I was thinking about this very site when I created the tool, although I have even less time now than then actually to participate in comment threads in general.
When I do have time and inclination to comment, I do know that there will be individuals here, as at any site, whose comments I'd rather not deal with at all. It's not a matter of disagreeing with them politically. It's a matter of finding their thought processes or modes of interaction chaotic, impolite, un-productive, dissonant, or annoying in some other way - to the point that whenever I'd see their names I'd skim past them, and, if I saw they were very active in a thread, I might very well skip the whole thing, life being too short and all. Because the function is so easy to switch on or off, I can check what dissonant commenters have to say if on that day they happen to be eliciting interesting responses. Maybe I'll change my mind about them, maybe not. Nobody's business but my own.
For someone else, most likely at a different site, but including this one in years past, the tool might help those more sensitive to certain kinds of abuse or borderline abusive behavior to feel safer. For them, it would be especially uncomfortable if their decision to ignore were there for all to see. I could imagine other potential abuses, though I suppose I could also imagine situations where there might be benefit or fun in seeing who was ignoring whom (or keeping track of "most-ignored commenters," and so on).
I think the tool might also have helped certain other people continue at the site if one or two people who "just couldn't quit them" had instead put them on ignore, at least for extended periods.
Anyway, thanks for giving it a try, and I'll be interested in any further feedback anyone, or almost anyone ;), might have to offer. Otherwise, please ignore safely and enjoy storming the castle.
Kolohe: 5) Who do we generally consider the ‘radical’ Presidents? i.e. the Transformational ones? I submit Jackson, Lincoln, TR, Wilson, FDR, LBJ. Jackson, FDR, and (post elected in his own right) LBJ clearly had popular mandates, but TR and Wilson did not. (Lincoln’s mandate was muddled). Now, to be perfectly clear, Trump isn’t in this company. But he’s also not transforming things in a way that are either wise or will stick.
A personal mandate confirmed by large popular vote majorities is not the only type of mandate. TR - who already had developed a national following - inherited McKinley's landslide vote, which TR himself was in part credited for having created by his energetic campaigning. As for Wilson, though his numbers in 1912 were reduced by the nature of the 3-way race, he did win an electoral landslide, and he formed a decisively Progressive Administration, co-opting much of TR's base.
As for Lincoln, he represented the threat of change, and was treated as a radical, but the first irrevocably radical move was made by the other side. Counter-mandates are often the very best mandates - something giving the Ds reason to hope 2018 and 2020 will be the really-really transformational elections.
BTW As for Trump as Realist or Neo-Isolationist, did you catch Professor Realist himself on the subject? https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/03/trump-has-already-blown-it/ Regardless of what you think about Team America-ism, there are arguably much better and much worse ways to try to get out of that game.
Much of the hand-wringing - or, if you prefer, justified very heightened Deep State deep worry - followed upon Michael Flynn's resignation. This post at Lawfare - which has been aggressively anti-Trump, overall - was, I believe, influential: https://www.lawfareblog.com/michael-flynn-may-want-call-aclu [footnote added to post] The report that 9 (nine!) "officials" confirmed that Flynn was recorded discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador underlined a popular idea, pushed especially hard by John Schindler - whom some consider a crank, others a Cassandra - that "the IC" was getting ready to gang up on the poor, poor pitiful president, in self-defense against him and also as patriots sworn to protect and defend, and would eventually bring the whole corrupt treasonous crew down by exposing the truth. The further implication is that, of course, the IC would prefer for conventional oversight from Congress and investigation by the FBI to do the job of verifying elements of the Steele dossier and bringing the rest of Kremlingate (and possibly other matters) to light, but there is some fear that both Congress and and FBI (under Trump's DoJ) may be compromised.
I suppose I might have retold this story in the post, but I felt I was already going long, and you can blame me for being too interested in the theoretical questions, or for assuming everyone has the general prologue already in mind. It's easy to lose the thread, or get caught up in side issues. In my own view unusual resistance approximately commensurate to the unusual nature of Trump's presidency is, first, simply to be expected: He and the people around him have been virtually demanding it. Second, those of us well on the outside can't really judge whether an "IC coup" is already justified, but I think we have to be open to the possibility it might be. After all, Nixon, we eventually learned, was brought down in key part by leaks from an FBI Associate Director, after conventional oversight had failed, and there are not many people to be found arguing that Nixon's resignation was unjustified.
I also think, as I said, that the election of Donald Trump confirmed that a higher level system breakdown is already well-advanced, but maybe we will discover over the course of this "natural experiment," or series of natural experiments, that we really did not need the system, or the sort-of deep state. Maybe it makes no final difference after all whether we have a derp state instead - whether Defense and State are properly staffed, or whether the work of "deconstruction" interferes with the work of the EPA or other alphabet agencies, or whether the President's word and minimal competence can be relied on even a little in matters great and small, and maybe none of the developments in policy we've already seen and may expect rise to high enough level of human cost to justify "radical" resistance.
I don't see what basis you have for terming functional statism in the U.S. "radical." Is statism like pregnancy in that you cannot have a little bit of it? Then how are we not all full-blown pregnantly statist?
Around the time of the American Founding, there were radical anti-statists, some much more radical, I think inarguably, even than the Anti-Federalists, practicing or trying to implement various forms of participatory democracy. They lost the fundamental argument, as they were always destined to lose it: You can't have your anarchy and eat it, too. To flash forward, even the FDR-Marshall Welfare-Warfare state in formation, at the peak of WW2, was in many respects an undeveloped state compared to the Soviet permanent warfare state. After war socialism was over, the state or state structure that remained in the US might have been much different from what had preceded the war, or what existed in 1900, 1859, or 1812, and so on, but it doesn't seem to me to be a very radically statist state compared to many or most other relevant examples - not that I have any confidence in our measuring sticks...
I think that's a good statement by @brent-f of a realistic, mainstream, responsible American liberal position. I'll just note, again, that this particular violation of principle is somewhat mitigated by circumstances.
Stillwater: I think the tension is this: Is American liberalism worth (literally) fighting for before the NAZIs gain control, or only after they already have?
I don't think that's the actual question here. The question concerns both "literally fighting" - or merely attacking, as the case may be - as well as advocacy of it, and whether in doing one or both something precious is lost or risked for no or insufficient gain. VB points especially to the failure to think through consequences in different ways. The tension arises because those who value the liberal possibility highly will still mostly acknowledge the potential for circumstances in which they'd also literally-fight or support literal-fighting, and because serious people may disagree over whether those circumstance are here or approaching, and also whether, if so, literal-streetfighting would be good strategy or in fact one of the worst strategies for the literal-fight...
