METAPHOR OR REIFICATION: ARE RADICAL HUMANISTS REALLY LIBERTARIAN ANARCHISTS?

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Abstract
Metaphors may enlighten our theoretical understanding of affairs, and they may be used to mystify and distort our view of social reality. In a recent series of papers, Gareth Morgan has proposed increasing metaphorical usage, to enrich management and organizational theory. This paper argues that Morgan's advocacy of metaphorical usage is too indiscriminate. By favouring a relativist (rather than a rationalist) theory of knowledge, he invites a proliferation of metaphorical ideology. Morgan's preference for an unbridled metaphorical usage is attributed, in part, to what Edgely (1984) describes as‘liberal dogmatism’, and also to his neglect of the social processes that generate and disseminate metaphors. The paper uses a variety of previous metaphorical contributions to management thought ‐ cybernetic, psychological, biological, systemic, mechanical, neurological ‐ to argue that, in general, metaphorical usage in organization studies has always been socially partisan, and that Gareth Morgan's proposals will intensify a mode of partisanship that is clearly at variance with his sympathies expressed elsewhere.

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