Talk:Reductio ad Hitlerum

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Tried to deal with the usual POV issues arising from the use of the term "evil". -- Bonalaw 15:21, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't remember well.. there is another famous latin sentence similar to this like "reductio ad xxx"

Are you thinking of reductio ad absurdum? —No-One Jones (m) 16:40, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
that's it! thanks :-)

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Should a mentioned not be in the article that the phrase comes from the logical fallicy Reductio ad absurdum? — Asbestos | Talk 12:04, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it should. And now it is. Aerion 21:37, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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I think smoking is a better issue for the example than tax cuts, since "the President supports tax cuts" is a pretty touchy subject, since the current President does indeed support tax cuts and Hitler wasn't well-known for supporting the same-Nazism is a form of socialism.Lebob 07:21, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, tax cuts are a situational issue. It's unclear whether, influence by the economic forces of 2001, Hitler would have approved that specific tax cut. Smoking is timeless; it's reasonably clear that Hitler would have enacted the anti-smoking legislation he enacted not matter what the circumstances. Lebob 00:44, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Deletion of entire article?

Does anybody else think this article is a candidate for deletion? I am tempted to recommend a vote. It is not worthy of an article in an encyclopedia, and I am a very big fan of Leo Strauss. It lacks any real conceptual independence from logical fallacy in general. Moreover, it seems to be a political/editorial support for minimizing Heidegger's Nazism.--Mikerussell 07:12, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

