Analogy

The analogy jackpot

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For the past few days, I’ve been staying in a horrific neighborhood at the edge of town. It’s a mess of oversized private houses, thoroughfares, cars, fast food restaurants, shopping malls, and construction.

Now I’m in Europe at the moment, so this is not identical to your typical American suburb.

But if you don’t like the suburbs where you live, and you either prefer the country or the urban center, then perhaps you will agree with me that the outskirts of town are the worst.

I bring this up because yesterday, I read an article with the title, The Growth Ponzi Scheme. It was written by a guy who is lobbying against suburbs and for something he calls “Strong Towns.”

I’m sure he’s got his own inner reasons why he doesn’t like the suburbs. But his argument in the article is that the suburbs are a typical Ponzi scheme.

They were created with the promise of economic growth.

But the cost of maintaining the suburb (roads, electrical grid, etc.) is much more than the taxes and economic growth that come out.

So the only way to maintain the illusion of growth is to dump still more money into building out the suburbs today, which will require still more money dumped in tomorrow.

In other words, it’s a typical Ponzi scheme. And all of us become suckers when this scam finally comes crashing down.

I found this argument exciting for my own personal reasons.

It felt right enough. Plus it’s such a simple and clear idea to hold in my head. And it’s new! I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Perhaps you see where I’m going with this.

Calling the suburbs a Ponzi scheme is an analogy.

If people haven’t heard an analogy before… if the details fit well enough… and if the overall feel is right… then the result is what marketer Travis Sago calls a braingasm (a breakthrough analogy in its own right).

My point is that persuading by analogy is super powerful. And it doesn’t even have to be “true.”

Yeah, I’m sure the “Strong Towns” guy did his research. I’m sure he’s got numbers to back up his analogy.

Even so, he’s cherry picking just a few details of a very complex situation for his own purposes.

Somebody else, with a different agenda, might give a different analogy instead. He might say that suburbs are like the brick house built by the smartest of the three little pigs.

He might say it’s smart to invest in solid, spacious, and yet connected infrastructure, even if its value is not yet obvious.

But when the Big Bad Wolf of the next pandemic comes knocking at the door… we will see where our friends from Straw City and Backwoods Country come running to.

Whatever. I just made that up. Perhaps you found it convincing. Perhaps not.

No worries in that case. Because that’s my takeaway for you.

Persuading by analogy is like a slot machine. It’s cheap to play a game. In fact, you can mint your own coin with just a bit of thinking.

Of course, the odds of winning any given game are small. But if you keep at it long enough, you will win. And the payout can be huge. A jackpot.

Final point:

If you want to watch me play the analogy slot machine a few more times, you can do that here.

The persuasion moral of the cock and the jewel

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Let’s start with a short story:

“A COCK, scratching for food for himself and his hens, found a precious stone and exclaimed: ‘If your owner had found thee, and not I, he would have taken thee up, and have set thee in thy first estate; but I have found thee for no purpose. I would rather have one barleycorn than all the jewels in the world.'”

If the old English puts you off, I can understand. And I’m sorry. Please don’t keep reading in that case.

If you’re still with me, what would you say is the moral of this story? Think about it, and we will get back to it in a second.

Meanwhile, let me tell you this is one of Aesop’s fables.

Aesop’s fables have been used for thousands of years to give pithy illustrations to situations we’ve all experienced but we don’t have a good and short name for. Like sour grapes. Or the boy who cried wolf. Two more of Aesop’s fables. I bet you know what those two mean.

But what about the cock and the jewel above? To start to answer that, let me first share a quote with you from a book I’m reading about analogies, written by one John Pollack, and titled Shortcut:

“The degree to which an analogy is or is not ‘accurate’ in a given circumstance is irrelevant, it is the feelings and ideas they evoke that makes them so powerful.”

Fact is, we humans love stories and analogies and fables so much that we are really not too critical about them. We accept the implied meaning and we take it for granted.

Of course, that’s good news for persuaders, influencers, and manipulators of all stripes. As one magician of persuasion, Gary Bencivenga, wrote a while ago:

“This process of transferring the qualities of one thing into another takes place instantly, bypassing critical analysis and resistance. All you do is compare A to B in an effective way and voila! your point is made instantly without disagreement.”

There’s good science behind why this is so, but I won’t go into that now, because I am so concerned with the cock and the jewel.

What does this fable really mean?

The best I can do is to point you to an article titled “The Moral of the Story.”

It was written a couple years ago by an actual poet named Anthony Madrid. If the mention of poetry scares you, as it scares me, then I want you to take a deep breath and relax. Because Anthony Madrid’s articles are all easy to read and fun, and they are mind-opening if you’re interested in language.

​​So here’s “The Moral of the Story,” which explains the moral of the “Cock and the Jewel,” or rather, the half dozen contradictory morals that have been scratched up over the centuries:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/11/21/the-moral-of-the-story/