{"id":5022,"date":"2017-01-24T12:24:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5022"},"modified":"2017-01-24T12:24:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T17:24:00","slug":"a-weary-ad-hominem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5022","title":{"rendered":"A weary ad hominem"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s an old trope to cast feminists as ugly.\u00c2\u00a0 The following inference seems to be either a direct ad hominem<\/em> or a kind of debunking strategy on their claims.\u00c2\u00a0 The direct ad hominem<\/em> runs as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

S is ugly<\/p>\n

Therefore, the things S says aren’t worth our time<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Notice that the direct argument has application to anyone, regardless of gender or politics.\u00c2\u00a0 The debunking argument works as a kind of explanation for the things S says — essentially, that they don’t track truths, but are mere expressions of resentment. The debunking argument, importantly, is uniquely targeting women who are feminists.<\/p>\n

\n

S is an ugly woman<\/p>\n

Ugly woman have little chance with men<\/p>\n

This causes them to be resentful<\/p>\n

Out of resentment, they emote using terms like ‘patriarchy’ and ‘misogyny’.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the things S says amount to mere emoting<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The first form is a pretty clear error in relevance, the second is actually an instance of exactly the kind of sexist attitudes S’s feminism was criticizing.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But, hey, so it goes for those who rely on the ad hominem<\/em> for their argumentative strategies — they hardly recognize when their use of it exemplifies precisely what the problem challenged is.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It seems to be in higher relief, though, with these cases applied to feminists.<\/p>\n

Enter James Delingpole<\/a>, over at Breitbart.\u00c2\u00a0 In some ways, I expect he’s just trolling (it’s a modified version of Poe’s Law — with right wing pigeons<\/a>, you can’t tell whether they are serious, someone else lampooning them, or them embracing their worst sides just to get a rise out of you).\u00c2\u00a0 But, if the Poe point is right, who knows? In response to the Women’s Marches this last Sunday, he tweets:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sheesh.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just silly. Not just because folks were coming from well beyond DC. But here’s where things get bad, because Delingpole follows up the tweet with his article, and he puts a little edge on the issue.\u00c2\u00a0 Ad hominem<\/em> edge, that is.<\/p>\n

\n

But this is self-evidently impossible. Very few of these shrieking munters \u00e2\u20ac\u201c save the token celebrities \u00e2\u20ac\u201c will ever find themselves in a position where they are able to fetch a man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beer from his fridge because first they would have to find a man willing to share the same space with them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yep.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what he wrote.\u00c2\u00a0 And the lesson he takes from it is that these folks are representative of what a Clinton Presidency would have looked like.<\/p>\n

\n

I think we owe those women who took to the streets across the world in their various pod groups a massive favour. They have reminded us what a Hillary presidency would have looked like every single day for at least four years.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Again, what’s it look like?<\/p>\n

\n

… the usual ragbag of leftist suspects, far too many of them blue hair, their\u00c2\u00a0whale-like physiques and terrifying camel-toes the size of the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Holy crap.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me take a breath here.\u00c2\u00a0 Does Breitbart have an editor over there?<\/p>\n

The point I want to highlight how the use of one version of the ad hominem<\/em> on feminists is a perfect picture of exactly the problem that feminists are out to address.\u00c2\u00a0 I think the only way someone could make this error so consistently is unless either (a) the person is trollling and is doing it intentionally for the sake of irritating a political opponent, (b) the person really doesn’t hear the critique as a critique, but, per <\/em>the argument, just as empty emoting.\u00c2\u00a0 Either way, it’s an argumentative failure.\u00c2\u00a0 But, perhaps more importantly, a moral one, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s an old trope to cast feminists as ugly.\u00c2\u00a0 The following inference seems to be either a direct ad hominem or a kind of debunking strategy on their claims.\u00c2\u00a0 The direct ad hominem runs as follows: S is ugly Therefore, the things S says aren’t worth our time Notice that the direct argument has application … Continue reading A weary ad hominem<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,42],"tags":[1702,678,772,827,2099],"class_list":["post-5022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ad-hominem","category-ad-hominem-abusive","tag-abusive-ad-hominem","tag-ad-hominem-abusive-2","tag-ad-hominem-argument","tag-feminism","tag-yeesh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5024,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions\/5024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}