..and, oh yeah, because hardly anyone wants to be seen to be defending a Spencer.
No, that's not what Schadenfreude means. Schadenfreude is the pleasure taken in viewing anyone's experience of misfortune, not because the person is an enemy, or "had it coming," or necessarily for any reason at all. It rests on a certain view on human nature in general.
Those celebrating the assault on Spencer make a specific argument: They support or say they support punching "Nazis" on general principle. Their argument is that Spencer's ideology or his promotion of it is so odious that violence against him is good. As such it is typical of a whole range of stands regarding law and governance, including one rather typical of Trumpism, as to the suspension of legality or particular social and legal norms in the very name of "law" or more likely "order." That position is also old as dirt, and everyone virtually without exception will adopt it eventually, given the right circumstances. That the problem is old and not always fully resolvable and so makes hypocrites of us all does not make it unimportant. People and societies have also been getting sick with no cure since time immemorial, but, when the universal ill happens to affect you or someone or something you care about, you may take it quite seriously, and may find anyone's expression of Schadenfreude about it as entirely unamusing or even unforgivable.
The question of suspension of the law in favor of the law or of higher law can be as trivial as jaywalking on a quiet street or it can be a declaration of war to end all wars. In our politics right now, one question that some consider pressing is whether we should yield to norms on the legitimation of presidential authority and among other things give President Trump "a chance," or whether the emergency is already upon us and "resistance" is in order. The question vis-a-vis the "alt-right" arises, not by coincidence, at the same time, as a new question on the enforcement of a type of effective prohibition on unacceptable thought. I say "effective prohibition" because we have not chosen in the United States to make the prohibition on speech of this type legally enforceable. We leave it on the level of taboo. We also have a taboo on suppression of political speech that does have legal status, and we of course have both legal and social norms against violence and especially against assault on anyone posing no immediate threat to anyone.
The two political problems - regarding collaboration with Trump and the GOP and regarding the treatment of dangerous ideology - are connected for us, but in complicated and contradictory ways. There may be no answer to either of them or both together that can be logically demonstrated once and for all. It is easier just to let the Nazi prattle when there doesn't seem to be any danger of his being taken seriously. There is more reason to strike at him pre-emptively - literally or figuratively - when his friends or occasional collaborators attain high office.
What makes the conjunction of problems more vexing and so endlessly discussable regardless of the relative importance of whichever eruption is that the threat to the liberal order - to the order in which we let everyone prattle, Nazis and you and me included - is precisely the Nazi or alt-right threat. It also happens to be a dividing line in the contemporary left-liberal coalition - often played out in discussion of suppression of speech at universities and colleges - so points to the potential weakness or breakdown of opposition, or resistance, to the current right/alt-right coalition.
As I already noted, there may not be a one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. If you do not see them as politically very significant questions, then I disagree with you. If you cannot see how they are embodied in this incident and the reaction among political intellectuals to it, then perhaps you should take yourself at your own word, and bow out of a discussion whose significance you do not recognize. If in your view there is something absurd about our discussion of the discussion, then how would your discussion of the discussion of the discussion be less so, and why should you have any reason to discuss my discussion of it?
This is - or is seen as - "a-hole walks into a bar, orders a drink, and gets sucker-punched on the principle that he's an a-hole, not for any particular a-holy thing he happens to be doing at the moment."
If you're going to insist on reducing our national political life to a operation of a bar (some might consider that a step up, but I digress), we can observe that it's common practice for bar-owners to request that patrons "take it outside" rather than disrupt the peace and endanger the furniture.
At our particular bar, one peculiar rule is printed on a laminated piece of driftwood, up there for everyone to see: You're entitled to your opinion about anything, and so's everyone else, so be cool.
That's one big reason a lot of the patrons here like this bar, even if we don't always care for the entertainment, or the decor, or the food, or even a lot of the other patrons. So it's a significant question for us if the bar is going to change its policy. It's also a significant question for us if the bar is going to become a dangerous bar where fights are breaking out all of the time.
But you're certainly entitled to your opinion that none of it matters.
I don't understand your point, @morat20, or what position you are taking. Are you supporting the "he had it coming" position or are you disagreeing with it?
I won't waste much sympathy for the (non-)injured party, and I have no strong feelings about appropriate punishment for the assailant if ever identified and arrested. Otherwise, I think those celebrating the Punch heard round the internet have substituted posturing for thinking their positions through, and are now "asking for it" - which isn't anything new under the sun either. I have no idea whether and if so how their wish will be granted, but I suspect it may be, and I suspect they may not like either the particular or the the overall results at all.
The end of a certain liberal world, or possibility, comes when there aren't enough people left willing to defend and act on its precepts. It can't be destroyed by any single act or in a very short period, but sometimes it feels like we're too close to a tipping point for comfort.
Is it OK to punch someone who is against punching? Is it OK to punch someone who is in favor of punching? Is it OK to punch someone who asks whether it is OK to punch or not to punch? Is it OK to punch someone who asks whether it is OK to ask whether it is OK whether it is OK...
Spencer was cruising for a bruising. If he didn't know it, he should have. So, too, now, are those who have been celebrating his getting punched.
Put more philosophically, he was not just uttering or representing deplorable and widely deplored and specifically highly illiberal beliefs, but was doing so at the site of a protests against those beliefs, upon the inauguration of a new administration thought to be advancing them, and also held, with justification, to represent a dangerous break with liberal norms. Protestors, or any would-be opponents of Spencer, might feel an obligation to oppose him, especially at the time and place: Interfering with his expression, might at worst seem a close call, even if doing so would be less than perfectly liberal. That the assault itself was, to say the least, not very serious, makes it easy to shrug off, just as it was, apparently, for Spencer himself.
On the other hand, the self-righteous and ill-considered, obviously illiberal approval of the punch - everywhere on Twitter and beyond - is more problematic than the punch itself. This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper, but a punch, or rather with the approval of a punch - or come to think of it with some whimpering, too...
You'll need a Part 6/epilogue, "Trump," maybe after you've had a chance to digest results that will no doubt be shocking to those who have been suckered in by MSM polls and not counting yard signs in Connecticut and comparing popularity of Halloween costumes. Still not clear to me whether the "aftermath" will justify a tweetstorm, a blog-post, a book, or a shelf of them.
The nature of Trump's "threat" hasn't altered in character since the first moment we found ourselves forced to take him seriously. The more seriously we are or have been forced to take him, the greater the threat, and it works the other way as well. Yet at the same time, or following as a result, the more seriously "we" take the threat, producing a decreased apparent likelihood of his victory, the less seriously "we" need to take the threat, or the less real the actual threat, so the less serious the threat itself.
