On the Inevitability of Godwin's Law

It seems that not everyone is aware of the "rules of engagement" for debate and intelligent discourse, so allow me to clarify a point of order which I feel is frequently disregarded in the fields of debate and comparison:

If you compare anything, anything at all, to Hitler or Nazis, then you are a goddamn idiot.

It's not that there aren't valid comparisons to the Third Reich. There absolutely are. Mussolini, Hirohito, and Franco are all great places to start. And there are certainly analogues to the Holocaust in world history: the Spanish Inquisition, of course, but also the reign of the Khmer Rouge, the Rwandan genocide of the early 1990's, and even what's going on right now in Darfur all bear marked similarities to the Holocaust. But bringing up these other genocides would at least be a sign that you'd done your homework. Everyone knows about the Holocaust; the fact that you can make a comparison between some event or practice and the systematic extermination of approximately 14 million human lives is not impressive, and most likely it is a grossly inappropriate comparison.


It makes you look like this.
Comparing something to Hitler or Nazis is such a problem in rhetoric that there's actually a theorem called Godwin's Law which states that "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Eventually, someone is going to make the comparison, and the discussion is essentially over at that point.

Once the subject of a debate has been compared to Nazism, there's no hope for the continuation of cool, rational debate. Nazism is evil, and no one can save face while appearing to defend it, or anything associated with it. The subject so tagged has now gone beyond the field of debate and into metaphysics, perhaps even theology, judging by how fiercely people defend against their pet ideologies being compared with National Socialism. Essentially, the person who proves Godwin right has effectively declared that "viewpoint X is evil, all who espouse it are evil, and any attempt to defend viewpoint X is the equivalent of a hate crime." Once somebody's tossed out an ultimatum like that, it's no wonder that the conversation has nowhere to go but down.

But the most important reason to avoid comparing anything to Hitler or Nazis is that it makes you sound like an idiot. It really does. Even if you're making a totally legitimate comparison between the practices and propaganda of the Third Reich with some equally villainous organization (for example, the Taliban), the act of comparing anything with das Vaterland is so tainted by its association with spluttering, indignant maniacs that even legitimate comparisons suffer for it. Even if the comparison is valid, well-considered, and backed up by data and historical evidence, anyone listening is likely to be on their guard against such comparisons, will assume that such comparison is being made falsely, and will react just as one might predict. Mentioning Nazis chenges the whole tenor of a debate from an attempt to arrive at truth to a desperate struggle to crush the forces of evil under a merciless barrage of logic and namecalling.

In debate as well as in life, just stay away from Nazis. Nothing good can come of inviting them to come in.

NaNoWriMo

As some of you might already know, November is National Novel-Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. In this month of dismal weather and nationwide turkey-murdering, crazy people with literary aspirations across the country will allow their lives to be dominated by the pursuit of a goal which is certifiably insane: to draft an entire 50,000-word novel (about 175 pages) in the space of a single 30-day calendar month.

It's insane, yes. Absolutely. Nobody's denying that. But impossible? Not at all: Thousands of people cross that finish-line every year before 11:59:59 on November 30th. I did it myself in 2007, though I've yet to duplicate the feat. This year, things are a little more stable, my wallet is a little fuller, and I expect and intend to make it through again.

And really, there's no other way to approach it. Everyone (and I do mean everyone in the entire world) has a Great Idea for a novel, a movie script, a video game, a poetry collection, a graphic novel, or whatever floats your particular literary boat. And every one of those selfsame people knows that they are far too busy right now to even consider starting another project on the side. Better to wait until you're retired, and have all the wisdom and free time you'll need to accomplish such a Serious Literary Endeavor.

But that's never going to happen. You'll never have free time, and you're never going to feel wise enough for something so serious and weighty. You'll keep putting it off, becoming more and more afraid of screwing up your Great Idea, and it'll never get done. It'll never even get started.

So the solution is to do it now. As in, right now. Like, starting November 1st, 2011, and committing yourself to getting the first rough draft down on paper by midnight on November 30th, 2011. No backsliding, no procrastination, and no weaseling out. Just sit down at your computer, slap on your word-wranglin' boots, and join the other thousands of like-minded whackos who have similarly committed themselves to such a poorly-planned assault on the ivory tower of Serious Literature.

If such a mad assault appeals to you, you can sign up to join us at NaNoWriMo's website. It's free to sign up, and free to participate. You have nothing to loose but your own self-doubt.


Hoping to see you on the other side of the literary finish-line,
D.F.K. Wurtsmith. Esq.


P.S. If you're interested, but don't feel like signing up, then you can to check up on my progress during the month of November at http://nanowrimo.org/en/participants/super-dave. Please, feel free to mock me mercilessly if I fall behind my self-imposed word-count goal.