Posted by sdb on May 31, 2006, at 16:50:44
In reply to godwins » sdb, posted by zazenduck on May 30, 2006, at 15:03:10
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Thanks for the hint. I just laugh about about that text. Law is relative. There is no guiltiness nor there is evil or good. There are only suffering people. A. Hitler was a patient damaged and influenced by world war one and afterwards diagnosed as a hysterical person. And yes I totally agree...<He is neither unique nor the first of his kind with respect to them> and the following text speaks for itself:
"From a philosophical standpoint, Godwin's Law could be said to exclude normative (ethical) considerations from a positivist (scientific) discussion. Frequently, a reference to Hitler is used as an evocation of evil. Thus a discussion 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. It is exacerbated by the frequent fallacy of "Hitler did A, therefore A is evil" (Reductio ad Hitlerum). However, as noted, the exceptions to Godwin's Law include the invocation of the Hitler comparison in a positivist manner that does not have a normative dimension.
In a class that will see a good deal of discussion, citing this law early in the course can have a good deal of pedagogical value.
Many people incorrectly say Godwin's Law has been "violated" rather than "invoked." [1][2] Godwin's Law can only be violated by an infinitely long thread that never mentions Hitler or the Nazis.
The practical consequence of invoking or respecting the validity of so-called "Godwin's law" is that no such comparison is ever allowed, no matter how justified it may be. In any honest and open debate, one party may not preėmptorily reject another's argument without regard for its validity. Thus, the correct way to oppose comparisons to Hitler is to show that they are invalid rather than to reject them out of hand. As a historical figure, Hitler is representative of a whole class of authoritarian or totalitarian behavior. He is neither unique nor the first of his kind with respect to them. This suggests that Hitler cannot be automatically rejected for purposes of comparison where valid."
poster:sdb
thread:649688
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060417/msgs/651117.html