Roads and Riddles? Western Major Power Metaphors of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Our conceptual systems are metaphorical in nature: We understand complex issues by comparing them with relatively straightforward and familiar ones. Renowned experts of nonviolent problem solving, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Luthuli, and Martin Luther King, Jr., have structured difficult conflicts in terms of roads, gardens, building projects, and riddles. The conflict rhetoric of leaders of the major Western powers—the United States, Britain, and France—is most often studied in violent contexts, vis-à-vis epic battles and tragic catastrophes. However, when dealing with mundane disputes among fundamentally like-minded parties, disagreements with petty challengers and debates with major powers with different political systems, for example, US, British, and French leaders employ many of the metaphors that nonviolence activists do. Understanding and expanding this sphere of comic conflict resolution—where ingenuity and reflection instead of black-and-white juxtaposition are the norm— is essential in the search for a more peaceful, yet vibrant world.