With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility I have written before about the use of metaphor in the writing and teaching of social science, including in the use of images to help make the case that humans are more closely related to plants than was once widely assumed. In the social sciences, we talk about "trees," as in sociology and as in evolution, so much so that we forget that trees are not literally trees. They are a human construction, which may or may not have anything to do with the actual process of evolution. This may seem a bit pedantic to those of us who are not naturalists, but the confusion of trees with evolution is pervasive enough that it bears discussion. Another metaphor I frequently encounter is that of the watering can that can either sustain or kill a plant. This is usually used as a shorthand for "influence" or "influencing" in describing human and animal behaviors. (The same can be said for the idea of the lightning rod for electricity, and hence in many languages the metaphor is used in exactly the same way. That metaphor of a lightning rod is used in the language of both metaphor and symbol, and of course one can make a lot of symbolic and metaphorical connections between the two ideas.) There is a very good case to be made that water can either sustain or kill a plant, as well as nurture or destroy its growth. Some studies show that a plant will experience "stress" or "distress" in the presence of too much water, but can thrive in the right amount. Some flowers can tell when they have too much or too little water, and they close up and wither away if they sense that things are not in their favor. This is often a case of self-preservation in the presence of hostile conditions—the ultimate example of survival of the fittest. There are, however, plants that are poisonous if they are not watered frequently, and other plants that apparently can't stand the shock of rain. There are also times when more water seems to cause more stress and/or destroy more growth. That plants have all sorts of responses to water is no surprise to those of us who care about plants. But the point is that plants have all sorts of responses to water—not just wilted leaves, not just a few days of bad weather. There are good times to grow and bad times to grow. The same can be said for people. Human beings have all sorts of responses to water—not just stress, not just the stress of having to move and the stress of having to compete, not just psychological distress and a fear of new people. Human beings have all sorts of responses to water. One thing that I think is not properly understood is the response of people to the presence of someone who is in distress. I have often wondered why some people can be remarkably sensitive to how you dress, how you walk, what you say, and how you say it. And why some people are very upset when others fail to acknowledge the great contributions you make in your life. I do not like the idea that people can be very good at telling when someone else is feeling distress, and when someone else is having a bad day, or who is doing a good job of trying to pull one over on the world. I am convinced that most people do not know how to be gracious and welcoming to another person, and are not adept at sensing when someone else needs help. The most common reaction to this lack of wisdom is to say, "Well, that's just the way the world is." But the truth is that we are not born knowing how to do that, or even how to respond. We have to learn how to do that. Another reason for writing about water is that I believe that social psychology ought to recognize the power of metaphors and symbols. In doing so, I hope to draw attention to the nature of symbolism in the language and the rhetoric we use in social psychology. To not understand this process is to misunderstand not only what is said but the nature of social processes. How people think about things (and not just about things) will tell them something about how they behave. How people behave will tell them something about what they think. What Is "Real" and What Is "True"? If we want to understand the world, it helps to understand what makes the world what it is. If we want to have any hope of understanding the world, or even how to change it, we first need to understand what makes the world that way—and then have the wisdom to change what is wrong. This, it seems to me, is one of the fundamental insights that drives the search for understanding. And, in a sense, that brings us back to the metaphor of "plants," and how they are affected by how they are treated. The idea of water and its effects on plants is much like the idea of human nature in the social sciences. I was struck by the use of water metaphors in understanding and describing human behavior. Water in many cases is not just water, but is the manifestation of deeper concepts. It is not just "water," but something more: an idea, a symbol. A metaphor. When we use a metaphor to describe things, it does not just say something about those things. It is possible that it changes what those things "are." And this happens not only in the abstract. If we talk about "people" who have "thirst," it means something different than the "water" in an abstract sense—that is, "people" is a more specific term. Similarly, saying that someone has "love" in their heart, or is acting as a "sheep," or wants something "badly," or is a "thirsty" person—all these terms are not just words for "love." They are different ways of looking at the world, different ways of understanding the world, and ways of seeing other people. To use metaphor, and even to have a metaphor that is real for you—that is, that you have adopted as your own and use it without ever realizing you are using it as a metaphor—is to think and act differently. And it makes a difference. It changes the way you think about the world—and the world changes as a result. I have had this conversation, over and over, with many people. They are excited about their work, excited about science and ideas—but they ask why science is so important. If the world is how we perceive it to be, or if the world is how we "want" it to be, then what is so important about changing the world, as they see it? "Because it changes how we think." "What does?" "Metaphor." "Oh, I see." Science is important because it shows us how to change the world, but that isn't always easy. We have to go down and look at the world in another way. And then we have to actually do things—change the world—to try and see what we can learn and what can be changed. "But isn't that kind of like magic? Can you really change the world?" "Well, no." Science is a tool. It is a means of understanding the world and of changing the world. And it doesn't just make the change happen—it makes us change the way we think, the way we act. It is a tool of transformation, and our world is changed when we understand how to change it. And we are changed when we have to do that. When we look at the world, we are changed by that view. Understanding the world changes the world, and it also changes the way we view ourselves. I think we need metaphors in the world in order to understand the world. They are part of the language of how we understand things. Metaphors—and rhetoric and symbolic images in general—are not random, but they have a deep importance in the way we understand the world. If it is not just "water," but "plant," it changes not only what water is, but how the plant acts. It changes the world. It shows us the world as a place where everything happens because of the presence of water. It reminds us of how the plant grows, and it shows how water helps the plant grow—and also that there are bad things that happen in a plant's life as a result of a lack of water. A metaphor can have a deep influence on us, and change the way we think and do things. It may not be that much different than "magic." I don't mean to suggest that all metaphors in social psychology are "magic"—or even that the metaphor "we have to grow together" is actually "magic." There are better and worse metaphors, there are better and worse reasons for using metaphors, and there are better and worse metaphors at different times. And there are worse metaphors than "water" for describing how human beings deal with problems, human beings deal with each other, or the things that happen to them in life. I know that there are people who reject the idea that metaphors can change the world. They believe that it is silly to claim that a metaphor—or any idea, for that matter—has any effect on the world. The claim is that "all the water in the world wouldn't fill a drop to drop of water in the Grand Canyon." The truth is that "all the water in the world" is less than a drop in the Grand Canyon. The "water" in the metaphor is all the water there ever has been, is, or will