Weaponization: Metaphorical Ubiquity and the Rejection of Politics

• In Event: 3551 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 1. Advances in Cultural Analysis

Abstract

This paper explores the origin and career of the metaphor of weaponization that became ubiquitous around the 2016 presidential election. As a concept, the word originated in the Cold War defense industry as a literal description of the logistical deployment of weapons systems. As its use mutated into a metaphor between 1999-2003, it took on its contemporary moral meaning of making something into a weapon that had been, and should remain, neutral or peaceful. By 2017 “the weaponization of everything” implied that all aspects of social life were newly embroiled in illegitimate politics, making the metaphor a profound act of nostalgia that erased recent conflicts. Weaponization demonstrates that a metaphor can become more powerful, not less, when it becomes ubiquitous. This is surprising because contemporary metaphor theory implies that ubiquitous metaphors become mere descriptions or concepts if they are not embedded in competing discursive communities. Weaponization shows that political metaphors can create broad publics that share the same meaning for all sides among competing political groups, even if that meaning is the utopian rejection of politics altogether.

Author

• Greggor Mattson, Oberlin College