Godwin's law

Godwin's law (also Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies) is an adage in Internet culture that was originated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states that:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.^[1]

There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over^[2], and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In addition, it is considered poor form to invoke the law explicitly. Godwin's law thus projects an upper bound on thread length in those groups^[3]. Many people understand Godwin's law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation.

Nevertheless, there is also a widely-recognized codicil that any intentional invocation of Godwin's law for its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful. See "Quirk's exception" below.

Origin

Mike Godwin, was legal counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the early 1990s, when the law was first popularized (by Richard Rosen and others), and the law has been attributed to him (he does not claim exclusive invention of the concept, but is the originator of the above formulation).

Finding the meme of Nazi comparisons on Usenet illogical and offensive, Godwin established the law as a "counter-meme," a term Godwin expressly uses in his 1994 article about Godwin's Law^[4]. The law's memetic function is not to end discussions (or even to classify them as "old"), but to encourage debaters to consider whether a comparison to Nazism or Hitler is appropriate, or simply a rhetorical overreach.

Many people have extended Godwin's law to imply that the invoking of the Nazis as a debating tactic (in any argument not directly related to World War II or the Holocaust) automatically loses the argument, simply because the nature of these events is such that any comparison to any event less serious than genocide, ethnic cleansing or extinction is invalid and in poor taste.

Richard Sexton maintains that the law is a formalization of his October 16, 1989 post

You can tell when a USENET discussion is getting old when one of the participents (sic) drags out Hitler and the Nazis. ^[5]

Strictly speaking, however, this is not so, since the actual text of Godwin's law does not state that such a reference or comparison makes a discussion "old,” or, for that matter, that such a reference or comparison means that a discussion is over.

Objections and counter-arguments

One common objection to the invocation of Godwin's law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is a perfectly apt way of making a point. For instance, if one is debating the relative merits of a particular leader, and someone says something like, "He's a good leader, look at the way he's improved the economy", one could reply, "Just because he improved the economy doesn't make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy." Some would view this as a perfectly acceptable comparison. One uses Hitler because he is a universally known leader and the example requires no explanation.

Some would argue, however, that Godwin's law applies even to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotions as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared to, which are classic logical fallacies. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a good comparison to anything except for other despotic dictators^[6]. Thus, Godwin's law holds even in making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be a reasonable comparison.

Godwin's standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin's law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate semantic impact. Occasionally, this has been admitted by violators, who have retracted their comparisons.^[7]

Another type of objection claims that the modern world (or whatever is being discussed) is so terrible that comparisons with Nazi Germany are apt.^[8] However, the visceral power of the Hitler comparison has tempted many politicians and campaigners to abuse this objection cynically, triggering a counter-attack sometimes citing Godwin's Law.^[9] (A similar tactic is to publicize the attack on yourself, whilst affirming a Hilterian level of conviction.^[10]) Those with strongly-held convictions often see nothing hyperbolic in comparing their enemies with Hitler, and find the invocation of Godwin's law against them offensive or bewildering (e.g. pro-life campaigners).

A separate critique equates the average Nazi to the typical 1940s German, and charges that the inclusion of "Nazi" in Godwin's law is ahistoric.^[11] An alternative linguistic critique says that however regrettable it may be that "Nazi" is used as a "jocular" description, this is becoming a normalized form of debate (e.g. health-Nazi, soup-Nazi, and eco-fascist)^[12]. Prescriptively ignoring this trend may make the invocation of Godwin's law as outdated as objecting to vulgar language.

Neo-Nazi debate

When discussing with actual neo-Nazis, Godwin's law should not typically apply, as Hitler is bound to come up on one or the other side of the argument sooner rather than later. It is also interesting that, among Nazis, a "reverse Godwin's law" exists where, as an argument devolves into a flame war, there is an increasingly greater probability that one or the other side will invoke a comparison to Jews as an insult, much the same as a comparison to Hitler or Nazis is regularly an insulting one.

Contribution to dialectic

Fundamentally, Godwin's Law tries to exclude normative considerations from a positivist discussion. Frequently, a reference to Hitler is used as an evocation of evil. Thus a discussion, which is proceeding on a positivist examination of facts, is considered terminated when this objective consideration is transformed into a normative discussion of subjective right and wrong. The most common example is the fallacy: "Hitler did A, therefore A is evil." However, as noted, the exceptions to Godwin's Law are when Hitler is invoked in a positivist manner (i.e. objective facts) that does not have a normative dimension and is therefore permitted.

Other laws and corollaries

Various addenda to Godwin's law have been proposed by Internet users, though the original reference to Nazis remains the most popular. Addenda to the law include:

Newman's corollary as restated by Gordon

Libertarianism (pro, con, and internal faction fights) is the primordial net.news discussion topic. Any time the debate shifts somewhere else, it must eventually return to this fuel source.

Morgan's corollary to Godwin's law

As soon as such a comparison occurs, someone will start a Nazi-discussion thread on alt.censorship.

