Godwin or Godwine, d. 1053, earl of Wessex. He became chief adviser to King Canute, was created (c.1018) an earl, and was given great wealth and lands. After Canute's death (1035) Godwin and Queen Emma, Canute's widow, supported the claims to succession of her son Harthacanute, against those of Canute's illegitimate son Harold Harefoot. Godwin apparently permitted the murder of another claimant to the throne, Alfred Ætheling, son of Queen Emma by her first husband, Æthelred the Unready, and brother of Edward (later Edward the Confessor). This brutality seems to have earned Godwin the enmity of Harthacanute and of Edward, who succeeded Harthacanute. Nevertheless, Godwin became even more powerful; he secured earldoms for his sons Sweyn and Harold and married (1045) his daughter, Edith, to Edward. In 1051, when Edward ordered Godwin to punish the people of Dover for a fracas with Eustace II of Boulogne and his retinue, Godwin took the opportunity to challenge the king's strength by refusing. Edward met the challenge and exiled Godwin and his family. However, in 1052, taking advantage of the popular dislike of the king's Norman friends, Godwin and his sons led an armed invasion of England, and the settlement they forced upon Edward restored Godwin to his former importance and outlawed many of the Norman newcomers. Godwin was succeeded as earl of Wessex by his son Harold.

Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft: see Wollstonecraft, Mary.

Godwin, Parke, 1816-1904, American journalist, b. Paterson, N.J. He became associated while working on the New York Evening Post with William Cullen Bryant, whose daughter he married. He later published a biography of Bryant (1883) and edited his works (4 vol., 1883-84). He retained his connection with the Post for nearly 45 years, following Bryant as editor in 1878, but, because of differences with the owners, he resigned in 1881 and became editor of the Commercial Advertiser. Godwin, sympathetic with Brook Farm and with Fourierism (see under Fourier, Charles), wrote A Popular View of the Doctrines of Fourier (1844), and for a time edited the Harbinger, the Fourierist magazine. He translated part of Goethe's autobiography (1846-47) and other works from the German.

Godwin, William, 1756-1836, English author and political philosopher. A minister in his youth, he was, however, plagued by religious doubts and gave up preaching in 1783 for a literary career. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) recorded the view that men are ultimately guided by reason and therefore, being rational creatures, could live in harmony without laws and institutions. His views are also reflected in his novels—Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), St. Leon (1799), and Fleetwood (1805). In 1797, Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft, who died the same year after giving birth to a daughter, Mary. He remarried in 1801 and in 1805 established a small, juvenile publishing business. His last years were an unceasing struggle against poverty and debt. Godwin's works strongly influenced his younger contemporaries, particularly Shelley, whose elopement with Mary (1814) drew from Godwin an exhibition of sternness at variance with his earlier views. However, he was later reconciled to their marriage.

(born Dec. 19, 1875, New Canton, Va., U.S.—died April 3, 1950, Washington, D.C.) U.S. historian. Born into a poor family, he supported himself as a coal miner and was unable to enroll in high school until he was 20. He went on to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In 1915 he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to encourage the study of African American history; he also edited the association's Journal of Negro History. In the early 1920s he founded Associated Publishers to bring out books on African American life and culture. Among his works was the college text The Negro in Our History (1922).

Learn more about Woodson, Carter G(odwin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 3, 1756, Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, Eng.—died April 7, 1836, London) British writer. He became a Presbyterian minister but soon lost his faith. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) captivated Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, and Percy B. Shelley (who was to become his son-in-law), condemning the institution of marriage, among other things. The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) was his masterpiece. He married Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, but she died soon after the birth of their daughter, Mary (see Mary Shelley), conceived before their marriage.

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orig. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

(born Aug. 30, 1797, London, Eng.—died Feb. 1, 1851, London) English Romantic novelist. The only daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, she met and eloped with Percy B. Shelley in 1814. They married in 1816 after his first wife committed suicide. Mary Shelley's best-known work is Frankenstein (1818), a narrative of the dreadful consequences of a scientist's artificially creating a human being. After her husband's death in 1822, she devoted herself to publicizing his writings and educating their son. Of her several other novels, the best, The Last Man (1826), is an account of the future destruction of the human race by a plague.

