Subject: Re: source access vs dynamism
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1999/08/29
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3144940715549568@naggum.no>

* Francois-Rene Rideau
| My post are long enough that I don't feel the need to make them even
| longer by stating that obvious metaphors are such.

  do you seriously believe that I didn't see it as a metaphor?

  perhaps you don't understand what a metaphor is.  it is a rhetoric device
  to communicate _several_ levels of similarity between otherwise disjoint
  and dissimilar phenomena, and not just any similarity, but _essential_
  similarities.  you can't choose just a few similarities, and ignore the
  fact that what you compare to has other qualities and pretend they don't
  matter.  all methaphors break down at some point, because the phenomena
  are not in fact as similar as the metaphor tries to communicate that they
  are.  when a metaphor breaks down before it has had a chance to show its
  function, it is a bad metaphor.  when a metaphor is so rabidly dissimilar
  from anything reasonable associated with the other phenomenon, in this
  case the use of force and power, when the whole concept of contract and
  business is based on the premise of freedom of action and absence of
  force and power, the metaphor is no longer a metaphor, it is as good a
  rhetoric device as comparing someone's argument to something Hitler said
  -- regardless of whether he actually said it, which is no excuse at all.

  I'm reminded of the kind of people who are clearly inept at communication
  but who claim to be have been _ironic_ as soon as someone tries to take
  them seriously and struggle to understand what they try to say.

  there is no doubt that you consider vendors an evil force that cannot be
  controlled except by the means required to oust "almighty rulers": guns.
  that may be true for you, since you obviously can't argue your case, but
  it is a very strong argument for not talking to you again until and
  unless you prove that you are able to understand such differences.

#:Erik
-- 
  save the children: just say NO to sex with pro-lifers