Reductio ad absurdum: The Logical Fallacy of Timothy Snyder’s



On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder



As someone who finds the past fascinating to no end, especially in regards to totalitarian dictators such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, and as someone who seeks out new history books on a regular basis, I was excited to delve into Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

Snyder attempts to rely 20 lessons from history that, if utilized by individuals, can help democracy continue to flourish and prevent the U.S government against the threat of tyranny. He states that modern Americans have not learned the lessons of the past, and that we are not immune from being subjected to a totalitarianism government here in the U.S. When looking at the statement’s critically, its apparent that Snyder’s arguments are undoubtedly a form of Reductio ad absurdum: a form of argument that attempts to disapprove a statement but while trying to prove their notion, it leads to an absurd or impractical connection. I am a firm believer in the necessity of logic when striving to display a point, regardless of your opinion on the U.S President and the U.S Government. This is why I was surprised that an accomplished professor and historian chose to write so illogically about this topic, making it impossible not to recognize his personal bias that allowed him to completely ignore basic facts.



The most overt utilization of Reductio ad absurdum can be seen when pointing out the various instances in which Snyder constantly relates the current U.S President to Adolf Hitler and the forces of the Nazi regime. In chapter 7, the author compares the S.S, one of the most powerful and feared forces in Nazi Germany, to the President’s security service and his behavior during rallies. Knowing that the S.S was responsible for torturing political prisoners, for shooting anyone they deemed to be a threat to the third Reich, and for stripping all minorities from necessities such as food, this comparison is more than far-fetched. In chapter 11, he falsely equates the President’s response to criticism with Hitler’s refusal to even acknowledge criticism and neglects to mention the fact that Hitler’s Nazi regime completely controlled the entirety of the press in the third Reich and would “respond” to any sort of criticism by automatically arresting, jailing, and many times executing political opponents. In chapter 12, he goes as far to connect the feeling of fear the streets of our nation due to the President’s election with the fear that was forced upon the people in the streets of Nazi Germany, where people were constantly terrified of several very disturbing yet frequent occurrences such as: being captured and used by the Nazi scientist’s for experimentation, being forced into ghettos, and being shot down immediately for any form of disobedience towards Nazi ideology and the Nazi forces.



Snyder does not only align the President with Hitler, but he takes a few jabs at the American people and the American system of Government as well. He does so by utilizing reduction ad absurdum more specifically by selectively cherry picking information that he provides. We can see most clearly as we note several unfair comparisons between the mindset of Nazi citizens and the government in the third Reich with the mindset of U.S citizens and the government of the United States of America. The most strikingly flawed comparison is made as the author attempts to draw an accurate connection between what he deems to be the “magical” thinking that occurred during the 2016 election and the delusional thinking that took place in Nazi Germany. He states, “The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. The president’s campaign involved the promises of cutting taxes for everyone, eliminating the national debt, and increasing spending on both social policy and national defense. These promises mutually contradict” (66). First off, the author does not bother to justify his actually statement claiming that the President promised to increase spending on social policy nor does he provide any explanation as to why any of these promises are contradictory. The author then goes on to equate believing these campaign promises to the “magical thinking” that was encouraged in Germany in 1933, where people were told to “abandon yourself to your feelings, and you must always focus on the Führer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you are feeling at present” (66-67). There are many things wrong with this. First off, one cannot assume that people who voted for the President believed everything he said. In fact, it would be safer to say that they did not believe everything that he said, because what rational being can actually believe someone 100% percent of the time, especially if that someone is running for office and is working to obtain votes. Second off, there is simply no comparison between believing campaign promises based on policy and believing that your leader is God and that you must focus on him at all times. Knowing a substantial amount about Nazi Germany, I find it essential to point out that believing ANY politician’s campaign promises, even the really crazy ones, cannot be equated to seriously trusting the teachings of the third Reich, such as: “say to yourselves at every decision which you make, how would the fuehrer decide in my place? In every decision ask yourselves, “is this decision compatible with the national socialist conscience of the German people?” (Shirer 268). It is imperative to note that this type of rhetoric was used to brainwash people so that they would be eager to reject law and instead rely on National Socialist ideology as the authority of principal laws, and thus act on behalf of the movement and not in accordance with rationality. Thus, it is clear that a correlation between any politician’s campaign promise and the teachings of Nazi Germany cannot be taken seriously.



The author attempts to draw a comparison between the republican dominated congress and senate and the government of the Reichstag by mentioning the Enabling Act, which was passed by the Reichstag that allowed the Nazi’s to fully consolidate their power by gaining control of all institutions within the state. Snyder claims that we are at risk of becoming a ‘single party state’ and completely misrepresents the reality of our system of checks and balances as he claims, “We believe that we have checks and balances, but have rarely faced a situation like the present: when the less popular of the two parties controls every lever of power at the federal level, as well as the majority of statehouses” (Snyder 29). There are a few things wrong with this comparison. First and foremost, any proposed bill does not just go through one party’s fixed system like the Reichstag in Nazi Germany. The Congress and the Senate are separate bodies that are both required to approve the passing of any law. Moreover, there are both democrats and republicans in congress and senate, and even if one party as a majority, that does not necessarily give one party all the power. One singular party only has the ability to pass bills smoothly if they have a clear, centralized agenda that they all agree upon and can count on all members of the party to vote on these specific terms. Due to the number of people in both the senate and the congress, it is not always the case that as entire party maintains a completely identical view on every bill or policy. This notion is clear when considering the current republican dominated administration’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Secondly, the bill must be able to make it through both houses, unlike the Reichstag’s single session that automatically passed the legislation of the Enabling Act. Finally, there are 100 senators that sit in the senate. There are 435 Representatives that sit in the house of representatives. This puts the total of the two houses 535, from two to three different political parties. So tell me then, how can you accurately compare this to vote that was passed the 444 members of a single party in the Reichstag? You can’t.



All things considered, the central flaw of this book is what it does to its audience when it compares all these elements so illogically. The use of Reductio ad absurdum reasoning results in arguments that are easy to regard as foolish, which makes the entire book as a whole easier to reject. There are many great pieces of advice that Snyder offers, such as ‘Stand out. Someone has to’, ‘Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life’ and my personal favorite, ‘First, ideas about change must engage people of various backgrounds who do not agree about everything.’ However, the fact that there are so many unwarranted and frankly insulting assertions overshadows the value of these and other truly excellent encouragements offered by Snyder.

Moreover, to falsely equate the evils of Nazism along with the atrocities that the movement entailed severely undercuts the seriousness of what the Nazi regime did and the threat that real totalitarian dictators pose as a whole.

Overall, this book is an overt exploitation of history that serves only to falsify the present in accordance with the author’s own political preference. As Snyder recommends in chapter 10, “Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.” Indeed it is, and I would recommend that anyone who reads this book understand this notion thoroughly. And more importantly, I would extend my recommendation to the author himself, obliging him to practice what he is preaching.