Monday, July 18, 2011
Ad Hominem Attacks
Aha, indeed, name-calling and profanity constitute an attack. On the other hand, someone made a clever post about the nine circles of Dante's Inferno resembling G+ circles which I found amusing because I had to study Dante in college. I wrote what I felt was an interesting post about which three historical figures are in the mouths of three-headed Satan at the center. One fellow posted to say it was the most uninteresting thing he had ever read. I was curious to know if he is a teenager (which in a way is an unfair ad hominem characterization since there are intellectual teenagers)... I went to his profile where he boasted having lived in Nebraska for 25 years. So I explained (tongue in cheek) that living in Nebraska for 25 years means he is SUPPOSED to find Dante boring because he will most likely only find monster truck rallies interesting and reality shows and Judge Judy and Joel Osteen. Now THAT is an unfair ad hominem characterization because I have not met every Nebraskan and certainly there are people in Nebraska who like the classics and perhaps there are even teenagers in Nebraska who like the classics so I am unfairly stereotyping people on the basis of age and geographic location and in a sense making an ad hominem attack.
