BS: Mike Godwin Speaks

Subject: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 06:45 PM

This may be of educational interest to some of the folks here who take pleasure in invoking the law at the drop of a hat:

Godwin's Law Creator Supports Calling Racist Demonstrators 'Nazis'
Not all Nazi comparisons are accurate, but some absolutely are.


Mike Godwin, an attorney and author, coined something called Godwin's law in 1990, when internet discussion boards were first proliferating. In the years since he introduced the law, it has become a mainstay of internet discussion boards. And as it has proliferated, the general understanding of the law has grown less precise; though Godwin's law is not intended to be used to penalize people for invoking Hitler, it's often invoked now to claim that debaters who compare each other to Hitler have "violated" Godwin's law. The penalty: The person who referenced Hitler or Nazis automatically loses the argument. A gentler version holds that once Hitler comes up in a debate, the conversation has outlived its usefulness.

Godwin sees his law a bit differently, however. On Sunday, he tweeted about the events in Charlottesville, and he didn't mince words:

Mike Godwin @sfmnemonic
By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.
8:03 PM - Aug 13, 2017

"The best way to prevent future holocausts, I believe, is not to forbear from Holocaust comparisons," he wrote in The Washington Post in 2015, amid the rise of Trump. "[I]nstead, it's to make sure that those comparisons are meaningful and substantive." Though some have used Godwin's law to push back on comparisons between white nationalists and Nazis, the law was originally intended to preserve the strength of those Nazi comparisons for times when they are genuinely merited."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/godwins-law-creator-supports-calling-racist-demonstrators-nazis_us_59919eb5e4b0909642986356?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 07:25 PM

One thing's for sure: Godwin never intended his law to be something that those of fascistic predilections could invoke in order to stymie criticism of them, or something that they could hide behind. I do think he was counselling extreme caution in the use of the term Nazi. If you act in precisely the same way as real Nazis in the 1930s, you're a Nazi in sentiment. But if you display just some traits that could be interpreted as traits that Nazis might have shown, then your opponents have a bit of a mountain to climb before they can justifiably level the term at you. More importantly, you could say that only real Nazis in the thirties should, strictly speaking, ever be called Nazis, but even then...Herbert Von Karajan was an enthusiastic Nazi Party member during the war. Like a lot of Nazis, in large part he probably joined the party in order to selfishly further his career. I have no evidence that he enthused over Kristallnacht or wanted Jews to die in gas chambers. But his voluntary membership of the party is enough for me and I won't have his music in my house. Wagner was a disgusting antisemite, and it's a good bet that, had he lived half a century later, he would have been Hitler's number one fan. In terms of sentiment, he was probably a bigger "Nazi" than most of the people here who have been called Nazis. But he wasn't one because there was no Nazi party in the nineteenth century. On the whole, I think that comparing people with Nazis is useless. It tends to arouse the wrong sort of defensive response and it beggars the argument. There are plenty of alternative descriptions available, some just as pejorative. Best to always have an eye on outcomes. I don't call people Nazis, even if I think they are Nazis, sort of.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 07:40 PM

That's very exculpatory of you Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 08:20 PM

That needs explaining. Don't be shy.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 09:44 PM

Each word I wrote is as clear as an azure sky Steve
I know you do not need a dictionary.

As for music...
Musically speaking VonKarajan compared and contrasted to Leonard Bernstein did next to nothing to enable healing after the war.
The historic and high risk concerts in war zones and the legendary Freiheit concert cement Leonard as a legend of freedom through music.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 05:21 AM

You didn't make it clear who you suppose I'm "exculpating" (excuse the clumsy use of words in order to get to the point).

Some people can see beauty in music composed or made by bigots such as Wagner and Karajan. It's a personal reaction only but I can't see through the darkness. When I listen to the Tannhäuser overture I'm listening to Adolf Hitler. Can't help myself. It's an awkward topic because I haven't thoroughly researched the political leanings of most of the people whose music I admire. I may be listening at times to music made by people just as horrid. Carl Orff is definitely very dodgy. I struggle with Richard Strauss, whose music I love to bits, who definitely exercised expedience in Nazi Germany but he's also known for privately detesting Hitler and for acting in ways he found distasteful in order to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law from the death camps. Furtwängler stayed in Germany and helped the Nazis by putting on concerts, but he was an exceptionally silly and naive man beyond the world of music. He was more or less forgiven by enquiries after the war and Yehudi Menuhin made recordings with him not long after the war. Gotta be careful not to be "exculpatory" about someone just because you happen to like their music. That would be cherrypicking. The Siegfried Idyll is beautiful but I always    turn it off. I can't hold my nose. That's just me.

