- personality, traits, or identity:
- "Are you going to agree with what that racist pig is saying?"
- "Of course she's in favor of affirmative action. What do you expect from a black woman?
- affiliation, profession, or situation:
- "What's the point of asking students whether they support raising tuition? They're always against any increase."
- "Oh yeah, prison reform sounds great--until you realize that the man proposing it is himself an ex-con."
- inconsistent actions, statements, or beliefs:
- "How can you follow a doctor's advice if she doesn't follow it herself?"
- "Sure, he says that today, but yesterday he said just the opposite."
- source or association for ideas or support:
- "Don't vote for that new initiative--it was written by the insurance lobby!"
- "You can't possibly accept the findings of that study on smoking--it was paid for by the tobacco industry."
"The point is that each argument must be evaluated in its own right. Information or suspicions about vested interests, hidden agendas, predilections, or prejudices should, at most, make you more vigilant in your scrutiny of that argument--but they should not be allowed to influence its evaluation.
"Only in the case of opinions, expert and otherwise, where you must rely not on the argument or evidence being presented but on the judgment of someone else, may personal or background information be used to evaluate the ideas expressed.
"If, for example, a used car vendor tries to prove to you that the car in question is being offered at lower than the average or 'blue book' price, you must ignore the fact that the vendor will profit from the sale, and evaluate the proof. If, on the other hand, that used car vendor says, 'Trust me, this is a good deal,' without further proofs or arguments, you are entitled to take into account the profit motive, the shady reputation of the profession, and anything else you deem to be relevant as a condition of 'trust.'" 9
OpEdNews is filled with people of great intelligence and creativity. The tough thing for those with a brain (or any talent, really) is to recognize how incredibly hurtful we can be when we show impatience with others who aren't as smart or talented, or who simply don't think the way we do. All of us have different worldviews.
We need to think and write critically. We need to use diplomacy, tact and grace. Keep our judgments about other people's ideas off the table. Stick to the facts and conclusions. Debate the facts and/or conclusions. Keep our emotions out of it.
We're not sitting around in some bar or in our private homes having these discussions. We're writing this stuff in public, on a popular website that gets over 700,000 unique visitors a month. We are diplomats of progressive ideals and Leftist thought. We have to act accordingly.
2 mathew, Logic & Fallacies: Constructing a Logical Argument, Infidels.org, 1997.
3 Richard Nordquist, ad hominem.
4 N.S. Gill, Ad Hominem.
5 T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 4th ed., Wadsworth, 2001, as cited by Richard Nordquist, ibid.
6 Whitman, ibid.
7 mathew, ibid.
8 mathew, ibid.
9 San Jose State University, Mission: Critical.
Also see Ad Hominem Fallacies of Relevance.
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