Talk:War as metaphor

[War on terror]

The "war on terror" is not a good example of the metaphor. As with traditional war, this supposedly metaphorical war is being fought with actual guns and bombs, not metaphorical ones, along with suspension of legal rights such as the right to a trial. Terror suspects are being assassinated, often along with innocent bystanders, whereas a metaphorical war would be fought with non-violent and certainly non-lethal means. I do not think the difference between war as metaphor and actual war is obvious to the public in the "war on terror", as the war in Afghanistan for example is reported by the media in exactly the same way as the "war on terror",i.e. in terms of "enemy" combatants killed as opposed to "Criminal" elements arrested, and often without any clarification that it is a metaphor, for example "the so-called war on terror". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.124.74.32 (talk) 04:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I would dearly love to see sources who have studied both whether or not "war on drugs" and "war on terrorism" are metaphors. I always assumed they were literal as in "to stop drugs, America will deploy troops" and "to stop terrorism, America will deploy troops." In other words, history seems to indicate to me that both war on drugs and war on terrorism are literal. -- EsotericRogue Talk 13:05, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I also removed: Inter arma enim silent leges is a Latin phrase meaning "In the face of arms, the law falls mute," often rendered as "In time of war, the laws fall silent." et cetera since it is clearly literal and not figurative. A page regarding a metaphor is not where we include civil liberty discussion about literal warfare. -- EsotericRogue Talk 09:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was merge (over a week and half without comment). --BDD (talk) 16:55, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

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I propose that List of wars on concepts be merged here. "Wars on concepts" is basically an WP:OR/WP:SYNTH term, and all of the examples listed there are really instances of war as metaphor. Browse that article's talk page and the related CFD and it looks like no one ever thought the article was a great idea to begin with. --BDD (talk) 19:25, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merger proposal from article "War on"

I propose the article War on be merged into this article. --Bensin (talk) 21:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

One month passed with no objections. Will perform merger. --Bensin (talk) 12:30, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Cultural Revolution

I'm puzzled by Bensin's multiple reverts in favour of retaining the line "The Cultural Revolution in China 1966−1976, which initially was launched as a "War against Revisionism", is a discouraging example of a metaphorical war against "-isms"." The value judgement involved in calling it a "discouraging example" isn't appropriate for an encyclopaedia, and moreover there is an entire section on the page devoted to examples - this example should go there, rather than being left up in the main section. Mihirpmehta (talk) 13:00, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Mihirpmehta: The statement is sourced and the wording "discouraging example" is used by professor Michael Schoenhals (professor of Chinese Studies and an expert on the Cultural Revolution) in the source. Schoenhals's comment is thus directed at wars agains "-isms" (where war is used as a metaphor) in general, but where he highlights his field of expertise as a prominent discouraging example. --Bensin (talk) 13:23, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Bensin: It's good to have sources, but it would be more helpful to move this into the examples section with more explanation as to the meaning of "War on Revisionism." As it stands it doesn't make sense to someone like me who hasn't heard of the notion of War on Revisionism before. Also, as I said before, Wikipedia has no business calling it a discouraging example, even though scholars have called it so.

@Mihirpmehta: The Cultural Revolution is already in the examples section. I don't object to expanding its entry there. As Schoenhals's comment is a general one I think it better belongs in the lead section and not one particular example. Any reader needing more information about the Cultural Revolution will understand to click the link to that article. Schoenhals is a leading expert on the Cultural Revolution and his book on the subject was called "the seminal work" by The Guardian. When he says that the Cultural Revolution is a discouraging example of wars against "-isms" then I would need some strong reasons to convince me not to include it in the lead section here. --Bensin (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2016 (UTC)