IGS Discussion Forums: In the News: "There are no real analogies."
Author: Ralph E. Kenyon, Jr. (diogenes) Saturday, October 6, 2007 - 08:22 am Link to this messageView profile or send e-mail

She seems to be using the term 'analogy' modified by the term 'real' to mean something like a dependable function for prediciting. It seems to be suggesting that the (made up) analogies used by politicians to justify events have no "actual" underlying structure in "reality". This view is further supported by what immediately follows the assertion "But there are no real analogies.", namely, "Every event is specific,". That is further qualified by "subject to timing, personalities, even weather, not to mention the distortions inherent in textbooks and the passage of time.

She goes on to say, "Historical analogies ... can never show us a true picture of the present and they can never, ever show us a clear path to the future.

We could say that political anaogies are maps with very little structure similar to the territories from which they are abstracted, hence they have little predictive utility.