In other words, the more seriously we take Trump, the less seriously we find ourselves having to take Trump, and the less seriously we take Trump, the more seriously we have to take him. Got it?
Nicely done. I think what's missing, however, are the other elements of the situation - or the "conjuncture" - that made the neo-conservative case, or its particular mixture of pessimisms and optimisms, not merely plausible, but emotionally satisfying both for policymakers and, for an extended period, the American populace or the electorate.
The optimism of the '90s was not merely a residue of the Gulf War, and the popularization of Fukuyama's thesis didn't occur just because it was attractive on its own terms. The West under American leadership in the neoconservative mode had not simply, or so it seemed, won an argument, it had "proven the naysayers wrong," and not just in Iraq, where predictions of a bloody quagmire had turned out to be embarrassing to many of the same people making similar predictions a decade later, but in the great struggle of the Epoch, and in lesser conflicts up to and including, or seemingly including, the initial Afghanistan campaign. The pessimism about the world, or about the world if left to work things out on its own, without the benefit of American tutelage and direct intervention, seemed to have been borne out in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, on 9/11, and in and around Iraq itself, where containment and compromise had made America the custodian of Iraqi misery and slow-motion genocidal warfare against Iraqi minorities, with intermittent eruptions of military conflict and indefinite occupation of Saudi Arabia; continued uncertainty about the actual state of Iraq's weapons programs; and violation without consequences of agreements achieved at great cost to conclude the prior conflict.
Withdrawal or realism or erring on the side of non-intervention or however one wishes to describe the Obama Doctrine or policy typified by Syria also has costs, material and otherwise. We may have been wrong about who we were or are and what we can achieve, or at what cost, but we do not seem especially happy with ourselves as realists without a concept or mission in the world, unable to believe we can achieve anything or bear the costs.
It's reached the point where you need to pause before answering whether ending the Trump campaign wouldn't benefit the Trump campaign more than continuing it - unless the question is whether actually having a campaign would be of greater or lesser benefit to the Trump campaign.
I'm neither inclined nor able to pursue this discussion into simultaneous overlapping political philosophical questions. Here, at my blog, and in other venues I have already spent or wasted, take your pick, countless hours or days or centuries on the political philosophy of liberalism and liberal democracy and on the "SSM debate."
Gabriel offered his discussion on ad hominem arguments. I responded to it. I believe the discussion began to go off-topic in on way, perhaps too on-the-nose in another, when he made the following observation:
I think you’ve hit on what is one of my problems with some of the people who advance socially conservative positions. They don’t always recognize how a given position, like keeping ssm illegal/unrecognized by law, is incongruent with the type of liberal democracy they otherwise support. If they were more open and honest that their position, on at least certain particulars, runs against liberal democracy, then I’d at least have more respect for them, even though I’d still disagree with a particular view.
The overly-on-the-nose part is where Gabriel lays charges of hypocrisy and testifies as to his reduced respect for social conservatives or for "some of the people who advance socially conservative positions." The attack on the the character of "some of the people who advance" may have inspired Density Duck to raise questions about the claim on incongruity between liberal democracy or a supposed type of liberal democracy (the one that social conservatives "otherwise support") and "illegality/non-legality of SSM." In short, "some of the people" on the other side of the SSM debate make a very similar argument about certain "incongruencies" on the pro-SSM side. Instead of acknowledging the point, which "some of the people" like to print in big, bright, block letters wherever and whenever they can, Gabriel prefers to tell us how he feels about them as people. The ad hominem in the literal sense is obvious. Its function as argumentum ad hominem is perhaps more subtle: In my view it at least points to the beginning of an indictment of opponents for being opponents at all.
Murali proceeded to offer backing for Gabriel's position, adopting, perhaps unavoidably, a position in which a tendency toward expanding a "private, personal" sphere of rights and freedoms is taken to require regimes of civil/legal/administrative etc.- or public and social - recognition and "protection." He argues that "we would not consider a democracy which, for instance banned gay sex a liberal democracy, regardless of the press and political freedoms it happened to afford."
Setting aside the difference between "banning gay sex" and "recognizing SSM," certainly from an historical point of view or in a historical discussion we might very well do just what Murali says we wouldn't, unless we are going to take the position that there were no liberal democracies at all until sundry impostor states reformed their "sodomy" laws over the course of the 20th Century.
The theoretical or philosophical matter, and what I believe to be the defect in both Gabriel's and Murali's positions as outlined here, has to do with the implicit claim that adoption of liberal premises or supposed "liberal democratic principles" requires support for SSM as a matter of "necessity" - that it is a matter of logic vs "incongruency," or that, to repeat myself, a "particular set of legal determinations and related social or civic institutional adjustments" can be derived from some more or less general principle, that "all liberal democratic states support the institution of same sex marriage" in the same way that "Socrates is mortal" in the famous syllogism.
In this case, I believe that Murali is performing a version of the familiar operation by which assertion of a negative right or freedom of individuals vs whatever state is converted into a positive responsibility of the state, here as "protection." Such "protection" always inherently involves actual "infringements" of a different kind: A regime of absolute freedom would be a contradiction in terms, as is or ought to be well understood.
That statement may be taken as a political argument against the modern social liberal state, but I intend it merely as an observation of an actual logical necessity, in contradistinction to false versions, not as a political argument for or against SSM or anything else. At various times various impossible people right, left, center, statist, libertarian, and on and on have been found attempting to administrate the impossible laws and secure the impossible objectives of any number of impossible states, but we were discussing a different topioc, and, as I stated at the outset, I'm neither inclined nor able to jump into this rabbit hole today here or anytime anywhere soon. My only objective has been to explain where I believe Gabriel and Murali were, for lack of a better word or the time to look for one, fudging. That'll have to be all from me for now and a while.
Gabriel Conroy: And even though I think if the principles of liberal democracies are taken to their logical conclusion and if we still have state recognized marriage then ssm ought to be legal, perhaps I’m being too hasty to insist on it. That said, in 2015, the way of looking at principles like equal protection–principles that most social conservatives claim to believe in when it comes to other groups–legalizing ssm is probably necessarily implied by those principles.
I'm not going to divert this discussion to the questions of types of liberalism and the nature of "liberal democracy." I'll just say that I agree that you are being "too hasty."
