Godwin's Law...Should It Be Reconsidered?

[_honorentheos]

I'm sure most if not all here are familiar with Godwin's Law. That being the postulate that the longer an online discussion progresses, the closer the probability that someone will make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches 1. Depending on the board or discussion, Godwin's Law can lead to threads being closed or effectively abandoned when someone brings up a reference to Nazis. And there was good reason for this as a tool for allowing debate to occur when tossing out a Nazi or Hitler reference was intended to poison the well of discussion.

But Godwin's Law has been around a few decades now. In that time, we have moved as a global online community from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dot com bubble and collapse, 9/11, the war on terror, the resurgence of authoritarianism...and now two generations of adults or those entering adulthood (millennials and Gen Z) that have built their worldview using the internet as one of the main tools of that construction. And that same cohort of emerging adults has a very different view of authoritarianism and the need for liberal democracy than their Boomer grandparents, Gen X and Y parents, and certainly their WWII generation great-grandparents.

Nazism has become a cartoon of what it means to be evil - everyone knows it's the worst of the worst - but there seems to be little more that underlines this than the Holocaust and gas chambers. There isn't this understanding that Nazism arouse among otherwise rational people in a global environment where it wasn't immediately seen as the worst evil ever to ever be ever. In a way, it seems Nazism is seen historically as Germany's Godwin's Law violation. They screwed up because they chose to play the Nazi card.

I'd like to put forward the idea that while Godwin's Law has been a necessary tool for allowing debate to occur in the wild west of the internet, it has had the unfortunate consequence of erasing from history the legitimate comparisons between modern times and the events or circumstances that made the rise of the Third Reich possible. And that this has led to a dilution of the lessons of history that would otherwise guard against a broad population walking down those same paths because they are not familiar with the route just the ultimate destination.

While I recognize that Godwin's Law technically allows for such comparison to occur, in practice I don't think it's so neatly ordered that any attempt to make a potentially valid comparison would not be met with immediate and chilling declarations of it being a violation.

[_RockSlider]

honorentheos,

I agree with your observations. Many official religious debates will include statements from the religious supporter that Hitler was an atheist, and yet the critic notes Hitler's armies belt buckles and Hitler's relationship with the highest leaders of the Catholic Church. There is a lot of underlying history/story going on here that I'm not even clear on.

The complexities of the society at the time and as you note, how can a good/moral people be led into such evil?

Yes I assume much in potential discussion and learning is being lost here.

[_honorentheos]

I once had a conversation with a high school history teacher, a pretty sharp thinker, regarding the decisions that get made as to what to focus on during teaching history to teens. They suggested to me that maybe what I had perceived as the editing of history was just my recalling what stuck in my own mind while the teacher was covering much more material? So I asked about the organized labor conflicts of the turn of the century and why I had zero recollection of my high school class discussing striking workers being shot down, bombs being set off in protest, and all of the things that one would think an otherwise violence obsessive teenaged male who only recalls being taught about wars would remember? That being the implication as to why it seemed to me High School History focuses on teaching the wars. They said, "What?"

[_honorentheos]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/06 ... ppen-here/

This was shared by a friend on Facebook yesterday. I thought it captured much of the same sentiment.

[_Maksutov]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/06/28/hitlers-rise-it-can-happen-here/

This was shared by a friend on Facebook yesterday. I thought it captured much of the same sentiment.

I recently read They Thought They Were Free. Very disturbing. Many, perhaps most Nazi era Germans sincerely thought Adolf was great. Years after the war, even after the revelations of the Holocaust, they still thought that. If the war and its consequences couldn't convince them of their error....

[_honorentheos]

That's interesting, Mak. I've only read the article and can only go off of it's contents, but it made it sound like most people in it weren't judging their leadership and the Nazi Party beliefs based on their broad global activities or the morality of their actions so much as life was better for them under their leadership. The article hints at the use of the Treaty of Versailles as a common target the average German could agree had made their lives worse, and when Hitler spoke it resonated with them and seemed like he was speaking to them rather than at them.

