Analogies

This Richard Cohen column reads almost like a joke. It's 1938! It's 1938! Appeasement! Appeasement! Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, at a minimum, pull this schtick off with a certain rhetorical flair. Cohen doesn't even seem to be paying attention. In-depth diavlogging discussion of the use and abuse of historical analogies here.

In general, I'm against these kinds of analogies. Marx and Hegel aside history does not, in fact, repeat. Analogies to 1938 are especially pernicious. Adolf Hitler is, obviously, a very noteworthy historical figure and WWII a noteworthy period in world history. This is precisely because the things that happened during them time were extreme, weird, and largely unprecedented they idea that they're constantly recurring or likely to recur is odd.

8/22/06 12:04PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

be serious: failure to recognize a serious threat, attempts to placate a malevolent force that won't be placated, these themes go all the way back to the greeks, occur throughout history. there was nothing anomalous about people tired of war hoping the nazi threat would just go away or be satisfied with poland, czech, etc.

Posted by: dj superflat on August 29, 2006 04:53 PM

Identifying the wrong threat or the wrong response to a threat also goes back in history. Bush reminds me of the Lydian king who asked the Delphic oracle what would happen if he crossed the river dividing his kingdom from Persia; delighted that he would destroy a great kingdom, he proceded to do precisely that, destroying his own, not the Persian one as he had misinterpreted the oracle.

Posted by: Brian Boru on August 30, 2006 10:54 AM

I did not know that Iran had built a great military power that rivals the great powers, like the United States. I must have missed that. Iran could not take on Iraq 15 years ago and they have not gotten into our league in that time either. Also the Iranian government has been the same for over 20 years, since the revolution against the Shah and the taking of the US embassy. Iran has had no expansionist plans, but would like to eliminate Isreal. I happen to not agree with them on that point, but talking to them would do a lot of good. Ignoring tham would continue to allow them to arm Hezbollah and help Syria. Invading would would be a disaster, unless the US is ready to use nuclear arms, or at least institute a military draft.

If Iran is engaged in diplomacy and their issues dealt with in a frame work that can be benificial to Isreal and the rest of the middle east, then why is that like 1938. I would think that this situation is more like 1914 that 1938. and in my mind's eye I see Iran trying to install it's own Marshall plan for the Middle east. I don't want Iran to be the leader in the middle east, I want the US to be. But with our army in Iraq and words of war spewing from pundits, we have no hgher ground.

Posted by: Tim Brandt on August 30, 2006 11:29 AM

This kind of historical inference is noted by David Hackett Fischer in his book "Historian's Fallacies." He notes that the inference is generally fallacious; Hackett calls it the "Fallacy of Perfect Analogy". The reason it is fallacious is that an analogy of a to b is just that: an analogy, not an identity.

If P is some predicate, one can logically conclude from validity of P(a) that of P(b) if one knows that a = b. If some other relation R between a, b holds, then one has to show that that relation is preserved by P, that is if P(a) holds and "a R b" holds, then P(b) holds. In the case the relation R is some kind of "analogy", one has to show that the analogy preserves P.

Posted by: CSTAR on August 30, 2006 11:37 AM

"talking to them would do a lot of good"

How do we know this? Perhaps talking to them couldn't *hurt*, but ....

Posted by: Knemon on August 30, 2006 11:51 AM

superflat has it just about right, please allow me to editorialize:
the nazi threat would just go away or be satisfied with Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc.
Maybe superflat would be so kind as to elaborate exactly who has been invaded by Iran, afterall, he was writing about actual invasions.

Posted by: larry on August 30, 2006 12:11 PM

I took a few short courses in England in the summer of 1978. I asked a Member of Parliament from the Conservative Party "Do you think people have learned the lessons of appeasement?" The conservative replied "I think they over-learned those lessons. They've learned little else from their history."

Posted by: Rich on August 30, 2006 12:13 PM

I think you're missing the analogy. At Seeing the Forest we have "The STF Rule" which is that when Republicans accuse, you'll find that it is usually SOMETHING THEY ARE DOING THEMSELVES. So 1938 analogies maybe DO apply...

Posted by: Dave Johnson on August 30, 2006 12:34 PM

As someone who was for the invasion of Afganistan but against the invasion of Iraq, I believe that appeasement of the 1930's was wrong at a time when a country had invaded others without provocation. If Iran does invades its neighbors, then in needs to be contained. Iraq did that in the 1990's with Kuwait and it was contained.