Any mode of thinking that leads you to an oxymoronic assertion of "probable necessity" should be taken as a signal that you have not thought the matter through. It says: "I believe that if I did go through a process of thinking the matter through logically, then the conclusion I prefer would probably be irrefutable!" Or, to deploy a different absurdity: "I'm sure that it would probably be proven, or would be demonstrated to be demonstrable. So, to save time, I won't bother thinking about the alternative. This is how I also know that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, that the Sun revolves around the Earth, that my race is superior to other races, and that anything else I very much prefer to think must also be good and correct to think."
For the sake of understanding, the rhetorical sleight-of-hand by which you, Murali, and our Supreme Court turn liberalism as "equal" protection of individual (or minority) freedoms into a "necessary" requirement for a particular set of legal determinations and related social or civic institutional adjustments would need to be, as it were, slowed down, removed from the realm of intellectual prestidigitation and submitted to accountable audit. In this way this otherwise off-topic discussion does relate to the "ad hominem" question, since the reliance on ad hominem for what I called prudential or practical reasons has the same character: of suspending (or skipping) a properly philosophical (or other "scientific") inquiry for the sake of "getting on with things" (politics). Doing so will be necessary and convenient this side of New Jerusalem (where everyone is always already doing the right thing), but it undermines the claim on behalf of public reason to treat consciously setting it aside as the same as pursuing it.
Gabriel Conroy: By the way, nice to see you back round these parts!
Kind of you to say so! On the other hand, I won't take the compliment too personally, since in my observation you're by nature one of the intellectually more generous souls hereabouts (except maybe when insisting on talking normal dammit).
1. In practice, I rely on ad hominems quite a lot. And you do, too.
I don't think that I do. I strive hard not to do so. However, I have been occasionally accused of relying on "ad homs" by people who do not understand the fallacy, and instead associate it with any use of (supposed) insults or "attacks on a person."
Sometimes, the issue in question does not concern "whether x is connected to y," but instead concerns "how we ought to feel or think about Citizen A in relation to fitness for common purpose B." If the topic is "fitness of A," the statement or implication "A is unfit," is relevant. "A is unfit" may be taken as an insult to A, so is "ad hominem" in the sense of being directed "against the person," but is not an example of the "argumentum ad hominem." It is literally "ad hominem," but not an example of deployment of the fallacy.
2. Ad hominems are clearly a fallacy only in the rare instance of deductive arguments divorced from practical considerations.
The fallacy remains a fallacy regardless of the practical purpose one may have in mind.
I may succeed in getting you to vote for proposition A by persuading you that association with opponents of A is unseemly, but I have not in so doing said anything directly about the truth or falsehood or reasonableness of arguments as such for or against A. I have encouraged you to act on the likelihood (conceivably to be taken as a very high likelihood) that whatever the despised anti-A people say is not to be trusted, and that, if you took the time to examine their arguments in detail, your prejudices would be confirmed.
I would be saying that it would be prudent for you to forego the exercise of reason in regard to the topic or potential topic, and instead rely on reasonable prejudice. That the prejudice may be reasonable for you to maintain (e.g., "Don't waste your time or risk your reputation engaging in discussion with Nazis") does not make it an exercise of reason regarding the question (e.g., "Can 'race' ever be a valid category for understanding human social differences?") that you have reasonably chosen not to examine at this time or in whatever venue or with whichever particular discussants.
3. Some arenas define the rules of argument so as to place ad hominems in play.
Since in elections and politics in general, we are often concerned, even principally concerned, with the "fitness of Citizen A" or "fitness of Citizens B through Y," or "the desirability of placing Citizens A through Y in positions of power," then directing an argument "against the person or persons" is, see above, literally to argue "ad hominem," but not to rely upon the fallacy.
In that context, it would not be fallacious to seek to demonstrate that "Citizen A is unworthy of anyone's vote." Indeed, to attempt to discuss that question without discussing Citizen A's "worthiness" would be absurd. The fallacious argument, but not necessarily a "wrong" argument, would be more like "You should despise Citizen A because people whom you despise like Citizen A."
The distinction may be hard to keep in mind, since, in politics, the fact that someone has hateful friends can also be taken as critical information, potentially by far the most important or independently decisive information.
In other words, if we have already concluded that Group B should never be encouraged or empowered, and Group B would be encouraged or empowered by the success of Citizen A, then it will be reasonable or even obligatory for us to consider that information disqualifying. It is information about the person of Citizen A in the question of the fitness of Citizen A, even if it is not specific to any particular action or statement by Citizen A. It is not, however, in itself, information about any particular topic as such under discussion or potentially under discussion. It may, as under 2 above, amount to a prudential argument against entering into discussion at all.
4. Ad hominems can often tell us something important about the issue under discussion.
True if, as under 3, the "question of the person (or persons)" is the actual issue under discussion, or if the real issue, as under 2, is "what is a practical way for me to proceed in relation to this issue?" In either case, the impression that "the fallacy" has somehow failed is based upon a misidentification of the actual question or mischaracterization of the actual topic under discussion. We might, to use an example used elsewhere on this thread, be under the illusion that we are discussing issues relating directly to sexual preference, but in fact we are discussing a different question as to the advancement or suppression of those taking one or another side on whatever particular issue.
5. One’s standing to say something can be relevant to what is said.
A version of 2: It's not useful for me to listen to what someone who I reasonably believe knows nothing useful. Again, the prudential question regarding interlocutors does not speak to the argumentum ad hominem. Similarly, to say that someone is arguing in bad faith or known to argue in bad faith speaks to the question of qualification or prudence of entering into discussion at all. It says nothing about the the subject or potential subject of discussion or potential discussion.
6. Ad hominems help us discern inconsistencies in others’ arguments.
Another version of the prudential question.
7. Something something postmodernism something.
In short, the post-modernist view as defined in the post would be self-disqualifying regarding any discussion at all. If all discussion is according to this "post-modern view" is "fallacious," then fallacies are irrelevant - or we are operating from a different notion of "fallacy": The "true" or "non-fallacious" argument is the argument that has won. We have defined the "true" as "the accepted." It is for the same reason that "the post-modern view" has been held to be incompatible with the presumptions of liberal democracy, or that the propagation of this mode of thinking (or "thinking") has been thought to undermine the project of liberal-democratic self-governance as understood by its original proponents and contemporary defenders.
"Stavrides" - retired Admiral. But she can't pick him because it would violate the "one-syllable name = strength" rule, and isn't a big part of the idea of picking a military MAN to convey stronger than strong strength vs. the Strongman on the other side?
