Argumentum Ad Hominem

Some time ago, I posted part of a "dialogue" I was having with someone who does not share my fiscally conservative views. This person and I continued our conversation through private messages. The conversation ranged from the merits or lack thereof of government funding for Planned Parenthood to gay marriage to whether education should be privatized.

 

This person, whom I considered to be a lifelong friend, began to get more and more personal in the attacks made against me. This person told me I was ignorant, angry, brought in the race element by pointing out that I'm white, and therefore couldn't possibly understand the plight of minorities, and said that I was intolerant because I have strongly held religious beliefs (none of which I demanded this person to accept). Our conversation finally concluded with this person saying I am a hypocrite because I have committed sins in my past. This person told me I was "absolutely ignorant" and that I simply would not understand the real issues at stake, and that there was nothing this person could do to help me because I refused to see the truth.

 

I pointed out that the personal attacks this person made against me had nothing to do with the topics at hand. I told the person that there was something this person could do, which was to prove my positions wrong. I asked the person either to offer facts, statistics, or logically sound arguments to prove my positions were wrong and to refrain from the personal attacks against me, or to end the conversation. This person ended not only the conversation, but our friendship, telling me that this person could not be friends with someone as ignorant, angry, and intolerant as I appeared to be to that person.

 

I bring this up, because I recently had another experience of someone with whom I was having a conversation about a political hot button. The person had posted a meme on facebook with the words, "If you are pro-life, why are you against universal healthcare?" I responded first by asking whether the person actually wanted an answer, or if he was just expressing himself. He said he would indeed welcome my thoughts on the matter. I responded (a summary) that I am both pro-life and against universal healthcare because there are other ways to make sure that people, and in particular pregnant women, receive healthcare other than universal healthcare, and that I feel those ways may be better. I pointed out that the debate about universal healthcare really isn't about whether people who are in need should receive healthcare, but about the best way to pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it themselves. I'm copying and pasting his response to me here:

 

"Healthcare should be paid for by middle class and wealthy and anyone who can afford it. White people dont' want to pay for the insurance of anyone brown colored. Ironically, since most Americans claimed to be Christians, we aren't very Christian at all. It's all about discrimination, hate, and its passed on through the generations of families, a lot of the Christian families. The white person says, I'm not paying for a brown persons healthcare, but I sure will make it to church on Sunday. Even though my life is much better than most brown people. Even though my opportunities are far better than most brown people. My education, my family, my upbringing.......and thank you lord for all your blessings. But I'm not giving a damn dollar to that Mexican or that African."

So basically, his response is that any white Christian who opposes universal healthcare does so because the white Christian is racist.

 

In philosophy in the study of logic, this is called an ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM, or an ad hominem attack. An argumentum ad hominem is a response in a debate in which a person does not respond to the actual point of the opponent, but responds instead with a personal attack against the opponent. It is recognized as a logical fallacy in the practice of debate, because the personal attack is irrelevant to the argument at hand.

 

In logic, the person promoting a point of view is irrelevant to whether the facts back up the point of view being expounded. In other words, if you were debating a mass murderer about the year that Christopher Columbus first sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, it is irrelevant that the person is a mass murderer. That doesn't change the fact that "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." If the mass murderer stated that it was actually in 1495, and you responded, "Well, you’re a mass murderer, so what do you know?" Your response doesn't make him more wrong. If he correctly reports the year, pointing out that he is a mass murderer wouldn't change the fact that he is right. The personal attack is irrelevant to the argument.

 

This is important to remember in today's political discourse. The reason is because these types of attacks have become so commonplace that they are overlooked by nearly everyone. I remember finally getting fed up with being called racist during the 2008 election cycle. I have never supported Barack Obama. That's obvious to anyone who consistently reads this blog. It is not because I am racist. It is because I believe that the government is bound by the constitution, and therefore the powers of government are strictly limited, and therefore the government has way overreached its authority under both main political parties. It has nothing to do with race. I believe George W. Bush and his Republican cronies in their 8 years of office were just as guilty of this as Barack Obama and his Democrat cronies have been.

 

In 2008, I was a student at Lincoln University in the counseling graduate program, and the professor of one of my classes stated quite boldly, "If Barack Obama doesn't win the election, it's because of all the racists out there opposing him." I couldn't help myself. I pointed out that I oppose Obama, and I was fed up with being called a racist because I have a different philosophy of government. I also pointed out that those who oppose abortion based on the scientific fact that the embryo and fetus are human beings from the moment of conception are called mysogynists; those who oppose gay marriage due to deeply held religious beliefs about the nature of the human person and the role of gender in relationships are called homophobes; those who disagree with the "tolerant" are called ignorant and unenlightened.

 

This logical fallacy, argumentum ad hominem, has become so commonplace in our political discourse that we don't even realize when we've bought into it. It's sad really.

 

It's coming out now in the gun control debate. People in the liberal left media are making statements that those of us who believe in less gun regulation are paranoid and unhinged. This is an ad hominem attack. It is irrelevant that the FBI statistics and studies conducted by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security demonstrate that increased gun regulation has no effect on gun violence. The impression from the liberal left is that I'm just a paranoid, backwoods redneck for wanting to own a gun for personal defense. I might be a paranoid, backwoods redneck, but that is irrelevant to the facts of gun violence and its relationship to gun control laws.

 

The conservative side of the aisle is by no means innocent. You've got people like Anne Coulter out there writing books that characterize the liberals as "Demonic" and akin to terrorists. You've got people out there still casting stones at Obama by promoting the idea that he is a Muslim. Anne Coulter's name calling nad Obama's religious beliefs are irrelevant to the problems that face our nation right now. 

 

Getting past the rhetoric of the ad hominem attacks is hard, because they are so many and so deeply ingrained into the political discourse. It takes a high level of critical thinking to separate the two. For example, in the facebook response I quoted above, that person truly believes that the reason “white Christians” don't support universal healthcare is because white Christians are racist. For him, these two are so intimately intertwined as to be indistinguishable. It takes a high level of critical thinking skill to see that the means by which healthcare should be funded is a separate topic from racism. It also takes a high level of critical thinking skill to see that even if a person is racist, the person’s own prejudices are irrelevant to the facts of what universal healthcare does to a national healthcare system, whether or not our government is financially able to sustain a universal healthcare system, and what effect a universal healthcare system would have on the quality of health service an individual would receive.

 

Until we all stop attacking each other, and start focusing on the actual issues, there won't be any progress made in the problems that face our nation today. We have been too busy slinging mud to do anything really constructive.

 

How sad if this is all we have left.