Civic duty

I'm trying to follow the logic here.

It's not nice to call people "Hitler." I get that, really. That much makes sense.

Adolf Hitler was a mass-murderer and one of the worst tyrants in human history, so not only is calling someone "Hitler" not nice and not conducive to civil discourse, it's also ridiculously inaccurate. Thus, of course, by equating someone as gravely, devastatingly evil as Hitler with some opponent of yours who is unquestionably less devastatingly evil, you are in a sense demeaning the suffering of the real Hitler's victims.

I get all that. Quite reasonable.

It's the subsequent leap of illogic that's screwy.

Quite a few otherwise reasonable people begin with the principle described above and go on to say that one must never, ever, in the course of any discussion refer in any way to Adolf Hitler or his Nazi regime and one must absolutely never make any comparison between that regime and any other act or policy of any other state or government ever.

Except maybe Stalin. Stalin was so bad, these folks say, that you're probably allowed to compare Stalin to Hitler. But that being the case, the prohibition against comparing all other states and their policies to those of the Nazis is also therefore extended to apply to similar comparisons to Stalin.

Whether you call this "Godwin's Law" or an appeal for "civility" it doesn't make sense.

And it is not just nonsense, it's dangerous nonsense.

This prohibition, as it is currently practiced and enforced, requires that we cloak two of the worst evils in human history in silence. It demands that we never allow ourselves to learn from them. It forbids us from what such evils, in truth, demand: That we constantly compare every state, every policy, every action to their perverse example. This is our duty. This is what we learned, or should have learned, from the 20th century. Humans are capable of such things. We are capable of such things. And we must be vigilant to ensure that we not allow them to happen again.

This is part of the point that Israeli historian Avi Schlaim was making when he wrote: "The issue isn't whether or not we are the same as the Nazis, the issue is that we aren't different enough."*

To prohibit any comparison to Nazism in the name of "civility" is absurd. Civility, indeed civilization, requires that such a comparison be kept before our eyes at all times as a signpost, a warning. To keep such warnings silent and out of sight is recklessly arrogant. We used to know this -- consider, for example, this 1946 educational film on the dangers of "Despotism." That we seem to be forgetting it only shows that such warnings are more important than ever.

If we really want civil discourse, we must never forbid "Hitler references." We should be making more of them.

* (Thanks, Scott, for finding that quote.)

UPDATE: It is occasionally the case that after posting something, I'll surf around and find that one of the Nielsen Haydens has already posted on the topic with greater style and more insight. That's not the case here. This time, it seems, they've both already posted on the topic with greater style and more insight. Here's Patrick. And here's Teresa.

Comments

[Cryptic Ned]

Our leaders have gone from saying "Despotism is always a possibility, and it may appear cloaked in the garb of reasonableness, and we should be vigilant against it", to saying "Despotism is not a possibility, because we live in America, and if you disagree, what do you have against America?"

Reminds me of the Y2K Halloween episode of the Simpsons where Lisa asks Homer "You did make sure the computers were debugged, right? Because even a single faulty unit could corrupt every other computer in the world."

He responds with the classic line that encapsulates cognitive dissonance: "Oh, that can't be true, honey. If it were, I'd be terrified!"

[Dahne]

This is a very good point. It makes me think of 1984, and how comparisons to it are now taken automatically as paranoid absurdities.

[gaunilo]

[delurking]

Well said. I've thought a lot about the use of the term "civilization" since 9/11; it became a way of claiming moral high ground - an attack upon America was an attack on civilization (or the "clash of civilizations"). We seem to think of ourselves as so "civilized," so morally superior, that "uncivilized" behavior could never happen in America (or, God forbid, be perpetrated by America). Torture? Not us, we're civilized.

Because we're civilized, comparisons to Hitler or Stalin are absurd. Invoking 1984 is absurd. After all, we're fighting the enemies of civilization. Right?

[James]

Just a minor point: Godwin's Law isn't a rule that says you can't compare anyone to Nazis. Rather, it's a natural law of online behaviour:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

The notion that whoever makes the first such reference has automatically lost the argument is a later addition.

