Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I didn't think you were capable of laughing? Live and learn...
Ad Hominem - why do people do it?
- Thread starter Quantum Quack
- Start date
You do know what "effectively" means, right? It means to have a certain result. No mindreading, necessary.
I have quoted, numerous times, such that it shouldn't have been necessary, other than the pedantic among us, to have to quote yet again. Still no mindreading involved.
The points presented! Are you not able to keep up? "Why?" becasue he found me arguing in bad faith. Avoidance of specific points - because of character trait - ad hominem argument.
No, read what he actually posted. He didn't seek to avoid me, but the "rest of your post". I.e. respond to some, not others. Had he said "I will not respond to you from now on" then you'd be on to something.
You have stressed the importance of reading what was actually written - so please do it!
Not when the intention is to avoid certain points, as is the case here.
You hopefully agree that the rebutal of points via an irrelevant comment about the one who made them is an ad hominem? Well, rather than a rebuttal, it is sufficient for it not to be a rebuttal but the avoidance of them. Not the person entirely, but the points.
It is the intention (explicit in this case) to avoid those points, thus this makes it an ad hominem.
And this is the fourth or fifth time I have had to correct you. Go figure. I have specified numerous times, and it is explicit in what QQ said at the time, which has been quoted numerous times now. Your failure to recognise that is not on me.
Perhaps because you remain wrong, for reasons given. And your continued agenda against a certain political faction is tiresome in its irrelevancy here. We get it. You don't like them. Move on already!
They have sought to avoid those points, not the poster entirely. Just those points. That is what the explicit words written are: "rest of your post". Not "you", not "all of your subsequent posts", just "rest of your post". Got that yet? Need it quoted yet again?
If one avoids the bullshitter entirely then you are correct, but that is not the case here. The specific words being "rest of your post".
Now, unless you have anything new to add to your already flawed analysis, shall we move on to the "whys", as QQ is so keen to do?
It depends if you have to live with the person or not, I guess.
Furthermore, if you disagree with someone, if you think that you are right, you will keep thinking that even if you say nothing and just be kind (given the choice of one or the other).
Also discussions of fact are somewhat different to discussions of subjective opinion, in which there is no objective right or wrong.
We can add fear of ice-cream to the list, if you want. Or fear of mice? Or having any phobia at all?
If you want to add something to the list, try and at least come up with something that you have a chance of demonstrating (i.e. those who commit the fallacy have while those that don't commit it don't have).
Otherwise you seem to just be pulling possible "reasons" out of the air.
Here's a thought: maybe someone does it because they don't know what an ad hominem is, why ad hominems are (mostly) fallacious, and can't discuss logically.
And maybe some deliberately use them because they are useful at placing what someone says in doubt, and there are some situations where there is an agenda to achieve this?
Maybe it's no deeper than that.
Finally something else to add to the list... well done...
- Attempting to cover up their Incompetence...
I am not sure how Ice cream fits but hey what ever rocks your boat... lol
One aspect, though , that I wanted to discuss was whether of not an AAH was an act of violence as defined by the WHO.
any thoughts?
Certainly it is an attack against the opponents good will and a betrayal of good faith.
any thoughts?
Certainly it is an attack against the opponents good will and a betrayal of good faith.
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Given that this isn't what I wrote, nor can be implied from it, there is no need to assign it to me.
Likewise nearly everything you have offered as a "reason".
This was addressed at the start of this thread, wasn't it.
Might i refer you to posts #9 onward of this thread.
Yes you did have go at it , but failed to discuss it.
Do you wish to have another go at it?
It remains unresolved
I'm not the one who simply posted "interesting..." in response (see your post #21) to my initial reply, and then moved on.
You then posted (as is your want to use 2 or 3 posts when 1 will do) #23 on the matter which I responded to at length in #39.
You then replied to one comment within that post (see your post #40), ignoring the main content of my response.
You have yet to address the rest of post #39 on the matter.
