Topic K Card!

I will be periodically posting topic k cards I cut to give an example of the quality of evidence we will produce in the Mean Green K Lab. Enjoy this Cuba specific representations matter evidence!

In the context of Cuba representations shape political realities è domination of Cuba

Brenner professor of international relations at American University 2010 Philip “The Power of Metaphor: Explaining U.S. Policy toward Cuba” Diplomatic History 34.2 wiley online

The central premise of Cuba in the American Imagination is first that the metaphors U.S. officials used to describe Cuba defined their reality regarding Cuba. Second, while the depictions of Cuba changed over time, their messages were roughly constant: the United States is superior to Cuba, has a natural right to possess it, and is morally responsible for shaping Cuba's affairs.

Political leaders do not use metaphors merely to make their speeches more lively. They are an efficient means of communicating a complex reality in commonly accepted terms that then provide the basis for acceptable action. As George Lakoff observes, they “limit what we notice, highlight what we do see, and provide part of the inferential structure that we reason with.”1 While officials may not always use metaphors with intentionality, Pérez notes, in the case of Cuba they “were not deployed randomly. . . . Metaphorical constructs provided a normative grounding for a version of reality and validation of conduct” (p. 36). The domination of Cuban affairs became the “reasonable discharge of North American moral conduct.” This mode of relating to Cubans became so normal that Americans rarely questioned whether it was appropriate, which Pérez argues provides “corroboration of the power of metaphor to reproduce premise as proof” (p. 22).

Metaphors alone do not explain U.S. policy. But they are an appropriate starting point for considering political and economic factors, because nearly all of the metaphors, Pérez concludes, “functioned in the service of U.S. interests. . . . Americans came to their knowledge of Cuba principally by way of representations entirely of their own creation” (p. 22). Their Cuba, he remarks, “was, in fact, a figment of their own imagination and a projection of their needs” (p. 23).