[hf]

What James said. The original law implies that people can always bring in Hitler -- or indeed anyone -- and invites you to ask yourself if the comparison really helps your argument. Note that the 1946 film, going by your description, does not directly mention Nazis or Hitler.

[Darryl Pearce]

...um, er, uh... to whom did the Germans compare Hitler?

[Todd]

"If we really want civil discourse, we must never forbid "Hitler references." We should be making more of them."

Then quit your bitching and moaning about "NABA."

[Ray]

ISTR a bunch of people on the right comparing Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party to Hitler and the Nazis, back before the invasion.

[Andrew Cory]

Something to consider in all of this: Hitler has become synonymous.
with Satan in the minds of most Americans. Indeed, to a very large extent we no longer need Satan, as we’ve seen the works of Hitler. So, to compare anyone in our current administration to Hitler may be denotationaly correct, it is connotationaly incorrect…

If we wish to compare our leaders to evil men who subverted democracy in the name of right-wing ideology, calling them Il Duce, or Mussolini would be less insidious. That, and the first hundred thousand or so times it is used, it would have the benefit of novelty…

[Stephen]

In response to Todd's "Then quit your bitching and moaning about "NABA.""

NABA is an excuse masked as justification. It says that we have no greater responsibility than to not be as bad as the nearest/largest bad thing.

Fred, with the quote from Israeli historian Avi Schlaim, makes the point that it's time to be making the comparison to see if we're sufficiently better than rather than not as bad as Hitler.

Because under a NABA attitude, we have to be as bad (or worse) than the worst bad thing we can use as a measurement before something needs to be done. I'd far rather be going "We're getting close to not being the sufficiently better than X, so let's pick up the game people", than wait to be worse than Hitler before thinking something was wrong

[animus]

If we wish to compare our leaders to evil men who subverted democracy in the name of right-wing ideology, calling them Il Duce, or Mussolini would be less insidious.

"You'd think nobody had ever been compared to Mussolini before."—Woody Allen

[R. Mildred]

The trouble with using Mussollini or Franko as Hitler Stand ins to avoid the current warping of godwin's law (i.e. the length of time taken to call a person justifying some gentle progression towards a total facist state a nazi (or similar) is directly proportional to how intellectually superior the proto-facist will feel when you do finally use the term nazi) is that not enough people really know who the hell Il Duce and Mussollini were.

It's like insulting people in a language they can't understand when you're not surrounded by people who know what you just called them, there's this look of confusion but it doesn't really do anything. Say mussollini in front of too many people and some will get him confused with pavarotti I can assure you.

[J Mann]

I've been thinking about this, Fred, and may even blog again, if I get my ideas together enough. For now, though, I have two responses:

1) You're right, of course, that there's nothing inherently wrong with Nazi comparisons. I would add that there's nothing wrong with ACCURATE Nazi comparisons. If, for example, Durbin, had said "we are chaining prisoners in uncomfortable positions, often while they are extremely hot or cold. While this is nothing like what the Nazis or the Kmere Rouge did, it is still unacceptable," no one would comment. But to state that Guantanamo is like the Nazis, or (worse to my mind), the Kmere Rouge, is just historically idiotic. Compare it to the British treatment of Irish revolutionaries, or the imprisonment of the Sendera Luminoso, or Cuban prison conditions, or to various American prison scandals. But compare it to stuff to which it is not even remotely compararable is a slander to the victims of the Kmere Rouge, a slander to Americans, and a distraction.

2) There's a second thing going on in the discourse, which runs something like this:

Left: According to an internet website I just read, Donald Rumsfeld pounces on people, vivisects them, eats their internal organs, then prances around wearing their bloody faces.

Right: That's absurd! You saw that in Silence of the Lambs.

Left: So, you're reduced to protesting that Rumsfeld is "Not As Bad As" Hannibal Lecter, are you? Are you proud that our country's best defense is that our leaders are not quite as bad as fictional serial killers?

Right: What?

[Fred]

J Mann --

That's a great description of the dynamic.

Or it would be, if Amnesty International, the FBI and the International Red Cross were the equivalent of "an Internet Web site." And if the substantial and serious charges in Amnesty's report were mere fantasy. And if Donald Rumsfeld were completely innocent and all the allegations against him were ludicrous. And if he had actually responded to the substance of any of Amnesty's charges, rather than just latching on to their use of the word "gulag" as a diversionary tactic. And ...

