The purpose of the group is to talk about anything and everything to do with Pine Lake. Complaining is okay, but discussion of personalities (with some exception for elected and appointed officials) is considered off-topic, and repeat offenders are subject to moderation.
As one might imagine, in a small town feelings sometimes run hot, and from time to time things do become personal. When that happens I have an e-mail discussion with the parties I feel have crossed the line. Usually that resolves the matter, at least for a time.
There's been some difference of opinion among some of the group members as to what exactly is and is not a personal attack. I thought I would attempt to clarify it here:
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character ofperson making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
* Person A makes claim X.
* Person B makes an attack on person A.
* Therefore A's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
The above is from The Nizkor Project.
The best way to avoid ad hominem attacks is to think or look over remarks before they're made, asking the question, "is this about the issue, or about the person?" If the issue takes second place, it's ad homimem.
Sometimes spirited disagreement about an issue makes plain the personalities involved, especially when one party is in the minority. Disagreeing with even a single person does not constitute ad homimem, so long as the disagreement is about the idea and not the person. Only when there is a direct or inferred statement about the character or motivation of the person is it ad hominem.
Any of my readers were fans of the late and great magazine National Lampoon will know the letters column written entirely by the editors; in fact it was entitled "Letters From the Editors." Perhaps a few readers will remember a long-running pseudo-feud between an entirely fictional advocate for bias-tread tires and an equally fictional advocate for radials; it continued for more than a dozen issues. A polite discourse rapidly escalated, first to ludicrous claims about the disadvantages of the opponent's tires (bias-tread tires are rigid, and so when you turn the wheel you'll smash into a telephone pole and your wife/girlfriend/partner's body will be thrown through the windshield and horribly mangled); and eventually to personal attacks ( you are as soft-headed as your damnable radial tires). It was a great example of a polite discussion becoming vituperative and eventually going ad homimem, and perhaps I'll dig the letters up and post them here.
One more thing: those who are in and are running for public office or appointed to public office open themselves to additional scrutiny, and matters of character sometimes matter. It's not generally considered inappropriate to speculate about character insofar as it matters to government I make some allowance for this in the PineLakeGA group.
No comments:
Post a Comment