thoughts on "metaphor"
People tend to think that something being "metaphorical" (like furry/kin identity, or mysticism stuff, or lots of other things) makes it less real.
That's kind of deeply missing the point. Our brains are *entirely* metaphorical. Our perception of the world passes through billions of years of evolutionary processing and filtering, and is only tenuously connected to a deeper fundamental truth. Approximations are all we have.
thoughts on "metaphor"
@starkatt It's fine with me if someone wants to self-describe their mysticism/furry ID, etc, as 'metaphorical', but the word is still used often enough to delegitimize such things that I'm really uncomfortable with it getting presented as the default or base-case for them.
thoughts on "metaphor"
@indi I can see where you're coming from. I want to push back against that delegitimization, because so many people come from a framework where "literal" == "objectively, externally, and empirically verifiable"
thoughts on "metaphor"
@indi I remember getting into an arugument with a friend once because he was conflating "god literally exists" with "god materially exists", and that definition of "exists" is so boring and limited.
thoughts on "metaphor"
@starkatt I agree with you there, but in that case, maybe a good focus here is broadening the definition of 'literal' rather than reclaiming its antonym?
Maybe it's just me but:
When I hear "You're not literally a coyote" I tend to want to say "Okay let's talk about what you mean by literal"
When I hear "So you're metaphorically a coyote" I tend to want to say "Why the fuck did you need to put that extra word there."
thoughts on "metaphor"
@indi If someone asked me that last thing, I'd respond with "yes, metaphorically, but that doesn't make it any less real." Maybe that's me implicitly respectability politicking...
Feeling that invalidation is definitely understandable.
I feel like no matter what, we're gonna get dismissed as irrational and misguided by a lot of people. The dichotomy between "literal" and "metaphorical" is a crock of shit, and I fully think it should be broken down from both directions.
thoughts on "metaphor"
@starkatt Oddly enough I was in the midst of writing something about the respectability question right when your reply came in.
I don't think that softening or broadening a metaphysical stance in the interest of getting respectability has ever worked. Did you think that when the therian community decided to talk about it entirely in psychological terms, everyone said "Oh gosh okay THAT'S reasonable, we fully accept you now." All it did was alienate the spiritual folks.
thoughts on "metaphor"
@indi Yeah, realizing while writing that that what I was really reaching for was respectability brought around my thinking a fair bit.