The War of Metaphors in Foreign Policy

Reality cannot present itself naked and directly to public opinion. Reality is presented in the guise of meaning and concept and those with specific goals create meaning and concept.

Reality cannot present itself naked and directly to public opinion. Reality is presented in the guise of meaning and concept, and those with specific goals create meaning and concept. Jean Baudrillard, a French postmodern philosopher, refers to the representation of reality in the social and political arena as hyper-reality. He says that we live in a world of hyper-realities whose main actor is the media. The media shows the reality; they highlight a part of the reality and hide a part of it, thus emptying the reality of its nature.

The media either create discourse or serve a discourse and present the reality in the mind according to the dos and don'ts of that discourse. The most effective and powerful tool of the media to capture reality (read falsify reality) is metaphorization. Metaphor is the simplification of complex scientific meanings and concepts in the form of simple phrases and parables that the masses of people can easily understand and relate to. The media can drag the scientific studies and professional efforts of a group of elites to the bottom of the well with a proverb or elevate a wrong plan and decision to the throne with another proverb. Metaphor is not only in the form of words but also in the form of actions. Showing the green olive branch as a symbol of peace by Yasser Arafat, the late leader of the Fatah movement, was a symbol of metaphorical action.

The importance of discourse creation, being equipped with discourse acts and metaphorization are the necessity of politics in today's world. In today's world, if you don't show your reality in the form of discourse meanings and actions, others will show your reality with a caricatured image. Your true character is bravery, but they make you look like a coward and ...

This phenomenon is increasing in today's societies due to the lack of awareness of societies. The more societies are immersed in information and the less awareness they have, the penetration rate of discourse acts and metaphors increases. People who are bombarded with information and are overwhelmed by information have less awareness because the information is not awareness. Awareness is the product of thinking, methodical and theoretical analysis, and it is obtained by deep studies of original books. The bane of many societies is that the average people think that they have awareness about various issues, while they lack awareness and are only among a mass of true and false information and assume that information is awareness. For these people, a discourse act or a metaphor can change their mental information, make some information irrelevant and others correct, and create a special meaning in their minds. This special meaning is the engineering of minds that discourses follow. So, the penetration coefficient of metaphors and discourse acts should be understood in the context of the following components:

1. The end of governance monopoly in information;
2. Societies drowning in information;
3. Information bombardment;
4. Lack of community awareness;
5. Plurality of social authorities.

Reality and hyper-reality have faced the foreign policy of the countries with challenges and, of course, new opportunities. The foreign policy of each country has principles, goals, and strategies that make up the reality of that country's foreign policy. At the same time, foreign policy has an image that must be presented. If the foreign policy agent does not present an image of foreign policy in the form of meanings, concepts, metaphors, and discourse acts, others make this image curly. This is where the public relations of institutions, organizations and ministries become doubly important. The public relations of a ministry and especially the spokesperson of that institution, in addition to specialized knowledge, should be equipped with literature and art. They must produce meaning and metaphor for every reality. For example, Iran's lack of immediate response to Israel's terrorist operation in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh was presented with what meaning and metaphor? Who should have created meaning for this behavior? We did not produce meaning, but the enemy created a metaphor with the metaphor of Netanyahu's trap for Iran. Before the metaphorization of the enemy, we could metaphorize with the concept of strategic delay so that the brave planning of Iran is not depicted as fear of going to war.

A look at politics and governance in the world today shows that we are living in the age of a war of metaphors, and the power of metaphors in mobilizing public opinion is much greater than the power of current realities in politics. Weak awareness in communities and drowning in information have made metaphors more important than ever. A successful politician is someone who can present his actions and his organization with the language of art and literary metaphors.

Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, senior expert at the Institute for Political and International Studies

 (The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)