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Thinking Through Metaphors:
The Parasitic Observation

Thinking Through Metaphors:
The Parasitic Observation
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1. Thinking Through Metaphors

Everything can be observed as a parasite1: arts parasitising on the epistemes of science2, a house as an artistic intervention and political practice that gnaws on other houses and the city, a biotope in which landlords and tenants feed on each other. But these remain metaphors, tropes, non-factual descriptions that are close to analogy. In everyday life, it is difficult to identify a house not as a house and landlords and tenants not as economic subjects but as squirming worms, without attracting the attention of psychiatrists and psychologists (who in turn can be observed as feeding on such deviations).

The normal Aristotelian form of a metaphor is A = B: a noun (primary object) is denoted with another noun (secondary object). Landlords are parasites. The assertion of identity through semantic distance enriches the primary object with meaning3, but only the interaction of the two produces a residual surplus of meaning. The producers on the housing market, the landlords, become biological organisms who feed on the tenants – hedging their capital against inflation and getting their loans paid off, with their eyes wide shut for tenants’ stagnating incomes. At the same time, a reciprocal relationship is revealed. The tenants also feast, and the city, the biotope or the ecological niche does so in any case, because living space needs to be provided – real estate agents are undoubtedly the parasites par excellence here, as they add nothing to the value chain apart from linking landlords and tenants and disappear after they have extracted their commission (resources).
Presumably it is the surplus of meaning that heightens the imagination (negation potentials), captures the attention and, as a result, makes such ad hoc descriptions convincing in and of themselves.4 These opportunities for reflection, which make experience and action accessible in all their depth and richness, would be lost if what is illustrated were expressed prosaically. This is a complexity-absorbing function of metaphors that is well studied as a societal phenomenon. This is less true, however, for the nevertheless widespread use of metaphors in the domain of science, especially in sociology.

2. Sociological Metaphors and the Exploitation of Meaning

In sociology, metaphors drawing on the source domains of chemistry and biology, as well as technology, are particularly popular. Society is then an organism or body, as in the case of Emil Durkheim or Thomas Hobbes, a system (Talcott Parsons, Niklas Luhmann) or a machine, or a network. Then, depending on the chosen metaphor, different properties and functions are attested to society: the machine has cause-effect chains, is efficient and precise, each element fulfils (at least) one function; in contrast, the metaphor of the organism suggests naturalness and growth, society can be sick, its parts assimilating or competing with each other.7

Such scientific metaphors are directed at an audience and can be applied for discovery and justification, in the process of theorising about the world as a strategy of knowledge production.8 At the beginning of an analysis, in the context of discovery, they serve to focus problems, define objects, and establish discourse, and draw attention to specific (causal) relations. As extensions of understanding, they reveal implicit interpretive possibilities, and generate contexts and alternatives that reveal the ambiguity of social relations beyond the immediate facts. Within a justification, metaphors fulfil suggestive and expressive functions: as they compress and expand the meaning of statements, and thus trigger fascination, they establish chances of convincing others. They enable descriptions and explanations to appear self-evident, an information transfer that is related to the inductive method, and which, moreover, can serve in the formation of collective memory in science.9

The quality of the parasite metaphor now lies in unveiling specific questions, allowing for the exploitation of certain descriptive and explanatory potentials as well as the reflexive variation of the researcher’s own decisions in the research process.

3. A Heuristic for the Metaphor of the Parasite

The core meanings of the parasite have been hinted at already. A comprehensive conceptual history (of the metaphor) of the parasite cannot be provided here.10 We settle for the basic linguistic imagery and derive from it some indications for the heuristics of the parasite metaphor. Firstly, a parasite refers to an organism that lives in or on another species and at its expense. In addition, there are two other meanings emphasised by Michel Serres: the parasite as a guest that abuses the hospitality of the host, and an information-theoretical interpretation, in which the parasite is both cause and effect of noise, without which no information and information transmission would be possible.11

The brief heuristic of parasitic observation, which cannot deny its proximity to sociological systems theory, focuses on observing empirical cases with this metaphor and organises these possibilities of observation with a second heuristic, that of three dimensions of meaning: social, factual, and temporal.12 The social dimension of the parasite heuristic includes the identification of the parasite and the host. Who is the guest and who is the host? Everything and everyone can be observed as a parasite: material objects, actors such as landlords and tenants, but also social practices, actor constellations and social orders, such as the city, or interactions, organisations and small groups, as well as the functional systems of society. If a potential parasite and host candidate are not directly visible, one can ask about the included and/or excluded third, which establishes the relationship of the parasite and host or is established by and feeds on their relationship.13

With the social dimension and the corresponding identification of parasites and hosts, the factual dimension of the parasite metaphor now comes to light. The factual dimension is concerned with the content of the relations of exchange and exploitation. What possible courses of action do the participants have? How does the parasite irritate the host and how does it establish relationships? What resources does it extract and what resources does the host have in the first place? Landlords feed off the rental income, tenants wear out the living spaces, the city feeds off both as it would not exist without them.

