Ladder metaphors of degree hide the negative pole concepts require.

Evidence

This is a situation where I think they have become prisoners of the the ladder metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). If you are thinking in terms of ladders all you can do is go up or down. As I stressed in the previous chapter one must conceptualize not only the positive concept, e.g., democracy, but also its negative pole, e.g., authoritarianism. In short, my metaphorical universe also runs from left to right, from negative to positive pole, while Sartori’s runs up and down the ladder. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 545

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: “Prisoners of the Ladder” — an essay on how inherited spatial metaphors (up/down ladders, spectrums, scales) silently constrain what social scientists and pundits can even say about regime types, from “democratic backsliding” to “developing” nations.