Bad Analogy Blues

The New Republic rightly points out a bad analogy from Pope Francis on the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and insulting someone’s mother. All analogies will breakdown, but when they breakdown at first glance, you know you have a particularly bad analogy. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons invariably claim to use their insults to make some larger point: “not to insult religious people…but to bring attention to the harmful effects of faith.” By contrast, an insult to someone’s mother has no more purpose than, well, to insult someone’s mother.

Here's the story:

"On a trip to the Philippines this week, Francis, after decrying 'murder in the name of God,' carefully delimited how far magazines like Charlie Hebdoshould go: 'One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people's faith, one cannot make fun of faith.' 

Then, punching the air, he made an implicit comparison between the 'offensive' behavior of those who satirize religion and those who would insult his mother.

'If Dr. Gasbarri, a great friend, says a swear word against my mother, then a punch awaits him,' Francis said. 'It's normal, it's normal.'

Leaving aside whether the Pope is ignoring Jesus’s advice to turn the other cheek, the comparison between satirizing religion and insulting one’s mom is ludicrous. The cartoons of Charlie Hebdo, and other mockery of religion (the magazine has made fun of all faiths, including Catholicism), are meant not to insult religious people or designed only to give offense, but to bring attention to the harmful effects of faith. The magazine, for instance, often called out the Vatican for mishandling the epidemic of child rape by priests."

[TNR:1/16/2015]