Was there a vote I'd say Keep. The fallacy sees enough use in discourse, esp. online (see Godwin's law), to make a Reductio ad Hitlerum a notable specific instance of Reductio ad Absurdum. I'll see if I can add that the comparisons are still happening. -- Kizor 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Kizor that the term / concept is in common usage, though sometimes mockingly so. Another, more timely, concept might be a reduction to terrorists, as per the phrase "if you ***, then the terrorists have already won."
--zandperl 03:16, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, deletion is a tough call, but the substance of the article is dubious. The phrase is not in "common usage" (there are billions of phrases that are far more common), the article's neutrality is non-existent, and its logic is questionable. On the last point, it is true but trivial to argue "just because Hitler supported it doesn't make it wrong". Nazi associations should be examined on their merits - not automatically dismissed as logical fallacies.--Jack Upland 23:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
You apparently have absolutely no idea what the phrase "logical fallacy" means. It is an undisputable fact that, logically, "X is a bad idea" can never follow from "Y supported X", unless it it is held to be true that "every idea Y ever had was bad" and "the situation now is the same as when Y had the idea". Reductio ad Hiterlum is a logical fallacy. Keep. mstroeck 18:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd vote keep. Furthermore, I see no grounds for deletion. A Google search returned over 13,000 pages with the term so it's far more common than many other items that merit inclusion in Wikipedia. It's also included in some online logic lexicons. More than that, the basic concept of the article - appealing to someone's sense of moral outrage by vacuously associating an idea with Hitler or Nazis - is so prevelent in politcal discourse nowadays even though most do not use nor have even heard the term "Reductio ad Hitlerum". As far as conceptual distictiveness, what's true about Reductio ad Hitlerum is also true of ever other argumentum ad and reductio ad fallacy. They're all just more specific extentions of their respective prototypes. I completely disagree with Jack. The logic behind it - the fact that Hitler or the Nazis advanced a particular idea has no effect on the truth of that idea - is irrefutable. JE1977 17:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd vote to delete. The entire article as written is a double fallacy. It is first the fallacy of Reductio ad absurdum because if all comparisons to Nazis are fallacious then even the comparison of Neo-Nazis to Hitler would be false-which is absurd. It is also a straw man argument. People who make Nazi comparisons are not saying that an idea or practice is bad because Hitler did it but that Hitler took the idea further towards it's logical conclusion and as it progressed further towards that logical conclusion it produced bad results.They are using Hitler as an EXAMPLE of why an idea is bad. Nazi comparisons may be valid-depending on whether there really is an ideological or historical connection to Hitler and whether Hitler produced bad results by pressing the idea towards it's logical conclusion
This article violates NPOV. Reductio ad Hitlerum is not universally recognized and no room is made for other points of view. In my own opinion reductio ad hitlerum is often used as propaganda and as a polemic against those who would warn us of genuine threat to liberty by taking away the ability to make meaningful comparisons to past tyrannies. This article is unbecoming of Wikipedia--DCnet 00:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
"Reductio ad absurdum" has been mentioned twice in this "thread", both times as a logicall fallacy. How sad is that in a logic-related talk page people do not know that reductio ad absurdum is NOT a logical fallacy? Moreover, to answer DCnet: you are first using a falacy of the excluded middle: no-one said that "all comparisons to Nazis are fallacious". Some are, some aren't. No dichotomy here. Second, your claim to straw man argument is incorrect. If I were to say: "Killing millions is bad, because Hitler did it", that would be a logical fallacy (a reductio ad Hitlerum, precisely). Someone pointing my fault would not be strawmanning me, nor defending killing innocents, nor defending Hitler's acts. Fact is killing people is bad for many other reasons, but not directly because Hitler did it. That is (as all logical fallacies, in the end) a non sequitur. Does everyone realize that the truth value of a statement has NOTHING to do with its logic? "Killing millions is bad" is true, and so is "Hitler did it". However, "Killing millions is bad because Hitler did it" is faulty logic, and an actual reductio ad absurdum can prove it: Hitler didn't kill billions, therefore we could conclude that "Not killing billions is bad, because Hitler did not do it". Isilanes 10:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Isilanes, I must disagree with your statement 'no-one said that "all comparisons to Nazis are fallacious" '. I understand the article to be saying precisely that and is in fact understood in exactly this fashion by a lot of other people, including those who believe that any Nazi comparison automatically forfeit the debate. If that was not the intended message then editing is needed to clarify this point. Many logical fallacies do have caveats.For example there are valid appeals to authority and cases where absence of evidence may be reasonably presumed as evidence of absence. The article could be saved by making the appropriate caveats but as it stands it is a candidate for deletion.
This quote by Strauss in the article 'A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler.' does not accurately represent the views of those who make Nazi comparisons, and because it does not it is a straw man. The only possible rebuttal of this charge are to show that the article (and the views of Strauss) does accurate represent the views of those making Nazi comparisons or that I have misunderstood the intent of the article.I do not beleive IMHO that either one can be established.DCnet 00:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The article is NOT saying that all comparisons to Nazis are fallacious. The article is saying that comparison to Nazis (devoid of further arguments) is not a valid point to critizice anything. "I'm wearing trousers, therefore tomorrow it will rain" is fallacious (a non sequitur), however true me wearing trousers or tomorrow raining be. And "X is bad because Hitler did it" is equally faulty logic. Always. Not because all comparisons to Nazis are fallacious, but rather because it is a non sequitur, as "valid" a non sequitur as any other. Actually, it is a straw man argument towards "X", it just happens that such a way of strawmanning ideas is much more common than comparing them to blue elephants, and therefore "reductio ad blue elephant" does not deserve an encyclopedic article, but reductio ad Hitlerum does.
You say that the Strauss quote "does not accurately represent the views of those who make Nazi comparisons" (and is therefore a straw man). I must disagree. You are absolutely right if you mean that sometimes valid Nazi comparisons are made. However, it is silly to deny that a whole lot of people think than equating something to a Nazi custom is the last word in a discussion, as if it proved something, which it doesn't. Therefore, it is undeniable that the Strauss quote could and should be applied to them, and the article is valid.
Moreover, I must remind you that your criticism of using the name "Hitler" in logical fallacies was shared by the Nazis... ;^) Isilanes 09:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, when I found this article I spent about a minute scanning it then flipped to this page. From what little I read, I fairly clearly got the message that "'reductio ad hitlerum' is a rather common kind of strawman argument", not "all comparisons to nazism are fallacious" -and as I said that took me a minute, so it's message is not exactly veiled. I don't think there is anything wrong with this article. It's a concept I've come across plenty of times without being able to name, and the article itself is neither invented nor factually inaccurate, so no cause for deletion. -Zepheriah 22:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Keep. I agree. I got the impression that the term coins something that has frustrated me for a long time, and that this page does a good job of laying out my gripes with it. Nowhere is it implied that there are no valid comparisons. Two similar and common fallacies, that have not yet been coined AFAIK, is the reduction to child abuse (typically as an ad hominem or non sequitur) and the reduction to terrorism or fundamentalism (more common in the US than around here, it seems). There are some knee-jerk topics that like some magic invocation will put a stop to anything (or start just about anything) by the mere implication or threat of association if an argument is opposed. It's plain silly. Zuiram 13:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gandhi