So I've had a go, and you've opted to ignore it. The failure is yours. Care to address it? Or are you expecting people to simply restate what they've already written so you can ignore them again?
You then posted (as is your want to use 2 or 3 posts when 1 will do) #23 on the matter which I responded to at length in #39.
You then replied to one comment within that post (see your post #40), ignoring the main content of my response.
You have yet to address the rest of post #39 on the matter.
So I've had a go, and you've opted to ignore it. The failure is yours. Care to address it? Or are you expecting people to simply restate what they've already written so you can ignore them again?
Yes after you decided to consider yourself to be speaking for every one else other than me in post #39 and then doubled down when I asked you to explain in post #40 to which you repeated your argument ad hominem in post #72 to which I responded with the following:
You made a big mistake by ignoring the WHO definition for violence and the other definitions of violence that other members had provided and instead demonstrated bad faith posting by continuing your attack on me personally.
Therefore your points were never actually considered because you were posting in a "abusive" manner...
thus: post #75
"given your lack of good will, I will refrain from discussing the rest of your post..."
is not an AAH.
It is in fact a response to your constant use of AAH and the lack of good will and faith that entails.
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By giving the opinion that you seemed to have a different opinion of what constitutes "violence" to everyone else that had posted on the matter? Ooookay, if that's what you think, you're entitled to it.
Well, at least you're on the subject of AAH. You said that there seemed to be at least two perspectives on what amounts to abuse, and I asked/commented if you meant that the two were yours and everyone elses? How is that an AAH?
I didn't ignore the WHO definition at all. You even highlighted the "psychological harm", of which the paper-cut of an AAH would now qualify. Except by you. Hence the two perspectives I asked if you were referring to was your's on one side and everyone else's on the other. Still no AAH.
The points stand. Your post has been addressed by me. Your perspective of "abusive" is demonstrably flawed, given you think an AAH is psychological harm. You have chosen to ignore those points, to which you are entitled to do, but you then claimed I failed to discuss your post. Which is incorrect.
Yes, it is, for reasons given.
"Constant use of AAH"? Care to provide an example of just one I have made in this thread? Just one?
Look, QQ, if you don't like the way I post, just put me on ignore.
On a side note, I have always found it incredibly ironic that you have a tendency to accuse everyone else of having psychological issues, questioning their mental state, of being "abusive", of not discussing in good faith.
No not really.. because prior to your post #39 I had not explained my personal opinion about violence.. In fact I don't think I have ever in this thread explained my personal view about what constitutes violence...
For me it is actually work in progress and this thread has been most informative...
So your repeated false comment is demonstrably an AAH.
Because you avoided the argument about violence and attempted to attack me with your misrepresentation.
Thus my post about not responding to your post is not an AAH.
Again you use that word "every one else" as if you can speak with authority.
sure,
we were discussing what constitutes violence and you avoided the argument by attacking the person by posting:
I ask you to explain your inane comment just to be sure I read it correctly and you repeated it
which is incorrect because I wrote that there were at least two perspectives emerging and what is more my perspective isn't among them.. not yet any how..
So you avoided the argument by launching an attack on my person... a straightforward AAH not only once but twice.
There are many threads where you resort to this strategy and you simply dislike being called on it...7 pages and counting and that is just for one AAH* that isn't even an AAH.
(*) Given that .......
What I am attempting to explore is why they do it?
What are the underpinning emotional reasons for posting in bad faith using AAH strategies
Any sensible ideas are welcome...
Perhaps just focusing on what they gain but also considering what they lose in the process might help clear it up a tad...
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Nope.
Even if you think I did avoid you and misrepresent you, they are two separate things. One was not the reason for the other.
Your was, because one was the reason for the avoidance of the specific points raised. i.e. the "... rest of the post".
No, merely an observation. I am not speaking for them, I am speaking of an observation I have made. Not difficult to tell the difference.
I responded to the questions, and any attack you perceive was incidental. There was no avoidance. No AAH. Care to try again?
