Godwin's law

Mike Godwin (2010)

Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"[2][3]—​​that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism. The first utterance of such comparison is called the Godwin point of the discussion.

Promulgated by American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990,[2] Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions.[4] It is now applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric[5][6] where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs.

In 2012, "Godwin's law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.[7]

Corollaries and usage

There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself)[3] than others.[1] For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis might have had a valid point but could by some be construed as having automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.[8] This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law.

Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies, if that was the explicit topic of conversation, because a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate, in effect committing the fallacist's fallacy, or inferring that an argument containing a fallacy must necessarily come to incorrect conclusions. Whether it applies to humorous use or references to oneself is open to interpretation, because this would not be a fallacious attack against a debate opponent.

Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.[9][10] Similar criticisms of the "law" (or "at least the distorted version which purports to prohibit all comparisons to German crimes") have been made by Glenn Greenwald.[11]

History

Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.[2]

Godwin's law does not claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust", Godwin has written.[12]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Tim Skirvin (1999–2009). "How to post about Nazis and get away with it—the Godwin's law FAQ". Skirv's Wiki. Retrieved May 7, 2006.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Godwin, Mike (October 1994). "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. Retrieved March 24, 2006.
  3. 1 2 Godwin, Mike (January 12, 1995). "Godwin's law of Nazi Analogies (and Corollaries)". EFF.org. Electronic Frontier Foundation. pp. "Net Culture – Humor" archive section. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
  4. ↑ Godwin, Mike (August 18, 1991). "Re: Nazis (was Re: Card's Article on Homosexuality". Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf-lovers. Usenet: 1991Aug18.215029.19421@eff.org.
  5. ↑ Ben Goldacre (September 16, 2010). "Pope aligns atheists with Nazis. Bizarre. Transcript here.". bengoldacre – secondary blog. Archived from the original on March 25, 2013.
  6. ↑ Stanley, Timothy (March 6, 2014). "Hillary, Putin's no Hitler". Opinion. CNN. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Godwin's law". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Retrieved February 27, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe". The Daily Telegraph (London), October 23, 2009.
  9. ↑ David Weigel, "Hands Off Hitler! It's time to repeal Godwin's Law" Reason magazine, July 14, 2005
  10. ↑ Mitt Hitler and Double Standards: Godwin's Law Applies to Thee, But Not to Me, No Pasarán, May 28, 2012
  11. ↑ Greenwald, Glenn (July 1, 2010) The odiousness of the distorted Godwin's Law, Salon.com
  12. ↑ "I Seem To Be A Verb: 18 Years of Godwin's Law". Jewcy.com. April 30, 2008. Retrieved April 16, 2010.

Further reading

External links

Look up godwin's law in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Listen to this article (info/dl)


This audio file was created from a revision of the "Godwin's law" article dated 2005-07-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)
More spoken articles

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, May 07, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.