Analogies – analogies are great. They are a powerful teaching tool to which educators, debaters, authors, or anyone attempting to convey a basic message can turn to in an attempt to clarify their speech. Analogies can bridge intellectual jargon and put a complicated idea in layman’s terms. In neuroscience, for example, instead of talking about the intricacies of the brain’s development of neural pathways when one performs a particular activity over and over again, one might describe it as crossing a wheat field using the same path repeatedly. After crossing the wheat field enough times, a path will begin to appear through the wheat field which can then be more easily traversed. That’s how practicing an activity works in our brain: particular neural pathways become more developed the more we harness them.
These days, however, the analogy as an instructive tool is threatened. “That sounds ridiculous,” you say. Well, it does, I agree. But the media, the PC-police, and the university campus environment have declared war on the analogy. Instead of allowing an analogy to convey a basic principle, these insidious, totalitarian anti-analogists now interpret analogies to be synonymous with “comparing” one thing to another. In our example above, a neural pathway thus becomes just like a wheat field. “But that doesn’t make sense,” you say, and you are correct. But these enemies of free speech are not interested in common sense. They care about their agenda. How does this manifest itself using real examples? Let us take the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), for instance. In an attempt to explain to critics that it should be a Christian baker’s personal right to refuse to cater a gay wedding, he/she might argue: would you force an African-American to cater a KKK rally? Sensible people would be able to discern the basic message here, which is that individuals who operate their own private businesses should not be forced to be complicit in the propagation of a message that they find morally objectionable. The media and the PC-police, however, will simply interpret such a logical and well-reasoned defense as follows: “Christian baker compares LGBT community to the KKK.” Another example comes from Dr. Ben Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon and lover of analogies. When speaking to the danger of losing our sense of purpose and our patriotic passion as a nation, he contrasted the United States with ISIS. He contended that what makes ISIS dangerous is that they are so passionate about their evil cause that they are willing to die for it. To reinforce his point about the power of passion, patriotism, and a sense of purpose, Carson then referenced our Founding Fathers, who also had that same sort of passion; they, too, were willing to die for what they believed in, and that is why they succeeded in winning their independence. Instead of understanding Carson’s analogy about the importance of a fiery, passionate patriotism and a profound sense of purpose, however, PC-obsessed critics and ignorant haters of analogies simply accused Carson of “favorably comparing ISIS to our Founding Fathers.” If you treasure the use of analogies as a communicative tool, I implore you: don’t be silenced by the simple-minded PC-crowd that routinely lacks the discernment to recognize the fundamental principle to which an analogy points. Speak loudly and resolutely. Bullying you into silence is what they want; don’t let them win, save the analogy.
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AuthorChristopher is a student in the Ph.D. program in History at the University of North Carolina. He enjoys following sports, going to church on Sundays, and discussing contemporary issues in American society. Archives
Mai 2015
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