Well, to be libertarian devil's advocate: Either the non-existence of "a law against," or the affirmation of "a right to," does not imply the proliferation of "acts of." But surely you've heard the argument already, so I won't belabor the point except to say that for a true-believing libertarian, conceding the rationality of this type of objection might amount to conceding the whole libertarian enchilada.
You aren't under any obligation at all, RTod! Never implied you were. Indeed, my presumption that you could be under any such obligation might, for certain libertarians, be a very un-libertarian way of viewing politics!
Other realities having intruded, I never went to part 2 of my little-read projected series on why this is in fact a core problem for libertarianism and by extension for all American political parties, roughly in proportion to their commitment to the older (but not oldest!) liberalism rather than the newer (post-WW2) social- or state-liberal one. I imagine that the guy who did the striptease at this typically unconventional convention sees the Libertarian Party more as a vehicle to express defiance of common political presumptions - presumptions about what's "serious" - than to re-produce them. We can feel chagrined that it leads to missing the moment or what we might hope was a moment, but he's not interested, I suspect, or, to the extent he sees this moment as a moment, he probably sees it as a moment to let you know exactly what he thinks about conventional politics.
Anyway, as I've been assuming was his main point, you can't accuse him of having a hidden agenda. The larger point, that somehow remains easy to miss even and now especially for many of those previously dedicated to advancing it, is that for libertarians and fellow travelers, following a longstanding and "foundational" American tradition, the political system or the political administrative state (and its conventions, predispositions, etc.) should be de-emphasized and reduced in importance. Producing stink-bomb candidates is a very rational way of seeking or affirming this end. The methodology is hardly restricted to libertarians and self-styled conservatives. It's typically embraced on the other end of the conventional political spectrum as well, against the existing state and its quo, but in favor of leftist statism.
I don't think that's correct - or anyway it's ambiguously phrased, in a way that reflects a common difficulty in partisan politics. "Strongest" candidate might be taken to mean "candidate most likely to get votes," or it might mean "candidate most likely to advance the authentic libertarian cause." Some people might believe that "getting the most votes" would satisfy "advance the cause," but it wouldn't if the best way for a libertarian to get votes is to deny libertarianism, while what it means to advance or deny libertarianism is something that partisans may also disagree about in any number of ways: For some the amount and type of emphasis to put on relative electoral success vs other aims may become the most important issue of all.
The problem is usually more obvious for fringe parties or highly committed factions in larger parties, but this year we've seen the disagreement over which matters most - "principles" or "democracy" (in multiple dimensions) - underlying central conflicts within the major parties.
On some level, the general election itself will address an underlying "crisis of self-definition." It always does. When things seem in some sense to be falling apart, rules and precedents no longer apply, predictability dies, and so on, the crisis becomes more readily discernible as such.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A New Site Feature”
Thanks, @veronicad - that's great to see and exactly how I envisioned using the tool when I first started working on it.
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I was thinking about this very site when I created the tool, although I have even less time now than then actually to participate in comment threads in general.
When I do have time and inclination to comment, I do know that there will be individuals here, as at any site, whose comments I'd rather not deal with at all. It's not a matter of disagreeing with them politically. It's a matter of finding their thought processes or modes of interaction chaotic, impolite, un-productive, dissonant, or annoying in some other way - to the point that whenever I'd see their names I'd skim past them, and, if I saw they were very active in a thread, I might very well skip the whole thing, life being too short and all. Because the function is so easy to switch on or off, I can check what dissonant commenters have to say if on that day they happen to be eliciting interesting responses. Maybe I'll change my mind about them, maybe not. Nobody's business but my own.
For someone else, most likely at a different site, but including this one in years past, the tool might help those more sensitive to certain kinds of abuse or borderline abusive behavior to feel safer. For them, it would be especially uncomfortable if their decision to ignore were there for all to see. I could imagine other potential abuses, though I suppose I could also imagine situations where there might be benefit or fun in seeing who was ignoring whom (or keeping track of "most-ignored commenters," and so on).
I think the tool might also have helped certain other people continue at the site if one or two people who "just couldn't quit them" had instead put them on ignore, at least for extended periods.
Anyway, thanks for giving it a try, and I'll be interested in any further feedback anyone, or almost anyone ;), might have to offer. Otherwise, please ignore safely and enjoy storming the castle.
On “The Deep State vs The Derp State”
@kolohe
A personal mandate confirmed by large popular vote majorities is not the only type of mandate. TR - who already had developed a national following - inherited McKinley's landslide vote, which TR himself was in part credited for having created by his energetic campaigning. As for Wilson, though his numbers in 1912 were reduced by the nature of the 3-way race, he did win an electoral landslide, and he formed a decisively Progressive Administration, co-opting much of TR's base.
As for Lincoln, he represented the threat of change, and was treated as a radical, but the first irrevocably radical move was made by the other side. Counter-mandates are often the very best mandates - something giving the Ds reason to hope 2018 and 2020 will be the really-really transformational elections.
BTW As for Trump as Realist or Neo-Isolationist, did you catch Professor Realist himself on the subject? https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/03/trump-has-already-blown-it/ Regardless of what you think about Team America-ism, there are arguably much better and much worse ways to try to get out of that game.
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@burt-likko @davidtc
Much of the hand-wringing - or, if you prefer, justified very heightened Deep State deep worry - followed upon Michael Flynn's resignation. This post at Lawfare - which has been aggressively anti-Trump, overall - was, I believe, influential: https://www.lawfareblog.com/michael-flynn-may-want-call-aclu [footnote added to post] The report that 9 (nine!) "officials" confirmed that Flynn was recorded discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador underlined a popular idea, pushed especially hard by John Schindler - whom some consider a crank, others a Cassandra - that "the IC" was getting ready to gang up on the poor, poor pitiful president, in self-defense against him and also as patriots sworn to protect and defend, and would eventually bring the whole corrupt treasonous crew down by exposing the truth. The further implication is that, of course, the IC would prefer for conventional oversight from Congress and investigation by the FBI to do the job of verifying elements of the Steele dossier and bringing the rest of Kremlingate (and possibly other matters) to light, but there is some fear that both Congress and and FBI (under Trump's DoJ) may be compromised.
I suppose I might have retold this story in the post, but I felt I was already going long, and you can blame me for being too interested in the theoretical questions, or for assuming everyone has the general prologue already in mind. It's easy to lose the thread, or get caught up in side issues. In my own view unusual resistance approximately commensurate to the unusual nature of Trump's presidency is, first, simply to be expected: He and the people around him have been virtually demanding it. Second, those of us well on the outside can't really judge whether an "IC coup" is already justified, but I think we have to be open to the possibility it might be. After all, Nixon, we eventually learned, was brought down in key part by leaks from an FBI Associate Director, after conventional oversight had failed, and there are not many people to be found arguing that Nixon's resignation was unjustified.