I explained the comment, yes. Whether you find it inane or not is up to you. You seemed to understand it after the explanation, so clearly the explanation was satisfactory.
But there was no avoidance of any question. You even have to falsify above what my "inane" comment was in response to, by adding in "How do you define Abuse?" above, which I answered in the next sentence of my post. More irony, that, methinks.
So what exactly am I supposed to have avoided?
I have no intention of taking you through the implications of what you wrote, QQ. Own it, or don't. I really couldn't care less.
No avoidance of that argument, QQ. Not the first time, not the second.
When you call me out on an actual bona fide AAH, QQ, I will welcome it. It will show you are at least starting to learn. As to your AAH, if you don't think it is, great, continue to not think it is and move on.
Then try stop side-tracking yourself with trying to score points.
So the very key to your post being a AAH and you refuse to consider it's implications? Is that it?
The perspectives on abuse are what was in question.
I state there are at least 2 perspectives emerging (true)
You state mine and every one else's (false)
I state no perspective of mine has been posted (true)
You state
yet you posted a 200 odd word diatribe of nonsense to get the actual issue at hand.
and then when you actually get to the issue at hand you refuse to deal with it in a reasonable fashion. (true)
No doubt you believe you have frustrated the effort invested in explaining your AAH and bad faith posting. I am quite happy for you to remain so "confident". I certainly wasn't just explaining for your benefit alone..
Learning to live with and tolerate frustration, even at my age, is essential to mental health and well being. Psychology 101.
And you teach frustration lessons well...and for free too I might add. lol
Perhaps next time you could read the entire post you wish to address before responding and save yourself a lot of time.
If you posted this first :
you would realise the rest of your post is an exercise in vitriolic futility...
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I really should learn to abide by my own advice...
Night night, QQ.I generally just ignore you for a while, and let your attention focus on someone else. Usually works.
It is always necessary, in your case, to quote rather than paraphrase.
It's rude to force other people to waste time and bandwidth correcting your paraphrases, when the quote is ready to hand. It may also save you much error and muddle - you tend to believe what you have typed.
Without the explicit or specific cause, in this and similar contexts.
Unfortunately, the explicit and specific cause is what you needed to avoid displaying - once again - your habit of reading minds instead of texts.
It wasn't explicit, and it didn't make an ad hominem argument out of those posts. See post 140.
In theory, it may be possible to "rebut" a point without mentioning it or referring to it or even acknowledging its existence. But we were discussing a specific case, in which the person was being avoided for cause and the points they were pretending to make were irrelevant.
This was explained to you 100 posts ago, in post 140.
"The rest of your post" is not equivalent to "just those points" - the worth or validity of whatever points may or may not have existed in "the rest of your post"was not mentioned. For all one can tell from the text, there were no points in the rest of the post - they certainly were not addressed, and no conclusions were drawn about their worth.
And that exchange illustrates the reason you should quit paraphrasing.
Meanwhile: The poster was being avoided in a particular context, one in which they post bullshit and troll folly. That is all that is needed - none of the "entirely" bs belongs here.
It is not explicit in QQ's posts. That's why you have had to attempt paraphrasing every time you tried to make the argument.
If one avoids the bullshitter (partially or entirely or any other way you try to drag in) rather than the points they raise, no ad hominem argument exists. That is the case here.
"Them"?
It is directly relevant here, your faction. It comprises the bulk of the otherwise mysterious well-educated "ad hom" illiterates, and appears to be an inculcated tactic - that, the matter of "why", is directly relevant to the OP.
Have you forgotten the OP?
- - -= -
The collapse into one line of personal attack, without even the pretense of thread or issue relevance, is stereotypical among the misusers of "ad hom".
So is the pretension of surprise after dozens of repetitions of whatever personal disparagement focus is in vogue among your kind. ("Sense of humor" is wearing thin here, though, after a few months - it's been a while since I even had time to drag out the Pocahontas routine regarding Warren, back a couple of threads. Time for a new one, maybe).
