Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, or reductio (or argumentum) ad Nazium – dog Latin for "reduction (or argument) to Hitler (or the Nazis)" – is a modern fallacy in logic. It is a variety of both questionable cause and association fallacy. The phrase reductio ad Hitlerum was coined by an academic ethicist, Leo Strauss, in 1950. Engaging in this fallacy is sometimes known as playing the Nazi card.^[1][2] The phrase Dog Latin refers to the creation of a phrase or jargon in imitation of Latin, often by directly translating English words (or those of other European languages) into Latin without conjugation or declension. ... Hitler redirects here. ... The National Socialist German Workers Party, (German: , or NSDAP, commonly known as the Nazi Party), was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. ... Look up fallacy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Fallacies of questionable cause, also known as causal fallacies, non causa pro causa (non-cause for cause in Latin) or false cause, are informal fallacies where a cause is incorrectly identified. ... An association fallacy is an inductive formal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association. ... An ethicist is one whose judgement on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by some community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgement. ... Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973), was a German-born Jewish-American political philosopher who specialized in the study of classical political philosophy. ...

The fallacy most often assumes the form of "Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad"^[2]. The argument carries emotional weight as rhetoric, since in many cultures anything to do with Hitler or Nazis is automatically condemned. The tactic is often used to derail arguments, as such a comparison tends to distract and to result in angry and less reasoned responses.^[2] A subtype of the fallacy is the comparison of an opponent's propositions to the Holocaust.^[2] Other variants include comparisons to the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police), to fascism and totalitarianism more generally,^[1] and even more vaguely to terrorism.^[3] An inverted variant can take the form "Hitler was against X, therefore X must be good." For other uses, see Evil (disambiguation). ... Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral, visual, or written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has expanded greatly since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in universities. ... For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). ... The   (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei: “secret state police”) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence. ... Totalitarianism is a term employed by some political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. ... Terrorist redirects here. ...

Fallacious nature of the argument

Reductio ad Hitlerum is rationally unsound for two different reasons: As a wrong direction fallacy (a type of questionable cause), it inverts the cause–effect relationship between why a villain and an idea might be criticized; conversely, as guilt by association^[2][4] (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 question or take the form of slippery slope arguments, which are frequently (though not always) false as well.^[2] Wrong direction is a logical fallacy of causation where cause and effect are reversed. ... Guilt by association, also known as the bad company fallacy or the company that you keep fallacy, is the logical fallacy of claiming that something must be false because of the people or organisations who support it. ... In logic, begging the question describes a type of logical fallacy, petitio principii, in which the conclusion of an argument is implicitly or explicitly assumed in one of the premises. ... In debate or rhetoric, the slippery slope is an argument for the likelihood of one event or trend given another. ...

Those policies advocated by Hitler and his party which are generally considered evil are all condemned in and of themselves, not because Hitler supported them. In other words, genocide and race supremacism, as two examples, are considered evil on the merits, while Hitler is considered evil for numerous reasons largely because he advocated them. A common example of the fallacy in action is, "The Nazis favored eugenics, therefore eugenics is wrong."^[2][4] But the ethical debate over eugenics has nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazis in particular; both eugenics and criticism of it considerably predate Nazism, and have gone well beyond it, into concerns about modern genetic engineering, unknown to Hitler. 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. The fallacy of guilt by association can readily be seen by noting that Hitler claimed to be a vegetarian and was fond of dogs and children; arguments that because of this, vegetarianism or affection for dogs and children are evil do not convince. For other uses, see Genocide (disambiguation). ... Not to be confused with suprematism. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference [10], 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ... For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ...

Ad Hitlerum can also be combined with ad hominem or personally-attacking arguments. Reasoning such as "you are wrong because Hitler said something similar, and Hitler was evil, so you must be evil too" is doubly false, and as such is also related to the fallacy of appeal to emotion. Look up ad hominem in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy wherein the arguer (who is using this fallacy) takes advantage of emotion to prove his or her argument. ...

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 consequent). Moreover, recall that the argument is falsein itself, no matter whether X is actually good or evil.^[2] 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 tomorrow it will rain". This sentence is logically faulty, even if the speaker does wear trousers, and the next day does turn out rainy. Affirming the consequent is a logical fallacy in the form of a hypothetical proposition. ...