Today we like to think that the threat of populism is best represented by the Ajax's of the world who were financially stable if trained to hate taxation, but whose support of leaders such as Trump are unequivocally tied to racist beliefs and Nationalism. But I've long felt the reporting beginning with the campaign through the election of Donald Trump to even today is most accurate when it paints the level of racism among Trump supporters at that of not being offended or outraged by it which certainly qualifies as a form of racism. But their support of Trump, rather than their acceptance, originates in conditions that I think are much more analogous to that of post-WWI Germans feeling the world changing, leaving them behind, and being told it wasn't their fault because they were a great people and he would help them revive that greatness. And then it seemed like the Nazi party was able to follow through on that. When your life seems to be getting better, and in economic tangible ways it was even as other less obvious conditions were worsening, it can be much easier to not care about how the President is doing his or her job. Which of our own Trump supporters on this board doesn't trot out the stock market or the bump in their paycheck after the tax reform bill as the reply to anything and everything Trump may be doing? Circumventing law and hurting families? "We didn't make them try to sneak in here illegally, and besides are you just getting tired of winning?"

[_honorentheos]

I would add, the Democrats would be ill advised to try and make the entirety of the 2018 mid-terms about the evils of Trump. The people with whom that resonates as a message are already onboard. The challenge is showing the country a better, higher alternative to the Trump promises. Trump has done what corporate raiders do. We're eating our seed stock, so to speak, by juicing the economy with increases in government spending while cutting taxes at a time the economy was stable and modestly climbing. We'll run out of seed stock to eat at some point, and suffer the consequences. But given the nature of political history and as the example of post WWII Germany shows, people are likely to only think the good times were good rather than caused by actions being taken that brought on the later consequences.

[_moksha]

I think Godwin's Law sucks. Some posters bitch if you use a descriptive word like blitzkrieg. It's like they read the description and think it applies in all situations. It takes away from some very apt descriptions and analogies. Besides, the people for whom a fascist description applies have been using equally charged language without interruption. They probably only refer to the Führer in private and in the most reverent tones.

Moderator supported posters at the MAD forum used to use to invoke Godwin all the time, yet you never heard those same people say a peep about Maxwell's or Moore's laws!

Godwin's arguments were probably over the minute he sought to be censorious and I bet Mrs. Godwin agrees.

[_subgenius]

While I recognize that Godwin's Law technically allows for such comparison to occur, in practice I don't think it's so neatly ordered that any attempt to make a potentially valid comparison would not be met with immediate and chilling declarations of it being a violation.

While your attempt for exception is verbose, it nonetheless provides the very reason for Godwin's law. You are so thoroughly convinced of your truth you don't realize you have simply exhausted your limited imagination and thus must rely upon such reductions. That and your premise seems ignorant of the law itself. You act as if the law is a fallacy when it simply a measure of hyperbole...which you haveconsistently exhibited when arguing con-Trump.

hair fire in 3...2..

[_honorentheos]

While I recognize that Godwin's Law technically allows for such comparison to occur, in practice I don't think it's so neatly ordered that any attempt to make a potentially valid comparison would not be met with immediate and chilling declarations of it being a violation.

While your attempt for exception is verbose, it nonetheless provides the very reason for Godwin's law. You are so thoroughly convinced of your truth you don't realize you have simply exhausted your limited imagination and thus must rely upon such reductions. That and your premise seems ignorant of the law itself. You act as if the law is a fallacy when it simply a measure of hyperbole...which you haveconsistently exhibited when arguing con-Trump.

hair fire in 3...2..

You failed to actually address a single point in the discussion and are confusing dismissing it without argument for actually making an argument. boo hoo for subbie, who doesn't want to consider he's on the wrong side of history attacking those who are concerned with Trump's attack on western liberal democratic values. If that is a hair fire, light me up because an assault on liberal democracy is worthy of more than just a hair fire. Your lack of concern in that regard is noted.