Bernstein, along with Gershwin, is one of your greatest exports. Oh, and Woody Guthrie!

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 07:06 AM

Because of where you live you have more occasion and reason to visit the issue of the art of music of Nazi affiliated maestros than I. With your Saxon acquaintances you have probably acquired a gentleman's agreement that serves as a lid on the past conflicts.

gotta go for now.

Wagner= better than it sounds

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 07:36 AM

Bit of a sidetrack, but I think Wagner's influence burgeoned like mad then died. He was a musical dead end. I'm trying hard not to negatively cherrypick.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 08:28 AM

Music, religion and politics is a bitter toxic cocktail.
Separate and alone is how I prefer to take them. Still given the impossible choice of being stuck in an elevator with a gassy Andrea Merkle or to sit through the Ring Cycle, I would gladly take the elevator.

As an Orchestral musician I only know the war horses. It was you who introduced me to Beethoven's solo piano variations.

There are certain people who know how to interpret Mozart in such a way that it becomes unlike anything else on Earth. Its hard to explain the magical transformation but some performers who leave the notation of the page behind and discover a new galaxy of relationships are genius. Like what Bach did for plodding Baroque music some people know how to take the old to altitudes seen by few.
Everything old is new again.

PS I'm glad Godwin changed his mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 09:14 AM

Funnily enough, I can take a mix of religion and music. I'd have to do without a hell of a lot of music if I couldn't. Religion, with its ceremony, its art, its architecture and its music is my heritage just as much as it's the most fervent believer's. I listen to a lot of religious music, I go into every church I find when I'm in Italy or Spain and most of the works of art I gawped at in awe in the Uffizi in May were representations of some kind of Christianity. Most people of religion are just as good people as most people without religion. Politics isn't the same thing. Most people were born into their religion, and religion has developed sophisticated and controlling (and dishonest) ways of getting its flock to continue to acquiesce. Politics is far more about acquired conviction. Unfortunately, it's a very skewed world and, as we see here and in American politics, it's all too easy to get sucked into an ill-informed corner. It's when that conviction trumps common humanity (not to speak of common sense) and turns into self-interested devil-take-the-hindmost that it becomes unconscionable. When, as Wagner did with the Jews, someone begins to see whole groups of people as inferior to his group, I have to part company with him. Just read what he detestably said about that lovely (Jewish) composer Felix Mendelssohn. I think that Wagner's art is unavoidably tainted. Your mileage may vary.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 10:01 AM

The greatest artists and composers, some secular, were hired by the Church and Presto Chango a secular Mozart writes the most incredible Religious music. Religious music is often authentic in the inspiration behind it but some of it is usurped.

I do not take the old prejudice that artists faced in their life time into the future. Ha there is enough new prejudice. So that is why   Art, Religion and politics stand on their own in my appreciation or depreciation.
The longest lasting art is architecture.

I designed a GWBush and Reagan Memorial (Image only). I have plans for Trump

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 10:12 AM

Don't forget to install a micropenis on his forehead.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 10:22 AM

One idea is the partial demolition of the Bush Memorial* to put up his tower.

* A jpg. I am proud of.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 11:19 AM

Nope it is best to have the partial demolition of an Obama Memorial to put up the Trump Mausoleum Tower. (creativity in real time evolution)
It'll be 60 years from now before this will be realistically hilarious.

I'm a cave wall cartoonist at heart

Do you paint, or Photoshop creations Steve?

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 01:37 PM

Sorry Greg this thread drift is best expanded upon by Tolstoy in his book 'what is art'.

Now back to Nazis. By their Art you shall know them. Nazi Art and architecture was god Awful but they sure loved the good stuff.

W Bush as a portrait artist has captured a certain Je ne sais croix.

Back when we called Bush Hitler, Godwins law made sense but now when faced with the real thing it is good he amended his law.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 05:44 PM

I am a man of many talents, Donuel, but I fear I can't draw a straight line for toffee.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 06:18 PM

So what are your talents? Forgery, Impressionist, safecracker, 5th grade education, sight seer, Music Historian?

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 07:08 PM

Whatever you see here. The main thing is that I hate not understanding things. That's either a talent or it's that I've never grown up.

Subject: RE: BS: Mike Godwin Speaks
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 07:25 PM

Ah
Curiosity
Some have it some don't. Leonardo D'Vinci had it as a child and all the way through to an old man. It is a life changing obsession. I have known people without it. The absence of curiosity is not bliss. Its depression.