Very interesting - I think saying "that our societies are self-mutilating, pathologic systems." is a bit of an over statement but otherwise a very interesting analysis and perspective. Thank you for the pointer.

I'm currently interested in metaphor and science (I'm not a scientist), and how important metaphorical thinking, analogies etc are to scientific enterprise. Several separate articles on science and metaphor I have looked at lately stress that when an analogy is made or a metaphor used, the words 'as if' should always be understood to prefix the comparison. I find this quite interesting for general usages of concepts (outside science) in evryday and other specialised usages. In the case of the present clip, perhaps the phrases 'it could almost be seen as' or 'almost as if' would emphasise that a literal fact is not being stated but a way of conceiving that may be productive?

I agree, I don't think the authors are say that our society _is_ a "self-mutilating, pathologic system" but I think even the analogy is a bit of a stretch. I'd say aspects of our society's complex interaction are analogous to a "self-mutilating, pathologic system" but not society in its entirety.

I appended to my recent clip on 'metaphor and science' the fairly widely circulated warning from Norbert Wiener, "The price of metaphor is eternal vigilance". What our comments do show is how important it is to be critical of the language (specifically metaphorical language) used to express scientific models. The word 'is' is particularly slippery! Anyway, when I first strayed into 'metaphor and science' about six months ago, I was astonished how much work has been done on it in recent decades. If you get time, just google the phrase.