For the love of metaphor
The literary device is a built-in, compact way to tell a story. Which is what you should be going for in the public arena.
Certain arguments stick in people's minds. That stickiness is often not due to data. It’s often not the facts. It’s almost always the image — the vivid, unexpected comparison that makes an abstract idea feel real and memorable.
Communicators — especially in science, medicine, and public policy — chronically underuse the metaphor. They lead with evidence and expect persuasion to follow. But the psychology of communication doesn’t work that way. The human brain is wired for stories.
Former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse
Or look at the newly elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, who did a lot of things in his inaugural speech on Jan. 1.
A key point he got across was the need for unity and used food to paint a picture. Lines from his speech:
- “neighbors who carry a plate of food to the elderly…”
- “those who feed us biryani and beef patties, picanha and pastrami on rye.”
- “cooks wielding a thousand spices”
- New York as the city where he “ate powdered doughnuts…devoured too-big slices at Koronet…and [grew] up eating bagels and lox every Sunday.”
Food references indicated he would be mayor of all New Yorkers, even if they didn’t vote for him.
The art part of political conversation
The disciplines most in need of this skill — science, public health, policy, sometimes law — can be the ones most resistant to it. The well-trained expert mind is taught to argue from evidence. The scientific method. More data, more proof, more qualifications.
But if education, persuasion, or activation is your goal, the metaphor is a memorable storytelling device that achieves the communicator’s triangle: be simple, connect with a distracted audience, and strum an emotional chord.