Argumentum ad hominem

Definition: Attempting to undermine a speaker’s argument by attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument.

Examples from several sources:

This sheila has no brains, why do you keep trying to put anything in there? This author is: ignorant, hysterical, self-aggrandizing, stupid.

This author is: a bleeding heart, lying again, cowardly, unscholarly, brainless. This author is: emotional, and an "armchair academic with no experience in the real world.”

And my most recent personal favourite: "you can’t be a blonde and have a PhD!"

There are certain topics guaranteed to evoke an ad hominem response. They inevitably awaken atavistic rage in sections of the readership. Refugees, immigration, gay marriage and climate change are among them. Anybody who writes on these issues knows to expect a personal flaying, regardless of their perspective, because addressing these topics is rather like volunteering to engage in a bout of blood sport, with the author as the fair game.

This happens across the Internet, it isn’t peculiar to On Line Opinion. It’s a global sport: trash the author (not the article) and feel superior as your reward.

There’s a cultural expectation that if you publish on inflammatory topics then you’d better be tough enough to cop the ensuing abuse. If you object to that abuse, you’ll be jeered at as “sensitive” or “precious,” thus adding a bit more ad hominem argument into the mix.

If you attempt to withdraw from what has become an entirely unproductive and abrasive exchange, you’ll be told you haven’t got an argument and they all knew that anyway; you haven’t got the bottle to accept “criticism” (read personal abuse), or you haven’t got a solution to the issues you raised so what did you raise them for?

This last accusation is interesting. It reveals that some readers have an expectation that anyone who expresses an opinion on any problem in the entire world, also must have the solution, and is a snivelling armchair tosser if they don’t. The concept of expressing and considering a diverse range of opinions, as part of the process of the birth of fresh ideas, (the purpose of OLO, for example) is entirely lost on many readers.

Pulling out of the argument apparently signifies that you’ve been trounced, and you should now be crawling back into the hole from which you so stupidly stuck up your (blonde) head in the first place, and where you really should stay from now on, tending your injuries.

Deconstructing these attitudes reveals that for many readers (almost always the anonymous ones) the value or otherwise of an opinion is often based on a set of personal characteristics they consider the author ought to possess before she or he has earned the right to publish. These must include the author having the ability to solve whatever problem she or he has raised; the ability and the desire to return insult for insult; the ability to withstand any amount of character assassination, and the stamina (not to mention the time) to continue to respond to any number of posts from any number of posters over any number of days, until the author finally spits the dummy or clears off without saying goodbye.

Either of which will inspire even more ad hominem attacks.

People who have remained silent throughout much of the exchange will at the end suddenly manifest with a comment such as “I knew you’d give up, you haven’t got the solution, you’re just a pontificator,” or something similar. Thus revealing that they’ve been following the argument for several tortuous days as mere spectators who emerge only to joyfully plunge their spear into your carotid artery, after their cohorts have done all the hard yacka required to bring you down for the kill.

In other words, there are situations that arise in forums and comments from which there is absolutely no way an author can safely extricate her or himself.

One of the undesirable effects of this dominant cultural paradigm is that it does silence some people who have very good opinions and ideas, but do not have the taste for the blood sport they’ll have to engage in, in order to put them forward. This is wrong. An author should not be required to “deal” with insult and abuse in order to be considered a good and interesting author, and to have a voice. Intimidating people so they are reluctant to publish is bullying. It’s a form of censorship. It’s a way of trying to create a climate in which only those you agree with have a voice. There’s nothing clever, morally sound, or accomplished about it, particularly when it’s done behind the cowardly cloak of anonymity.

Judging a writer by his or her ability to handle to ad hominem arguments is also ludicrous. The motives of anyone who makes such a judgment should be regarded with the greatest suspicion.

The French cultural theorist Roland Barthes wrote a great deal about the relationship between text and reader. A text cannot come alive, he thought, without its reader. Every time a new reader engages with a text, that reader has the power to transform the text into something entirely fresh, as he or she brings to the work their own set of uniquely formed perceptions.

The reader and the text are a couple: one is no good without the other. The responsibility is mutual. Only infants can refuse to accept an equal part in the relationship.

The best an author can hope for is a good reader of the text she or he produces. By “good” I don’t mean someone who agrees with everything that’s said. I mean someone capable of thoughtful criticism, argument, deconstruction, engagement and commentary. But not abuse. Not ad hominem arguments. Not insult.

As my grandmother used to say, if you can’t say anything sensible don’t say anything at all. That’s quite a good piece of advice when it comes to critiquing texts, and my grandmother had no formal education at all.

The other option open to the author is to not engage with reader responses. Readers seem to like it when authors engage, and as an author, I don’t like publishing an opinion and then maintaining silence when it’s discussed, especially if remarks are specifically addressed to me. However, many authors don’t engage, and I don’t blame them one bit. Who needs ad hominem twaddle? Why is our ability or otherwise to deal with this offensive ignorance supposed to be a measure of our worth as opinion writers, and a measure of our moral characters and stamina as well?

For me, it works both ways. Reader responses to my articles are a measure of their worth as partners with me in the text, and often of their moral character, even if they didn’t intend to let that show.

I’m with Roland Barthes - the text is a two way street.

Of course, the way to avoid physical put downs like blonde jokes is not to publish your photograph. Which I don’t, except for a couple of places where they insist, and one where I’m almost entirely covered because I’m deep in snow. But now I’ve outed myself here all I have to say is, bring it on. See if I care.

Because I’ve got a moderator who’ll delete argumentum ad hominem.

The last word:

He [man] {sic} has invented a complete catalogue of vile and scabrous epithets which he is ever ready to sling at those who think and act differently…

- Henry Miller, "When I Reach for My Revolver”