It Is Not That Thing
From Zanecorpwiki
Equating things is by far[notes 1] rhetorical device. It's also the easiest device to miss.
The power and the trap of the device is that we often take such equations to be both total and exclusive. "A true equality."
Take the common rhetorical device on hears in politics of equating a bill or policy with a "failed ideology". For example, actors attacking to the right will often equate a disliked policy to Fascism. Actors attacking to the left might use Communism.
The truth is that any policy probably has shares something with any major political ideology, if for no other reason than they all share a great many characteristics themselves. This is readily apparent in nothing so much as the felicity with which commentators will levy charges that something is equivalent to both Socialism and Fascism. The criteria is so loose that essentially no combination of X and Y are deemed to be un-credible.
In many cases, one is at best a set of similarities. In many cases, the "more forceful" equation is actually the most tenuous. Is Obamacare / Affordable Care Act really Socialism? Hardly. Even saying it's "more" Socialist and "less" Capitalist is an impossible question unless we define the point of observation. This non-preservation of proportion proves that policy space is non-regular between observers. Most American would probably say it's a Socialist bill, but I would give good odds that the the majority of Europeans would still view US policy towards healthcare as something just shy of radically anti-Socialist.
This is a very lazy device.
And we really should be on the look out for equating things to Nazis. Not just Godwin's rule, but unless you're talking about Stalin's purges or another honest to God mass atrocity, just stay away. Gently but firmly correct others.[notes 2] when they violate this rule.[notes 3]
Notes
- ↑ This is an experiential claim. I have no study or data comparing "equating things" with other rhetorical devices. I find it hard to imagine that any other rhetorical device given any reasonable (always a debatable term) operative definition could outmatch "A is B" for sheer volume of occurrence.
- ↑ Break out of the current discussion. Don't make the correction part of an argument or chide. Really, just point out what they're saying and recall to mind for a moment just how bad the Nazis are, and 99.9% of the time, the other person is going to say, "You're right. They're not Nazis."
- ↑ I'm guilty of it myself and I've only ever corrected anyone once... right after visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC. I think it turned out to be a good experience because it reminded both of us that things were not really that bad and that it's really nice that we can live in a world where our moral challenges revolve around a few points on marginal tax rates.
