One of the strangest afflictions know to modern society is the tendency of people to reinforce a counter-intuitive point through a bad metaphor instead of thorough explanation. One symptom of this currently unnamed illness that I find particularly aggravating is what I like to refer to as ‘The Hitler Defense’.
In the general manifestation of this illness, a person will be in the midst of making an argument about some quality or skill that is generally considered positive – leadership or charisma or whatever – and then point out that this quality is not proof of a good person. Then, instead of thinking through the point and building on it with an explanation, this person will make a comparison to the most extreme example on hand to 'make' the point.
I give the phenomenon its name because of a conversation I overheard one day when I was strolling the halls of a museum in DC. The person I overheard was explaining to his companion that since Hitler won elections and earned the loyalty of many millions of people in his time, he can at least safely be described as ‘a leader’ and could even be considered among the foremost examples of ‘leadership’ in world history, provided of course we first consider the context of Germany at the time of his election AND discount how he applied his leadership qualities once he came into power.
There is logic to these comments, to these ‘Hitler Defenses’, that I follow. I get it – a lot of people voted for him, he accumulated more votes in elections than just about every candidate in world history, and all that. He commanded armies and organized infrastructure and did all these other things we associate with leadership. But there is something I always feel is overlooked whenever someone wastes my time with the line of thinking that leads to The Hitler Defense: isn’t there a better f’ing example of leadership… than Hitler? Like, am I supposed to believe that in any discussion about leadership, we cannot think of one hundred THOUSAND other examples… than Hitler?
Give me a BREAK. To me, what ‘The Hitler Defense’ reveals is not some clever example of counter-intuitive thinking about leadership but rather an alarming indicator of intellectual sloth. If someone cannot discuss leadership without referencing Hitler, it tells me that this person has a lot more to learn about leadership (and maybe Hitler) before he or she is qualified to discuss leadership in public. Lazy thinking to this degree is dangerous because it can lead others into prioritizing being technically right over being human.
There is never a good enough excuse for saying something in a way that makes another person feel bad. If such methodology becomes the norm, it leads us all down a path toward a world where facts reign supreme ahead of other concerns such as kindness, empathy, and humanity. That world is, in short, the world Hitler envisioned. Thankfully, the Allied Powers who came together and fought against that vision understood something we should all remember today – what Hitler stood for and how he coerced his country to follow along meant his form of leadership really had nothing to do with leadership at all.