New here so pardon me if this is out of turn but isn't claiming Ghandi was 'as benign as Hitler was evil' strongly POV rather than NPOV? By that I mean, although Hitler's extreme evil is so beyond dispute that calling him evil is barely POV, to claim Ghandi's benignness is as great as Hitler's evil seems not very neutral for an encyclopedia even though Ghandi was very benign. This issue doesn't affect the overall quality of the article because the author was only illustrating an example, I'm just raising the POV issue as part of finding my wiki-feet. GhostGirl 17:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, if nothing else, it's a little awkward. I changed it to "non-violence proponent," because I think the idea is to show contrasts with Hitler. My phrasing is still pretty awkward, using non-violence as an adjective, but less POV at least, focusing on what he did, rather than how good he is. NickelShoe 17:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
There's also the fact that ghandi was rather racist, at least in his earlier years... But that's neither here not there, because the points you make are more fundamental... —Memotype::T 14:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

Those examples suck. Not one of them is a proper statement of reductio ad hitlerum; the best examples are usually Godwin posts on Usenet discussions, but whatever, the examples given do not illustrate the definition as stated. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 15:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The examples are meant to illustrate how to show that any such argument is in fact nonsense. They're not examples of actual reductions ad hitlerums. Please read the article carefully before judging. ~Anonymous
No, really, the examples really ARE that bad. Especially the last one. Essentially it is argumented that excessive supervision by the state can easily be misused for malign purposes, and Hitler is a mere example, not part of the reasoning.
Anyway, SHOULD the examples not at least be genuine reductios ad hitlerum? Else why are they included in this article anyway? --Stephan, 30th January 2006
Yes, they ought to be genuine examples of the reductio ad hitlerum. NickelShoe 19:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The third is a very poor example. It is perfectly valid to cite Hitler's use of excessive supervision there: it's intended to illustrate the way in which ID cards might be misused, not merely taint them by association.--Malcohol 12:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
In Watchmen, Rorschach uses reductio ad Hitlerum to insult Ozymandias; after Nite Owl points out that Ozymandias is a vegetarian, Rorschach points out that Hitler was one too. -- LGagnon 16:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger from Godwin's Law

Pretty much, Godwin's Law is a law that deals directly with Reductio ad Hitlerum. The analyses in the articles complement each other nicely. They should be together. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jesuschex (talk • contribs).

