Two types of people drive me up a wall:

• One is people who don't understand how to read or use analogies.
  
  Particularly those who think analogies are 1:1 mappings of two subjects, that every aspect of an analogy is being compared and contrasted to the subject, and fail to grasp the point the analogy is being used to showcase.
  
  And even more so people who ignore the point of an analogy to argue about irrelevancies, thus derailing the discussion and mutual listening that should be happening.


• The other is people who don't "get" metaphor.
  
  Not people who don't understand a particular metaphor, or what metaphor means, but people who don't understand how to use/experience metaphor.
  
  By example, we have a friend who watched the movie "Mirrormask" and then asked what the hell it was all about. We told him the dream was a metaphor for the girl's life and desires, and he said that was stupid, that he didn't get it.
  
  The same friend also thought the best part of the movie "Signs" was when the guy hit the alien with the baseball bat, showing no appreciation for the metaphor-writ-large involved in that film: no understanding that the movie wasn't really about an alien invasion and the family trials of an ex-preacher.
  
  That's the sort of person I'm talking about: the sort who can't understand, see, and appreciate metaphor, even if they know definitionally what metaphor is.

I could have also titled this entry "How To Read and Utilize Analogies", but I decided to be clever, instead. Also, if you have read the "Judgemental Nonsense" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" entries, there's nothing really new here with the exception of the bottom-most issue; if you haven't, those may (hopefully) prove equally enlightening regarding the points I argue here.

There is a thread on the Forge that has recently caused some flack among certain circles. By example, John Wick pops on to cite that a group of his friends are horribly offended and insulted by the contents of the thread and the comparisons made therein.

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But I hope they read this and my last LJ entry on the subject. I really do. I don't say this to be an ass. I say this because I am concerned for the human race, because I hope it helps them and affects them in a positive way.

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