Engaging Iran in diplomatic relations( talking to them ) would allow the US to delve more deeply into the national identity of the Iranians. Listening to just Amandinejad does not paint a complete picture. Amandinejad cannot do major reforms without the permission of the religious leaders who really run the country. They are the ones to be apposed not the president.( I might add lowly president since the election results and candidates can be thrown out by the Khomeinis ).

If the US does not have diplomatics relations with Iran, then it is flying blind with regards as to what their current actions really mean. This gives those who want it the ability to proclaim the worst in these actions.

I agree that Iran has to be more open about their nuclear aspirations, but Amandinejad is not the one to ask. The highest ranking cleric is.

Posted by: Tim Brandt on August 30, 2006 12:43 PM

These people are theorists. Many of the neocons and Bush appear to be a closed loop, surrounded by other closed loop-type people such as Cheney and Rumsfeld and some staffers. Rice doesn't appear to be, but she's another hand puppet for Bush & Co. By closed loop, I mean people who have already thought things through and know everything they need to. Bush also appears to have built a bubble around himself, so thick and protective that nothing new can ever get in. This seems to be the reality we all face, and hoping it were otherwise is sheer fantasy. So Bush didn't read those books he was supposed to; if he did he didn't digest them; Bush had no reason to; Bush knows it all beforehand so why waste his time doing that? Lately something seems to have been bothering him, but he'll find a way to square the fact that reality isn't matching his carefully constructed world view: Iraqis aren't grateful for what we've done; Israelis have "lost" the war; the economy isn't responding correctly; Iran is an immediate threat; the plotters in England merit a full scale security alarm when they haven't even got passports. But, unless I'm very wrong, Bush won't change his viewpoint. He knows he's right. He's got his facts down. Don't argue with him or he'll get mad at you.

Posted by: OCPatriot on August 30, 2006 01:12 PM

Your comments here and on talkingpointsmemo are right on the mark.

Two myths persist:

1. Iran's intention with these particle accelerators is to develop nuclear weapons as rapidly as possible. The fact is that Iran has stated and continues to state that this technology is for domestic purposes and that nuclear weapons cannot be integrated into the concept of the Islamic Republic. Have Pakistan, India, Israel, the U.S., or Russia ever made such statements regarding the morality of nuclear weapons?

2. Iran wants to perpetrate another holocaust and is just naturally an enemy of the United States and Israel. The roots of Iran's antipathy towards the United States and towards Israel are historical. Not religious nor racial. The concept of the Jewish state, however, and the elimination and expulsion of those gentiles who refuse to vacate it, is a religious persecution, and one that has been official policy since 1948, frequently contradicting international law and committing human rights violations.

The American elite can swallow magic drops, blink furiously, and flood the American teevee with cynical threats but the facts on the ground are such and most of the world already knows it.

Posted by: Murph on August 30, 2006 01:16 PM

I find the op-ed column from mr.cohen right on the button.
with a president who couldn't tell you who won the civil war,living in these times are dangerous.history if never learned as santyanna said will repeat itself with all the gory details.only this time it might be the end.ahha,and that's what those fools who voted for dubya are waiting for.

Posted by: ralph gelper on August 30, 2006 01:29 PM

"But there's no need -- absolutely no need -- for this atmosphere of panic and paranoia." (Yglesias at TPM).

I had to drop in here to commend you for your very sane and sober voice in this contribution to the "Iran debate".

Posted by: the green lantern on August 30, 2006 01:44 PM

Marx and Hegel? Saying history repeats itself? No way. You sure you're not thinking of Spengler?

Posted by: baikonur on August 30, 2006 04:43 PM

Erm, are you not the very same Yglesiass who put up a pic of LGF-man's head on Eva Braun's body? You are a knave and a timewaster. Grow up.

Posted by: Joobaloo on August 30, 2006 09:27 PM

mr. matthew is a wise and sensible analyst. If the western world had more like him, (people who seek the truth and use something called common sense) the world would be a safer and better place to live in. He is truly an enlightened personality on a world stage lead by neocon fools lying their way towards a world of endless conflict that might destroy all the achievements of the west and take it back into the dark ages. Hitler happened and the world should make sure that Bush & Blair donot happen. No one wants the third world war.

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