When Metaphors Collapse

Max Stearns

The death of Lindsey Graham generated an all-too-familiar ritual. His staunch opponents posted harsh condemnations. Politicians who had worked with him for decades—even while profoundly disagreeing with him—remembered him instead as a friend, a colleague, or simply as a complicated man.

Then it got interesting.

Those who acknowledged Graham’s humanity were roundly criticized. The apparent premise was that recognizing any redeeming qualities weakened the moral condemnation.

In defending the opposite instinct, one commentator observed:

"None of us are one-dimensional."

Although I appreciated the sentiment, I found myself wondering why a helpful metaphor suddenly appeared to collapse. And this appears to be an increasingly common usage.

The traditional criticism has never been that a fictional character is one-dimensional. It is that the character is two-dimensional.

That distinction sounds pedantic. But it isn’t, and it matters. Please stay with me.

A two-dimensional object has height and width but lacks depth. Think of a cardboard cutout. Literary critics have long contrasted flat characters with three-dimensional ones because the metaphor captures something important. Add one more dimension and the criticism disappears. Surface gives way to depth.

The newer metaphor feels stronger. If two dimensions are bad, surely one dimension must be worse. Intuitively, that sounds right. Conceptually, I think it gets things exactly backward.

Suppose a novelist introduces a character who is singularly ambitious.

The character feels flat.

Now suppose the author adds another characteristic. The character is ambitious and brilliant. Or ambitious and talented. Or ambitious and selfish.

Has the criticism disappeared? Hardly. The character still feels flat.

Now try this instead.

The character is ambitious yet deeply generous. Or selfish yet fiercely loyal to an old friend. Or politically ruthless while privately capable of extraordinary tenderness.

Suddenly we begin to sense an actual person.

Notice what changed. The additional characteristic did not merely add information. It added depth. That is why the original metaphor succeeds where the newer one fails.

A good metaphor should survive the logical implications of its own structure. In that respect, metaphors themselves resemble scientific theories. A scientific theory does more than describe the world. It generates predictions. We test theories by asking whether there is some observation that if shown to be true would falsify our hypothesis.

Metaphors do something similar. When successful, they generate implications that help test our understanding.

The older metaphor predicts that if the problem is two-dimensionality, adding one more dimension should repair the defect.

And it does.

The newer metaphor predicts that if the problem is one-dimensionality, adding one more dimension should likewise repair the defect.

But it doesn't.

Adding another characteristic leaves us exactly where we began. The missing ingredient was never simply another characteristic.

It was depth.

So why has "one-dimensional" become so common?

I suspect because it feels rhetorically stronger. The criticism sounds harsher. One must be worse than two.

But consider what is lost. The newer metaphor mistakes compression for explanatory power. And yet, it achieves the former while sacrificing the latter.

Let’s return to Lindsey Graham.

I have my own views, and they are neither ambiguous nor particularly relevant.

The interesting question raised by the reactions to his death, and to those who weighed in, was never his moral stature. Instead, it was whether we have reached a point in our civic discourse in which even acknowledging the humanity of those we most oppose must be regarded as morally suspect.

Is it no longer acceptable to acknowledge that someone whom so many people, for compelling reasons, regard as deeply objectionable may nonetheless exhibit characteristics that render them human—bearing contradictions, friendships, loyalties, blind spots, virtues, failures, humor, disappointments, and depth.

Acknowledging complexity does not excuse conduct. Instead it resists caricature.

Caricature itself works much like the newer metaphor—one dimension, not two. Both promise greater force through simplification. Both suggest that reducing complexity strengthens the messaging.

I think the opposite is true. Caricatures are easier to condemn than people. But people—not caricatures—exercise political power, inspire devotion, betray friends, display courage, commit wrongdoing, and occasionally surprise us.

Actual people, not boardwalk sketches, disappoint us because something in them conveyed the possibility—perhaps even hope—they might become someone better. Caricatures cannot come to life, cannot become human.

If our goal is merely to denounce, caricature is fine. But if our goal is to understand, to persuade, or even to oppose effectively, flattening opponents weakens us, not them.

Three-dimensional people anger, frustrate, yet often inspire.

Two-dimensional people are flat.

One-dimensional people are lines.

Language evolves. So do metaphors. But not every evolution is an improvement. We might resist changes that sound forceful yet flatten our meaning, that sharpen condemnation yet disallow depth, that elevate bluntness above understanding.

We should resist metaphors that simply collapse.