In my office there’s a framed poster of Godwin’s Law: as the length of a conversation increases, the probability of a Nazi reference rises to one. After that, all rational discussion comes to an end. The author of the meme, internet legend Mike Godwin, autographed it for me, and as the editor of an online debate journal, I refer to it often. Sadly.
When Donald Trump was elected president, I draped my print of Godwin’s Law in black: It was clear that we were going to need some entirely new and more flexible laws in the time to come. How else to even talk about politics, with anyone?
More to the point: in a world dominated by a quite oddly specific political disaster narrative, what happens when the genuinely disastrous occurs – or even just the inexcusably lousy – and when whatever is happening is not entirely in keeping with our script? What do we do when a disaster looms all around us, right at this moment, only it’s not in a form that we’re expecting? What if it’s one that we’re not even trying to care about yet? That’s close to where I think we are today.
From: In Search of a Post-Godwin Politics – Liberal Currents
Oh no, the world is ending. I’ll clutch my pearls and swoon.Report
Reasonable people can still have reasonable conversions, even if they agree. It means being an adult. It also helps if you don’t live in a bubble and know how to act “mature”. Anyone else doesn’t really deserve the time of day.Report
Jason did a pretty good job of putting this together. Still would have liked to see the entire work posted.
Whatever intrepid framing of the ‘Jade Helm people’ here, it’s really, really poor practice to have your military do ‘gray man’ training amongst the population. I don’t know which ‘very-smart-military-leader’ dreamed up that shit, but he should be hung by the balls.
If something goes down in the interior, we have 200 million guns, we got this. There are reasons this nation was never meant to have a standing army, because you know, ‘trust issues’.Report
Jim Mattis will be surprised to know we don’t have a standing army. Verily we live in times of wonderReport
I read recently somewhere that Hitler is no longer a historical figure but a theological concept.
That seems about right.Report
Isn’t that true of everyone from that era? FDR is either the Savior or the Beast, Churchill is the god of Defending Freedom, Stalin is the Lesser Evil, etc. No pesky details required.Report
We’ve had “warts and all” conversations on this very website about Stalin. I, personally, have had “warts and all” conversations about FDR and Churchill.Report
Will was right to push back against the idea that “both sides do it” is an invalid observation. Someone may make the observation with good or bad intent, and it may or may not have real value in the conversation.
I’m going to make a similar pushback against the anti-Godwin tendency I’ve been seeing lately. Put simply: sometimes Hitler is the right analogy. Not perfect; analogies never are. But Hitler represents something specific, and in our historically-illiterate times we shouldn’t give up on one of the few references we can make. On a recent board (for an article which did mention Nazis in passing) there were two occasions when a commenter made a Hitler reference, and both comments were responded to with eye-rolls.
Can we agree on the following:
– Hitler represents racism and authoritarianism.
– It is in the spirit of the US to condemn authoritarianism.
– The sweep of American history is away from racism.
– To the extent that something is racist and/or authoritarian, it is reasonable to condemn it as like Hitler.
That’s not to say that Will is wrong in his article. There are other things to be condemned.Report
The sweep of American history is away from racism.
Oh, lordy lordy lord! This is hilarious, and in so many different directions.
Do you have any idea how much data can be pulled about a person? Ancestry and what not?
Racism isn’t dwindling. It’s improving.
And Hitler stands for Genocide, more than anything else. If you don’t want the connotation, use Mussolini.Report
More data is available on everything. That doesn’t mean that people are using it for discrimination.
Open question to others: what does Hitler mean to you? (Note that “hero and inspiration” is not an acceptable answer.)Report
Pinky,
What, you need the code as proof?
Sucker.
This is AMERICA, if there’s money to be made, someone’s making it.
As things go, it’s hardly the worst thing in the world (we’ll save that for the people who pay good money to have their children killed “accidentally”)Report
What Frog said. It’s not racist to market products to people based on race. It’s racist to make assumptions about people’s inherent worth based on race.
Also, you mention parents having their children killed a lot. Like, a lot. Are you alleging that it happens frequently, that it’s an underreported story? That we should be talking about it more? If so, please back it up. If not, well, it makes you sound nuts. It’s like your own Godwin’s Law: the longer a conversation, the more likely that Kim will try to bring it around to parents hiring people to kill their children. (If this is all an allusion to abortion, btw, let’s have that discussion.)Report
It’s not racist to market products to people based on race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLHZTNGyCpwReport
Pinky,
When you’re deliberately saying “i won’t give you a mortgage if you’re black” then it’s making assumptions on people’s inherent worth based on race.
Yes, I could probably quantify inherent worth based on race in America, or worldwide if you like (The differences between the two are striking, in fact — blame selected immigration). Pick your index. You don’t REALLY think everyone’s goddamn identical twins, do you??
Yeah, I do. And yes, it does happen frequently, and yes it is an underreported story. (and no, not abortion. Hell, I’m in favor of abortion. Hell, I’m even marginally okay with killing kids under the age of two, in dire circumstances). I mention it because it’s not getting anywhere near the police attention that would be required to shut it down. And because if I don’t mention it, we don’t have to deal with exactly how much we’re strongarming people into “child support.” 50 grand isn’t exactly cheap, most places in America, ya know?Report
Is it racist to make assumptions about people’s inherent worth based upon their status as humans? ‘Cause I’m totally a racist then.Report
damon,
Now you get to define human.
When the AIs pass the Turing test, well, it gets a bit more dicey, doesn’t it?Report
“let me tell you about my mother“.Report
I’m not sure what you’re going for in that comment. I said that it’s racist to make assumptions blah blah race, not humans.Report
Pinky,
We all make assumptions. Some of those assumptions are based on race, as on everything else. The difference between racism and not-racism is exactly how flexible you are — how willing you are to say “well, that was wrong Singular” and also, “well, that was REALLY wrong, Plural and I’m never going to think that again.”
I mean, for god’s sake, I can say that black people have thicker hair than white people do. That’s a big generalization, but it’s also true.
One way or the other, I can say that Blacks are smarter than Whites, or Vice Versa. I’m going to keep mum on the actual results of that comparison, but people ain’t identicalfuckingtwins.Report
Really I’m not always sure that being human gives you an inherent worth.Report
You know the US used to legally keep slaves based on racism, right?Report
“Used to” is such a funny phrase.
Illegal aliens in America have surprisingly few rights.
In fact, you can find them in most grocery meat departments (try the hotdogs).
[Um. yes, seriously. DNA testing is fun!]Report
Is this all about trolling? I thought you might be pursuing a meaningful conversation.Report
{{Maybe she’s implying that slaves were illegal aliens. }}Report
Pinky,
Not trolling. Quite serious about the hot dogs as well (okay, it’s a small quantity, compared to the overal product. 99% beef. Some Human, some Rat. And I’m not even mentioning the stuff that raised eyebrows–“how did you even…?”).Report
To be honest, I suspect that you use words differently than most people, and troll without realizing it. Then you’ll talk about something as ridiculous as illegal alien hot dogs, and it makes be believe that either you’re trolling or it’s not possible to bridge the gap.Report
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/15/mouse-poop-fda-food_n_7572232.html
What? I did mention that it’s a fairly small proportion?
If you don’t believe me, do the DNA testing yourself (or hire a lab).
I’m just reporting the mostly mundane stuff, not what actually gets used for blackmail.Report
Mass Effect Andromeda is a trolling expedition.
Pot Smoking Elmo is a trollicious thing.
I respect trolls far too much to call “Kimmi can’t talk straight” as trolling.Report