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 Stalin enacted its abolition, or that atheism is a dangerous philosophy because Stalin was an atheist.^[5] Similarly, one example of a reductio ad Cromwellium would be to equate enjoying chamber music with hating the Irish, while a reductio ad Ladenium might equate making propaganda or non-mainstream media in general with terrorism. Such constructions, as a class, make no more sense than saying moustaches are evil because Hitler and Stalin had moustaches. Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Georgian: , Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili; Russian: , Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) (December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953), better known by his adopted name, Joseph Stalin (alternatively transliterated Josef Stalin), was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unions Central Committee from... Atheist redirects here. ... Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) 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. ... Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. ... Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic: ‎; born March 10, 1957[1]), most often mentioned as Osama bin Laden or Usama bin Laden, is a Saudi Arabian militant Islamist and is widely believed to be one of the founders of the organization called al-Qaeda. ... 1967 Chinese propaganda poster from the Cultural Revolution. ... Alternative media are defined most broadly as those media practices falling outside the mainstreams of corporate communication. ... Terrorist redirects here. ... Edgar Allan Poe grew a moustache later in his life. ...

Countering the fallacy

The fallacious nature of reductio 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 watercolor painting, owning dogs, or vegetarianism. It may be refuted through counterexamples using figures with reputations generally opposite that of Hitler: Watercolor (watercolour in the UK and aquarelle in France) designates a painting method, the medium, or the resulting artwork, in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water soluble vehicle. ... Trinomial name Canis lupus familiaris The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a domestic subspecies of the wolf, a mammal of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. ... A variety of vegetarian food ingredients Vegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes all animal flesh, including poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, and slaughter by-products. ...

• Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, Hitler's British opponent, also painted.
• President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his successor Harry Truman, Hitler's American opponents, also owned dogs.
• India's celebrated, pacifist reformer Mahatma Gandhi was also a vegetarian.

The fallacy is common enough that the counter-example can be used without a proper explanation; for example, dismissively saying, "yeah, and the Fascists made the trains run on time", and expecting the listener to understand the reference to reductio ad Hitlerum. The Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) was a British statesman, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II. At various times an author, soldier, journalist, and politician, Churchill is generally regarded as... Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882–April 12, 1945), 32nd President of the United States, the longest-serving holder of the office and the only man to be elected President more than twice, was one of the central figures of 20th century history. ... For the victim of Mt. ... “Gandhi” redirects here. ...

In addition to this, 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 Chicago professor Leo Strauss's 1950 book, Natural Right and History, Chapter II: For other uses, see University of Chicago (disambiguation). ... The meaning of the word professor (Latin: [1]) varies. ... Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973), was a German-born Jewish-American political philosopher who specialized in the study of classical political philosophy. ...

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 absurdum. 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 nauseam. In logic, an argument is a set of statements, consisting of a number of premises, a number of inferences, and a conclusion, which is said to have the following property: if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true or highly likely to be true. ... Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: reduction to the absurd) also known as an apagogical argument, reductio ad impossibile, or proof by contradiction, is a type of logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument, derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original assumption... An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally argument to the man), is 1) a logical fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by addressing the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself; 2) an argument pointing out an inconsistency... Look up ad nauseam in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Examples

Equating Israelis with Nazis

Further information: New antisemitism

In recent years, comments, cartoons, and editorials throughout the Middle East, Europe, and the United Nations have equated the actions of the Israeli government and Israel's supporters abroad with the actions of the Nazi Party during the the Holocaust.^[6][7] Critics of the analogy note that there is an obvious difference between a country defending its own citizens against international terrorism and a carefully planned program of genocide against civilians for no reason other than their race or religion. New antisemitism is the concept of a new 21st-century form of antisemitism emanating simultaneously from the left, the far right, and radical Islam, and tending to manifest itself as opposition to Zionism and the State of Israel. ... Politics of Israel comprises of several interwoven components: Laws Israels governmental system is based on several basic laws enacted by its unicameral parliament, the Knesset. ... The National Socialist German Workers Party, (German: , or NSDAP, commonly known as the Nazi Party), was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. ... “Shoah” redirects here. ... For other uses, see Genocide (disambiguation). ...