The heuristic of the parasite metaphor, however, only gains analytical scope through considering its temporal dimension, which encompasses the problem of how the presence of a parasite may contribute to the formation of social order. Basically, two forms of order formation over time can be distinguished. On the one hand, the parasite may sustain the host – it is useful, an irritant that provides the system with further information and triggers structural changes that sustain it and solve problems; in short: a reciprocal relationship. Too much noise, on the other hand, can be destructive; a parasite may be harmful, eroding and hollowing out the host. With a view to the factual dimension, this raises the question of which resources contribute to preservation and which to destruction, and how. The exchange relationships between parasite and host, it seems important to note, can be variable over time. Initially damaging relationships may stabilise; the system has changed, but now maintains itself at a different level of order, the parasite becomes a host and vice versa.14 The metaphor thus also draws attention to the fact that change is constant and not an exception, and that deviations are part of every order.15 We can then ask which structures were added to cause this stability and how this happens, since noise reduction and noise amplification are mutually dependent.

In sum, the parasite metaphor suggests presumptions of causality and, more precisely, a functionalist methodology that carries the de- and recontextualisation of the phenomena under study. Manifest phenomena are explained by revealing more or less latent functional and dysfunctional relationships.16 Such analysis may at the same time obscure the metaphor, because as a biological metaphor the parasite directs the attention to survival or death. However, survival is only one type of system-level problem that the parasite may influence. Another problem in system-theoretical sociology is, for example, the problem of creating expectation certainty, for which social phenomena need to develop unique, functional solutions, which themselves are connected to functional and dysfunctional consequences. At this point, Michel Serres’ information-theoretical interpretation of the parasite can be fruitful.17 Uncertainty of expectations or incompatibility of expectations creates noise that unsettles subsequent action. Sociological systems theory introduces, among other concepts, the parasite metaphor at this point: it describes conflict as a parasite which attends to the problem by transforming noise into information.18 Conflict absorbs uncertainty of expectations, as it reduces the situation to a clear either-or and thus makes subsequent actions of the participants expectable to each other. At the same time, conflict also hollows out the system, because it drains resources by reducing the possibilities for observing each other to the binary friend/enemy scheme.19 Certainly, mutually incompatible expectations can simply be handled side by side or one after the other. This again requires structures, sufficient and necessary conditions, which differ depending on the type of social order: interactions, small groups or organisations each have their own defence structures to deal with conflicts, with irritation, to absorb and process deviations, to transform uncertainty into security, mistrust into trust, or to suppress them as noise.20

4. Pitfalls of Working with the Parasite Metaphor

Within the meaning space of physical noise, parasitic noise and interference, parasitic animal and (uninvited) guest, the parasite metaphor revives its own parasites, the researchers themselves, when they sharpen their imagination on and through it and use it as a strategy for argumentation. Metaphors alone, however, are not conclusions, nor are they to be confused with actually understanding an empirical case. Herein lies the difference between understanding something as and understanding something through something (Hans Blumenberg). As a scientific metaphor, the parasite can thus also be disturbing: it can contaminate the aspiration for terminological and epistemic clarity when it enriches observations with its diverse meanings. The destructive noise lies in the over-simplification of the empirical case, to which all metaphors tend.21 Everything (and nothing) then becomes a parasite, everything is observed as a reciprocal extraction of resources.

To this, we may counter that the parasite, the researchers, are careful with (over)using their own resources. It is advisable to work with metaphors only once the sociological problem is known, to detach oneself from the metaphors once fruitful ideas become visible through them, and to then test the revealed connections and to generalise them, that is, to test their validity in relation to many similar or dissimilar cases. 22

To avoid erroneous conclusions, it is also advisable to take the ontology of the parasite itself seriously: accordingly, the properties of empirical cases do not originate from fixed, inherent attributes but from relations between the world and the observer – they are therefore subject to observer dependence. This applies in particular to the distinctions between guest and host system, endo- or ectoparasite, and functional or dysfunctional. Furthermore, the observer‘s emancipation consists in varying the distance from which the case is observed, not so much in using the metaphor as a heuristic, but rather in letting the material speak.