You know, that's actually a really, really inaccurate and distorting view of the dynamic.

[Todd]

Stephen:
"NABA is an excuse masked as justification." This is precisely the problem I have with one of Fred's prior posts, as this assertion seemed implicit in everyone's recent round of attacks on NABA. At least you've made it an explicit averment.

My objection though, is that the Administration has never used NABA as an "excuse" or "justification" for anything, but rather, as a contextuial reference, much what like Fred now apparently thinks is OK.

For example, I dont remember anyone on the right, or in the Administration, "justifying" or "excusing" Abu Graib, or, for that matter, "torture" anywhere. Nobody ever said "when we torture or abuse people, it is ok becasue it's NABA as how the Nazis used to do it." Indeed, unlike the Nazis,the Army investigates and prosecutes those who abuse detainees. If the administration thought NABA was an "excuse" or a "justification," this would not be so.

What is interesting though, is that in recent weeks and months it is those on the left that seem hell bent on bringing hitler/stalin/pol pot into the mix. Thus, when Amnesty international called Gitmo "the gulag of our times," it seemed perfectly reasonable to me for the Administration to employ some form of NABA,i.e., "no its not. there's simply no comparison." Or, when Senator Durbin recently called Gitmo soldiers nazis/satlinists/pol pot/etc (wonder why Fred left this part of Senator Durbin's speach out of his recent "thresholds" post), the NABA argument, in some shape or form, seems like an appropriate response, no?

I agree with you that the more pertinent question is whether we are "different enough" from all the evildoers. However, it is absurd to say that contextual references to these regimes is acceptable only when bashing our government and soldiers.

[J Mann]

Fred,

Thanks for the response. I tried to get that into the dialogue, but, like I said, it's unfinished. That part goes:

Left: According to an internet website I just read, Donald Rumsfeld pounces on people, vivisects them, eats their internal organs, then prances around wearing their bloody faces.

Right: That's absurd! You saw that in Silence of the Lambs.

Left: But you admit that he approved subjecting prisoners to demeaning & uncomfortable conditions, right? To the point where prisoners feared for their lives and defecated on themselves.

Right: Well, I know that that happened in some cases, but you just said that he prances around wearing prisoners' faces as masks?

Left: So you don't want to confront reality, do you?

I agree that it's a distraction - I don't know a serious way to discuss how much coercion is too much, and I agree that we need to discuss it. But Guantanamo isn't the Khmere Rouge. It's not similar, and it's not close.

If the Khmere Rouge's problem was that they had had 500 people in a prison, where some of them were chained in uncomfortable positions, well, they would just be a footnote in history.

[Dave Lartigue]

I'm sure the people being tortured to death would find these semantic arguments very interesting.

[Ray]

Its also a really inaccurate description of the comparison Durbin made. He described a situation - prisoners chained hand and foot to the floor, in freezing conditions, with no food or water, for over a day - and said that if he hadn't told you otherwise "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

If, five years ago, somebody had read that description of prisoner treatment to you, and asked who you thought was doing it, who would be your first guess? How many guesses would it take for you to get to "the US army"?

The fact is the groups named _are_ comparable, because they have done comparable things. Yes, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, and the Soviets did worse things too, but they _also_ treated prisoners the way the US army is treating them today. So where does the pride come from? Not having built any gas chambers yet?

But to state that Guantanamo is like the Nazis, or (worse to my mind), the Kmere Rouge, is just historically idiotic.

Just to add to what Ray said, Durbin was really making the same point as that Israeli historian: we aren't different enough.

As to your point #2, it obvious you have no sense of irony. If you did, you wouldn't criticize people for making inapt comparisons by making an inapt comparison yourself.

Also, even ignoring Fred's point, your implication is simply not true. Some of the "we're not as bad as" may have been a response to exaggerations by the other side, but some clearly aren't. In his "NABA" post, Fred used the example of people saying Abu Ghraib was not as bad as 9/11. I'm sure no one ever claimed that it was. The NABA in this case was really just a variation on the old schoolyard justification, "he hit me first," made even worse by the fact that the people we were hitting had, for the most part, no connection at all with the people who hit us.

