{"id":1623,"date":"2009-09-25T07:02:16","date_gmt":"2009-09-25T13:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1623"},"modified":"2009-09-25T07:02:16","modified_gmt":"2009-09-25T13:02:16","slug":"the-radio-is-the-radio-of-its-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1623","title":{"rendered":"The radio is the radio of its time"},"content":{"rendered":"

A variation on Godwin's law<\/a> has it that a discussion thread is finished and a debater has lost when he turns to inappropriate Nazi comparisons.  Enter Michael Gerson<\/a>.  Today he writes an entire meditation on the following argument:<\/p>\n

1.  The Nazis exploited advanced communication technologies (bullhorns, leaflets, radio, etc.) for their own evil purposes;<\/p>\n

2.  The internet is an advanced communication technology;<\/p>\n

3.  Ergo, the internet is a tool of Nazism.<\/p>\n

Or something like that (they also used books, newspapers, and other media as well folks).  Here's a sample:<\/p>\n

\n

But it was radio that proved the most powerful tool. The Nazis worked with radio manufacturers to provide Germans with free or low-cost "people's receivers." This new technology was disorienting, taking the public sphere, for the first time, into private places — homes, schools and factories. "If you tuned in," says Steve Luckert, curator of the exhibit, "you heard strangers' voices all the time. The style had a heavy emphasis on emotion, tapping into a mass psychology. You were bombarded by information that you were unable to verify or critically evaluate. It was the Internet of its time."  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think it's funny that he mentions the radio while blaming the internet for factually-challenged, hyperbolic, demagogic rhetoric, when, we have in fact the radio<\/a>–and of course television<\/a>, to blame for that.<\/p>\n

Anyway.  Here is the justification for the comparison:<\/p>\n

\n

This comparison to the Internet is apt<\/strong>. The Nazis would have found much to admire in the adaptation of their message on neo-Nazi, white supremacist and Holocaust-denial Web sites.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The comparison is apt because there are actual neo-Nazis using the internet!  This justification misses the point of the original comparison.  The point is that the internet is Nazi-like (but not necessarily Nazi in content).  The Nazi content cited by Gerson as evidence of Nazi-likeness of the medium doesn't establish, however, that the internet itself is Nazi-like.  The Nazis printed books as well.  At most this establishes the bland theory that the internet is a communication medium, which can be used and accessed by many people.  That fact, I think, is not very surprising. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A variation on Godwin's law has it that a discussion thread is finished and a debater has lost when he turns to inappropriate Nazi comparisons.  Enter Michael Gerson.  Today he writes an entire meditation on the following argument: 1.  The Nazis exploited advanced communication technologies (bullhorns, leaflets, radio, etc.) for their own evil purposes; 2.  … Continue reading The radio is the radio of its time<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-michael-gerson","category-specious-comparisons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}