  • Disagree. The two are only superficially related and each has more than enough merit to stand on its own as an article. This is akin to suggesting that all Chevrolet car articles be merged into one because they are all from the same manufacturer. ⇒ BRossow T/C 04:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • You are argumenting like HITLER! He, too, always wanted to artificially seperate was ought to be one...
  • I see the point behind merging them, but I also see Brossow's concern about it muddying the articles up--making the differences less clear. If the articles were particularly short, that would be somewhat different, but a clean merge looks difficult without simply keeping them as separate sections. Perhaps something more prominent connecting the two than "see also" would be in order, though. NickelShoe (Talk) 04:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. In addition to BRossow's comments, a comparison involving Hitler or the Nazis is not automatically a fallacy, and it's not just the fallacies that Godwin's Law addresses. --Grouse 08:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • True, but the analysis that Godwin's Law gives is useful for all Hitler and Nazi comparisons, not just those on online communities. Reductio ad Hitlerum would benefit from the analysis in the Godwin's Law article. It's not an issue of article size; both articles have enough information for a page of their own. It is instead an issue of "two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap." [1] As for the fact that Hitler/Nazi comparisons aren't always fallacious, I think that that's an important distinction that Godwin's Law has and Reductio ad Hitlerum doesn't, and both topics would benefit from it. Jesuschex 13:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
      • But, it's not like you couldn't add information from either page without doing a full merge. I'm just concerned about merging them when they're pretty distinct ideas. That is, when a reader clicks "Godwin's Law", I think it's unfair for them to end up at "Reductio ad Hitlerum" or vice versa, if neither is truly a subtopic of the other. That seems like it would be confusing and even misleading in itself. NickelShoe (Talk) 14:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. They are in fact addressing different topics: This adresses the likeliness of someone to relate something to Hitler, the Nazi party, etc. making it evil (with a flawed argument), while the Godwin's law article addresses the likeliness of a Usenet user to compare a user or other object to that of the Nazis, e.g. "Grammar Nazi", as an insult or general moniker, to show that they do this frequently or aggressively. --SheeEttin 21:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Hitler would have agreed. toresbe 12:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Hilarious comment!
  • This disagree comment was posted at Godwin's Law and I am copying it here as it forms part of this discussion:
It seems worth pointing out that deletion or merger would break certain prior media references to Wikipedia's entry on "Godwin's Law". Moreover, there are probably more references to Godwin's Law on Usenet on the Web than there are to "Reductio Ad Hitlerum," which in any case does not have the same meaning. It seems wrong to have Straussians attempt to hijack this page or delete it. Furthermore, googling "Godwin's Law" and "reductio ad hitlerum" indicates that references to the former exceed those to the latter by at least an order of magnitude. So:
(1) the two locutions don't mean the same thing.
(2) Godwin's law has an order of magnitude (at least) more references
(3) fans of Leo Strauss ought not to be able to hijack this page
(4) there have been external media references to this Wikipedia entry.
—This unsigned comment was added by 68.49.2.164 (talk • contribs) 05:51, 5 April 2006 UTC.
  • Do not merge as per 68.49.2.164. -- cmh 14:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Quite different things. romanista 17:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

It appears there is a clear consensus to keep separate pages. I am therefore removing the proposed mergebox. --Grouse 17:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I decided to put a reference to Godwin's Law into the lead paragraph, and in turn put a reference to this article in the GL one. I think the two topics are sufficiently intertwined to warrant that. mstroeck 18:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Random observation

"ad nazium" sounds like "ad nauseam".

I Agree. The term may have arisen from a finessing of "Reductio ad Hitlerum" and finding a more appropriate logical fallacy term, not to mention having fewer syllables and a wider applicability. ad nazium would, in fact, make a nice subset of the ad nauseam arguments, being Dog Latin itself. 64.90.198.6 22:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moustaches

Can it be conclusively proved that men with moustaches aren't evil? Seems like a rather POV statement to me. CameoAppearance 06:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

maybe law of excluded middle is important here.

Screw you, I was going to point that out. :P Vitriol 15:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I am an evil rouge admin and I have a moustache. Does that count? Just zis Guy you know? 15:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Men with mustaches are clearly evil. Don't you people watch the movies? --Jfruh (talk) 04:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. This is very POV and should be removed because men with mustaches are obviously a menace to our existence. -AlexJohnc3 My Talk Page 21:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Couln't agree more. Men with moustaches are a menace to the society as we know it. Oh, and add to them men without moustaches and women (with and without moustaches). Isilanes 09:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about the "reductio ad stalinum"

I have been unable to verify the fact that is asserted in this sentence: "For example, a reductio ad Stalinum could assert that corporal punishment of wayward children is necessary because Josef Stalin enacted its abolition." I have looked high and low for information about Stalin having done this and have not found it in any biography. If anyone has information about this, I would be grateful if it would be posted. G.L. 07:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why 'counterexamples'?