Finally, even ignoring the first two points, NABA is still not the appropriate response. Take the Israel=Nazi canard as an example. Now obviously the Isrealis are nowhere near as bad as the Nazis. If they were, the "Palestinian problem" would have been solved long ago, just as the the "Jewish problem" was solved in Germany. This doesn't mean that there isn't real and unjustifiable mistreatment of Palestinians, but making absurd comparisons only obscures the actual wrongdoing.

Do you see what I did there? I dismissed the comparison entirely, but I also acknowledged the problems that it pointed to. The administration could have responded to Abu Ghraib=Nazi, by saying, "That's riduculous. Isn't it bad enough that America's been torturing prisoners? Don't try to make it any worse with these absurd analogies." If they'd said that, if they'd been willing to acknowledge that -- Nazi comparisons aside -- there were serious problems at Abu Ghraib which must be seriously dealt with, we wouldn't have mocked their response. We would have welcomed it.

[Beth]

Sorry, that last anonymous was me.

[J Mann]

I think you're right on both those points, Beth, and don't think we disagree. Sorry if I expressed myself badly.

Some of the right's NABA argument comes from the accusation-response cycle I parodied. The rest of it comes, I think, from a few underlying premises. (I'm not arranging them in order of frequency, because I don't know).

1) Defensiveness, as you describe. Yes, we are not perfect, but Robert Mugabe is worse, so leave us alone! I agree that that's a stupid argument. More particularly, I absolutely agree that we have an obligation to examine our conduct no matter whether we're better or worse than anyone.

2) An unspoken examination of the alternatives. I.e., (if we don't coerce detainees, the Baath will retake Iraq and) the Baathists are worse than we are.

3) An unspoken suspicion of the questioner's motives. (Durbin never said anything about the ongoing Chicago prison scandals and) the ongoing prison scandals are as bad as Guantanamo (so therefore Durbin's motives are suspect).

[Steve]

Maybe, just maybe, we need to condemn torture without resorting to comparisons to Nazis (at least the word Nazi) simply because of the level of rhetoric surrounding that word. You can make the point "We don't want to end up becoming the very evil we are trying to fight..." without naming a regime which people will then compare the current situation too...thereby leading to a NABA response.

By in large, though, I think people are too sensitive.

[Steve]

Maybe, just maybe, we need to condemn torture without resorting to comparisons to Nazis (at least the word Nazi) simply because of the level of rhetoric surrounding that word. You can make the point "We don't want to end up becoming the very evil we are trying to fight..." without naming a regime which people will then compare the current situation too...thereby leading to a NABA response.

By in large, though, I think people are too sensitive.

[anna]

I completely agree with Fred. In a sad, depressed way, I agree. I think you've put the finger on the single most depressing thing about torture by the US, other than the torture itself. The way it's talked about.

But, ironically, by discussing the way its talked about, you've opened up discussion of the way to discuss the way torture is talked about. It all becomes a mad sequence of some psychedelic film where each door leads to another warped universe that's further and further removed from reality.

That something like real torture really happening in a real detention centre, done by real people against other real people, on the orders of other real people above them, and all this documented by other real poeple, that all this has become a matter for debate, as in, academic debate, on definitions and styles of language, is plain insane.

In gulags and lagers, at the time, there were no photographers, no inspectors, no human rights organisations, no politicians, no observers who could actually go in, document what was going on, report it, get back alive, and debate in Congress about it. It wasn't up for debate. There weren't any laws against it. It wasn't something legislators as representatives of the poeple actually sat down and defended in front of their voters. Becuase it all happened in dictatorships. Of course that is an enormous difference, which, along with the vastity of the genocide in those tyrannies, makes all literal parallels with those tyrannies historically untenable. (And it is on that basis that comparisons are impossible, on the basis of history, not of taste or civility or fear of offending the image of the nation).

But that difference between democracy and dictatorship does make the actual use of torture itself far worse in a democracy. Because it is a democracy. This is so obvious it is maddening to see it buried under cries of 'OMG he said it's like a gulag!'.

