It’s Just Like an Analogy

It occurs to me that in my last post, It’s Not Always What You Say, I broke a cardinal rule. It’s pointless to tell people what they should do, if they don’t know how to go about it. So let’s talk about how we can communicate our message without stating it explicitly.

One way is the method that I used in the speech about misleading history text books. Analogies allow you to make your case implicitly, without raising the audience’s collective hackles by pointing directly at an uncomfortable issue.

It’s rarely productive to address an issue as inflammatory as racism directly, particularly for a middle-aged, white guy. Yet living as a visible minority in a very foreign culture for nearly twenty years has taught me a lot about the subtly corrosive effects of both overt and covert racism.

If I were to speak of my own experiences in Japan to an all-white audience in America, I don’t think it would be much of a stretch for them to apply the same insights to their own attitudes about those of other races, even if I never make that point directly.

You can also use analogy to frame an issue explicitly, yet indirectly. In a government budget debate, you could use describe the issue of government debt as similar to the way rising interest payments on credit card debt puts pressure on a household budget. As more and more income has to be diverted to service credit card payments, there is less and less to spend on piano lessons and dinners out.

You could make specific points about the inevitable end result of such profligate borrowing, without calling out your political opponents by name or pointing to specific programs as wasteful.

Relating the arcane details of a budget debate to a household budget also allows you to both personalize the issue, as everyone can identify with personal finances, and to make it more concrete

Of course, there are times when you need to name names and point fingers. If that is what is called for, then by all means, fire away. But often, you’ll get more cooperation and be more effective in reaching your goals, if you let the audience extrapolate the point from an analogy.