Bad Analogies

If there's one thing that really pushes my buttons it is the use of a bad analogy. People use analogies to frame political, religious, or social relationships all the time. You hear them in songs or in speeches or sermons. And at the heart of many jokes is an analogy that is most often false. The problem is no one questions them. We laugh at the joke because "we get it". We let it slide in the sermon, giving the preacher the benefit of the doubt, saying "I know what he's trying to say." We let politicians get by with it because, after all, they never really mean what they say when they open their mouths anyway. But it DRIVES ME CRAZY that we hear such lazy mush come out of peoples' mouths and don't say anything.

For example, I heard Alan Colmes (formerly of Hannity and Colmes) say that keeping "enemy combatants" detained at Guantanamo indefinitely is the same thing we fight against in communist countries where citizens are locked up for political dissent or other causes. REALLY? SERIOUSLY? That's the same thing? These are equivalents? We are like a communist country because we capture and hold NON-citizens caught in combat AGAINST us JUST LIKE Fidel Castro imprisons political adversaries in his own country? I'm speechless (so I type!).

It really is such lazy thinking that allows this statement to stand. It's like all the possible ways you can compare Conservatives or Christians to Nazis and Muslim extremists who kill people.

Even when I hear it in a joke, it bothers me. Sorry, I can't give an example. The only one that instantly comes to mind (and has frozen my mind from thinking of another one) is inappropriate. I know it's just a joke. But there is something about speaking truthfully (full of, or containing, truth) that a poor analogy assaults. There are plenty of good jokes that point out something truthfully that don't need to rely on a cheap and easy analogy to get a laugh. Maybe that's why sarcasm or witty humor is so attractive to me - it's intelligent and honest.

And maybe more than truth, just a sharp mind and an honest articulation of a point is valued in my eyes. A good play on words (or even a pun) is just as praise-worthy as a revealing comparison. Let's stop being weak-minded. But even more, let's stop accepting others weak-minded statements.