References

  1. Michel Serres, Der Parasit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987).
  2. Sabine Fabo, Parasitäre Strategien — Kunst, Mode, Design, Architektur (Kunstforum Band 185 März-Juni 2007).
  3. Ivor Armstrong Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936). Max Black, Model and Metaphor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962).
  4. This happens all the time, inferential patterns are constantly ‚transferred‘ from one conceptual domain to another (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors we live by, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Every twentieth word is a metaphor (Vicky T. Lai, Olivia Howerton and Rutvik H. Desai, „Concrete processing of action metaphors: Evidence from ERP“, Brain Research 1714 (2019): 202-209). As such, metaphors ( = ) are parasites, parasites of semantic distinctions that parasitise on the (unstable) relationship between signifier and signified, creating a noise (of meanings). Everything is then infused with parasites because every part of the Lebenswelt is infused with metaphors.
  5. Susanne Lüdemann, Metaphern der Gesellschaft Studien zum soziologischen und politischen Imaginären (München: Wilhelm Fink, 2004). Matthias Junge (ed.), Metaphern und Gesellschaft. Die Bedeutung der Orientierung durch Metaphern (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2011). Matthias Junge (ed.), Metaphern soziologischer Zeitdiagnosen (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2016).
  6. Emanuel Gaziano, „Metaphors as scientific boundary work: Innovation and authority in interwar sociology and biology“, American Journal of Sociology 101, no. 4 (1996): 874–907. Teresa Sousa Fernandes, „Chemical metaphors in sociological discourse: Durkheim through the imagery of Rousseau“, Journal of Classical Sociology 8, no. 4 (2008): 447-466. Elena Beregow, Fermente des Sozialen Thermische Figuren in der Sozialtheorie (Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2021). Donald N. Levine, „The Organism Metaphor in Sociology“, Social Research 62, no. 2 (1995): 237-295. Günter Ropohl, „Die Maschinenmetapher“, Technikgeschichte 58, no. 1 (1991): 3-14. Dieter Bögenhold and Jörg Marschall, „Metapher, Methode, Theorie. Netzwerkforschung in der Wirtschaftssoziologie“, in Netzwerkanalyse und Netzwerktheorie. Ein neues Paradigma in den Sozialwissenschaften, ed. Christian Stegbauer (Wiesbaden: Springer VS., 2008), 387-400. Mark Erickson, „Network as metaphor“, International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory 5, no 2 (2012): 912-921.
  7. Richard Swedberg, „Using Metaphors in Sociology: Pitfalls and Potentials“, The American Sociologist 51, no 2 (2020) : 245ff., Howard S. Becker, Tricks of the Trade How to Think about Your Research While You’re Doing It (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 10-67. Quite trivially, a sociological metaphor can already be constructed through the form A = B and A ≠ B, for example, by attaching the adjective „social“ to a word – a „social“ structure, for example – or attaching a noun to the concept of society – such as the consumer society, the risk society or the diagnostic society (cf. Swedberg, „Using Metaphors“, 240ff.). In addition, there are sociological metaphors that denote a scientific practice, for example the „sociological eye“ (Everett Hughes), and those that have become famous, such as Max Weber’s „stahlhartes Gehäuse“ (cf. Peter Baehr, „The „Iron Cage“ and the „Shell as Hard as Steel“: Parsons, Weber, and the Stahlhartes Gehäuse Metaphor in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism“, History and Theory 40, no. 2 (2000): 153-169) or Karl Marx’s religions as „opiates of the people“ (cf. Thomas Crosbie and Jeffrey Guhin, „On the Ambivalence of the Aphorism in Sociological Theory“, Sociological Theory 37, no. 4 (2019): 381-400). Adam Smith’s „Invisible Hand“ and Herbert Spencer’s „Survival of the Fittest“ should also be mentioned. Some metaphors can also be called middle-range metaphors, in the sense that they have acquired the status of established concepts, first and foremost that of a sensitising concept (Herbert Blumer), such as „white-collar crime“, „role-set“ or „weak ties“, but also Erving Goffman’s „face-work“ (cf. Swedberg 2020, „Using Metaphors“, 244f., 251).
