PROTEST AGAINST HIERARCHICAL METAPHORS

Event Title: “Dismantling the Ladder: A Rally for Horizontal Imaginaries”

Location: University Lawn, under the old oak tree (re-designated as a non-verbal knowledge elder)

Organised by:

• The Metaphoric Equity Collective (MEC)

• Students for Spatial Justice

• The Anti-Striving Caucus
  Guest Sponsor: IKEA (who offered to donate flat-pack metaphors “free from verticality”)

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PROTEST MOTTO:

“NO MORE CLIMBING. ONLY VIBING.”

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SPEAKER: VEL (they/them)

3rd-year student in Post-Linguistic Consciousness

Today, we gather to name and resist the tyranny of metaphorical hierarchy.

“Climb the corporate ladder.”

“Rise to the top.”

“Be at the peak of your career.”

These phrases don’t just describe oppression—they naturalise it. They tell us that value is vertical, that worth is elevation, and that meaning must be stacked like overpriced duplexes.

But what if success was not a peak—but a pond? What if we didn’t climb, but ripple?

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SLIDE: HIERARCHICAL METAPHORS & PROPOSED ALTERNATIVES

Oppressive Metaphor	Liberation-Aligned Alternative
“Climbing the ladder”	“Extending the blanket”
“Top of the field”	“Deep in the compost”
“Bottom of the class”	“Differently situated in the spiral”
“Level up”	“Unfold softly”
“Rise through the ranks”	“Glide across the mushroom network of trust”
“Falling behind”	“Detouring on one’s own narrative axis”

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PERFORMANCE PIECE: “STEP OFF THE LADDER”

Choreographed by the Department of Embodied Protest

Five students dressed as various rungs of a ladder slowly disassemble themselves and lie flat, forming a non-hierarchical cuddle pile. A sixth student throws a rope in front of them and chants:

“We will not ascend!

We refuse the narrow steps!

Our goals are radial!”

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SPEAKER: PROFESSOR NYLA THREAD (she/they)

Visiting Chair of Anarcho-Semantics

Let us remember: when you say “work your way up,” you’re also saying “someone else must stay down.”

Language builds our world. If we want equity, we must abolish stairs.

Our proposal is not to replace oppressive metaphors with better ones—it is to deconstruct metaphor altogether. To live metaphor-free. Raw. Untethered. Described only in consensual sensory impressions.

(Pause for collective breath.)

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PETITION DEMANDS:

1. Ban all syllabi that contain vertical metaphors without footnotes.

2. Require trigger warnings for expressions like “career ladder,” “reaching new heights,” or “low achievers.”

3. Replace all grading scales with emotionally resonant colour palettes (e.g. “warm ochre” instead of “B+”).

4. Appoint a Spatial Equity Consultant to review university signage (e.g., rebranding “Top Floor” as “Sky-Adjacent Learning Zone”).

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RALLY ENDS WITH THE SHREDDING OF AN ACTUAL LADDER

It is ceremonially disassembled and redistributed as:

• A picnic bench

• A communal footstool (reclaimed literal hierarchy)

• A mobile zine rack

ASHLEIGH (she/her) (tearing up)

My uncle climbed a ladder once. He became a manager and forgot who he was.

JORDAN (he/they)

I used to say “I’m moving up in the world.” Now I say, “I’m dissolving into the communal slime of shared becoming.”