On the other hand, using such “toxic” comparisons is valuable because due to their very toxicity, everyone believes the same thing about them. You can’t argue “but on those grounds, slurping your soup would be permissible”—after all, some people do think that slurping your soup is permissible, so on those people, the analogy would fail, and some other people have no opinion on soup-slurping and will insist that you prove that it’s not permissible before they’ll accept it in an analogy. Godwin’s Law, which is a variation on this, has a similar problem: often a Hitler comparison is the best kind of comparison to make because everyone agrees about Hitler.
Indeed. Which is why I like having discussions with people who follow the same ruleset as me and engages with metaphors in that pure, stripped-down way. It saves a hell of a lot of time. But there are lots of things that save time in communication that do not make for good communication in general.
On the other hand, using such “toxic” comparisons is valuable because due to their very toxicity, everyone believes the same thing about them. You can’t argue “but on those grounds, slurping your soup would be permissible”—after all, some people do think that slurping your soup is permissible, so on those people, the analogy would fail, and some other people have no opinion on soup-slurping and will insist that you prove that it’s not permissible before they’ll accept it in an analogy. Godwin’s Law, which is a variation on this, has a similar problem: often a Hitler comparison is the best kind of comparison to make because everyone agrees about Hitler.
Indeed. Which is why I like having discussions with people who follow the same ruleset as me and engages with metaphors in that pure, stripped-down way. It saves a hell of a lot of time. But there are lots of things that save time in communication that do not make for good communication in general.