Laugh at you? Often - and you have seen it, denied it, pretended to not see it, etc, many times: if you were capable of learning about other people, you would have by now.
It's from the advice of Molly Ivins.
Don't worry! Sleep well! Your Argument ad hominems ( all of them ) will be there archived for the foreseeable future...and you can address them later...if not with me but with the help of someones else...
Get over yourself, iceaura. You knew what was being referred to, given the number of times it has been quoted.
No mindreading required. If A leads to B leads to C, A effectively leads to C. No mindreading required.
It was, and it did. Post 140 doesn't help you here.
No, the "rest of your post" was being avoided. Read what was posted. Don't mindread. "Rest of your post". Not the person. "Rest of your post". I.e. the points within the rest of my post, given that that is what the "rest of your post" contains.
And since you were wrong then, it remains wrong now, whichever post you refer back to.
And I beg to differ. If you answer half the points and then choose to ignore the other half... is or is that not avoidance of the points. Had it been a case of "I will not respond to you" then you'd be on to something. Alas.
While I beg to differ on this as well, avoidance is sufficient.
No need to quit when the paraphrasing doesn't alter the analysis. But thanks for your concern.
The points were being avoided, not the poster. Read what he wrote. "The rest of your post", not "you". No indication that he is seeking to avoid me rather than my post. Avoidance of the rest of the post, the points within. No mindreading required.
"Rest of your post". Not the person, the points within the rest of the post. Not the poster. Explicit.
"Rest of your post". The points within. No explicit mention of avoiding the poster, just the "rest of your post". Are you mindreading again?
"your faction"? Care to explain what you think "my faction" is?
Oh, wow, you really do think that incorrect identification of argumentum ad hominem is mainly from those on one side of a certain debate, of which "my faction" is the guilty party thereof? Seriously? Not only am I curious as to what you think "my faction" is, but I'm also curious as to what it is that "my faction" must have done to you for you to be so naive in your agenda and bitterness toward them. Did they shoot your dog?
No. I'm just intrigued as to what you think "my faction" is, and why you have such a bitter agenda against them that it seems that you are trying to attack them at every possible opportunity.
To wit: "my faction" (whatever you think that actually is) are not the only people who commit, or who can't tell what is/isn't an ad hominem, and I'd love to see what evidence you have that they comprise the bulk of the "otherwise mysterious well-educated 'ad hom' illiterates".
Ironic, methinks. But we'll confirm that when we bottom out what you think "my faction" is.
And comparing that with the paraphrase you posted and substituted, recommended that you give up paraphrasing altogether.
As noted so often, with dozens of examples of similar evidence over the years, everything after the word "if" in a rightwingies post is normally bullshit.
You are mindreading, in this thread, every time you use the word "intention". Among other instances.
Then you can have no reason to avoid dealing with the quote, rather than a paraphrase - an explicit quote would need no paraphrase.
Without the slightest reference to its contents, or any "points" it may or may not have contained - as is recommended for dealing with bullshit. See post 140.
It is not, in this case.
That is an error - a mistaken comprehension of what an ad hominem argument is.
All your paraphrases here are inaccurate. All of your analysis here is based on your paraphrases, not the original posts. All your arguments are based on that analysis, and thus those paraphrases. The ordinary term for that fallacy is "strawman".
Prelim, because you will never learn,
as always in dealing with your many posts about what other people "think", "intend", etc, corrections of term and syntax are required:
1) Misuse, not incorrect identification, of the term;
2) Not "one side" - "sides" and "arguments" are not involved. Stances, ideologies, factions, positions, points of view, etc, are;
3) your "those on one side of a certain debate, of which "my faction" is the guilty party thereof", which is gibberish, I rewrite as your membership in that class of poster currently dominating the misuse of the term "ad hominem argument" and its various shorthands here. This classification of poster here overlaps, almost completely, a classification by membership in a particular political faction in the US. So does classification by similar misuse of several other common terms, here. That is, I submit, useful information relevant to the OP of this thread.