Because in a democracy there is a principle of representation, there is accountability, there is documentation, there are reporters and there are inspectors and there are laws against torture and there are, in principle, no exceptions to those laws. That is what is shocking. That single elements of a tyranny can be injected in a democracy so easily.

And everyone knows. And it is so public. And it is publicly defended!

But let's all keep talking about it like it is an argument for academic debate. In an emotionless, dry, detached manner. 'Civil' debate. Civility in place of civilisation.

Society needs to go on, people need to continue working, money is to be made, children to be raised, tables cleaned and drinks emptied. There are those who have been convinced that what is going on is good and necessary. Then there are those who know it is evil. Then there are all those who prefer not to think about it at all. Or they make jokes on their tv shows about it and everyone laughs. What else is there to do? Stop the machine and go picket Guantanamo? You'd end up inside some other place and nothing would change.

I think that is what terrifies most people who are either removing the thought, or thinking about it but feeling powerless in their anger. The terrifying knowledge that there is nothing citizens of a democracy can do to force their representatives to respect the law. The knowledge that democracy is subverted from the inside by something like this. That it's a hollow shell, because if those in power want Guantanamo, they'll keep it, and find cleverer and cleverer ways to defend it to the poeple, and exploit the people's worst sentiments, and indifference, to keep it going, while actually describing the purpose of it all as a defense of democracy.

At least, this is what I like to think, as a non-american. If I were to think that Guantanamo is there because a real majority of Americans do want it and consent to it, I would find that beyond scary. I would find that inconceivable. So I prefer to think what's at work is the very same mechanism by which any power, democratic or not, exploits people's weaknesses - wether racism or indifference or thirst for violence - to keep that power solid and unaccountable.

Guantanamo exists because it makes it look like something is being done against terrorism; it feeds resentment against America which is in turn used to add to that 'they hate us' explanation of terrorism; 'they' becomes anything from actual terrorist killing Iraqis and non-Iraqi soldiers and journalists and aid workers, to all Muslims or Arabs, to all opposers of the war, to all critics of the US policies in Europe and Asia and anywhere including America itself; suspects become criminals; critics become traitors; humans become animals; so the 'us' becomes more and more thin, the 'them' wider and wider, and a war based on that 'us/them' premise is ensured to be endless, and those who profit from it, terrorists and those purporting to fight terrorism, are guaranteed their respective sources of power.

It is not unprecedented at all. History is full of such use of conflicts to gain or maintain power. The difference is it has now become all so sophisticated one wouldn't know where to start to even think of defusing the whole parasitic mechanism. Who does it serve?

And this is the fourth year, right? Hundreds of men detained for years without any charges pressed, any legal counsel, any recourse to the laws that establish that nothing like this should even happen.

Now after this long and serious and useless tirade I will too go back to pretending it is not happening, and watch some Bruckheimer produced tv series with cops. I hope they can watch tv too, in Guantanamo. I think they'd love Law and Order. See, it is so easy to make silly jokes about it, isn't it? Rant about it, joke about it, in the end, does it make any difference?

[Donald Johnson]

I've used Nazi comparisons on occasion, comparing one genocide to another. But in general I think they're a bad idea, because they give people a chance to change the subject and act huffy.

Also, I think they're a subtle form of self-flattery. If you want examples of extreme evil to use in some comparison, go abroad. That's the underlying message. But you don't need to do that. The behavior of Bush and his supporters is actually quite similar to the behavior of Southerners defending slavery in the period leading up to the Civil War. They'd claim that slavery wasn't so bad, that slaves were treated well and were better off than they would be in Africa, and they would express moral outrage over the "lies" of the abolitionists. As numerous people have pointed out, the dynamic of the current culture war looks a lot like the one we had 150 years ago. And, I'd add, it looks like every American argument we've ever had in this country when our government violated someone's human rights. Hell, even the torture issue isn't new--Americans taught torture techniques in the Cold War. If we really learned our American history in school (as opposed to the romanticized patriotic version we got), these comparisons would be obvious. We could get into heated debates about whether it is appropriate to compare Bush to some famous American racist of the 19th century.

