1 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: [Updated] Who runs /r/Holocaust? Each line represents a moderator overlap. [OC]
Nah, ad hominem is just a straight up insult.
I'd still have to disagree with what you said; just because a certain argument or article may be put up by a malicious party as "propaganda", it does not, from a logical/rhetorical point of view, relieve the argument of having to be addressed.
I guess a good example, following on the racist stuff, would be a white nationalist posting articles about the "knockout game". Certainly the poster's comments can be scrutinized extra carefully, but more often than not, the top comment would be something along the lines of "just ignore this douche he's a whiterights poster lol" (while obviously the phenomenon itself is a problem, the fact that it was associated with someone untrustworthy almost makes it not a problem)
There was a thread I saw on here a long while ago, dealing with certain genetic differences between races. The poster of the thread was linking to peer reviewed journals and gene databases, and the top comment was essentially the same type of comment, attacking the OP without providing any evidence as to why his argument was wrong, but rather just accusing him of insidious motives.
So yeah, perception trumps logic, and fallacies occur quite frequently amongst all political leanings.
Comment by OmicronNine at 23/07/2014 at 09:35 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Nah, ad hominem is just a straight up insult.
A common misconception, and not true. An ad hominem[1] is when you attempt to argue that the other person is wrong, not because their argument itself is wrong, but because they are [insert quality here].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
For instance, saying that someone is wrong because they are an asshole, or because they are a tree-hugging hippy, or because they are a redneck. The quality referenced is usually an insult, which is what leads to the misconception, but that is not always the case. You would also be using an ad hominem by claiming that someone is wrong simply because they are, say, an American.
So, to be clear, taking the position that someones arguments are wrong *simply because* their comment history reveals them to be a racist asshole is absolutely an ad hominem.
Comment by epicwisdom at 23/07/2014 at 10:13 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
relieve the argument of having to be addressed
That's not quite it. In this particular case, it is merely the white supremacist that is not addressed, not the argument at hand.