hlwiley asked me in a recent comment whether I thought were any useful analogies to be made in the -isms spaces. I responded that while I thought in general, analogies are really sticky and tricky and dangerous things, I would think about it and get back to it.

Here’s my attempt at starting the conversation.

Let’s posit that it’s very tricky to do a comparison/analogy from one group’s experience of social/economic/political inequality to another’s, just as it’s really tricky to do a comparison/analogy from one civil rights fight to another. The field is fraught with turf wars started by someone making what they thought was a good argument that devolved into a flamefest not about the original point but about the rhetoric that person chose to use.

Start there, and also start with my preceding comments about the privilege and entitlement to safety.

Given that I think the field of rhetoric/expression is terribly fraught and you’re likely to take some hard lumps even thinking about trying it, here’s what I think might work, and what it’s worth to consider when designing this sort of argument. When, indeed, if ever, is it useful to make any analogy at all between one group and another or one fight or another? How do you go about doing it in order to have the discussion go positively? What should you consider?

Again, this represents my best attempt at starting the conversation and trying to give helpful guidelines. Like my overall remarks about safety, I cannot guarantee that any of these will work or give you a safe haven should you try it.

Immense props also go to H, who talked very sanely with me this evening as with all other times I’ve spoken with her about this sort of thing.

• Overarching guideline: Exercise careful respect
  Flippancy is right out, but also be sure that you examine your rhetorical gambit from as many angles as you have available. Do your homework, pay your respects, be sure you lay the groundwork for your argument. Be as serious and respectful as you can be. Assume that your publishing audience/venue is the scariest and most powerful witch you have ever had the honor of addressing. Be sure you know and display that you know your place in the dialogue.
• Preparation: Define your context carefully
  As part of avoiding flippancy, it’s important that you lay the groundwork to minimize misinterpretation not only of your overall rhetorical goal but also of your motivations and of your phrasing. I won’t say that this will guarantee you absolute safety, but it is part of your duty to the topic and to the risks associated with your rhetorical gambit.
• Preparation: Display humility
  Another part of exercising respect is displaying humility. You are not, in this space, any kind of authority. In fact, it could be argued that in taking the risk of using this rhetorical gambit, you are utilizing a very unsafe method to get your way and you should pay for it up front by displaying appropriate humility.
• Preparation: Do your homework
  Do as much homework as you can to not only be able to prepare your context and to rightly display humility, but also because it’s your duty to be as careful and comprehensive about this subject as possible, for both groups/movements you are comparing or analogizing. Doing proper homework will help you forestall your own social gaffes. It may also help you facilitate any kind of interaction between your two groups that your gambit initiates. It is part of your duty in assuming the responsibility of using the gambit to make as sure as you can be to minimize drama and have the analogy be useful to all the consumers of your prose.
• Guideline: Do your level best to avoid rudeness or tactlessness
  Again, homework will help you here, so will common sense, a solid ability to be self-critical, and a good sense for trouble and avoiding it. Given that you are already here in the risky land of the troublesome rhetorical gambit, you have already thrown some caution to the winds, but I am forced to assume you have a good head on your shoulders and that you can be sensible.
  If/when a person represented by one of the groups you have used as a rhetorical tool calls you out, your best hope to salvaging your pride may be humility. I recommend lots of humility, some apology, and a refusal to trade flamebait or barbs.
• Guideline: Do not steal thunder or dilute power
  In my example below about the person who compared carrying concealed firearms in airports to being black in airports, one of the many essential problems with this analogy is that taking the relatively trivial and relatively personal topic of carrying concealed firearms in airports (narrow in both situational scope and in overall usefulness except in the unlikely event of a violent revolution carried out by  airport furniture) and comparing it to the relatively large-scale and long-fought civil rights issue of trying to avoid being hassled and oppressed for your skin color and cultural expression in any number of ways is, honestly, a dilution and dismissal of the sheer gulf of experience.
  This kind of very problematic comparison is at best a disrespectful and flippant dilution of power for the black civil rights movement and is NOT OKAY.
  Do what you can to avoid this sort of comparison when you craft yours.
• Guideline: Be responsible for/to different interpretations of your argument
  Regardless of how much time, energy and thought you put into your analogy, there will always be someone who doesn’t like it. That person may tell you they don’t like it, and their narration may reveal what seems to you to be a fundamental misunderstanding of your argument. If it evolves that you cannot politely disabuse your reader of that notion, too bad. You started the conversation, and you are responsible for its readings, even by folks who cannot be reasoned with.
  Do what you can to ethically disengage if you think folks are being unreasonable, but do not shout this person down, and do not be unduly upset that you were misunderstood. It happens. Deal.
• Guideline: Compare like kinds of disadvantage/exploitation
  It may be okay to talk about different groups experiencing similar kinds of exploitation or disadvantage. There may be profit in comparing and contrasting exploitation of Black and Asian and other workers on the Transcontinental Railroad, and then again there may be parts that are tactless to compare or contrast.
  For another example, there might be usefulness in comparing similar experiences of sexually exploited women and children. And again, there may be subjects there that are rude or tactless to bring up.
  To take an example from today’s dialogues, it is not appropriate to frame a conversation about carrying concealed firearms in airports to being black black in airports. These are two so very different issues that it is not useful to go there - the amount of flak you generate will far outweigh any useful discussion about your point.
• Warning: Be prepared for people to misread and/or misunderstand you
  Like the guideline above where I say you are responsible for misreadings and misunderstandings, this will very likely happen. Be prepared to deal with these responses ethically and fairly. Do not make these interactions all about you or about justice or injustice. They just are. As you go on in life you may be able to use these kinds of feedback as useful indicators of whether you’ve made a useful point with your rhetoric, but you will very likely never be rid of them.
• Warning: Be prepared to take your lumps
  I talked about safety in a prior blog entry. This is a risky business. I’ve warned you multiple times. Going on with it means you assume the risk. Take it like a responsible adult.

Tags:   activism · analogies · comparisons · entitlement · guidelines · isms · privilege · safetyNo Comments