World's Dumbest Argument

I wish I had the energy of those in the liberal blogosphere who have gone beyond the call of duty to take apart Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Granimals to What's For Dinner Mom? Alex Koppelman in Salon gave Goldberg enough rope to hang himself with an interview about the book, and in the first line he proudly describes the book as "a revisionist history," seemingly with no sense of irony. You almost have to look away from the interview as if it were an actual car wreck, especially in moments like this:

He points out that this organic food movement, the whole-grain bread operation, the war on cancer, the war on smoking, that these things were as fascist as death camps and yellow stars. They were as central to the ideology of Nazism as the extermination of the Jews. Now, that is not the same thing. And I want to be really clear about this: That is not the same thing as saying that banning smoking is as morally disgusting and reprehensible as trying to wipe out the Jewish people. You can say that something is as much part and parcel of an ideology and not say that it is as evil.

I mean, you wince when you see someone explain that the organic food movement is as central to Nazi ideology as killing 6 million Jews, while trying to also say that it's not the same thing. And there are more and more of these intellectual cul-de-sacs, like when he tries to call problem-solving fascistic (which would certainly account for all the unsolved problems of the conservative era, no? Goldberg's trick in this interview is to broadly define any facet of what he considers contemporary liberalism as fascist, while conveniently forgetting the words and actions of actual fascists like Benito Mussolini (it's hilarious when he responds to a question about Mussolini's "The Doctrine of Fascism" by saying that he hasn't read it in a while and doesn't remember it, despite having researched and written a book, with Mussolini's name in the subtitle, about how Mussolini was a socialist and not a fascist at all. You'd think that'd be a primary text).

The Sadlynauts have the definitive takedown of this interview, complete with Hitlet smiley face ratings. But I want to also note John Holbo's review of this absurdly broad argument, which takes in so many facets of what Goldberg dislikes about liberalism as fascism that he basically creates a globe full of fascists (in that, he's a doughy Holden Caulfield):

What explicit definition of ‘fascism’ is Goldberg operating with, if any? To judge from reviews, the author’s own comments, his ‘results’, he must be applying the term to any sort of ‘statist’ or ‘collectivist’ political rhetoric, policy proposal, or legislative act, especially such of these as entangle the state in coercive action on behalf of ‘communitarian’ values or ‘identity’ politics: values that subordinate the individual to the whole. The trouble is: pretty much the only sort of conservative who is not going to come out fascist, under this umbrella, is (maybe) the likes of F. Hayek, when penning essays with titles like “Why I Am Not A Conservative”. Otherwise, the whole tradition of conservative thought, from Burke to Kirk and beyond, is ‘fascist’. Hillary says it takes a village, but Burke would never have settled for small-time socialism. He thundered about “the great primeval contract of eternal society.” No doubt ‘it takes a village’ is pretty weak, qua anti-fascist vaccine. But switching to the belief that you would do best to unquestioningly submit yourself to some sort of primordial, vaguely mystical, hierarchical social order is not going to inoculate you either [...]

Now we get to what is maybe an actually half-interesting point. There are two reasons why ad hitlerem arguments tend to be rude and crude. (Everyone knows Godwin’s Law is law. Here’s why, more or less.) First, the Holocaust. It’s pretty obvious how always dragging that in is not necessarily clarifying of every little dispute. Second, a little less obviously, ad hitlerem arguments are invariably arguments by moral analogy. Person A espouses value B. But the Nazis approved B. Not that person A is necessarily a Nazi but there must be something morally perilous about B, if espousing it is consistent with turning all Nazi. The trouble is: with few exceptions, the Nazis had all our values – at least nominally. They approved of life, liberty, justice, happiness, property, motherhood, society, culture, art, science, church, duty, devotion, loyalty, courage, fidelity, prudence, boldness, vision, veneration for tradition, respect for reason. They didn’t reject all that; they perverted it; preached but didn’t practice, or practiced horribly. Which goes to show there is pretty much no value immune from being paid mere lip-service; nominally maintained but substantively subverted. Which, come to think of it, isn’t surprising. How could a list of ‘success’ words guarantee success, after all?

Most people pass simple algebra classes and understand this is not a rational line of argument anymore, and go on to political debates on a different plane. Moral reprobates like Goldberg simply must pursue this faulty reasoning for little more than the scoring of poltiical points, so he makes up definitions, excludes his allies and includes his opponents, and then dares anyone to refute a logical system that only exists inside his own head. It's enervating to actually argue, and the best rejoinder is then NECESSARILY mockery. So, a tip of the cap to those doing the Lord's work here.