In an earlier post, I talked about how Hitler appealed to the sense that some groups are entitled to dominate others—a sense shared by a lot of the major figures of his time, who were, therefore, willing to see him as someone with whom they could work. I mentioned that Hitler also relied heavily on deflection, especially whaddaboutism, that enabled him to normalize Nazi violence and persecution and to deflect his own personal responsibility, and I was using a despatch written by Horace Rumbold (British Ambassador to Germany) of a meeting May 11, 1933.
This is the second post about that meeting.
Rumbold reports
The Chancellor then went on to talk about the recent revolution in Germany, which, he said, had probably been unique, inasmuch as it had been accompanied with the minimum of violence and bloodshed. He maintained that not even a pane of glass had been broken in Berlin. Two printing-presses belonging to the Communist party had been destroyed, and perhaps some twenty people in all killed throughout the country. He seemed to remember that matters had been very different in Ireland in 1921, when the law courts had been burnt down and there had been much loss of life. He added very bitterly that between the years 1923 and 1932, 360 of his supporters had been treacherously murdered and some 40,000 injured.
Hitler insisted that the SS and SA “were in no sense military formations, and that he had forbidden them to indulge in military exercises of any kind.”
I’ve spent a lot of time arguing with jerks, and I find this kind of jerk the most frustrating. They’re frustrating because what they’re saying looks like an argument—it has claims, and it has data that are linguistically related to the claims. The data and claims are, however, not logically related to one another. Some of the data is true, or true enough, but not relevant, and the relevant data is false—a deliberate lie, in fact. And then we have claims that might be hyperbole, or they be lies (the idea that their revolution was unique, only two printing presses destroyed, the number of his supporters murdered or injured). The data looks precise (360 deaths, two printing presses) but the important terms are so vague that he actually has a lot of room for equivocation (why only mention Berlin, what does “much loss of life” mean, what exactly is “the revolution”). Hitler doesn’t care that his claims and data are false, and his overall argument illogical. He has no sense of being responsible for what he’s saying or doing. Arguing with him is like trying to play chess with someone who openly pockets pieces and refuses to admit to it. Violating the rules of argument is part of the pleasure.
So, what do you do?
It might be worth engaging with him simply for purposes of trying to undermine his rhetorical effectiveness with third parties—at Rumbold’s May 11 meeting, the only other person in the room is Hitler’s third-rate toady, Baron von Neurath, and Rumbold chooses not to argue. But, what if there are observers to whom you want to expose Hitler’s irrationality and dishonesty?
The rhetorical advantage of being a liar like Hitler is that he has nothing to lose by continuing to lie. If he gets caught in a lie, he can simply claim it was hyperbole—or what is called a “blue lie,” and so it will cost him nothing with his base. The whole point of the charismatic leadership relationship is that it is an irrational commitment to an irrational genius. It is a profoundly religious relationship, in which the leader is worshipped, and so the leader benefits from the kind of thinking common in religions—about claims not needing to be literally true, or empirical facts; they are “true” to the extent that they are consistent with the central beliefs of the religion.[1] The religion of which Hitler is the high priest is the religion of Nazism, and one of the central tenets of Nazism is that Germans are the victims of liberalism, socialism, alien races, and the Versailles Treaty. Because they are the real victims, they are justified in any action they take against the people who have tried to exterminate them. Or who criticize them.
When Rumbold said that there was discrimination against Jews (which Hitler had both denied and bragged about—that’s the next post) and “instanced the names of Professor Einstein and Herr Bruno Watler.” Hitler replied that “Professor Einstein had attacked his Government violently from American soil” and that any English scientist who did the same “would risk molestation in England.” In the first place, no. In the second place, Hitler is equating verbal criticism with attacking, and using that Einstein criticized Nazi Germany as evidence that their prior abuse of him was justified. When arguing with someone like Hitler, this weird warping of time is common—the question was whether Germany was discriminating against Jews, and Hitler said expelling Einstein was justified because Einstein criticized Nazi Germany after being expelled.
So, Hitler’s argument is: there isn’t discrimination against Jews; there is discrimination against Jews, but it’s justified; and, besides, England would do the same (so whaddaboutism based on a hypothetical). Rumbold takes the bait of disagreeing about the last point, making Hitler’s deflection rhetorically effective. They’re now on the issue of whether Britain persecutes people who criticize the government—a point that has nothing to do with whether Nazis do.
This shift is one of the major functions of whaddaboutism—to shift the burden of proof from the weaker case to the other. It’s more or less an admission that a position is indefensible.
Hitler’s earlier whaddaboutism is even more interesting rhetorically. Usually, the whaddaboutism is the kind he engages in about Einstein—it enables the rhetor with a weak case to go on the attack. So, it’s tu quoque—you do it too. He does some of that (the reminder of violence in Ireland in 1921), but his argument about the non-violence of the revolution ends up in whaddaboutism with anti-fascists.
It has the same structure as the argument about Einstein, but without Rumbold saying anything to dispute him:
Hitler makes a false claim (it was unique because it was accomplished with a minimum of bloodshed; there is no discrimination against Jews) that he then contradicts (there were at least 20 people killed; they expelled Einstein); and he justifies this new claim by saying that other people did just as much or worse and therefore this violence was justified. In this case, the violence was the number of Nazis killed and injured during the violence instigated by Nazi groups.
Just as Hitler isn’t responsible for anything he says, so Nazis aren’t responsible for anything bad. It’s never their fault because it is never purely their actions. When it comes to anything bad, then Hitler has a monocausal narrative, and any actors other than Nazis are responsible for the Nazi behavior. Even if deflecting responsibility this way requires some fairly strange time travelling responsibility.
It struck me as very strange when I was reading proslavery rhetors how much they deflected responsibility. They were patient, but about to lose control, and if they did, it would be the fault of abolitionists (or slaves) that they lost control. They genuinely seemed to see themselves as continually exerting heroic self-control that they were about to lose. And nothing was their fault—not slavery, not the conditions of slavery, not the slave codes, not slave rebellions, not even their losing their own tempers and beating slaves. It’s the rhetoric of an abuser.
It makes sense, in its own weird way, that the person who amounts to the idol of an ideology of irrational commitment to the will, violence, and domination would be incapable of making a rational argument. And I think internet a-holes who are similarly incapable of defending their beliefs rationally are similarly commitment to a kind of moral nihilism—there is no morality other than domination. The reason that it strikes me as weird is: why do people who admire domination so much, and who see an irrational argument that silences interlocutors because of how incoherently stupid it is as a victorious domination, whine so fucking much about being victims?
[1] This isn’t a criticism of religion. I consider myself a religious person, and I have beliefs that are not falsifiable or rationally defensible. But, when we start to use that kind of thinking for a political leader, we have created a second God. And I’m not a polytheist.
