Godwin's law#Corollaries and usage
{{Short description|Internet adage about Nazi comparisons}}
{{Use American English|date=September 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{distinguish|Goodhart's law}}File:Godwin's law t-shirt at Rally to restore sanity, 2010.jpg wearing a T-shirt implicitly referencing Godwin's Law: "I disagree with you but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."]]
Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule), short for Godwin's law of Nazi analogies,{{cite magazine |last=Godwin |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Godwin |title=Meme, Counter-meme |date=October 1, 1994 |magazine=Wired |volume=2 |issue=10 |url= https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if_pr.html |access-date=March 24, 2006}} is an Internet adage asserting: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."{{cite web |last=Godwin |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Godwin |title=Godwin's law of Hitler Analogies (and Corollaries) |work=w2.EFF.org |date=January 12, 1995 |publisher=Electronic Frontier Foundation |department="Net Culture – Humor" archive section |url= http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Folklore/Humor/godwins.law |access-date=June 19, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120829094739/http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Folklore/Humor/godwins.law |archive-date=August 29, 2012}}
History
Promulgated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990, Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions.{{cite newsgroup |last=Godwin |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Godwin |title=Re: Nazis (was Re: Card's Article on Homosexuality |date=August 18, 1991 |newsgroup=rec.arts.sf-lovers |message-id=1991Aug18.215029.19421@eff.org |url= https://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Aug18.215029.19421%40eff.org}} He stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics, specifically to address the ubiquity of such comparisons which he believes regrettably trivialize the Holocaust.{{cite news |last=McFarlane |first=Andrew |title=Is it ever OK to call someone a Nazi? |work=BBC News Magazine |date=July 14, 2010 |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10618638 |access-date=August 4, 2010}}{{cite podcast |last1=Fishman |first1=Aleisa |last2=Godwin |first2=Mike |author2-link=Mike Godwin |title=Interview with Mike Godwin |work=Voices on Antisemitism |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=September 1, 2011 |url= http://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/mike-godwin |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140520044036/http://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/mike-godwin |archive-date=May 20, 2014}} Later, it was applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and social-media comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric{{cite web |last=Goldacre |first=Ben |title=Pope aligns atheists with Nazis. Bizarre. Transcript here. |work=bengoldacre – secondary blog |date=September 16, 2010 |url= http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nazi-youth-pope-aligns-atheists-with-nazis-bi |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130325005933/http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nazi-youth-pope-aligns-atheists-with-nazis-bi |archive-date=March 25, 2013}}{{cite news |last=Stanley |first=Timothy |title=Hillary, Putin's no Hitler |department="Opinion" department |date=March 6, 2014 |work=CNN |url= https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/opinion/stanley-hillary-clinton-hitler/index.html |access-date=March 6, 2014}} where {{lang|la|reductio ad Hitlerum}} occurs.
In 2012, Godwin's law became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.{{cite web |title=Godwin's law |work=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |url= http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/340583?redirectedFrom=Godwin%27s+law#eid |access-date=February 27, 2013}}
Generalization, corollaries, and usage
Godwin's law can be applied mistakenly or abused as a distraction, a diversion, or even censorship, when miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole even when the comparison made by the argument is appropriate.{{cite web |first=David |last=Weigel |title=Hands Off Hitler! It's time to repeal Godwin's Law |work=Reason |date=July 14, 2005 |url= http://www.reason.com/news/show/32944.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090715142410/http://www.reason.com/news/show/32944.html |archive-date=July 15, 2009}} Godwin has criticized the over-application of the adage, claiming that it does not articulate a fallacy, but rather is intended to reduce the frequency of inappropriate and hyperbolic comparisons:{{cite web |url= http://www.jewcy.com/post/i_seem_be_verb_18_years_godwins_law |title=I Seem to Be a Verb: 18 Years of Godwin's Law |date=April 30, 2008 |work=Jewcy.com |access-date=April 16, 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130115035303/http://www.jewcy.com/post/i_seem_be_verb_18_years_godwins_law |archive-date=January 15, 2013}}
{{blockquote|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 to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.}}
In 2021, Harvard researchers published an article showing that the Nazi-comparison phenomenon does not occur with statistically meaningful frequency in Reddit discussions.{{Cite web |last=Harrison |first=Stephen |title=Has Godwin's Law, the Rule of Nazi Comparisons, Been Disproved? |work=Slate |date=January 24, 2022 |url= https://slate.com/technology/2022/01/godwins-law-research-disproven-history.html |access-date=April 23, 2022}}{{Cite journal |last1=Fariello |first1=Gabriele |last2=Jemielniak |first2=Dariusz |author-link2=Dariusz Jemielniak |last3=Sulkowski |first3=Adam |date=December 12, 2021 |title=Does Godwin's law (rule of Nazi analogies) apply in observable reality? An empirical study of selected words in 199 million Reddit posts |url= http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448211062070 |journal=New Media & Society |volume=26 |pages=389–404 |issn=1461-4448 |publisher=Sage Publishing |doi=10.1177/14614448211062070 |s2cid=245035602}}
