What did people commonly use as rhetorical shorthand for comparison to ultimate evil before Hitler? Did folks back in the day have to fall back on “the Devil himself” or was there some historical figure that invited earthly comparison?
“What is all this piffle about conservation and preserving our natural resources? Surely you are aware who shared your fondness for trees: George III! You wish us again to submit to the yoke of the British?!”
Napoleon and Attila the Hun were always popular for use in rhetoric.
Indeed… the Germans themselves were commonly referred to as “the Huns” and later “the Hun” during WWI & II, particularly in Britain.
Napolean came up in just about everything, but he wasn’t synonymous with evil.
I dunno about the Huns. “Satan” would be my guess.
But let me note that Godwin’s law simply states that any conversation which goes long enough will eventually refer to Hitler or the Nazis. It doesn’t particularly say that it will refer to them as “evil”. So by that definition, I would say that Napoleon would probably be the guy.
Or the Tsarist Russian secret police - the Okhrana; or the Mongols, “The eastern part of the Islamic world experienced the terrifying death and destruction of the Mongol invasion. Between 1220 and 1260, the total population of Persia may have dropped from 2,500,000 to 250,000 as a result of mass extermination and famine.”; or the Jesuits; or the Jews; or the Anabaptists. All depending upon who was involved in the conversation.
The Spanish Inquistion might be expected to turn up in such a comparison, especially in Protestant countries.
I wouldn’t have expected that.
I should have expected that. :smack:
On the Andy Griffith Show, my favourite Barney Fife moment is when Barney says he did his part to stop the dreaded Hun, by working in a library in Staten Island
In the Bible Babylon is used as a byword of and symbol for wickedness for centuries after the city had any political significance (e.g., Revelation 14:8, and other verses in the New Testament).
Nobody does.
The popular appeal of Andrew Jackson, and his persona as champion of the common man, caused some people to invoke the spectre of the Reign of Terror.
In fact, all through the 19th century, any politician who appealed to the common man was accused of invoking “mob rule.”
Cromwell was a bogeyman for some. See for example the reference to him in Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard.
The Spanish Inquistion
Another common bogeyman was the “man on a horse” - the successful and popular general who uses his popularity to install himself as a tyrant. This harked back to Napoleon and Julius Caesar.
(Andrew Jackson got pegged with this one too.)
The term often used was Jacobin in reference to the extremist faction in the French Revolution.
Since Mike Godwin was born about 10 years after the Nazi party was dissolved, and his law was formulated 35 years after that, there never was a Godwin’s law before the Nazis. They were always there to point to as an example of ultimate evil.
I think you missed the text of my post and focused on the admittedly whimsical thread title (not mentioned in the text). BTW, Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” isn’t really about food.
It specifically refers to online discussions (specifically Usenet ones), thats an important difference. It doesn’t really apply to real-world conversations (as comparing someone to Hitler face-to-face generally has social consequences) .
In answer to the OP the Vandals of course would be a classic example, seeing as the word has entered the English language in that way. Jacobins and Vikings might also be examples. In the Arab world the memory of the Crusaders survives to this day.
Also of course the more unbalanced Roman emperors (Nero, Caligula, etc.) would definitely be used that way.