It’s still an ad-hominem response. This is not to say it is wholly invalid—it’s proper in Bayesian reasoning to weigh the source of evidence in addition to the evidence itself, and I presume this may extend to arguments as well—but it is the weakest possible response to a criticism.
A potentially tangential continuation:
That caveat carries costs; it runs the very real risk of alienating sympathetic parties. I am no longer sympathetic to gnostic atheism, for example, as my attack on Dawkins may reveal. Indeed, Dawkins is quite possibly single-handled responsible for converting me from gnostic atheism to agnostic atheism, as my reactions to The God Delusion resulted in my re-evaluation of my own behavior, and then my re-evaluation of my own reasoning. While this is probably a plus, on the whole, for my rationality, Dawkins and other gnostic atheists might prefer to count it a minus.
To use my politics as another example, I used to count myself among the Democrats. The anti-Bush rhetoric did more than anything else in pushing me away from them, however. I can’t find the Overcoming Bias post describing Benjamin Franklin’s use of eliciting favors from others as a mechanism to make them like him, but a post somewhere else: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/10/05/the-benjamin-franklin-effect/ makes a similar point. In retrospect, spending so much time defending Bush against undeserved/dishonest attacks probably had a pretty significant impact on my politics of the time; I cannot recall a deliberate reconsideration of my political policies, so I cannot claim any kind of win for rationality on this point. But this bias (whatever it’s called) does suggest a particularly high cost of hostile rhetoric among even rational people: You’re inviting the intellectually honest to do your mutual enemy a favor.
It’s still an ad-hominem response. This is not to say it is wholly invalid
Sure. If, when you wrote “Seriously? It’s advocating ad-hominem.” you meant to suggest that it was advocating a response that was valid but not as strong as other possible responses, then I agree with you completely. I had understood your rhetoric to be conveying a stronger objection.
Also agreed that hostile or otherwise extreme rhetoric can alienate people who might not be alienated by different rhetoric.
That said, while I often find reactive anti-Blue rhetoric offputting in much the way you describe, I also consider myself to have some responsibility for actually evaluating the positions involved, rather than allowing myself to be reactively alienated by it.
It was more that it didn’t advocate anything else at all. (As you observed, it’s hard to believe the author would endorse the literal understanding.)
I’m actually considering writing a “Defense of Ad-Hominem” post, if a search doesn’t turn any similar posts up in the past. I may take too much entertainment out of this. :-)
I agree on all points with one caveat -
It’s still an ad-hominem response. This is not to say it is wholly invalid—it’s proper in Bayesian reasoning to weigh the source of evidence in addition to the evidence itself, and I presume this may extend to arguments as well—but it is the weakest possible response to a criticism.
A potentially tangential continuation:
That caveat carries costs; it runs the very real risk of alienating sympathetic parties. I am no longer sympathetic to gnostic atheism, for example, as my attack on Dawkins may reveal. Indeed, Dawkins is quite possibly single-handled responsible for converting me from gnostic atheism to agnostic atheism, as my reactions to The God Delusion resulted in my re-evaluation of my own behavior, and then my re-evaluation of my own reasoning. While this is probably a plus, on the whole, for my rationality, Dawkins and other gnostic atheists might prefer to count it a minus.
To use my politics as another example, I used to count myself among the Democrats. The anti-Bush rhetoric did more than anything else in pushing me away from them, however. I can’t find the Overcoming Bias post describing Benjamin Franklin’s use of eliciting favors from others as a mechanism to make them like him, but a post somewhere else: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/10/05/the-benjamin-franklin-effect/ makes a similar point. In retrospect, spending so much time defending Bush against undeserved/dishonest attacks probably had a pretty significant impact on my politics of the time; I cannot recall a deliberate reconsideration of my political policies, so I cannot claim any kind of win for rationality on this point. But this bias (whatever it’s called) does suggest a particularly high cost of hostile rhetoric among even rational people: You’re inviting the intellectually honest to do your mutual enemy a favor.
Sure. If, when you wrote “Seriously? It’s advocating ad-hominem.” you meant to suggest that it was advocating a response that was valid but not as strong as other possible responses, then I agree with you completely. I had understood your rhetoric to be conveying a stronger objection.
Also agreed that hostile or otherwise extreme rhetoric can alienate people who might not be alienated by different rhetoric.
That said, while I often find reactive anti-Blue rhetoric offputting in much the way you describe, I also consider myself to have some responsibility for actually evaluating the positions involved, rather than allowing myself to be reactively alienated by it.
It was more that it didn’t advocate anything else at all. (As you observed, it’s hard to believe the author would endorse the literal understanding.)
I’m actually considering writing a “Defense of Ad-Hominem” post, if a search doesn’t turn any similar posts up in the past. I may take too much entertainment out of this. :-)