Just as there is a positive argument from authority (it is right to do something because X did it), so there is a negative argument from authority (it is wrong to do something because X did it); and I have more than once heard people argue that bans or restrictions on smoking are wrong because they are the first step on the slippery slope to Nazi totalitarianism. The problem with this argument is that one can use it to prove that anything can lead to anything else.
The reductio ad Hitlerum is an argument from historical analogy, and analogy is, by definition, always inexact; otherwise, it would be repetition. As no less a person than Karl Marx put it, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” — that is, it does not, and cannot, repeat itself exactly. While analogical historical reasoning cannot be altogether eliminated, therefore, it must be used with judgment, discretion, discrimination, and care. History teaches neither nothing nor everything; and it is as dangerous to use it wrongly as to disregard it altogether.
Theodore Dalrymple, “The Cheapest Insult: The reductio ad Hitlerum: a refuge of tired minds”, City Journal, 2017-06-19.
April 9, 2023
QotD: Arguments from authority
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