Yes, it’s fun to say. Yes, it’s all full of Latiny goodness. But could we all please start using it correctly? It seems every time someone gets insulted, they start in with the ad hominem this and the ad hominem that.
Premise: Dante and PosterX are having a heated debate over cocktail weenies. Should you buy the plain ones, or the ones that come in ketchup? Things are getting tense.
Which one of these statements by Dante is an ad hominem attack?
You are a nincompoop.
You are a nincompoop for liking cocktail weenies in ketchup.
Because you are nincompoop, cocktail weenies in ketchup are inferior.
If you chose #3, give yourself a pat on the back! The rest of you, stay after class.
So in the future kids, if you get called a donkey-raping sphincter-felcher, that’s just a plain old insult, or vituperium, if you need something latinish to throw around.
Next week - Strawman: Not The Same Thing As Exaggerating For Effect
Funny, I was doing a lesson on this just last week:
Me: An example of an ad hominem attack would be to say, “Andrea Dworkin thinks that porn should be illegal. She just thinks that because she’s fat and ugly.” :: notices raised hand :: Yes?
The implication of “you’re a nincompoop” during a debate about ketchup weenies is “I reject your arguments, based on the fact that you’re a nincompoop”. I’d say that 1 and 3 are both Ad Hominem fallacies.
You can’t win an argument or debate by implication, so I can’t see it as a valid rebuttal. I guess if you had one post ending with “…so what does that tell you?” and the next poster responding with “That tells me you poop nincoms”, you could make a case that it’s ad hominem.
