From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec 18 2003 - 12:25:08 GMT
Hi Steve,
> Can you agree to the immorality of playing "social level power games" for
> deciding who has "enough status to exclude whom from the discussion"? I
> find it immoral when liberals do it by demanding that to participate in
> discussion and avoid labels of "racist," 'homophobe", etc, you must first
> master the "speech codes." But I also find it immoral when conservatives
> demand conformity to their standards for discourse at the threat of such
> labels as "unpatriotic" and "un-American."
>
> Both cases amount to ad hominem attacks. Rather than arguing ideas
> intellectually, too often both camps choose the tactic of excluding the
> other side from discussion based on social acceptability of views. Both
> are putting social restrictions on the market place of ideas. Shouldn't we
> be working for a free market to allow intellectual patterns to flourish?
Yes. I agree with you in principle. But, in practice you came "to the
defense" of DMB when I suggested his stance supported dictators, but were
silent when DMB accused Jon and I of being "irrational, mystic fanatics."
It's precisely this double standard I've tried to bring to light.
> In your letter to the editor, you said:
> "It's high time you liberals got a taste of your own medicine. You don't
> like being called unpatriotic? Tough. Those who live by name-calling die by
> name-calling."
>
> I don't understand why an intellectual would defend conservative
> name-calling. Wouldn't it be better for liberals and conservatives both to
> avoid name-calling?
Yes. But why should liberals not be brought to task when they use ad
hominem attacks? By and large they get a pass, as demonstrated not only in
the media, but on this site. It's this double standard that intellect
needs to reveal, in this case, by adopting the tactics of the offender.
I'm sure you and I can agree with Pirsig on the nature of ad hominem
attacks:
"To say that a comment is "stupid" is to imply that the person who makes
it is stupid. This is the "ad hominem" argument: meaning, "to the
person." Logically it is irrelevant. If Joe says the sun is shining and
you argue that Joe is insane, or Joe is a Nazi or Joe is stupid, what does
this tell us about the condition of the sun?
"That the ad hominem argument is irrelevant is usually all the logic texts
say about it, but the MOQ allows one to go deeper and make what may be an
original contribution. It says the ad hominem argument is a form of evil.
The MOQ divides the hominem, or "individual" into four parts: inorganic,
biological, and intellectual. Once this analysis is made, the ad hominem
argument can be defined more clearly: It is an attempt destroy the
intellectual patterns of an individual by attacking his social status.
In other words, a lower form of evolution is being used to destroy a
higher form. That is evil.
"However the MOQ suggests that this only an intellectual evil. In
politics, for example, to identify your political opponent as a former
Nazi is not evil if he really was a Nazi, because politics is a dominantly
social activity rather than an intellectual activity." (Note 114, Lila's
Child)
May I presume that in the future you will come to the defense of anyone on
this site who is the victim of an ad hominem attack?
Regards,
Platt
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