Godwin's law has many corollaries, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself) than others. For example, many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums have a tradition that, when a Nazi or Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress.{{cite news |last=Chivers |first=Tom |title=Internet rules and laws: The top 10, from Godwin to Poe |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=October 23, 2009 |location=London |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6408927/Internet-rules-and-laws-the-top-10-from-Godwin-to-Poe.html}} This idea is itself sometimes mistakenly referred to as Godwin's law.{{Cite web |last=Datta |first=N. |title=Godwin's Law – How Adolf Hitler Is Mathematically Connected To Internet Forum Discussions |date=June 20, 2017 |url= https://trove42.com/godwins-law-how-adolf-hitler-is-mathematically-connected-to-internet-forum-discussions/ |work=Trove 42 |access-date=February 13, 2024}}
Godwin rejects the idea that whoever invokes Godwin's law has lost the argument, and suggests that, applied appropriately, the rule "should function less as a conversation ender and more as a conversation starter."{{cite web |last=Godwin |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Godwin |title=Op-Ed: Do we need to update Godwin's Law about the probability of comparison to Nazis? |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 24, 2018 |url= https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-godwin-godwins-law-20180624-story.html |access-date=July 24, 2020}} In an interview with Time Magazine, Godwin said that making comparisons to Hitler would actually be appropriate under the right circumstances:{{cite magazine | url=https://time.com/4837881/godwin-law-interview-2017/ | title=Should You Call Someone Hitler? Here's What the Man Behind Godwin's Law Thinks | magazine=Time | date=June 29, 2017 | accessdate=February 13, 2024 | author=Hoffman, Ashley}}
{{blockquote|I urge people to develop enough perspective to do it thoughtfully. If you think the comparison is valid, and you've given it some thought, do it. All I ask you to do is think about the human beings capable of acting very badly. We have to keep the magnitude of those events in mind, and not be glib. Our society needs to be more humane, more civilized and to grow up.}}
In August 2017, while commenting on the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Godwin himself endorsed and encouraged social-media users to compare its "alt-right" participants to Nazis.{{cite web |last=Gilbert |first=Alexandre |title=Godwin's Law & the Nazi Cosplay Hobbiysts |work=The Times of Israel |date=August 17, 2017 |url= http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/godwins-law-the-nazi-cosplay-hobbiysts/}}{{cite web |last=Mandelbaum |first=Ryan F. |title=Godwin of Godwin's Law: 'By All Means, Compare These Shitheads to the Nazis' |work=Gizmodo |date=August 13, 2017 |url= https://gizmodo.com/godwin-of-godwins-law-by-all-means-compare-these-shi-1797807646 |access-date=December 26, 2023}}
Godwin has denied the need to update or amend the rule. In June 2018, he wrote, in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times: "It still serves us as a tool to recognize specious comparisons to Nazism – but also, by contrast, to recognize comparisons that aren't."
Additionally, when a potential subject of Godwin's law seems "intent on making the Hitler comparison",{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/24/trump-hitler-rhetoric-comparison/ | title=Trump gets compared with history's great villain because his rhetoric is that bad | newspaper=Washington Post | date=September 24, 2024 | accessdate=September 24, 2024 | author=Rampell, Catherine}} the comparison with fascism may be appropriate rather than devaluing the argument; a "MAGA" corollary to the Law recognizes the pernicious embrace of Nazi-inspired tropes and phrases by the "alt-right".
In 2023, Godwin published an opinion in The Washington Post stating "Yes, it's okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don't let me stop you."{{Cite news |last=McHugh |first=Calder |date=19 December 2023 |title='Trump Knows What He's Doing': The Creator of Godwin's Law Says the Hitler Comparison Is Apt |url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/19/godwins-law-trump-hitler-00132427 |work=Politico}} In the article, Godwin says "But when people draw parallels between Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy and Hitler’s progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren’t joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy."{{cite news |last1=Godwin |first1=Mike |title=Yes, it's okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don't let me stop you. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/godwins-law-trump-hitler-comparisons/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=22 November 2024 |date=20 December 2023}}
See also
{{Portal|Internet}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Nate |title=No Nazi comparisons? Sounds like something Hitler would say! |work=Ars Technica |date=September 1, 2011 |url= https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/no-nazi-comparisons-sounds-like-something-hitler-would-say.ars |access-date=September 1, 2011}}
External links
{{Wiktionary}}
{{Spoken Wikipedia|Godwin's law.ogg|date=July 1, 2005}}
- {{Cite web |first=Tim |last=Skirvin |title=How to post about Nazis and get away with it – The Godwin's law FAQ |date=September 15, 1999 |work=Skirv's Wiki |url= http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/19991011095714/http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/ |archive-date=October 11, 1999}}
- {{cite magazine |last=Sietzman |first=Michael |title=My Nazi Can Beat Up Your Nazi |magazine=Huffington Post |date=December 6, 2017 |orig-date=2009 |url= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/my-nazi-can-beat-up-your_b_260710.html}}
- {{cite magazine |last1=Amira |first1=Dan |last2=Godwin |first2=Mike |author2-link=Mike Godwin |title=Mike Godwin on Godwin's Law, Whether Nazi Comparisons Have Gotten Worse, and Being Compared to Hitler by His Daughter |department="Intelligencer" department |magazine=New York |date=March 8, 2013 |url= http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/godwins-law-mike-godwin-hitler-nazi-comparisons.html}}
{{Fallacies}}