In "Education by Poetry," one of his finest essays, Frost argued that an understanding of how poetry works is essential to the developing intellect. He went so far as to suggest that unless you are at home in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values, "you don't know how far you may expect to ride it and when it may break down with you."
If people paid more attention to the metaphors used in discourse - the world discussed in terms of a machine, for instance - they might be less taken in by grand assertions.
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