Kathleen Parker November 19, 2013

Meet Simile and Sui Generis.

Simile, to refresh memories, is a favorite rhetorical device ofwriters that compares two essentially unlike things that nonethelesshave similar characteristics: The quarterback was like a locomotive.

Sui generis, the Latin phrase meaning unique or one of a kind, is a helpful restraint upon the former. Some things, even if they share certain characteristics, shouldn’t be compared. Sui generisis the braking system on a rhetorical locomotive, or at least it shouldbe. That was a metaphor, by the way, and not a very good one.

Wein the news business could stand to apply the brakes to our runawayimpulse to “similize.” I personally love a good simile, which can inject levity into a column. But lately we’ve seen instances of simile-itisthat might have saved readers and viewers some angst, even if writersand pundits were left with less to say. (Let’s go light on the airhorns, please.)

In the past several days, we’ve heard news people and others compare Obamacare to Hurricane Katrina and Iraq. Sarah Palin compared our national debt to slavery. Countless times in recent years we’ve seen “Nazi” applied to peoplewith whose policies or politics we disagree, none so frequently as George W. Bush, though President Obama, too, has had a few turns.

All of the above are clearly sui generis and should be retired from anyfuture similes unless they are referring to truly like things, not just a single person’s impression of the world while musing on current events. Katrina is like Sandy because they were both natural disasters, thoughsignificantly more people died in Katrina than in Sandy. Iraq is suigeneris and nothing like Vietnam, to which it was sometimes compared.

Nazis and the Holocaust shouldn’t be compared to anything else. Thesystematic, state-sponsored extermination of 6 million Jews, as well asothers, is sufficiently horrific to stand alone. Pro-lifers whosometimes characterize abortion as a Holocaust are probably not helping the cause of revelation.

Finally, slavery merits its own place in America’s memory. To compare it toanything else, especially something as mundane as debt, is wrong on itsface. Indentured servitude to China might have been a better choice forPalin, who qualified her remark with, “This isn’t racist, but. . . .”

Note: Whenever you start a sentence with “This isn’t racist, but . . . ,” you probably shouldn’t finish it.

In Palin’s defense, she obviously meant no offense, and the attacks inresponse have been so vicious that the attacks themselves are beyondcomparison. One in particular was so awful that I won’t repeat it. Just as Palin didn’t deserve such an onslaught, people reading this column in good faith don’t deserve to have suchwretched thoughts imposed on their psyches.

These recent examples of similes gone awry raise twoquestions: What is the impulse that drives our need to make suchcomparisons? And why do we react so viscerally when we do?

Theimpulse is usually to elucidate, i.e., this is as bad as that. But it is also partly lazy. Do we really have so little imagination that all wecan do is summon Katrina every time an administration fails to meet our expectations? Or Hitlerto denote our impression of bad? Surely it is a rhetorical crime to turn someone so evil into a cliche.

From a purely politicalperspective, the impulse may be driven by the desire to remind people of the past transgressions of political foes. Thus, when commentators sayObamacare is like Katrina, the mind flits from Barack Obama to George W. Bush and only thedifferences, rather than the single similarity of administrativeincompetence, register: People died in Katrina and President Obama only wants to help people. Through subliminal jujitsu, the real comparison lands in the community psyche.

Conversely, as Salon political writer Brian Beutler suggested during a recentconversation, even Republicans may see benefits to this comparison inthat it neutralizes the ongoing, negative liability of Katrina for theGOP. But then the cycle continues into absurdity. If Obamacare collapses and Republicans present Americans with Ryancare, we likely can expectDemocrats to characterize every glitch as the GOP’s Katrina II.

To the most important point, comparing a horrific tragedy or atrocity to any other thing else trivializes and diminishes it. By trying to capture,quantify and categorize others’ suffering, we trespass on the sacred.

Some things are like nothing else — and should be left to rest in peace.

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