Reductio ad Hitlerum, also
argumentum ad Hitlerum, or
reductio (or
argumentum)
ad Nazium (
dog LatinDog Latin or mock-Latin refers to the creation of a phrase or jargon in imitation of Latin, often by directly translating English words into Latin without conjugation or declension...
for "reduction or argument to
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
or the Nazis") is an
ad hominemAn ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of a person advocating the premise....
or ad misericordiam argument, and is a formal
fallacyIn logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning in argumentation. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor , or take advantage of social relationships between people...
in
logicLogic, from the Greek λογική is the art and science of reasoning. More specifically, it is defined by the Penguin Encyclopedia to be "The formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning". As a discipline, logic dates back to Aristotle, who established its...
. The name is a
punA pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect...
on
reductio ad absurdumIn logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the premise that the proposition is false implies a contradiction...
. The phrase
reductio ad Hitlerum was coined by an academic
ethicistAn ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgement...
,
Leo StraussLeo Strauss was a German-born American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy...
, in 1953. Engaging in this fallacy is sometimes known as
playing the Nazi card, by analogy to playing the race card.
It is a
fallacy of irrelevanceIgnoratio elenchi is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question...
where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context. Hence this fallacy fails to examine the claim on its merit.
The fallacy most often assumes the form of "Hitler (or the Nazis) supported
X, therefore
X must be
evilEvil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe what are seen as subjectively harmful deeds that are labeled as such to steer moral support. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are subjectively beneficial to the observer. In some religions, evil is an active...
/undesirable/bad,". For example: "Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong." The tactic is often used to derail arguments, as such a comparison tends to distract and to result in angry and less reasoned responses.
The widespread use of this fallacy on internet message boards led to the creation of "
Godwin's LawGodwin's Law is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990 which has become an Internet adage...
"- a humorous adage that as the length of an online discussion increases, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis/Hitler approaches one. Hitler/Nazi comparisons received widespread mainstream media attention in 2009 during debate on
health care reform in the United StatesThe debate over health care reform in the United States centers on questions about whether there is a fundamental right to health care, on who should have access to health care and under what circumstances, on the quality achieved for the high sums spent, and on the sustainability of expenditures...
, due to comments from citizens attending town hall forums as well as radio and television commentators.
Fallacious nature of the argument
Reductio ad Hitlerum is rationally unsound as guilt by association (a form of association fallacy); it illogically attempts to shift culpability from a villain to an idea regardless of who is espousing it and why. Specific instances of
reductio ad Hitlerum are also frequently likely to suffer from the fallacy of
begging the questionBegging the question is a logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise. Begging the question is related to circular argument, circulus in probando or circular reasoning but they are considered absolutely different by Aristotle...
or take the form of
slippery slopeIn debate or rhetoric, a slippery slope is a classical informal fallacy...
arguments, which are frequently (though not always) false as well.
Those policies advocated by Hitler and his party which
are generally considered evil are condemned in and of themselves, not
because Hitler ordered and enforced them. For example,
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
and
Aryan supremacySupremacism is the belief that a particular race, religion, gender, species, sexual orientation, belief system or culture is superior to others and entitles those who identify with it to dominate, control or rule those who do not...
are considered evil on their own qualities, while Hitler is considered evil largely because
he advocated
them. A common example of the fallacy in action is, "The Nazis favored
eugenicsEugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species. Widely popular in the early decades of the 20th century, after having become associated with the Holocaust, it has largely fallen into disrepute.- Overview :As a social movement...
, therefore eugenics are wrong." However, the
ethicalEthics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
debate over eugenics is not directly connected with Hitler or the Nazis in particular; both eugenics and criticism of it considerably predate Nazism. Used broadly enough,
ad Hitlerum can encompass more than one questionable cause fallacy type, as it does in the eugenics example, by both inverting cause and effect and by linking an alleged cause to wholly unrelated consequences. Hitler was fond of dogs and children; however, to argue that affection for dogs and children is evil on this basis is hardly convincing.
The argument being false, however, does not prove that
X or its supporters are
not evil (assuming so would be another fallacy, namely
affirming the consequentAffirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error, is a formal fallacy, committed by reasoning in the form:#If P, then Q.#Q.#Therefore, P....
). Moreover, recall that the argument is false
in itself, no matter whether
X is actually good or evil. So, "Hitler killed human beings, therefore killing is wrong", is nonetheless a fallacy, however truthful the premise and conclusion may be, because there is no logical connection between the two. It would be akin to "I wear trousers, therefore the sky is blue". This sentence is logically faulty, even if the speaker does wear trousers, and the sky is blue that day.
