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Allusions
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Transplanting Hate?:
In Chapter 12, the American Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage uses a fallacy when sharing his thoughts on why the Americans should not boycott the 1936 Olympics:
It was Brundage himself, however, who came up with perhaps the most twisted bit of logic to advance the antiboycott cause: "The sportsmen of this country will not tolerate the use of clean American sport as a vehicle to transplant Old World hatreds to the United States." The trouble—the "Old World hatreds"—in other words, came not from the Nazis but from the Jews and their allies who dared to speak out against what was happening in Germany.
Brundage suggests that the boycott would transform “clean American sport” into "a vehicle to transplant Old World hatreds to the United States," implying that a boycott of the Olympics due to the host country’s treatment of Jewish people would in fact bring hate to the United States. While boycotts have often been unpopular, they are nevertheless a standard means of nonviolent protest. To suggest that such protest actually encourages hatred is an oft-repeated but fallacious claim that Brown rightfully recognizes as “twisted” logic.
While the vast majority of Americans now believe World War II was justified, Brown previously referenced a University of Washington student poll in which 99% responded the United States shouldn’t join France and Britain in opposing Germany. Even as the boycott movement gained popularity with the impending 1936 Olympics, the vast majority of Americans turned a blind eye to the suffering of Jewish Germans (as well as the many other demographics discriminated against by Hitler’s Germany). There are a variety of non-fallacious arguments one could make for staying neutral with Germany, as many of the Americans against intervention presumably believed. Brundage, however, provides one example of the fallacious logic certain people engaged in to justify inaction, ultimately highlighting the twisted logic antisemites in particular engaged in to justify the continued mistreatment of the Jewish German people.
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