Ad Hominem Ad Nauseum (Warning: Long Rant!)

"How do I know what to think about your post if I don't know who you are?"

Have you ever received that email? Or perhaps it was left as a comment on your site? I did. I was originally much more coy about explaining myself on this site, a reaction to the response I got on older sites where I was much more open. I've dropped some of the "hidden identity" thing recently. It was annoying readers, and I can understand the discomfort an entirely faceless voice causes. I did, however, like the idea of divorcing appreciation of the words from evaluation of the speaker. Especially since I haven't the sort of credentials that enhance my credibility.

A great appeal of blogging for me, you see, is that its the punditry of the nobodies. That's a club I can join! Just ideas and words...and "prominence" based on the endorsement of readers. This is exciting for me, but it seems to be a frightening world for some others. Certainly the old-line news media folks are unnerved. Plenty of blog readers are too. You can see it in the email and comments.

When people don't have your CV they'll just make it up. "You need to visit a blue state", or "You don't know the Republicans". They're also careful to tell me what I think ("You hate everyone who's different") or what I am ("bible-thumping", "fag-hating") just in case I had forgotten; anything except respond to the ideas in the post. (Important note: The vast majority of the comments and mail I get is great, but I'm a pretty innocuous centrist. Folks out on the wings get it much worse.)

Of course, it's not just bloggers that get the ad hominem treatment. Most anyone involved in politics gets double canister loads daily. The association between the person and his or her ideas has become nearly completely fused. Just let it slip that you are registered as a Republican, or a Democrat for that matter, and it doesn't matter what you actually say. Some readers seem unable to look past the labels, even the labels they apply themselves, to hear the words. I wonder if it's an outgrowth of "identity politics". This thoroughly execrable idea holds that your race/religion/class determines your opinions and ideas. I guess that if you believed such a thing it makes sense to go ahead and attack someone from the "wrong party" or "wrong religion" before you are forced to hear what they say. Saves you a lot of thinking, I guess. D'ya think?

The Wikipedia entry on Ad Hominem, I note, distinguishes between normal ad hominem fallacies and "reverse ad hominem", which is to believe or support and
argument because you like or associate with the speaker. This is plenty common too. I can think of a few other variations, myself. If a normal ad hominem fallacy is "to attack the man in order to discredit the idea", what do we call "attack the idea in order to discredit the man", or "attack the man and ignore the idea, because its more satisfying to attack the man"?

The final variation worth cataloging is a double fallacy. The normal ad hominem fallacy fails to address the argument by raising issues with the speaker. In the double-fallacy variant the argument is avoided by raising entirely fallacious points about the speaker. "Bush is Hitler" is a popular one. "Howard Dean is a screaming maniac" is similar. (Oh sure he did do some shouting once, but if you spent months and millions in Iowa only to get 18% of the vote, you'd be screaming too!) Take a look at this quote from Atrios in Greg Djerejian's post.

Republicans have never stopped being isolationist and anti-nation building (true of most of the US population, actually). They don't think tyranny leads to terrorism (nor am I claiming there's necessarily a strong connection), and don't really want to expend any treasure helping out "the other."What they do like is killing bad guys, and when George Bush says "spreading freedom and democracy" what they hear is "killing bad guys." They like killing "bad guys," and they're a bit lost without an enemy, so the actual spreading of democracy just doesn't excite them that much.

In this environment, it seems natural, I guess to "discuss" the democratic fervor in Lebanon by wildly mis-characterizing most of the U.S. as killers. There is a rather obvious intellectual dishonesty at work here (along with the more ordinary sort of dishonesty too.)

Everyone has some political angle to spin. At least, that's the way they talk, but is it really what they care about? You can tell by observing over time. When an adversary ends up endorsing a position you have favored, do you recognize the fact and give credit to the former foe? Or do you instead shift your position to remain diametrically opposed? Christopher Hitchens, no friend of the Republicans, has expressed his hatred for repressive regimes for years, and supported the efforts of a president he dislikes when Bush went to war against these evil folks. Good for him. I often disagree with Hitchens' opinions but I don't doubt that they are genuine. If, on the other hand, your position is to resist whatever Bush is for (feminists resisting the freeing of enslaved women, for example) then you are not really expressing a political position or even an intellectual opinion. You're just expressing a personal hatred. When one's position can be summarized as "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for" (Howard Dean last week), then it's not policy you oppose, its people. That's not politics, it's bigotry. A veneer of political debate is painted on to disguise the ugliness beneath, but increasingly it breaks though. One moment we're talking about Lebanon, and then suddenly the subject changes. The speaker can't maintain the facade.

When you oppose the people rather than the policy, your solutions tend towards "make them go way", rather than "bring them to our way of thinking." That explains why, as I noted at the start, there is so little effort made to be persuasive. People don't write those emails to change your mind, they want to scare you off. We talk about this as if it's new, but I suspect its really a very old game in a new venue.

I've wondered if the widespread bigotry against religions and races, so unfortunately prevalent in earlier times, was not based in some deep-seated human need. When the culture represses those feelings, when it is no longer fashionable to hate people based on their race or religion, where does that impulse go? Does it fade away, or does it find some more socially acceptable outlet? What was it Atrios said..."a bit lost without an enemy?"