Various criminals, controversial religious and political figures, regimes, and atrocities other than Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust can be used for the same purposes. For example, a
reductio ad Stalinum could assert that corporal punishment of wayward children is necessary because
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
enacted its abolition, or that
atheismAtheism can be either the rejection of theism,or the position that deities do not exist.In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities....
is a dangerous philosophy because Stalin was an atheist for most of his life. Similarly, one example of a
reductio ad CromwelliumOliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.He was one of the commanders of the New Model Army which defeated the royalists in...
would be to equate enjoying
chamber musicChamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
with hating the
IrishThe Irish people are a Western European ethnic group who originate in Ireland, in north western Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolgs, Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians The Irish...
, while a
reductio ad bin-LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and one of the founders of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and its associations with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against...
um might equate making
propagandaPropaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience...
or
non-mainstream mediaAlternative media are media which are alternatives to the business or government-owned mass media. Proponents of alternative media argue that the mainstream media are biased...
in general with
terrorismTerrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.At present, there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism...
. Such constructions, as a class, make no more sense than saying
moustacheA moustache is facial hair grown on the upper lip. Often the term implies that the wearer grows only upper-lip hair while shaving the hair on his chin and cheeks...
s are evil because Hitler and Stalin had moustaches.
Countering the fallacy
The fallacious nature of
reductiones ad Hitlerum is, however, most easily illustrated by identifying
X as something that Adolf Hitler or his supporters did promote but which is not considered unethical, such as
paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete...
, owning
dogThe dog is a domesticated form of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history...
s, opposition to a government that violates one's philosophy, or being a superb
soldierA soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
.
The fallacy has been referred to dismissively as
enthymeticAn enthymeme , in its modern sense, is an informally stated syllogism with an unstated assumption that must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion. In an enthymeme, part of the argument is missing because it is assumed...
. For example comparing someone's argument to the
straw manA straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition , and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the...
"The Fascists also made the trains run on time" might implicitly reference the
reductio ad Hitlerum.
Many of Hitler's qualities and talents were admirable if seen in isolation. He is generally considered an excellent orator and a political organizer of first rank, despite his use of those talents to further a program of genocide, aggressive warfare, and other atrocities. It must be remembered that not all arguments involving Hitler or Nazism are
reductio ad Hitlerum, although they may be otherwise fallacious.
History of the term
The phrase
reductio ad Hitlerum is first known to have appeared in
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
professorThe meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual...
Leo StraussLeo Strauss was a German-born American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy...
's 1953 book,
Natural Right and History, Chapter II:
In following this movement towards its end we shall inevitably reach a point beyond which the scene is darkened by the shadow of Hitler. Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler.
The phrase was derived from the better known (and sometimes valid) logical argument called
reductio ad absurdumIn logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the premise that the proposition is false implies a contradiction...
. The
argumentum variant takes its form from the names of many classic fallacies, such as
argumentum ad hominem. The
ad Nazium variant may be further derived, humorously, from
argumentum ad nauseamAd nauseam is a Latin term used to describe an argument which has been continuing "to [the point of] nausea". For example, the sentence "This topic has been discussed ad nauseam" signifies that the topic in question has been discussed extensively and everyone involved in the discussion is sick and...
.
In 2000 traditionalist Catholic
Thomas FlemingThomas Fleming may refer to:*Thomas Fleming, Earl of Wigtown *Sir Thomas Fleming , English judge*Thomas Fleming , Irish Franciscan and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin...
described its use against traditional values -
Leo Strauss called it the reductio ad Hitlerum. If Hitler liked neoclassical art, that means that classicism in every form is Nazi; if Hitler wanted to strengthen the German family, that makes the traditional family (and its defenders) Nazi; if Hitler spoke of the "nation" or the "folk," then any invocation of nationality, ethnicity, or even folkishness is Nazi ...
Allegations of Reductio ad Hitlerum in practice
Marek J, Chodakiewicz alleges that the Communist Polish Government used Reductio ad Hitlerum to discredit the Polish independentist underground. For example, on April 19, 1946, at an official state function to commemorate the third anniversary of the
Warsaw Ghetto UprisingThe Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp.The insurgency was launched against the...
, Colonel Mieczyslaw Dàbrowski of the Communist army delivered a speech,
stressing that "The [Nazi] air force, the SS, German tanks, Polish hooligans, Polish reactionaries, and, in fact, the Home Army: they all fought against the [Jewish] insurgents."
Professor Michael André Bernstein alleged Reductio ad Hitlerum in a full-page advertisement placed in The New York Times in 1991, by the Lubavitch community, following the
Crown Heights RiotThe Crown Heights Riot was a three-day riot that occurred in August 1991 in the Crown Heights neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The community was home to approximately 180,000 people – consisting of Caribbean-Americans and West Indians , African Americans , and Jewish residents...
