General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Post removed [View all]markpkessinger
(8,919 posts)I wish more here would read, mark and inwardly digest it!
The reflexive invocation of Godwin has, in my view, all too often been used as a lazy means of shutting down discourse without engaging the substance of an issue. The effect of doing that is that it fosters the notion that something like the Holocaust could never happen again, that it was such a one-off in human history that we need not even entertain the possibility that it could ever happen again. Habnnah Arendt must surely be rolling over in her grave at such a suggestion. Instead of invoking some Internet "law" in a way it was never intended to be invoked, if we think someone has drawn a parallel to something from the Nazi era that is unfair or inappropioate, why not have the discussion as to why, exactly, it is unfair or inappropriate?