B.K. Marcus's excellent article "In Defense of Referencing Hitler" nicely obliterated, in passing and by implication, the case for "Godwin's Law." As Wikipedia explains, Godwin's Law is that
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.The way this law is enforced is, I believe, anti-rational. As B.K. Marcus's article nicely concludes:
There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.
Think of a reference to Jim Crow, Hitler, Stalinism, Pol Pot – whoever or whatever is your most effective symbol of political evil – as a rhetorical shortcut to the reductio ad absurdum. The question is this: are you willing to stand by your logic when I apply it in the extreme? That is absolutely not an unfair question. If the history of the 20th century teaches us anything, it's that these extreme cases are relevant. They do happen. And they not only can be part of a rational conversation about political principles, I would argue that they should be.Furthermore, I've recently seen Godwin's law invoked in increasingly abusive and nonsensical ways. Recently, in an e-mail list argument with a liberventionist, the latter invoked Godwin's law when an antiwar libertarian used the term "neo-fascist." How absurd that now "fascist" means the same thing as "Nazi" and neither are permitted in discussion.
If I were half the sour sport as those who continually invoke Godwin's Law, I would propose this new guideline:
As an online discussion commences, the probability of someone invoking "Godwin's Law" approaches certainty. Whoever invokes this ludicrous "law" must concede his error in doing so, forfeit the argument, and walk away in shameful defeat.
