Fri. Jul 02, 2004
Godwin's Corollary
This is just too timely, too perfect, and too funny not to quote most of it. Let’s talk about the law, one with which you may not be familiar. But you should be.
Godwin’s Law: “‘As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.’ There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin’s Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin’s Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.”
Since I am apparently known as a first class nitpicker and semanticist nonpareil, I was called upon to rule on an invocation of Godwin’s Law, in a rather uncommon place … the support forum at my web host, TextDrive.
You can read the thread in question and judge for yourself, but I told the person who invoked Godwin’s law this: “So there was no direct mention of Hitler or the Nazi’s, just your attempt to ‘invoke [the] thread-ending effects’ of a little known Usenet Law in a web forum, on insignificant grounds. You’re way outside your jurisdiction, Sparky.”
Much fun ensued, with the nitpicking, er, discussion covering Nazi shirt colors, American geographic skills, Americans in France, and much more. It was a couple of pages of mayhem over a couple of days, but it had died down as we’d beaten it to death.
Today, someone popped back into the thread to link to this near perfect “Op-Ed” about … Godwin’s Law. And it’s not only perfect to our silly little insular thread, it is very relevant to what passes for “political discourse” today:
[Godwin’s Law] isn’t a law like “murder is a crime” is a law. It’s more like Newton’s Laws—not something that can be “invoked” or “violated”, but an observation of the surrounding world [...] Unfortunately, a lot of people on the ‘net try to invoke Godwin’s Law in order to, by default, win an argument. This isn’t what Godwin’s Law is about.
Godwin noticed that most people — politicians especially — have a flawed argumentative style. Rather than attempt to prove their point, they try vilify their opponent, in order to seem like the lesser of two evils. A fantastic example of this was the Conservative Party’s campaign in the recent Canadian election. Rather than focus on why the Conservatives would make the best governing party for this Parliament, they focused on why the incumbent party, the Liberal Party, would be the worst. This is what’s known as a negative campaign and it doesn’t always appeal to logic or rationality, but to emotion. Both Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore make extravagant use of this argumentative technique. They try to get their listeners/viewers outraged by the actions or inactions of [insert popular figure here] without, really, explaining why said action or inaction is actually a bad thing. Think “shock and awe”, though perhaps “shock and appall” would be better.
Godwin’s Law isn’t about “winning” or “losing” a debate. It’s about promoting critical thinking and proving your point. Comparing one’s opponent to Hitler/Pinochet/Pol Pot/Stalin does nothing for the argument, but rather admits that you don’t have anything more to say. However, it isn’t gracious to rub this in someone’s face, which is, really, what’s occurring when someone invokes Godwin’s Law. Not only is it ungracious, but it, too, demonstrates that you’ve also run out of things to say. Thus, I submit my Corollary:
Following a demonstration of Godwin’s Law in action, the first person to refer to Godwin’s Law also loses.
This doesn’t mean the other person wins. It means you both lose. Neither of you is, any longer, participating in a useful debate (there’s another corollary along the same lines) and you should both back off and give up before you succeed in making yourselves look like bigger asses.
Kuro5hin.org: “Godwin’s Law: Not Meant To Be Invoked”
I’m going to have to ponder this a bit more, but I still bow in honor to the author, “jargonCCNA,” whomever they may be.
There’s a part of me that wants to argue against the corollary, based on the idea that flawed argumentative tactics, especially those that sometimes work, need to be pointed out for what they are (and if anyone who does also “loses,” perhaps it could be looked at like the sacrifice fly in baseball…). But for some reason, this year I’m for anything that might enforce some civility, on anyone.
Published 09:48AM, Fri, Jul 02 2004
Category: Internet Politics
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Peanut Gallery
“I did not invoke Godwin, I evoke Godwin”
Thank you, Mr. Clinton.
“to argue the relevance of Godwin to the game at hand is to forfeit your seat, for you are clearly bluffing”
See, I knew this was going to get deep when I was writing this. Thankfully, too deep for most folks to have gotten this far.
Given the subject matter, and the potentialities, only professional semanticists can take this discussion much further without accidentally killing it.
Craft your contribution carefully.
The best way to fight the quoted corollary is with the all-powerful Coyote Corollary:
No Law exists until you are aware of it
(For example, you’ve just run off a cliff. The Law of Gravity will not take effect until you look down. If you’ve never studied Law, then you can remain suspended in mid-air.)
So, Godwin’s Law doesn’t apply as long as everyone remains ignorant of it. Once someone “looks down,” so to speak, then Godwin’s Law takes effect and the conversation becomes a tiny poof of smoke on the canyon floor.
I was present and sitting about ten yards away from Mike Godwin when Godwin’s Law was minted and I can assure you that the proposed corrolary:
“Following a demonstration of Godwin’s Law in action, the first person to refer to Godwin’s Law also loses.”
has nothing to do with either the letter or the spirit of Godwin’s Law.
As one who does hold an official corrolary to Godwin’s Law, I also invoke and evoke my expert status in this matter.
So all you little Nazis can just pack up your proposals and get ye back to the Furher Bunker.
Oh, you can’t self-invoke Godwin’s Law with that last line, without telling us exactly what your official corrollary is. With that, I might consider officially closing this thread.
Since you insist:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GodwinsLaw
Corollaries to GodwinsLaw:
Gordon’s Restatement of Newman’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law: 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.
Van der Leun’s Corollary: 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
Other references are:
from:Computer underground Digest Sun Dec 1, 1996
People who cannot handle the idea that someone may have a very different opinion and want to express that opinion, probably should find something else to do that handle newgrouping and CFVs. Anyone who takes on such a
thing should understand intuitively that the proposal of such newsgroups is inevitable. C.f. Van der Leun’s Corollary to http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Folklore/Humor/godwins.law
As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being on the net approaches one.
And also http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/g/go/godwin_s_law.html
Van der Leun’s Corollary:
As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being on the Net approaches one.
And then there is email from Mike Godwin:
From: Mike Godwin
Subject: Godwin’s Law
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 13:39:39 -0500 (EST)
Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies [a.k.a the Sexton-Godwin Law]:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
[Usenet Message-ID: , 18 Aug 1991;
possibly posted in this form as early as 1990 on The WELL.]
....
Van der Leun’s Corollary:
As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being
on the net approaches one.
[Long proven quite true.]
==
I rest my case.
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Doh! Not until your blurb did I see my typo in the thread in question. I did not invoke Godwin, I evoke Godwin, as in to conjure or call forth the evil spirit, as an act of exorcism. Hence my comment, “everyone out of the pool”. But I digress.
One cannot invoke Godwin no more than one can invoke gravity. The natural laws exist whether we notice them as natural laws or not. And so I take some exception with the corollary. To observe the existence of Godwin in action is simply to note the condition at hand. This brings me to a variation of my own Godwin’s Corollary:
“to argue the relevance of Godwin to the game at hand is to forfeit your seat, for you are clearly bluffing”