Metaphoric use of violent words – what makes it bad?

This line of reasoning came to mind when I was at a dinner/party associated with an academic conference (sometime in 2018). Towards the end of the night, there was karayoke, and someone sitting near me, a grad student from some other university who I didn’t know, said something along the lines of ‘They’re raping that song’.

My mental processes went along the lines of “ugh, rape culture, people should use other verbs, like murder, or butcher or, slaughter, or… wait, is there a reason to be okay with metaphoric uses of words referring to some violent, horrid acts, and not others?”.

Hence my topic here: Is there a principled reason to object to ‘They’re raping that song.’ and be okay with ‘They’re murdering that song.’?

The discourse around sexual violence that I hear from people who work or think about it more than I do is that casual uses of words like rape trivialize the actual crime, and contribute to a culture that tacitly accepts sexual violence (another common usage is referring to doing poorly on a test “being raped by it”). And this culture contributes to the unacceptably high rates of sexual assault. So, use of language like this (along with other forms of problematic language and action) works to hold together the social framework that tolerates (and sometimes glorifies) sexual violence.

So, what about murder? Does using murder in metaphoric contexts support a system that tacitly accepts murder? Is there such a system? I would argue that there probably isn’t. There are certainly lots of issues with how our culture deals with violent death (ahem, lack of gun control laws, racial inequity in being victims of violent death, racial inequity in being held accountable for causing violent deaths), but I don’t think there’s much of a cultural voice denying the seriousness of murder. But there totally is a swath of vocal people denying the seriousness of rape.

So, when we use words like murder metaphorically, we and the people around us are probably pretty darn clear on that it’s a metaphoric use, and we don’t get the idea that people’s failures (or successes, i.e. “I really killed that assignment.”) are in some way commensurate with violent death.

So, that’s a potential framework. How well does it apply to other words? Well, slaughter, butcher, and massacre all also get used, synonymously with murder. It doesn’t seem that the meaning or signficance or consequences of these words are particularly at issue. One could imagine, that if people start caring more about factory farm conditions and animal cruelty, perhaps slaughter or butcher could become in poor taste (as the usage could then be read as commentary on the non-seriousness of the core meaning of the word).

What about other terms such as “gulag”, “holocaust”, or “genocide”? In general, I don’t hear these terms used lightly (much), and when I do, I feel uncomfortable. And that may well be because there are (unfortunately) discourses that deny the occurance or seriousness of these events.

The difference between metaphoric uses of rape and murder seems to be just that. The idea that murder is bad is pretty generally agreed to. (As perhaps evidenced by the fact that, when people want to discount murder, they call it something else.) So, using murder in an exaggerated way isn’t hurting anyone because there’s no “murder culture” for it to be adding to. It might not go over well with people who are close to a murder victim (I don’t have evidence either way), but there may be a strong argument that using “rape” lightly contributes to the acceptability of sexual assault, while using “murder” lightly does not contribute to the acceptability of killing.

This pattern of argument also allows us to draw a more general principle about when metaphoric uses of serious words are acceptable. It’s not okay to use lightly those that some people actual don’t think are serious, because people (both the “bad” people and the “good” people) might get confused and take your speech as supporting the view that what those words refer to isn’t serious. But murder and slaughter basically everyone can interpret correctly without getting confused and thinking that you might be implying that killing people is okay.

This whole line of reasoning is coming from a few examples, some introspection, and a conversation with one other person. I maybe be completely wrong. The real test would be evidence; how does metaphoric use of language affect the beliefs and actions of people (both speaker and hearer)? At least in some simplified models, that could be testable.