A Good Analogy Can Explain Someone’s Point of View in a Persuasive Way — a Clever Metaphor about the Debt Crisis from Robert Reich

© 2011 Peter Free

 

08 August 2011

 

 

Creating understandable analogies is often essential in effective communication

 

Here’s a clever one from Robert Reich:

 

Imagine your house is burning. You call the fire department but your call isn’t answered because every fire fighter in town is debating whether there will be enough water to fight fires over the next ten years, even though water is plentiful right now. (Yes, there’s a long-term problem.)

 

One faction won’t even allow the fire trucks out of the garage unless everyone agrees to cut water use. An agency that rates fire departments has just issued a downgrade, causing everyone to hoard water.

 

While all this squabbling continues, your house burns to the ground and the fire has now spread to your neighbors’ homes.

 

But because everyone is preoccupied with the wrong question (the long-term water supply) and the wrong solution (saving water now), there’s no response.

 

In the end, the town comes up with a plan for the water supply over the next decade, but it’s irrelevant because the whole town has been turned to ashes.

 

Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but you get the point. The American economy is on the verge of another recession. Most Americans haven’t even emerged from the last one.

 

But the government won’t come to the rescue by spending more and cutting most peoples’ taxes because it’s obsessed by a so-called “debt crisis” based on budget projections over the next ten years.

 

© 2011 Robert Reich, Slouching toward a double-dip, for no good reason, Salon (08 August 2011) (paragraphs split)

 

 

He made us consider for a moment, didn’t he?

 

That’s the point about analogies.  Believable ones direct our minds to core issues.

 

 

Most of us recognize our priorities, when a good metaphor moves obscuring babble aside enough to see them.

 

 

Whatever we might think of former Secretary Reich’s position on debt and economic stimulus, we have to credit him with an effective way of making his point.