I also think, as I said, that the election of Donald Trump confirmed that a higher level system breakdown is already well-advanced, but maybe we will discover over the course of this "natural experiment," or series of natural experiments, that we really did not need the system, or the sort-of deep state. Maybe it makes no final difference after all whether we have a derp state instead - whether Defense and State are properly staffed, or whether the work of "deconstruction" interferes with the work of the EPA or other alphabet agencies, or whether the President's word and minimal competence can be relied on even a little in matters great and small, and maybe none of the developments in policy we've already seen and may expect rise to high enough level of human cost to justify "radical" resistance.
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@joe-sal
I don't see what basis you have for terming functional statism in the U.S. "radical." Is statism like pregnancy in that you cannot have a little bit of it? Then how are we not all full-blown pregnantly statist?
Around the time of the American Founding, there were radical anti-statists, some much more radical, I think inarguably, even than the Anti-Federalists, practicing or trying to implement various forms of participatory democracy. They lost the fundamental argument, as they were always destined to lose it: You can't have your anarchy and eat it, too. To flash forward, even the FDR-Marshall Welfare-Warfare state in formation, at the peak of WW2, was in many respects an undeveloped state compared to the Soviet permanent warfare state. After war socialism was over, the state or state structure that remained in the US might have been much different from what had preceded the war, or what existed in 1900, 1859, or 1812, and so on, but it doesn't seem to me to be a very radically statist state compared to many or most other relevant examples - not that I have any confidence in our measuring sticks...
On “Punching Up, Punching Down, Punching All Around”
I think that's a good statement by @brent-f of a realistic, mainstream, responsible American liberal position. I'll just note, again, that this particular violation of principle is somewhat mitigated by circumstances.
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I don't think that's the actual question here. The question concerns both "literally fighting" - or merely attacking, as the case may be - as well as advocacy of it, and whether in doing one or both something precious is lost or risked for no or insufficient gain. VB points especially to the failure to think through consequences in different ways. The tension arises because those who value the liberal possibility highly will still mostly acknowledge the potential for circumstances in which they'd also literally-fight or support literal-fighting, and because serious people may disagree over whether those circumstance are here or approaching, and also whether, if so, literal-streetfighting would be good strategy or in fact one of the worst strategies for the literal-fight...
..and, oh yeah, because hardly anyone wants to be seen to be defending a Spencer.
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No, that's not what Schadenfreude means. Schadenfreude is the pleasure taken in viewing anyone's experience of misfortune, not because the person is an enemy, or "had it coming," or necessarily for any reason at all. It rests on a certain view on human nature in general.
Those celebrating the assault on Spencer make a specific argument: They support or say they support punching "Nazis" on general principle. Their argument is that Spencer's ideology or his promotion of it is so odious that violence against him is good. As such it is typical of a whole range of stands regarding law and governance, including one rather typical of Trumpism, as to the suspension of legality or particular social and legal norms in the very name of "law" or more likely "order." That position is also old as dirt, and everyone virtually without exception will adopt it eventually, given the right circumstances. That the problem is old and not always fully resolvable and so makes hypocrites of us all does not make it unimportant. People and societies have also been getting sick with no cure since time immemorial, but, when the universal ill happens to affect you or someone or something you care about, you may take it quite seriously, and may find anyone's expression of Schadenfreude about it as entirely unamusing or even unforgivable.
The question of suspension of the law in favor of the law or of higher law can be as trivial as jaywalking on a quiet street or it can be a declaration of war to end all wars. In our politics right now, one question that some consider pressing is whether we should yield to norms on the legitimation of presidential authority and among other things give President Trump "a chance," or whether the emergency is already upon us and "resistance" is in order. The question vis-a-vis the "alt-right" arises, not by coincidence, at the same time, as a new question on the enforcement of a type of effective prohibition on unacceptable thought. I say "effective prohibition" because we have not chosen in the United States to make the prohibition on speech of this type legally enforceable. We leave it on the level of taboo. We also have a taboo on suppression of political speech that does have legal status, and we of course have both legal and social norms against violence and especially against assault on anyone posing no immediate threat to anyone.
The two political problems - regarding collaboration with Trump and the GOP and regarding the treatment of dangerous ideology - are connected for us, but in complicated and contradictory ways. There may be no answer to either of them or both together that can be logically demonstrated once and for all. It is easier just to let the Nazi prattle when there doesn't seem to be any danger of his being taken seriously. There is more reason to strike at him pre-emptively - literally or figuratively - when his friends or occasional collaborators attain high office.
What makes the conjunction of problems more vexing and so endlessly discussable regardless of the relative importance of whichever eruption is that the threat to the liberal order - to the order in which we let everyone prattle, Nazis and you and me included - is precisely the Nazi or alt-right threat. It also happens to be a dividing line in the contemporary left-liberal coalition - often played out in discussion of suppression of speech at universities and colleges - so points to the potential weakness or breakdown of opposition, or resistance, to the current right/alt-right coalition.
As I already noted, there may not be a one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. If you do not see them as politically very significant questions, then I disagree with you. If you cannot see how they are embodied in this incident and the reaction among political intellectuals to it, then perhaps you should take yourself at your own word, and bow out of a discussion whose significance you do not recognize. If in your view there is something absurd about our discussion of the discussion, then how would your discussion of the discussion of the discussion be less so, and why should you have any reason to discuss my discussion of it?
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This is - or is seen as - "a-hole walks into a bar, orders a drink, and gets sucker-punched on the principle that he's an a-hole, not for any particular a-holy thing he happens to be doing at the moment."
If you're going to insist on reducing our national political life to a operation of a bar (some might consider that a step up, but I digress), we can observe that it's common practice for bar-owners to request that patrons "take it outside" rather than disrupt the peace and endanger the furniture.
At our particular bar, one peculiar rule is printed on a laminated piece of driftwood, up there for everyone to see: You're entitled to your opinion about anything, and so's everyone else, so be cool.
That's one big reason a lot of the patrons here like this bar, even if we don't always care for the entertainment, or the decor, or the food, or even a lot of the other patrons. So it's a significant question for us if the bar is going to change its policy. It's also a significant question for us if the bar is going to become a dangerous bar where fights are breaking out all of the time.
But you're certainly entitled to your opinion that none of it matters.
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I don't understand your point, @morat20, or what position you are taking. Are you supporting the "he had it coming" position or are you disagreeing with it?