, under the heading "This Year
KristallnachtKristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 1938. It is often called Novemberpogrome or Reichspogromnacht in German....
Took Place on August 19th Right Here in Crown Heights." Henry Schwarzschildr, who had witnessed Kristallnacht, wrote to the New York Times that "however ugly were the anti-Semitic slogans and the assaultive behavior of people in the streets [during the Crown Heights riots] . . . one thing that clearly did not take place was a Kristallnacht."
Neve GordonNeve Gordon, born 15 June 1965, is a Senior Lecturer and head of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who writes on issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and human rights...
, in a 2002 book review of Olivier Razac's
Barbed Wire: A Political History, questioned why: "the architectural similarity and differences between the camps
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
has constructed to hold
PalestiniansThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with family origins in Palestine...
and the
concentration campsNazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps were greatly expanded in Germany after the Reichstag fire in 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
Jews were held in during
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
urges one to ponder how it is that the reappearance of
barbed wireBarbed wire, also known as barb wire , is a type of fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strand. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property...
in the Israeli landscape does not engender an outcry among
survivors." In a January 2003 response to this review, Andrew Silow-Carroll alleged Gordon's use of Reductio ad Hitlerum with, "
Logical Fallacy Alert: The Nazis used barbed wire.
IsraelisIsraelis , are citizens or nationals of the modern state of Israel. Israel is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds including most numerously Jews, Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Druze, Circassians, and others...
use barbed wire. Thus, the Israelis are like Nazis."
In 2004 IPCC chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, was quoted in Jyllandposten saying of eco-skeptic
Bjørn LomborgBjørn Lomborg is a Danish author, academic, and environmental writer. He is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen...
“What is the difference between Lomborg’s view of humanity and Hitler’s?”, and “If you were to accept Lomborg’s way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing.” Lomborg had followed the consensus practice of economists in applying a discount to present costs for future benefits, and comparing the range of out-comes with other world problems alongside climate change.
In 2005 Sen.
Richard DurbinRichard Joseph "Dick" Durbin is the senior United States Senator from the U.S. state of Illinois and Democratic Party Whip, the second highest position in the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate. He became Majority Whip of the U.S. Senate when the 110th Congress convened on January 4, 2007...
read extracts from an FBI memo, describing the ordeal of a prisoner at
GuantanamoGuantánamo is a municipality and city in southeast Cuba and capital of Guantánamo Province.Guantánamo is served by the Caimanera port. Producing sugarcane and cotton wool are traditional parts of the economy.-Geography:...
who was allegedly, subjected to mistreatment including extreme heat and bitter cold, forced to listen to loud rap music and chained to the floor. Durbin said: "If I read this to you and did not tell you it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings. Mark Leibovich in the Washington Post described the outcome as follows: "It prompted yet another episode in what has become a familiar Kabuki in American political discourse: Someone invokes the behavior of Nazis in some non-genocidal context. This is followed by an outcry (in which members of the opposing party are "saddened"), condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League, futile attempts by the speaker to "clarify" his remarks, repeated calls for him to apologize and, inevitably, some acknowledgment of regret, often tearful."
In 2009, the
New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
printed an editorial which criticized
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
Professor
Joseph MassadJoseph Andoni Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, whose academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism....
for "[specializing] in
reductio ad hitlerum." The
Post editorialist supported his conclusion by quoting an essay by Massad written after Operation Cast Lead: "If Germans spent the day on the beach when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, and Americans cheered in bars and at home the fireworks light show the US military put up over Baghdad while slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in 1991 and in 2003, Israeli Jews insisted on having front row seats on hills overlooking Gaza for a live show, cracking open champagne bottles and cheering the murder and maiming of thousands of civilians, more than half of whom were women and children."
In 2002,
José BovéJoseph Bové is a French farmer and syndicalist, member of the alter-globalization movement, and spokesman for Via Campesina. He was one of the twelve official candidates in the 2007 French presidential election...
claimed that "Israel is a reductio ad Hitlerum, so Jews can be accused of being racists if they support the Jewish state....Indeed, Israelis are perpetrating antisemitic acts in France, as it is they who profit from the crime."
Some creationists, particularly religious Christians in the United States, have alleged that acceptance of evolution as a scientific theory leads to Nazism. The argument is that
social DarwinismSocial Darwinism refers to various ideologies based on a concept that competition among all individuals, groups, nations, or ideas drives social evolution in human societies....
was inspired by
Charles Darwin'sCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection...
discovery of
natural selectionNatural selection is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations...
, and that Hitler's evil philosophy can be explained in terms of social Darwinism, and therefore evolution is evil. This was carried out in the 2008
documentary filmDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
,
Expelled: No Intelligence AllowedExpelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 independent documentary film, directed by Nathan Frankowski and hosted by Ben Stein. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence...
