ad hominem

Great discussion in Composition 99 class last night about logical fallacies. We probably wandered too far off-topic, but students were especially interested in arguing with the notion of ad hominem "attacks" as necessarily being fallacious. Consensus from the class: 'name-calling' per se usually diverts attention from the content of an argument, but most examples of so-called ad hominem arguing we pointed to were legitimate considerations/critiques of credibility.

One student brought up John Edwards' allusions in the VP debate last year to Dick Cheney's daughter being a lesbian. Red herring? Cheap appeal to homophobic voters? Legitimate subject given the GOP's stated desire for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage? Some students felt the move represented a version of ad hominem argumentation ("your kid's gay!").

Another curious example we discussed: Jack Lessenberry's latest column in the Metro Times. Lessenberry takes on an anachronistic GOP smear campaign against a bill that would have named a post office in California after an alleged communist sympathizer. From his criticisms of one of the reps who spearheaded the campaign:

the nomination excited the passions of one Steven King, a horror novel of a congressman from some backwater town in Iowa.

True, Steve the Lesser never went to college, but he knows his commies. He owned a construction company before his elevation by the voters, and now mainly spends his time fighting against unions and civil liberties.

“Joe McCarthy was a hero for America,” this pea-brain proclaimed last week.

In the context of Lessenberry's sarcastic voice, we talked about the rhetorical effect and specifically the alleged fallaciousness of calling the guy "backwater," pointing out that he never went to college, using a term like "pea brain." Fun stuff and, in a class that meets from 6-9 p.m., students were lively.

I appreciate students' skepticism of the fallacies. Textbooks tend to brush off "ad hominem" as a fallacy without complicating the fine line between name calling/attack and critiques of ethos. But I also found curious their overwhelming support for public figures' family lives becoming fair game for critique. We had trouble coming up with examples of political discourse involving statements about an opponent's private life/family/etc. that students felt crossed a line. The traditional-college-aged students in the class were in junior high during the Monica Lewinsky scandal--I wonder how heavy those memories weigh on their current ideas about public discourse.