A Metaphor Theory of Airmindedness

"The language Airmen use to understand war, society, and man's place in them reflect how Airmen think about reality. Successive generations of Airmen have evolved a worldview termed "airmindedness." Airmindedness reflects individual and group understanding built over decades through the interplay and competition between ideas. Concepts, theories, and strategies are the key ideas that reflect the Airman's basic assumptions, and Airmen use literal and figurative language to form and communicate them. This paper addresses the cognitive origins of airmindedness and attempts to fill a gap in the literature on airpower theory and strategy by arguing that airmindedness is largely a result of metaphorical thinking. It proposes and tests a theory that explains airmindedness as a resultant of a objective and subjective metaphor patterns that are the basis for airpower concepts, theories, and strategies. It argues that metaphor patterns both structure and reflect airmindedness, and that fills has serious implications for education, strategy, and action. The paper argues that airmindedness is more than a cultural or historical curiosity that Airmen must recognize the power of metaphors and that they must understand and use metaphor more strategically."--Abstract.