Scholars explain the phenomenon in different ways depending on which individual or group is using the false analogy. Bernard Lewis explains that Middle Eastern Arabs use it as an attempt to rewrite the history of the Holocaust by placing Arabs in the Jews' roles and Jews in the Arabs' roles (in reality, Arabs, specifically Palestinians, collaborated with Nazis).^[8] Mitchell G. Bard explains that Europeans use it to shift the focus away from the crimes of the Holocaust they committed in their own past to the alleged crimes that their past victims (Jews) are committing in the present.^[9] This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For the founder of the River Island retail chain, see Bernard Lewis (entrepreneur). ... Mitchell Geoffrey Bard is an American foreign policy analyst who specializes in U.S.-Middle East policy. ...

Linking acceptance of evolution with Nazism

After World War II, a some people on the creationist side of the creation-evolution debate, most of whom are politically conservative, religious Christians in the United States, began alleging that acceptance of evolution as a scientific theory leads to Nazism.^[10] The argument is that social Darwinism was inspired by Charles Darwin's discovery of natural selection, and that Hitler's evil philosophy can be explained in terms of social Darwinism, and therefore evolution is evil. The usage of this fallacy was prevalent in 2008 propaganda film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Richard Dawkins and Eugenie Scott, two scientists that were interviewed in the film under false pretenses, have been among the most vocal critics of the many fallacies contained in the film. After a viewer of the film wrote to Dawkins that he accepted the film's fallacious argument, Dawkins wrote back that the film did not consider the long history of anti-Semitism in Europe that preceded Nazism that Hitler took advantage of and that evolution is a scientific theory, 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."^[11] Creationism is generally the belief that the universe was created by a deity, or alternatively by one or more powerful and intelligent beings. ... Social Darwinism is the idea that Charles Darwins theory can be extended and applied to the social realm, i. ... For other people of the same surname, and places and things named after Charles Darwin, see Darwin. ... For other uses, see Natural selection (disambiguation). ... The Why We Fight Series depicts the Nazi propaganda machine. ... Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. ... Eugenie Scott, in April 2005. ... This is a partial chronology of hostilities towards or discrimination against the Jews as a religious or ethnic group. ... In mathematics, theory is used informally to refer to a body of knowledge about mathematics. ...

In popular culture

The relative frequency of such comparisons in Usenet discussions led to the formulation of an adage called Godwin's Law in 1990, which posits that analogies involving Hitler or the Nazis become increasingly likely the longer an online discussion takes place.^[2] Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... An adage (IPA ), or adagium (Latin), is a short, but memorable saying, which holds some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or it has gained some credibility through its long use. ... Godwins law (also known as Godwins Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. ...

The concept behind reductio ad Hitlerum sometimes makes appearances in the mass media. For example,

• In a Dilbert cartoon (published October 28, 2006), the character Ratbert says that he is winning all his debates on the Internet by asking, "How would you like it if Hitler killed you?"

• In the movie Office Space, Peter Gibbons notes that "the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear," in reference to the waitstaff's uniforms at a local restaurant.

• In the South Park episode Chef Goes Nanners, the town wants to change their town flag for depicting blatant racism. Ned and Jimbo convince the local Ku Klux Klan group to take position against the town flag in the hopes that the townspeople reverse their position, not wanting to support anything that the KKK supports.

• In the episode of Daria "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."

Dilbert (first published April 16, 1989) is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. ... is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Office Space is an American comedy film written and directed by Mike Judge. ... This article is about the TV series. ... Chef Goes Nanners is episode 55 of the Comedy Central series South Park. ... Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Ethnocracy Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial quota... Members of the second Ku Klux Klan at a rally during the 1920s. ... For St. ...

See also

• Godwin's Law
• List of fallacies
• Wisdom of repugnance

Godwins law (also known as Godwins Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. ... This is a list of fallacies. ... The wisdom of repugnance is a phrase describing the notion that an intuitive (or deep-seated) negative response to a thing (e. ...

References