On Comparing Things With 1930s Germany
Why Comparison Policing tends to just be a less funny version of Police Squad
I am a pedant among pedants. As such, I am sympathetic to all pedantic reflexes. But I have to say that the worst sort of pedantry is the incomplete kind. There’s real value in having the patience/persistence/tediousness to take a question apart and interrogate each piece in isolation. But it can be worse than useless if you don’t finish what you start.
Case in point, various people are unhappy with Gary Lineker tweeting that UK govt language on refugees is ‘not dissimilar’ (fighting words!) to that used by Germany in the 1930s.
For a start, there’s an obvious issue that many critics asserting the primacy of the importance of care with language have immediately dramatically paraphrased this as “he’s saying the UK govt are Nazis”.
But slightly calmer critics have argued that their problem is that the comparison is wrong because the situations aren’t the same - ‘wrong’ here not just meaning ‘not perfectly correct’ but wrong as in ‘you shouldn’t do this’ (you shouldn’t compare things that are different and that there’s no something reprehensibly dismissive about putting two different situations together and calling them one thing).
This is obviously true. The problem is that it doesn’t stop there. This doesn’t merely illegalise/immoralize comparisons between 2023 UK and 1930s Germany - it invalidates comparison between 1930 Germany and 1931 Germany. They’re obviously not the same thing, the differences are deeply significant and it’s both inaccurate and immoral to dismiss them!
The endpoint of “don’t make imperfect comparisons” is “don’t ever compare anything”. It reminds me of a story[1] about Heraclitus - the Greek philosopher who declared no man ever steps in the same river twice - that a smart student of his immediately said “But, Master, doesn’t that mean you can’t step once into the same river?” before Heraclitus flew into a rage and drowned the man.
Greek philosophy aside, obviously this is not actually how language works. It does so because when people draw comparisons there is - explicit/implicit - context which *qualifies* the comparison (restricting it from the range of the impossible/immoral to the mundanely realistic/permissible).
This is where we get to Police Squad - as a pedant, I enjoy jokes entirely based on ignoring the normal contextual cues in language. “Yes, I know” is a technically, syntactically correct response to “Cigarette?”. But everyone knows this is a joke because contextual cues make it very clear that the full question is “Would you like a cigarette?”. Hence the dissonance and ensuing hilarity.
Of course, the joke doesn’t work nearly as well here because Gary Lineker actually pretty much said “Would you like a cigarette?” (“*language* that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”) so respondents inclined to say “Yes, I know” had to edit the quote appropriately to remove the qualifier.
None of this means you can’t dissent on the *specific substance* of a comparison - but it’s notable that I’ve not seen anyone actually trying to argue that current UK govt *language on refugees* *isn’t* comparable to that used in 1930s Germany.
On the one hand that’s odd, because the specificity makes it easier. But on the other hand, I think it’s entirely comprehensible because it’s like that other media story of the week - Stanley Johnson friend’s assertion that his wife-beating was a ‘one-off’[2] is one of those damning defences.
Focusing on the specifics how the current UK govt talks about refugees compared to rhetoric used in 1930s Germany (or, indeed, 1930s UK!) would, obviously, bring up many points of difference. And not trivial ones - just the same way beating someone every day is clearly very different to just doing it once. But, equally obviously, the thing that’s left in your head at the end of such an exercise is the similarities.
Yes, there are many very significant differences in forms of anti-minority rhetoric and wife-beating - but actually engaging with the subject draws your eyes to the similarities.
In conclusion, as a pedant I’m sympathetic to Comparison-Policing. But - as Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire - “you can’t (ed- shouldn’t!) be a half a pedant”. Rule one of Comparison-Policing has got to be “focus on the qualified comparison being made”. If people don’t do that, it’s not unfair to question whether they don’t feel they can contest the point being made and so are simply[4] confecting a point they can contest.
[1] I have completely forgotten where I read this (/whether I made it up in a dream), although it’s suspiciously reminiscent of the story of the student who first came up with a proof of the existence of irrational numbers getting drown by fellow Pythagoreans. Personally, I never get tired of stories of furious ancient Greek philosophers drowning too-clever students.
[2] Note that the actual subject of the beatings asserts it was *not* a one-off!
[3] “But but but the Nazis wouldn’t let people leave unless they paid - that’s like totally different to not letting people in!”. You’d think a lifetime of deeply autistic studies, habits and professions would incline me to be sympathetic to this sort of blatant point-missing. But I just look at people and think “you’re not 17, you’re not in university a year early doing a computer science course - what’s your excuse?”.
[4] Intentionally/unintentionally - I cannot convey the depth of my disinterest in the internal states of people I’m not sleeping with/I’m not paid to act as confessor to.
Neat & timely piece! Even the double negation in this sentence: "If people don’t do that, it’s not unfair to question whether they don’t feel they can contest the point being made and so are simply[4] confecting a point they can contest."