Sircar's corollary

If the Usenet discussion touches on homosexuality or Heinlein, Nazis or Hitler are mentioned within three days.

Note that this rule may seem identical to the previous, but they differ slightly in that the Case corollary states probability, while the Sircar corollary also includes a time limit. These two rules are sometimes incorrectly cited as the same and attributed to both authors.

Case's corollary

If the subject is Heinlein or homosexuality, the probability of a Hitler/Nazi comparison being made becomes equal to one.

Guy's corollary

If a Usenet discussion mentions Godwin's law as a conterrebuttal to a mention of Hitler/Nazis, then the chance of Godwin's law being disputed is equal to one.

Van der Leun's corollary^[13]

As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being on the Net approaches one.

Miller's paradox

As a network evolves, the number of Nazi comparisons not forestalled by citation to Godwin's law converges to zero.

Quirk's exception

Intentional invocation of this so-called "Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.^[14]

Fuzzy's Law

That in every discussion thread someone will eventually mention Tubgirl or goatse

The Lileks Principium

In the future, everyone will be Hitler for fifteen minutes.

See also

• Benford's law of controversy
• Jargon File
• Wilcox-McCandlish law of online discourse evolution
• Adages named after people

External links and references

• Godwin's Law entry in the Jargon File
• EFF page on Godwin's Law and reformulations
• Mike Godwin runs a blog called "Godwin's Law."
• Jurisimprudence: a listing of various fandom and Internet debate laws similar to Godwin's Law

Notes

^ Usenet posting: Mike Godwin restates the Usenet variant of Godwin's Law (Aug 1991)

^ This rule is widely reported (on Usenet itself) as originating with Rich Rosen's 1988 guide The Rules of Netnews debating - as Rule#4 (also known as the Hitler clause). The original list of rules is not in a currently accessible archive. The thrust of rule 4 as described throughout the archives (e.g. Godwin FAQ) is that the signal/noise ration will drop essentially to zero after the “Godwin point” (when the third Reich is first mentioned).

^ As described in the Godwin's Law FAQs the actual termination of a thread at the introduction of Nazi's ("Godwin's point") is rare. For example, see the Comparing Microsoft to Drug Dealers debate which appears to degenerates into a series of Godwin's law accusations midway through, but then returns to a positivist discussion of the central topic.

^ Meme, Counter-meme, Mike Godwin, Wired 2.10, October 1994 - Godwin discusses his Law.

^ Sexton's observation in October 1989 on Usenet, in the news.groups.aquaria archive, after Hitler was introduced into a discussion on of the ideal gas mixture in a fish tank.

^ For example, Jean Kambanda's conviction under the Genocide Convention has often been compared with Nuremberg. This satirical critique of Godwin's law makes the case against its application to War Criminals such as Slobodan Milosevic.

^ Wal-Mart To Apologize For Ad in Newspaper – The Washington Post reports on Wal-Mart’s withdrawal or a print advertisement showing 1933 book burners at Berlin’s Opernplatz with the title: “Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?". A union-leader criticised the advertisement as breaking Godwin’s Law: "It's not the imagery itself. It trivializes the Nazis and what they did. And to try to attach that imagery to a municipal election goes beyond distasteful".

^ Repealing Godwin’s Law argues that the "war on terror" is genuinely comparable to the tactics of the Nazis.

^ The uncorrelated blog accuses anti-Bush campaigners of breaking Godwin's law.

^ Robert Mugabe's simultaneously accused his critics of breaking Godwin's law, and accepted their challenge to be more single-minded than Hitler: "Hitler in Zimbabwe has one objective -- sovereignty for his people, recognition of their independence and their rights to freedom. If they say I am Hitler, let me be Hitler ten-fold and that's what we stand for." Telegraph reportage from 26 March2003.

^ Naturally, the "ahistoric" objection is inherently controversial. Salvador Astucia puts this semantic objection to the use of Godwin's Law in the following way: "The term Nazi generally refers [ to ] a German citizen person [ sic ] who lived in Germany under Hitler's rule...Your words reflect the highest form of bigotry against a people purely because of their national origin." Astucia has radical views, sometimes leading to cencorship, at which he invokes Morgan's corollary, for example: here.

^ Random House Webster's 1997 College dictionary added a secondary definition of "Nazi" as: "Nazi: a person who is fanatically dedicated to or seeks to control a specified activity, practice, etc." The Anti-Defamation League vigorously objected: ADL calls added definition of nazi offensive.

^ Due to Gerard Van Der Leun - see Rules of the Net: On-Line Operating Instructions for Human Beings, (Hyperion Books ISBN 0786881356, 1996), or "Rules? In a Knife Fight?" from the '96 Wired archive (where his first name is given as Gerald).

^ Credited to Taki "Quirk" Kogama by Godwin's Law FAQ (Tim Skirvin's guide "How to post about Nazis and get away with it").