, in which the evolutionary biologists are juxtaposed with images of Nazis.
Richard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL is a British ethologist, zoologist, Neo-Darwinian evolutionary biologist and theorist and a popular science author....
and
Eugenie ScottEugenie Carol Scott is an American physical anthropologist who has been the executive director of the National Center for Science Education since 1987...
, two scientists that were interviewed in the film, have been among the most vocal critics of many statements contained in the film. After a viewer of the film wrote to Dawkins that he accepted the film's argument, Dawkins wrote back that the film did not consider the long
history of anti-SemitismThe history of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group goes back many centuries. Antisemitism has been called "the longest hatred."-Ancient times:...
in Europe that preceded Nazism of which Hitler took advantage and that evolution is a
scientific theoryIn the sciences generally, a scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules that express relationships between observations of such concepts...
, that "whether or not we like it politically or morally is irrelevant," and that "[s]cientific theories are not prescriptions for how we should behave."
Expelled also equated an understanding of biological evolution with the rise of communism in the 20th century and the
Berlin Wall|-||-||-||-||}The Berlin Wall was a physical barrier erected by the German Democratic Republic completely encircling West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin. The longer inner German border demarcated the border between East and West Germany...
was used as a double entendre in many parts of the film (part implying evolution and atheism are to blame for communism, part implying that academics in 21st century America are silenced for questioning Darwinian evolution).
Use of Reductio ad Hitlerum has been alleged in criticisms of
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Presidents
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
,
George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States . He was also Ronald Reagan's Vice President , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence....
,
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000....
, and
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
, and against 2008 Presidential candidate
John McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
. For example, A Penn State trustee compared Reagan's rhetoric when addressing a
Young Americans for FreedomYoung Americans for Freedom is a conservative youth organization that was founded in 1960. While the 1960s were its most successful years in terms of numbers and influence, YAF continues to be active as a national organization with chapters throughout the United States.-Philosophy:YAF's founding...
chapter to Adolf Hitler indoctrinating the
Hitler YouthThe Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung .-Origins:The first NSDAP-related organization of German youth was the Jugendbund...
. Moreover, American radio commentator
Rush LimbaughRush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio host and conservative political commentator. Limbaugh rose to prominence during the 1990s as host of a nationally-syndicated talk-radio show, The Rush Limbaugh Show...
compared "the Democratic Party of today" and U.S. President
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
to Nazis. If the audience is meant to derive an equivalence between the two addressed organizations, this would constitute the fallacy; comparing the speakers' rhetoric alone might be hyperbolic or a bad analogy, but would not constitute a fallacy.
In popular culture
The concept behind
reductio ad Hitlerum sometimes makes appearances in the mass media. For example,
- In the film Office Space
Office Space is a 1999 American comedy film written and directed by Mike Judge. It satirizes work life in a typical software company during the 1990s, focusing on a handful of individuals who are fed up with their jobs...
, main character Peter Gibbons, while trying to rationalize his embezzlementEmbezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets, usually financial in nature, by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted. It is a kind of financial fraud...
to his waitress girlfriend, notes that "the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear," in reference to cloying buttons and slogans she's required to wear at work.
- In the episode of Daria
Daria was an American animated television series that ran on the cable network MTV from 1997 to 2002. Created by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn, the series about a smart, acerbic, and somewhat misanthropic high school girl was a spin-off of MTV's animated Beavis and Butt-head .The series was...
("Pinch-Sitter"), the children Daria is babysitting for tell her that "Sugar is bad. Sugar rots your teeth. Sugar makes you hyper. Hitler ate sugar."
- In the "Atomic No. 33" episode of Numb3rs
Numb3rs is an American television drama, which premiered on January 23, 2005 on CBS. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes , who helps Don solve crimes for the FBI...
, the character Susan Doran criticizes science because it was embraced by the Nazis.
- In several high-profile ads, PETA
Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Hall, a well known Rhodesian-Canadian potter...
vilified the food industry, comparing its use of animals to The HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
.
- In Ben Stein's film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 independent documentary film, directed by Nathan Frankowski and hosted by Ben Stein. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence...
, Stein vilifies the theory of evolution claiming it gave rise to NazismNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
and The HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
.
The relative frequency of such comparisons in
UsenetUsenet, a portmanteau of "user" and "network" , is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It evolved from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name....
discussions led to the formulation of an
adageAn adage , or adagium , is a short but memorable saying that holds some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or that has gained some credibility through its long use...
called
Godwin's LawGodwin's Law is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990 which has become an Internet adage...
in 1990, which posits that the probability of analogies involving Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1 as the duration of an online discussion increases.