Reductio ad Hitlerum

Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, (Latin for "reduction to" and "argument to" and dog Latin for "Hitler" respectively) is a term coined by conservative philosopher Leo Strauss in 1951. According to Strauss, the Reductio ad Hitlerum is an informal fallacy that consists of trying to refute an opponent's view by comparing it to a view that would be held by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party.

According to Strauss, Reductio ad Hitlerum is a form of ad hominem or ad misericordiam, a fallacy of irrelevance, in which a conclusion is suggested based solely on something's or someone's origin rather than its current meaning. The suggested rationale is one of guilt by association. Its name is a variation on the term reductio ad absurdum.

Reductio ad Hitlerum is sometimes called "playing the Nazi card." According to its critics and proponents, it is a tactic often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger the opponent.

Fallacious nature of the argument

Reductio ad Hitlerum is a form of association fallacy. The argument is that a policy leads to – or is the same as – one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich and so "proves" that the original policy is undesirable. Although previously acceptable policies (particularly eugenics) have been abandoned in part owing to such comparisons, the fallacious nature of reductio ad Hitlerum is easily illustrated by identifying X as something that Adolf Hitler or his supporters did promote but which is not considered unethical, such as painting (like Sir Winston Churchill), enjoying classical music (like some of the July 20 plotters), owning dogs (like Franklin Delano Roosevelt), advocating good roads (like Dwight Eisenhower), performing spellbinding oratory (like Martin Luther King), or in some contexts having difficulty with existing authorities (like Mohandas Gandhi), all of whom were either enemies of Hitler or ideological opposites. For example: "Hitler loved animals, so animal protection is a fascist activity [because the things Hitler did were wrong, or because it could lead to results ideologically or morally aligned with Hitler]." Used broadly enough, ad Hitlerum can encompass more than one questionable-cause fallacy type, by both inverting cause and effect and by linking an alleged cause to wholly unrelated consequences. For example, Hitler was fond of children,^{[citation needed]} but to argue that affection for children is wrong on this basis is not persuasive.

Another instance of reductio ad Hitlerum is asking a question of the form "You know who else...?" with the deliberate intent of impugning a certain idea or action by implying Hitler held that idea or performed such action.

Other infamous criminals, controversial religious and political figures, regimes, and atrocities can be (mis)used for the same purposes. For example, one reductio ad Stalinum asserts that atheism is an inherently dangerous philosophy because Stalin was an atheist for most of his life.

However, invocation of reductio ad Hitlerum or (particularly on the internet) the related Godwin's Law may not be out of line where such a comparison is reasonable (for example, in discussions of dangers involved in eugenics or tolerance of racist and nationalist political parties). In such contexts, the belittling and dismissal of an opponent's argument on this basis becomes its own form of association fallacy and ad hominem attack.

History of the term

The phrase reductio ad Hitlerum is first known to have been used in an article written by University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss for "Measure: a critical journal" in Spring 1951; it was made famous in a book by the same author published in 1953 Natural Right and History, Chapter II:

In following this movement towards its end we shall inevitably reach a point beyond which the scene is darkened by the shadow of Hitler. Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler.

The phrase was derived from the legitimate logical argument called reductio ad absurdum. The argumentum variant takes its form from the names of many classic fallacies, such as argumentum ad hominem. The ad Nazium variant may be further derived, humorously, from argumentum ad nauseam.

In 2000 traditionalist Catholic Thomas Fleming described its use against traditional values:

Leo Strauss called it the reductio ad Hitlerum. If Hitler liked neoclassical art, that means that classicism in every form is Nazi; if Hitler wanted to strengthen the German family, that makes the traditional family (and its defenders) Nazi; if Hitler spoke of the "nation" or the "folk," then any invocation of nationality, ethnicity, or even folkishness is Nazi ...

Invocations of the fallacy

In 1991, Professor Michael André Bernstein alleged reductio ad Hitlerum over a full-page advertisement placed in The New York Times by the Lubavitch community, following the Crown Heights Riot, under the heading "This Year Kristallnacht Took Place on August 19th Right Here in Crown Heights." Henry Schwarzschild, who had witnessed Kristallnacht, wrote to the New York Times that "however ugly were the anti-Semitic slogans and the assaultive behavior of people in the streets [during the Crown Heights riots]... one thing that clearly did not take place was a Kristallnacht."

American conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck is often criticized for his frequent use of reductio ad Hitlerum, including a controversial statement comparing the victims of the 2011 Norway attacks to members of the Hitler Youth. Beck has also compared the National Endowment for the Arts to Joseph Goebbels and ACORN to Hitler's "Brown Shirt" soldiers.

See also

• Godwin's law
• Hannibal ad portas ("Hannibal is at the gates") – previous invocation of historical threat
• List of fallacies

External links

• 11 People Who Have Unfairly Been Compared To Hitler - slideshow by The Huffington Post
• "Is it ever OK to call someone a Nazi?". BBC Online (BBC News). 14 July 2010. 
• Toying with Hitler and History - slideshow by Der Spiegel