vXf2bkiD0PSmuLoR6ZD6Ftspv4&v=xnZb8qsrnX0). Instead, an example of verbal use of the same metaphor is the sentence pronounced during a briefing on March 23 by the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: «You can’t win a football game only by defending, You have to attack as well» (https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19%2D%2D-23-march-2020). It is impossible here take into account also this metaphor that is connected with (if not derived from) that of war, as clearly indicated, in the quoted sentence, by the presence of the terms win, defending and attack.
- 5.
See, for example, Paolo Costa, Emergenza coronavirus: non soldati ma pompieri (http://www.settimananews.it/societa/emergenza-coronavirus-non-soldati-ma-pompieri).
- 6.
- 7.
More precisely, Sontag refers to the “National Cancer Act” of 1971 signed by Nixon, who promised an all-out war on cancer. It can be interesting to observe that, in the same year, Nixon also launched a ‘war on drugs.’ See Flusberg et al. (2018) about the use of war metaphors in American public discourse.
- 8.
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Piazza, F. (2022). Are We at War? Some Remarks on War-Related Language on COVID-19. In: Campisi, G., Mocciaro Li Destri, A., Amenta, C. (eds) COVID-19 and Communities. UNIPA Springer Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88622-6_17
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