Accidental Blogger

One big plus of having interesting co-bloggers is that you learn something new from your discussions with them. Even when you disagree.

Joe’s post about the current controversy under way at the University of Minnesota Law School over the hiring of Robert Delahunty, resulted in an impassioned discussion in the comments section. In my very first comment, I made allusions to the Nazi regime in order to make a point about Delahunty and the Bush administration. I was fully aware of the hyperbolic nature of the comparison I was making and admitted as much. In a subsequent comment Dean, gently (and artfully) brought to my attention Godwin’s Law, which  states:

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

This caused me to chuckle aloud even as I was concentrated on refuting some points made by other commenters, Dean included. In my own defense, I have to add that my comment does not quite fall within the purview of Godwin’s law. I brought up the comparison in my opening salvo and not as the discussion grew and not because my power of persuasion was skating over thin ice. So it was not an ad hominem I resorted to in desperation. The comparison was a considered one, even though I knew it was exaggerated. Nevertheless, Godwin’s Law made sense because I can easily see its veracity.

"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 argues in his book, Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age, that overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact."

Very true. That is why I was careful about bringing up Mengele and Goebbels (Heidegger and Wagner don’t quite measure up to the kind of villainy I had in mind). I agree that invoking Nazis, Hitler, fascists etc. carelessly and for posturing alone, has a diminutive effect on the true extent of the evil that they and their movements perpetrated on humankind. Yet we do it all the time . Tobacco Nazis (anti smoking groups), Yard Nazis (Home Owners’ Associations), Femi-Nazis (Rush Limbaugh’s characterization of feminists), Environmental Nazis (The Green Party) etc. etc.  The Democrats and Republicans have exchanged charges of Nazism and fascism across the aisle a few times in recent times. When I lived in Germany, some older Germans said ruefully to me that no reasonable argument with the younger generation of Germans was possible for them because of the inevitable retort of "Du bist ein Nazi!" rolling off the youngsters’ angry tongues.

Does the casual banter about Nazis dilute the evil that the Third Reich really was?  Perhaps not yet – not while veterans of WWII and survivors of Nazi atrocities are still alive and can bear testimony to the horrors. But once they are gone and Nazism is relegated to the dusty pages of history books?  Will Nazism become just an evocative analogy to hark back to an unsavory and derogatory past which is no longer quite the threat it once was? Such as Byzantine, Ghenghis Khan, Bolsheviks or the Hottentots? I hope not. That is precisely the comfort level with evil that we should not develop. And that is why I think it is  appropriate when we see our own institutions creeping towards those tendencies (as in numerous instances during the Bush-Cheney regime), it is prudent to invoke past evils as a cautionary signal. I was trying to do just that in my comment. 

[A parenthetical thought. Am I, as a child of the seventies (Vietnam, Naxalbari, campus protests, sit-ins, shut downs) grown up in a culture acutely aware of the role that Gandhian non-cooperation played in bringing about India’s independence, more sympathetic to organized protest as a means to making a political or ideological statement than are my younger, American born co-bloggers?]

Update: Just in time for posting, Dean has sent me the following article as an illustration of the consequences of drawing  inappropiate parallels to Nazis. The report concerns one of the two lefty academics I mentioned who ran afoul of mainstream sentiments – Ward Churchill of Colorado. Access to the article requires subscription – I will copy it here (see next page). Thanks Dean! 

Friday, December 1, 2006

Planned Center on Western Civilization Hits a Roadblock at College in Cross Hairs of Culture Wars

By JOHN GRAVOIS

The Alexander Hamilton Center for the Study of Western Civilization, an institute inspired by one of America’s founding fathers, has run into trouble with its own founding.

The center was to be based at Hamilton College, in New York, and devoted to the study of "freedom, democracy, and capitalism." However, after announcing the institute’s creation in September, the college backpedaled this week, saying the center "will not be established at this time due to a lack of consensus about institutional oversight."

Robert L. Paquette, one of the would-be founders of the center and chairman of the college’s history department, said he hoped the latest announcement signaled "merely a pause, not an end." He said he had submitted a revised charter to Hamilton’s Board of Trustees in an attempt to respond to some of the administration’s concerns that the center would have too much independence from the college. Vige Barrie, a college spokeswoman, said the administration wanted the center to be "of Hamilton rather than simply at Hamilton."

The college provided the setting for Act I, Scene 1 of the Ward Churchill controversy in 2005, when a scheduled speech there by Mr. Churchill — a University of Colorado professor who once likened victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks to a Nazi bureaucrat — was called off amid threats and consternation.

The Churchill controversy resulted in some public perception that Hamilton — and indeed, academe — was overrun by an anti-American left.

Although Mr. Paquette said the idea for the Alexander Hamilton Center predated the  imbroglio, the controversy "energized the founders" of the center, given that their intent, backed by a $3.6-million pledge, was "to broaden and deepen the conversation on campus."