7 ms·
Sometimes a comparison to Nazis is wholly appropriate.
by JustinAiken 10y ago
Sometimes a comparison to Nazis is wholly appropriate.
- rdiddly 10y agoIt's not trying to discourage all reference to Nazis; only the sloppy, frivolous ones. It's too easy to shout "Nazi" and let the word do your work for you. But I would think a rationally supportable comparison with Nazis in any given situation would be appreciated, not to mention necessary to avoid repeating history.
- corecoder 10y agoSometimes it's hardly the majority of times, though.
- eprime 10y agoCould you give an example of an appropriate comparison?
- jackweirdy 10y agoThe growth of Fascism in pre-1930s Italy. Or perhaps Spain. Mussolini or Franco.
- tigershark 10y agoMussolini created fascism in 1919, Hitler was inspired by him and after became much more dangerous. Francisco Franco took power much later. "Fascism" etimology is from "Fasci di combattimento" the political party founded by Mussolini.
- jackweirdy 10y agoThank you for comparing Mussolini and Hitler and proving my point :)
- jobigoud 10y agoThe fact that it came before doesn't preclude it from being compared…
- maxerickson 10y agoI've seen it said that Mussolini was somewhat inspired by the US mobilization for WWI. Don't have the historical perspective to evaluate that though.
- hartpuff 10y ago> "Fascism" etimology is from "Fasci di combattimento" the political party founded by Mussolini. No it's not. It derives from the word "fasces".
- alberto_ol 10y agothe word 'fasces' does not exist in Italian. From the Italian Treccani dictionary fascismo s. m. [der. di fascio]. – Movimento politico italiano che trasse origine e nome dai Fasci di combattimento fondati nel 1919 da B. Mussolini
- hartpuff 10y ago> the word 'fasces' does not exist in Italian. The word "fascism" does not exist in Italian either. We're using English and anglicised words. The "Fasces" is a group of rods tied together with an axe, dating back to ancient Italian/Roman times, and comes from the Latin fascis ("bundle"). The word fascism no more derives from a political party (which simply pulled the word out of nowhere, did it?) than the words "democrat", "republican" or "communist" do.
- orblivion 10y agoI think it's important to remember that Hitler didn't exactly run with the Holocaust as his campaign. So if you compare the relatively benign climate that brought him to power, and see something similar today, it's worth bringing up.
- ikeboy 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf "If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain."
- orblivion 10y agoThen why was the holocaust such a shock to people? Perhaps they just didn't read the book.
- Retric 10y agoNote the scale '12,000-15,000' is ~1/1,000th of the actual death total in the Holocaust. It's the difference between 'first shoot all the lawyers' and 'just nuke their city's.' Soviet great purge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge killed ~1 million people, holocaust killed 10x that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine killed ~15 million to 43 million, but that's poor policy not gas chambers. Closest direct comparison is Pol Pot which 'only' killed ~2 million people.
- themartorana 10y agoIt's funny that you don't hear Mao's name in many discussions of genocide. Is it that different that so many died one step removed from a direct order instead of on direct orders? Or that he had the good of the people in his heart even as tens of millions perished? Gas chambers were policy. I guess we greatly forgive incompetence, even as it's forced on people through brutality.
- astazangasta 10y agoComparing modern fascist movements to the fascist movements of the twenties, for example. The growth of right-wing movements in Europe and America following a steep economic downturn seems fairly ripe, as does the emergence of racial narratives, the use of hateful demagogery, etc. Trump/Hitler comparisons are fair game, because what is going on bears a strong resemblance to what happened in Nazi Germany. If we really mean "never again", that means understanding where the Nazis came from, what they are, and who is following in their goose-steps.
- icebraining 10y agoBy economic downturn, you're talking about the Great War. I mean, there are plenty of people terribly afflicted in the current western world, but it's hard to argue that the scale of the horror even approaches what was lived in those years, for soldiers and civilians alike.
- tryitnow 10y agoRwanda, Bosnia, Latin America death squads, the Confederacy, Andrew Jackson's March of Tears, the list sadly goes on and on. Your question is a bit odd. History is chock full of examples of genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, etc. This is the problem I have with Godwin's Law - sometimes a comparison to Nazis is entirely appropriate.
- malka 10y agoNone were turned into an industry of death the way the nazis did
- RileyKyeden 10y agoThis is why the picohitler is such a handy unit of measurement.
- Keyframe 10y agoModern anti-fascism.
- JustinAiken 10y agoPersonal - one of my friends grew up in a crazy-religious family where they'd literally burn "evil" books every week. Politics - No, Trump is not the same as Hitler, but there are valid comparisons or parallels; see the videos of his supporters confusing Hitler quotes for his (then again, Trump himself tweeted a Mussolini quote)
- DanBC 10y ago> see the videos of his supporters confusing Hitler quotes for his I loathe Trump, but that trick works with just about everyone. You take some famous person (Richard Dawkins is a favourite) and find some Nazi / Communist quote and create an image macro. I'm mildly surprised a troll hasn't had t-shirts and buttons printed, and given them away at rallies. > (then again, Trump himself tweeted a Mussolini quote) That's a bit more worrying.
- blahedo 10y agoTrue, and in some ways I feel that the "warning" aspect of Godwin's Law gets used to dismiss the actually-relevant Nazi comparisons when they do happen. It can be frustrating.
- Shivetya 10y agoSadly it is so overused in politics is diminishes the impact of the word and obscures the original meaning. It seems to be the anti-intellectual grown up equivalent to "YOUR MOM".
- clinta 10y agoA comparison with Nazis is often just a Reductio ad absurdum, and it's particularly effective and useful because despite how absurd it sounds, it actually happened. If you think the reduction is inaccurate, then argue the point, but just dismissing it by calling it Godwin's law, in my mind, admits that you don't have an effective counter-argument.
- sbov 10y agoNo, in the vast majority of cases it's a strawman or slippery slope argument.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- return0 10y agoExcept that none of the people who make the comparison have any experience of nazism.
- dredmorbius 10y agoFalse.
- dredmorbius 10y agoI'm quite aware it's gauche to comment on your own comment's voting patterns, but the tendency for HN readers to downvote inconvenient truths becomes rather patheticly amusing.
- return0 10y agoFalse less than 1% of the time (unless you have better data)