Learn more about Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 3, 1756, Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, Eng.—died April 7, 1836, London) British writer. He became a Presbyterian minister but soon lost his faith. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) captivated Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, and Percy B. Shelley (who was to become his son-in-law), condemning the institution of marriage, among other things. The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) was his masterpiece. He married Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, but she died soon after the birth of their daughter, Mary (see Mary Shelley), conceived before their marriage.

Learn more about Godwin, William with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Dec. 19, 1875, New Canton, Va., U.S.—died April 3, 1950, Washington, D.C.) U.S. historian. Born into a poor family, he supported himself as a coal miner and was unable to enroll in high school until he was 20. He went on to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In 1915 he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to encourage the study of African American history; he also edited the association's Journal of Negro History. In the early 1920s he founded Associated Publishers to bring out books on African American life and culture. Among his works was the college text The Negro in Our History (1922).

Learn more about Woodson, Carter G(odwin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states:

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the reductio ad Hitlerum form.

The rule does not make any statement whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that one arising is increasingly probable. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact. Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions, the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.

Corollaries and usage

There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself) than others invented later. For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's Law. It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized codicil that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin's law will be unsuccessful (this is sometimes referred to as "Quirk's Exception").

Godwin's Law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions. It does not apply to discussions directly addressing genocide, propaganda, or other mainstays of the Nazi regime. Whether it applies to humorous use or references to oneself is open to interpretation, because although mentioning and trivializing Nazism in an online discussion, this would not be a fallacious attack against a debate opponent.

However, Godwin's Law itself can be abused, as a distraction or diversion, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent's argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. A 2005 Reason magazine article argued that Godwin's Law is often misused to ridicule even valid comparisons.

History

Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin's Law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.

Linking by implication the fallacy of reductio ad Hitlerum to online discussion length had been done prior to 1990 by a poster named Richard Sexton in 1989: "You can tell when a USENET discussion is getting old when one of the participants drags out Hitler and the Nazis." Godwin's Law does not, however, claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust," Godwin has written It has not been established whether Sexton's quip had any influence on Godwin's law, though Sexton continues, citing an apparent joke by Godwin, to claim Godwin borrowed the idea from Sexton and named it.

In popular culture

While Godwin's Law initially was best known in Usenet, it has clearly spread to other forms of online communication. In 2007, Slashdot noted that Godwin's law affected an ongoing, highly public dispute between Linux founder Linus Torvalds and the GNOME project. A May 2007 issue of Randall Munroe's webcomic xkcd anachronistically portrays Allied officers trying to discuss Axis military tactics, but being interrupted by Godwin's Law. Similarly, a November 2007 issue of Jeph Jacques's webcomic Questionable Content, entitled "Godwin Wars", referenced (and contrasted) Godwin's law and the reductio ad Hitlerum. In its October 2007 issue and on its website, Wired published a "Geekipedia" piece that includes an entry for "Godwin's law" among "people, place, ideas, and trends you need to know now".

The concept appears to have entered the public consciousness more broadly, as well. In 2005, the aphorism was the subject of a question in the British television quiz show University Challenge. By 2007, The Economist had declared that "a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument." And in October 2007, the "Last Page" columnist in The Smithsonian stated that when an adversary uses an inappropriate Hitler or Nazi comparison, "you have only to say 'Godwin's Law' and a trapdoor falls open, plunging your rival into a pool of hungry crocodiles."

See also

• Association fallacy
• Benford's law of controversy
• Internet troll
• List of adages named after people
• Reductio ad Hitlerum

References

External links

• Godwin's Law FAQ (also )
• Godwin's Law at the Public Domain Jargon File
• Mike Godwin runs a legal blog called Godwin's Law
• "I Seem to be a Verb"; Mike Godwin's commentary on the 18th anniversary of Godwin's Law
• Just Like Hitler; a blog collecting unnecessary comparisons with Hitler and Nazi Germany