Considering the fact that Reductio ad Hitlerum is fallacious even in the context X = 'holocaust', why is there a mention of those counterexamples at all? They do not in any way enlighten people on the fallacy of the reasoning because the fallacy is logically deeper than the superficial (counter)examples. Just a statement of 'they are not evil because Hitler advocated them, but rather Hitler was evil because he advocated them.' already included should be more than enough.

Showing also the superficial examples will only serve to perpetuate the fallacy because they do not tackle the fact that not only the good sides of Hitler but also the bad sides are not a valid use of argument. So I say either add some references to Hitler's worse actions (invading poland, antisemitism, etc.) in the examples or just remove them as a whole.

  • Good point. I'll see to it. Isilanes 17:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The point that i am trying to make but for some reason keeps getting removed is this. The counterexamples do not refute anything as the article says. Just because someone was an opponent to Hitler does not make them by implication not evil themselves. As a very good example Stalin is considered by many to be at least as evil as Hitler. Therefore it is irrelevant what commonalities Churchill and Eisenhower have with Hitler.71.61.16.14 08:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I do not agree. The counterexamples do refute. Your words imply that Churchill or Eisenhower are considered "good" because they oposed Hitler. You are accusing other authors of making an "inverse" ad Hitlerum, which is not the case. These people, and specially Einstein, are considered at least not particularly evil by themselves. Then, the comparison to Hitler is used as a reductio ad absurdum for the ad Hitlerum. Isilanes 09:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does not make sense

The line "The argument being fallacious, however, does not prove X, or its supporters, not being evil" does not make sense.

  • Yes, it does. But maybe it could benefit from a couple of examples of what it means. --Sebastián
  • Well, I guess that examples of supporting some Nazi idea and not being evil should be (and have been) given. The opposite... one wouldn't think so. However, in the same paragraph it reads: "Hitler killed human beings, therefore killing is wrong", and it is clearly said that X (killing human beings) might be wrong (we could rephrase it to "evil"), even though the reasoning behind the affirmation is fallacious. I think that this example, and the "affirming the consequent" mention, make it clear... but anything to make it clearer or more complete is welcome! - Isilanes 09:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vegetarianism?

How the heck does X='vegetarianism'?? I don't this there was one German in the 1940's who was a vegetarian, or claimed to be one. It seems that possibly this is the case because there is some fallacy regarding Hitler being a vegetarian. He wasn't. --169.237.165.103 19:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I have seen this claim outside of Wikipedia, in The People's Almanac (a real book!) It is possible this is untrue, but if it is, it is a common incorrect belief.P.L.A.R. 01:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reductio ad Binladenum

I removed the following addition by 213.94.253.3 because it's unsubstantiated, unreferenced and isn't really neutral point of view:

Reductio ad Binladenum can be seen in the following quote by Diogo Freitas do Amaral "The agreement to start talks with Turkey [about EU accession] will probably displease Mr Osama bin Laden, who has done everything to prevent this moment arriving." Essentially it is saying: bin Laden opposes Turkish EU membership, therefore Turkey should join the EU.

The quote by Amaral seems to me to be simply a plain statement of fact, and we cannot know if Amaral intended the statement to be interpreted as the editor suggested. Starlord 07:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

  • OK, so there are three options: either he mentions bin Laden because a) his displease is positive for the matter discussed, b) it is negative, or c) it is irrelevant. What are you suggesting is the case? It is either an argument from authority (a), a reductio ad binLadenum (b) or a non sequitur (c). And the ad binLadenum is by far the most likely one. Or maybe you mean that if I were to say "Turkey will join the EU, which would please Hitler", I would not be using a reductio ad Hitlerum? It woult not be so just because I would not add "... so it makes it bad" (which would go implied)? For me it is clear as water, however I would accept that there may be better examples — Isilanes 17:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ultimate example

I think that I have found the most hilarious example of the reductio ad Hitlerum: [1]. I wonder whether it would be appropriate to add a link to this in the article, or add it to the examples. LeighvsOptimvsMaximvs 13:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linux example

Some people say Linux is bad because it's (allegedly) used by Kim Jong Il. How bout putting this as an example? It's much more recent than Cromwell..91.127.220.242 22:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

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