If personification is only a metaphor, let us not despise metaphors - we might be one ourselves. Unfortunately we have over-identified with the metaphor and have been unable to see ourselves in perspective. The lack of such self-reflexiveness could well prove to be an important contributory factor to the current uncontrolled attitude to procreation which is at the root of many current problems. Metaphors are much used in every culture by people of every kind as vital short cuts to the communication of nuance and complexity. There is a desperate need for any such short cuts at a time when new intellectual and other insights are virtually inaccessible to most people unfamiliar with the professional jargons in which they are formulated.
Metaphors have the tremendous advantage of being grounded in what is familiar, often at a gut level.
As such, not only do they facilitate rapid comprehension, but they often suggest new dimensions to what is being conveyed through them. These unforeseen dimensions can provide subtle poetic linkages between isolated mechanistic concepts, as well as totally new insights to be explored. The natural environment, for example, gives perceptible, concrete, three-dimensional illustrations of the kinds of subtle distinctions which the mind is capable of making. They thus offer insights into the management of differences. This in fact is what has made them extremely suspect in the eyes of professional intellectuals.