What does it mean to be “at war” with the coronavirus? What does military language add (if anything?) to our understanding of this challenge? In this week& #39;s episode, we dig into what the metaphor means politically, economically and personally. (thread) https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-war-what-is-it-good-for">https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/...
The war metaphor is all around us, especially in the US. Nurses and doctors report that the casualties and struggle in ERs feel very much like the frontline of a battle. But military language doesn& #39;t sound the same around the world... We asked listeners: https://twitter.com/onthemedia/status/1245057700528078848">https://twitter.com/onthemedi...
The war metaphor with disease isn& #39;t new, of course. Susan Sontag argued that there& #39;s a reason for that: "War being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive"
One detail we weren& #39;t able to fit into the show is about how the war metaphor is sometimes understood in Traditional Chinese Medicine: it& #39;s best to never fight war at all, to focus on prevention and preparedness. Read more here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5064845/#">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
But there& #39;s other language, other metaphors, to describe the challenge of fighting a disease! (That previous link also details the "journey" metaphor, btw.)
As you& #39;ll hear in the episode, Eula Biss, author of On Immunity: An Inoculation, prefers the language of education. [...]
Btw, note from producer @AlanaLlama: On Immunity was such a pleasure to read for the show this week. Highly recommended! We& #39;ll be hearing more from Eula Biss in a future episode, so if you& #39;re looking for informative and thoughtful pandemic non-fiction... it& #39;s gorgeous.
What if we thought of #COVID19 as a global "natural" disaster?

("Natural" as there& #39;s no such thing as a disaster without the element of human influence, including the strength or weakness of government& #39;s response)

Would that build solidarity? Communicate a sense of urgency?
Please keep sharing your war metaphor / other metaphor observations with us!

The whole episode (including @Bobosphere& #39;s exploration of how celebrities are "coping" with this pandemic!) is here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-war-what-is-it-good-for">https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/...
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