I won't waste much sympathy for the (non-)injured party, and I have no strong feelings about appropriate punishment for the assailant if ever identified and arrested. Otherwise, I think those celebrating the Punch heard round the internet have substituted posturing for thinking their positions through, and are now "asking for it" - which isn't anything new under the sun either. I have no idea whether and if so how their wish will be granted, but I suspect it may be, and I suspect they may not like either the particular or the the overall results at all.
The end of a certain liberal world, or possibility, comes when there aren't enough people left willing to defend and act on its precepts. It can't be destroyed by any single act or in a very short period, but sometimes it feels like we're too close to a tipping point for comfort.
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Is it OK to punch someone who is against punching? Is it OK to punch someone who is in favor of punching? Is it OK to punch someone who asks whether it is OK to punch or not to punch? Is it OK to punch someone who asks whether it is OK to ask whether it is OK whether it is OK...
Spencer was cruising for a bruising. If he didn't know it, he should have. So, too, now, are those who have been celebrating his getting punched.
Put more philosophically, he was not just uttering or representing deplorable and widely deplored and specifically highly illiberal beliefs, but was doing so at the site of a protests against those beliefs, upon the inauguration of a new administration thought to be advancing them, and also held, with justification, to represent a dangerous break with liberal norms. Protestors, or any would-be opponents of Spencer, might feel an obligation to oppose him, especially at the time and place: Interfering with his expression, might at worst seem a close call, even if doing so would be less than perfectly liberal. That the assault itself was, to say the least, not very serious, makes it easy to shrug off, just as it was, apparently, for Spencer himself.
On the other hand, the self-righteous and ill-considered, obviously illiberal approval of the punch - everywhere on Twitter and beyond - is more problematic than the punch itself. This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper, but a punch, or rather with the approval of a punch - or come to think of it with some whimpering, too...
On “GOPocalypse, Part 5: The Miner and Sapper”
...or a bunch of 'em.
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You'll need a Part 6/epilogue, "Trump," maybe after you've had a chance to digest results that will no doubt be shocking to those who have been suckered in by MSM polls and not counting yard signs in Connecticut and comparing popularity of Halloween costumes. Still not clear to me whether the "aftermath" will justify a tweetstorm, a blog-post, a book, or a shelf of them.
On “Morning Ed: Food {2016.10.19.W}”
The nature of Trump's "threat" hasn't altered in character since the first moment we found ourselves forced to take him seriously. The more seriously we are or have been forced to take him, the greater the threat, and it works the other way as well. Yet at the same time, or following as a result, the more seriously "we" take the threat, producing a decreased apparent likelihood of his victory, the less seriously "we" need to take the threat, or the less real the actual threat, so the less serious the threat itself.
In other words, the more seriously we take Trump, the less seriously we find ourselves having to take Trump, and the less seriously we take Trump, the more seriously we have to take him. Got it?
On “Between Iraq and a Hard Place”
Nicely done. I think what's missing, however, are the other elements of the situation - or the "conjuncture" - that made the neo-conservative case, or its particular mixture of pessimisms and optimisms, not merely plausible, but emotionally satisfying both for policymakers and, for an extended period, the American populace or the electorate.
The optimism of the '90s was not merely a residue of the Gulf War, and the popularization of Fukuyama's thesis didn't occur just because it was attractive on its own terms. The West under American leadership in the neoconservative mode had not simply, or so it seemed, won an argument, it had "proven the naysayers wrong," and not just in Iraq, where predictions of a bloody quagmire had turned out to be embarrassing to many of the same people making similar predictions a decade later, but in the great struggle of the Epoch, and in lesser conflicts up to and including, or seemingly including, the initial Afghanistan campaign. The pessimism about the world, or about the world if left to work things out on its own, without the benefit of American tutelage and direct intervention, seemed to have been borne out in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, on 9/11, and in and around Iraq itself, where containment and compromise had made America the custodian of Iraqi misery and slow-motion genocidal warfare against Iraqi minorities, with intermittent eruptions of military conflict and indefinite occupation of Saudi Arabia; continued uncertainty about the actual state of Iraq's weapons programs; and violation without consequences of agreements achieved at great cost to conclude the prior conflict.
Withdrawal or realism or erring on the side of non-intervention or however one wishes to describe the Obama Doctrine or policy typified by Syria also has costs, material and otherwise. We may have been wrong about who we were or are and what we can achieve, or at what cost, but we do not seem especially happy with ourselves as realists without a concept or mission in the world, unable to believe we can achieve anything or bear the costs.
On “Morning Ed: Government {2016.08.11.Th}”
It's reached the point where you need to pause before answering whether ending the Trump campaign wouldn't benefit the Trump campaign more than continuing it - unless the question is whether actually having a campaign would be of greater or lesser benefit to the Trump campaign.
On “On Ad Hominems Part 1: The Messy World”
Gentlepeople,
I'm neither inclined nor able to pursue this discussion into simultaneous overlapping political philosophical questions. Here, at my blog, and in other venues I have already spent or wasted, take your pick, countless hours or days or centuries on the political philosophy of liberalism and liberal democracy and on the "SSM debate."
Gabriel offered his discussion on ad hominem arguments. I responded to it. I believe the discussion began to go off-topic in on way, perhaps too on-the-nose in another, when he made the following observation:
The overly-on-the-nose part is where Gabriel lays charges of hypocrisy and testifies as to his reduced respect for social conservatives or for "some of the people who advance socially conservative positions." The attack on the the character of "some of the people who advance" may have inspired Density Duck to raise questions about the claim on incongruity between liberal democracy or a supposed type of liberal democracy (the one that social conservatives "otherwise support") and "illegality/non-legality of SSM." In short, "some of the people" on the other side of the SSM debate make a very similar argument about certain "incongruencies" on the pro-SSM side. Instead of acknowledging the point, which "some of the people" like to print in big, bright, block letters wherever and whenever they can, Gabriel prefers to tell us how he feels about them as people. The ad hominem in the literal sense is obvious. Its function as argumentum ad hominem is perhaps more subtle: In my view it at least points to the beginning of an indictment of opponents for being opponents at all.
Murali proceeded to offer backing for Gabriel's position, adopting, perhaps unavoidably, a position in which a tendency toward expanding a "private, personal" sphere of rights and freedoms is taken to require regimes of civil/legal/administrative etc.- or public and social - recognition and "protection." He argues that "we would not consider a democracy which, for instance banned gay sex a liberal democracy, regardless of the press and political freedoms it happened to afford."