  8. Matthias Junge (ed.), Metaphern in Wissenskulturen (Wiesbaden: Springer VS., 2010). See Richard Swedberg, The Art of Social Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press., 2014), 80-98. Rudolf Schmitt, Systematische Metaphernanalyse als Methode der qualitativen Sozialforschung (Wiesbaden: Springer VS., 2017), Mats Alvesson and Jörgen Sandberg, Re-Imagining The Research Process Conventional & Alternative Metaphors (London: Sage, 2021).
  9. see Swedberg, „Using Metaphors“, 247.
  10. Ulrich Enzensberger, Parasiten (Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 2001), Peter Peinzger, Parasitismus als philosophisches Problem. Michel Serres Theorie der Relationen zwischen Kommunikationstheorie und Sprachkritik (Hamburg: Kovac, 2007), Andreas Musolff, „Metaphorische Parasiten und „parasitäre“ Metaphern: Semantische Wechselwirkungen zwischen politischem und naturwissenschaftlichem Vokabular“, in Metaphern der Gesellschaft. Die Bedeutung der Orientierung durch Metaphern, ed. by Matthias Junge (Wiesbaden: Springer VS. 2011), 105-120. Matthias J. Pernerstorfer, „Prolegomena zu einer Kulturgeschichte des Parasiten in der griechisch-römischen Komödie“, Zeitschrift für Literatur- und Theatersoziologie 7 (2012): 99-116. Thomas Wegmann, „Zur Metaphorologie des Parasitären“, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 59 (2012): 211-218, Heiko Stullich, „Der Parasit eine Begriffgeschichte“, Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte 2(2013): 21-39.
  11. Serres, Der Parasit, 20f., 253ff., 282ff., 313 et passim.
  12. see Michael Schmitt, „Parasitäre Strukturbildung: Einsichten aus System- und Netzwerktheorie in die Figur des Parasiten“, in Korruption als Ordnung zweiter Art ed. by Birger Priddat and Michael Schmitt (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011), 43-59. Wolfgang Ludwig Schneider, „Parasiten sozialer Systeme“, in Interaktion – Organisation – Gesellschaft revisited. Anwendungen, Erweiterungen, Alternativen ed. Bettina Heintz and Hartman Tyrell (Suttgart: Lucius & Lucius, 2015), 86-108. Wolfgang Ludwig Schneider and Isabel Kusche, „Soziale Netzwerkbildungen in Funktionssystemen der Gesellschaft. Vergleichende Perspektiven“, in Netzwerke in der funktionale differenzierten Gesellschaft ed. Michael Bommes and Veronica Tacke (Wiesbaden: Springer VS., 2011), 89-118. Felix Maximilian Bathon, „Die Dreidimensionalität sozialer Phänomene — empirische Begründungen einer sinndimensionalen Heuristik“ forthcoming in Die Praxis soziologischer Theoriebildung ed. Fabian Anicker and André Armbruster (Wiesbaden: Springer VS., 2022).
  13. see Serres, Der Parasit, 41ff., 316ff.
  14. see Schneider and Kusche, „Soziale Netzwerkbildung“, 180f., 204, Schneider, „Parasiten“, 100 et passim.
  15. see Serres, Der Parasit, 283.
  16. fundamentally Niklas Luhmann, „Funktion und Kausalität“, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 14, no. 4 (1962): 617-644. Niklas Luhmann, „Funktionale Methode und Systemtheorie“, Soziale Welt 15, no. 1 (1962): 1-25.
  17. see Serres, Der Parasit, 253ff., 282ff. et passim.
  18. see Schneider and Kusche, „Soziale Netzwerkbildung“, 204, fundamentally Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), 488-550.
  19. The production and absorption of noise and uncertainty can ultimately be differentiated according to where it takes place, i.e., where the parasite is located (see Schneider, „Parasiten“, 204f. et passim): is it internal (to the system), an endoparasite, or is it located within the context of the system and the environment, colonising the border, and can therefore be described as an ectoparasite? On the one hand, it is a case of insufficient absorption of uncertainty in the system (host), on the other hand, it is a case of demands on the system that can only be assigned via external criteria [Mir ist nicht klar ob sich „on the one hand” hier auf den ersten Fall (endo) und „on the other hand” auf den zweiten Fall (ekto) bezieht – ist das so? Wenn ja, würde ich umformulieren: „on the one hand“ => „in the first case“; „on the other“ => „in the second case“] (see Schneider, „Parasiten“, 205). Inspiring studies on intra-scientific school formation, intra-party groupings, protest movements, conflicts in interactions and networks in organisations as parasites can be found in Schneider and Kusche, „Soziale Netzwerkbildung“ and Schneider, „Parasiten“.
  20. see again Schneider, „Parasiten“.
  21. Crosbie, Guhin, „On the Ambivalence of the Aphorism“.
  22. see Swedberg, „Using Metaphors“, 243, 245ff., 250f., again exemplified by Schneider and Kusche, „Soziale Netzwerkbildung“, Schneider, „Parasiten“.