The Laura Schlessinger controversy has gotten me thinking about analogies. I find that when I try to make my views clear, especially to someone I disagree with, analogies come in handy.

For example, here's the opening to Schlessinger's recent radio conversation:

SCHLESSINGER: Jade, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Laura.

SCHLESSINGER: Hi.

CALLER: I'm having an issue with my husband where I'm starting to grow very resentful of him. I'm black, and he's white. We've been around some of his friends and family members who start making racist comments as if I'm not there or if I'm not black. And my husband ignores those comments, and it hurts my feelings. And he acts like --

SCHLESSINGER: Well, can you give me an example of a racist comment? 'Cause sometimes people are hypersensitive. So tell me what's -- give me two good examples of racist comments.

It seemed to me that Schlessinger began in a confrontational tone. A friend disagreed, so I offered this  analogous conversation: 

CALLER: Hi, Dr. L.

L: Hi.

CALLER: I'm having an issue at work, with my male boss. I've been around when he's started making sexist comments as if I'm not there or if I'm not a woman--

L: Well, can you give me an example of a sexist comment? 'Cause sometimes people are hypersensitive. Give me two good examples of sexist comments.

I wouldn't expect helpful insights or advice after this. Similarly, when my friend later said, "Schlessinger wasn't calling anyone a 'nigger' when she used the word," I imagined her having said this:

Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker. I don't get it. If anybody without enough melanin calls a black person a motherfucker, it's a horrible thing; but when black people say it to each other, it's sometimes affectionate. It's very confusing.

Does the analogy make it less confusing? Perhaps. I might add that one of my friends regularly pops his head in my office and opens a conversation with a cheery, "Hey, motherfucker!" My analogy doesn't get at the historical use of an insult, but it suggests that subtle social issues may be at play, and that in-group/out-group distinctions are relevant.

Analogies help make a particular perspective vivid, but they're not always useful in an argument. Let's take a different controversy, about the Park51 project, which some describe as the Ground Zero Mosque. Newt Gingrich says,

Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.

One equivalence Newt draws is between Nazis and Muslims. It's easy to dismiss this analogy: Muslims aren't Nazis. Analogies along these lines can also backfire. For example, you can find arguments against Park51, saying that it would be the equivalent of an American cultural center based in Hiroshima. It happens that Time magazine has its archives online, going back as far as 1957:

Not long after Iranian-born Fazl Fotouhi, 46, took over as director of the American Cultural Center in Hiroshima, Japan...

"Not long after" was 1954, coincidentally just nine years after the deaths of thousands. If, as some argue (such as the Anti-Defamation League), that causing victims more pain is simply wrong... well, we've done it before, but presumably in good faith.

I'll end with an analogy relevant to one continuing controversy, which I've written about before: efforts to improve the U.S. health system. Sometimes you'll hear people say, "The U.S. medical system is the best in the world.  Why else would people come from all over the world to get treatment here?" I'll answer,

In the same way, the Italian automobile industry is the best in the world.  Some people go to Italy specifically to buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini; no other country's cars come close.

With apologies to Germany. I haven't made an argument, of course, but I hope I've made my point clear.