Kinbote's Law, again

[womzilla]

Some time ago, supergee made a reference to a famous law of literary criticism which he had just made up: Kinbote's Law, which says that with sufficient effort and ingenuity, any narrative can be found hiding within another narrative. (The law is named after the enigmatic character at the core of Nabokov's Pale Fire.)

I soon realized that Kibote's Law can be applied to the study of history: With sufficient effort (and enough elision of detail), any historical or current situation can be made to resemble any other. One of the best demonstrations of this was given by Jim Henley back in January 2003, on the eve of the War On Iraq:

Warblogger Mad Libs--In every article referring to "appeasement," the allies, and Hitler, substitute "Austria-Hungary" for the allies and "Serbia" for Hitler. Change "WWII" to "WWI." Laugh till the pee warms your calves.

I was brought to mind of this today by an amusing analogy from Gene Lyons, brought to my attention by Avedon:

Since everybody’s so fond of World War II analogies, here’s mine: Iraq is Dunkirk. If we want to win the greater war, we need to pull out ASAP. We’re overextended, overexposed and surrounded. The U.S. never sent enough troops to begin with and reinforcements aren’t coming.

We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the flypaper....

Comments

Iraq as Dunkirk

[(Anonymous)]

Why not take it one step further, and say that Iraq is Dunkirk AND the Philippines, and have the American general in command depart with words along the lines of "I shall return"?

That way, when (if?) we do, maybe we'll really be greeted as liberators and a smile will fill Dick Cheney's scowling face and he'll get to say "fuckin' A" instead of "fuck you, Leahy."

Big time, too.

Good to see you posting again, womzilla.