[tweaked]

That's a good point. Why go abroad at all? If Rethuglican justifications for torture are like antebellum southern justifications for slavery ... then the torture itself is like what you guys did in the Philippines, long, long ago. I'm too lazy to source anything, but I recall reading in Harpers' about US troops forcing little peasants to guzzle gallons of water, and then stomping on their stomachs. Waterboarding is really just a prissy 20th-century version of same. Durbin would have done a lot better to make that comparison. I'd love to see Frist expressing righteous indignation at that remark. "Senator Durbin has belittled the efforts of our troops by comparing them to an abominable police state like... uh.... well.... the United States. Shit."

I take issue with your statement that "we need MORE nazi analogies" though. Whether or not the analogies themselves are reprehensible, they're weak copouts, by and large the province of ignorant sophists looking for rhetorical effect rather than logical entailment. Socrates would be PISSED. Maybe rhetoric wins elections, but we're not politicians. Can we at least try to take the high road and stick to logic?

[Beth]

Mark, on another thread, offered this quote:
"As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place."
- Rabbi Sheila Peltz

It reminded me of this, by Primo Levi:
"In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them.... But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable."

There's an important reason not to throw around words like "Nazi" and "fascist" around just for their shock value. When we do that, we drain them of any real meaning. As those quotes remind us, they do have a particular meaning, and one that, I'm afraid, has real relevance these days. Maybe the best way to convince people of a truth they don't want to hear is not to shout it in their faces, but to help them to discover it for themselves. Fascism is not just a dirty word. It is also a world view, as those two quotes suggest. It is a method of control and a political and economic system, as well. If people understand what "Nazi" and "fascist" really mean, they might not even need us to point out similarities.

Then there's the issue suggested by Donald Johnson, who wrote, "I think they're a subtle form of self-flattery." If we're fighting Nazis, we can by absolutely certain our cause is just. If we see them as pure evil, we can see ourselves as pure good. Even if we avoid the seduction of those ideas, we're still employing the sort of absolutist world view that fascism is based on.

[R. Mildred]

Okay, so if there is absolutly no comparison between the mistreatement of our prisoners in the War of Terrah and any nazi mistreatment of their prisoners (or at least such comparisons require so many modifiers, to make "Nazi" not mean "Holocaust Advocate", as to make the term unwieldy).

Would it be okay to compare our treatement of prisoners with the Imperial Japanese force's and VietCong's and the North Korean's mistreatment of American and Allied personel during their respective wars with the United States?

Because if I remember my Vietnam war crime apologist talking points correctly, Vietnam and the Imperial Japanese forces and North Korea's main mark of pure 100% anti-american evilness was the barbaric way they tortured and mistreated our servicemen and their other captured prisoners wasn't it? which in turn justified us burning down villages and gunning down people in rice fields.

The only trouble is to turn it into something short and sharp that can be shouted or sloganised, japs, veitnamese or korean being used as an insult is deeply racist, imps as in imperial japanese? VCs maybe?

Why did the most evil regime in history have to be so easy to spit at people?

[Fraser]

My general dislike for Nazi comparisons isn't that they're uncivil, it's that they're used as interchangeable with "Well, somebody passed a rule I didn't like!" (some of my friends on no-smoking policies for instance). As David Neiwert has pointed out, fascism is a specific set of beliefs, not just generic totalitarianism.
I don't object to the comparisons when appropriate and specific (I have no qualms comparing some of my local anyone-who-questions-Supreme-Leader-Bush-is-a-traitor to, say, Stalin's willingness to accept personal criticism)and I thought the way Durbin phrased his points was excellent and valid.
I seriously doubt, though, that making comparisons to past American atrocities would be better received or more effective.

[coturnix]

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[Anonymous]

"Reminds me of the Y2K Halloween episode of the Simpsons where Lisa asks Homer "You did make sure the computers were debugged, right? Because even a single faulty unit could corrupt every other computer in the world.""

Reminds me of the episode where Homer was committed to a mental institution. He asked the psychiatrist: "How can you tell who's sane and who's insane?" He replied, "It's very simple, Mr. Simpson." He stamps homer's hand with a circle labled "insane". "Anyone who's insane has this stamp on their hand."

Later in the episode when Homer is released, he's scrubbing off the stamp as hard as he can, and says "Come off! I'm sane now!"