Then:
You just now bothered to read one of my posts, before replying?
For possibly the hundredth time: Of course. Yes. And not "a certain debate" - the pattern covers dozens of threads and issues, and several common terms (mostly as used for personal insult and denigration.)
As posted dozens of times before, by me: The misuse of "ad hominem {argument}" in these several co-relevant issues is so firmly and positively correlated with one set of political/economic views as to be a useful field mark. When corrected for education and economic class - general literacy, which one expects would forestall such particular illiteracies - the correlation is nearly an identity.
An explanation of "why" should account for "who", surely.
Unreasonable request given that the paraphrase was entirely adequate for purpose.
Irrelevant. For that to apply here one would need to actually be a "rightwingie".
And if you think that "if A leads to B leads to C" is "bullshit" when it is merely providing a rather clear example that demonstrates you to be wrong, one seems inclined to conclude that you simply refer to anyone you disagree with as a "rightwingie". I'd like to think that isn't the case, but, well, here you've assigned to me a political viewpoint without me once addressing anything political. Any bullshit you might smell isn't coming from me.
Garbage. When the intention is writ large in the actual post there is no mindreading involved. This has been explained, and you have, once again, simply ignored both the explanation and what was originally posted. The intention was explicit.
And given that it has been posted numerous times already, that everyone knows what it is, which one is being referred to, you are requesting something that simply is not necessary.
Doesn't need to have reference. Avoidance of the points is the key thing.
In this case, as with every other case as worded, it is.
No, it's not. It is an argument he put forward ("given...") with the explicity intention of avoiding the rest of my post - i.e. the points within. Deal with it, or don't. I could no longer care less.
All paraphrases are by definition inaccurate compared to the original. But they are sufficient in terms of the getting the key points across.
Bollocks. Quite simply bollocks, iceaura. Even if you ignore the ones you think have been paraphrased, the same analysis has been repeated ad nauseam using the actual explicit post that was made. Maybe if you bother to read what is written, and take off the blinkers you're clearly wearing.
Yes, I've paraphrased to highlight the relevant parts, and the correct parts. Happy?
So you honestly think anyone who you think misidentifies what an ad hominem argument is "rightwing" or an "American 'conservative'"? And you have evidence that there is almost complete overlap between the two? Or is this just more of your contempt for them squashed into a ball of bullshit ready to hurl at people? I can't tell, because you're throwing around your blinkered agenda-driven opinions on the matter as though they are incontrovertible truths.
That's how replying to posts usually work: you post, I read, I reply, you read, you reply etc. Were you expecting some different arrangement?
No, it is "a certain debate" - i.e. the debate about (typically American) politics (as opposed to, say, the best colour of a car). That is what you are describing when using "rightwing", and "American 'conservative'". No mindreading involved. No paraphrasing here. Yet still you have not supplied any evidence of this almost complete overlap you attest to. At the moment it seems simply to be a case of you classifying anyone you disagree with as a "rightwingie", or an "American 'conservative'". Do you care to, or is your obvious bitterness going to be left unsupported and simply for everyone else to bear?
You can post it as many times as you want, it doesn't make it any more correct. You can post it a hundred times, all strenously, all with equal bitterness, but unless you can actually support your claim, it will be ignored for the smell of bullshit that emanates so pungently from it.
If you can support the correlation you are so keen to make, and that your bitterness relies on, sure. When you do that, your "who" will have weight. If you can use the "who" without all the bullshit you're surrounding it with, as merely an example to explore the "why", then no problem. To unsupportedly claim an almost complete overlap such that there is only one "who" to consider would be laughably absurd.
But then if you are in the habit of simply describing the "who", regardless of actual political faction, regardless of which wing they actually happen to stand on, as "rightwingies" or "American 'convervative'" then the description becomes vacuous.