Setting aside the difference between "banning gay sex" and "recognizing SSM," certainly from an historical point of view or in a historical discussion we might very well do just what Murali says we wouldn't, unless we are going to take the position that there were no liberal democracies at all until sundry impostor states reformed their "sodomy" laws over the course of the 20th Century.
The theoretical or philosophical matter, and what I believe to be the defect in both Gabriel's and Murali's positions as outlined here, has to do with the implicit claim that adoption of liberal premises or supposed "liberal democratic principles" requires support for SSM as a matter of "necessity" - that it is a matter of logic vs "incongruency," or that, to repeat myself, a "particular set of legal determinations and related social or civic institutional adjustments" can be derived from some more or less general principle, that "all liberal democratic states support the institution of same sex marriage" in the same way that "Socrates is mortal" in the famous syllogism.
In this case, I believe that Murali is performing a version of the familiar operation by which assertion of a negative right or freedom of individuals vs whatever state is converted into a positive responsibility of the state, here as "protection." Such "protection" always inherently involves actual "infringements" of a different kind: A regime of absolute freedom would be a contradiction in terms, as is or ought to be well understood.
That statement may be taken as a political argument against the modern social liberal state, but I intend it merely as an observation of an actual logical necessity, in contradistinction to false versions, not as a political argument for or against SSM or anything else. At various times various impossible people right, left, center, statist, libertarian, and on and on have been found attempting to administrate the impossible laws and secure the impossible objectives of any number of impossible states, but we were discussing a different topioc, and, as I stated at the outset, I'm neither inclined nor able to jump into this rabbit hole today here or anytime anywhere soon. My only objective has been to explain where I believe Gabriel and Murali were, for lack of a better word or the time to look for one, fudging. That'll have to be all from me for now and a while.
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Not sure how you are relating the objectivity problem specifically to this discussion, @joe-sal.
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I'm not going to divert this discussion to the questions of types of liberalism and the nature of "liberal democracy." I'll just say that I agree that you are being "too hasty."
Any mode of thinking that leads you to an oxymoronic assertion of "probable necessity" should be taken as a signal that you have not thought the matter through. It says: "I believe that if I did go through a process of thinking the matter through logically, then the conclusion I prefer would probably be irrefutable!" Or, to deploy a different absurdity: "I'm sure that it would probably be proven, or would be demonstrated to be demonstrable. So, to save time, I won't bother thinking about the alternative. This is how I also know that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, that the Sun revolves around the Earth, that my race is superior to other races, and that anything else I very much prefer to think must also be good and correct to think."
For the sake of understanding, the rhetorical sleight-of-hand by which you, Murali, and our Supreme Court turn liberalism as "equal" protection of individual (or minority) freedoms into a "necessary" requirement for a particular set of legal determinations and related social or civic institutional adjustments would need to be, as it were, slowed down, removed from the realm of intellectual prestidigitation and submitted to accountable audit. In this way this otherwise off-topic discussion does relate to the "ad hominem" question, since the reliance on ad hominem for what I called prudential or practical reasons has the same character: of suspending (or skipping) a properly philosophical (or other "scientific") inquiry for the sake of "getting on with things" (politics). Doing so will be necessary and convenient this side of New Jerusalem (where everyone is always already doing the right thing), but it undermines the claim on behalf of public reason to treat consciously setting it aside as the same as pursuing it.
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Kind of you to say so! On the other hand, I won't take the compliment too personally, since in my observation you're by nature one of the intellectually more generous souls hereabouts (except maybe when insisting on talking normal dammit).
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1. In practice, I rely on ad hominems quite a lot. And you do, too.
I don't think that I do. I strive hard not to do so. However, I have been occasionally accused of relying on "ad homs" by people who do not understand the fallacy, and instead associate it with any use of (supposed) insults or "attacks on a person."
Sometimes, the issue in question does not concern "whether x is connected to y," but instead concerns "how we ought to feel or think about Citizen A in relation to fitness for common purpose B." If the topic is "fitness of A," the statement or implication "A is unfit," is relevant. "A is unfit" may be taken as an insult to A, so is "ad hominem" in the sense of being directed "against the person," but is not an example of the "argumentum ad hominem." It is literally "ad hominem," but not an example of deployment of the fallacy.
2. Ad hominems are clearly a fallacy only in the rare instance of deductive arguments divorced from practical considerations.
The fallacy remains a fallacy regardless of the practical purpose one may have in mind.
I may succeed in getting you to vote for proposition A by persuading you that association with opponents of A is unseemly, but I have not in so doing said anything directly about the truth or falsehood or reasonableness of arguments as such for or against A. I have encouraged you to act on the likelihood (conceivably to be taken as a very high likelihood) that whatever the despised anti-A people say is not to be trusted, and that, if you took the time to examine their arguments in detail, your prejudices would be confirmed.
I would be saying that it would be prudent for you to forego the exercise of reason in regard to the topic or potential topic, and instead rely on reasonable prejudice. That the prejudice may be reasonable for you to maintain (e.g., "Don't waste your time or risk your reputation engaging in discussion with Nazis") does not make it an exercise of reason regarding the question (e.g., "Can 'race' ever be a valid category for understanding human social differences?") that you have reasonably chosen not to examine at this time or in whatever venue or with whichever particular discussants.
3. Some arenas define the rules of argument so as to place ad hominems in play.
Since in elections and politics in general, we are often concerned, even principally concerned, with the "fitness of Citizen A" or "fitness of Citizens B through Y," or "the desirability of placing Citizens A through Y in positions of power," then directing an argument "against the person or persons" is, see above, literally to argue "ad hominem," but not to rely upon the fallacy.
In that context, it would not be fallacious to seek to demonstrate that "Citizen A is unworthy of anyone's vote." Indeed, to attempt to discuss that question without discussing Citizen A's "worthiness" would be absurd. The fallacious argument, but not necessarily a "wrong" argument, would be more like "You should despise Citizen A because people whom you despise like Citizen A."
The distinction may be hard to keep in mind, since, in politics, the fact that someone has hateful friends can also be taken as critical information, potentially by far the most important or independently decisive information.
In other words, if we have already concluded that Group B should never be encouraged or empowered, and Group B would be encouraged or empowered by the success of Citizen A, then it will be reasonable or even obligatory for us to consider that information disqualifying. It is information about the person of Citizen A in the question of the fitness of Citizen A, even if it is not specific to any particular action or statement by Citizen A. It is not, however, in itself, information about any particular topic as such under discussion or potentially under discussion. It may, as under 2 above, amount to a prudential argument against entering into discussion at all.
4. Ad hominems can often tell us something important about the issue under discussion.
True if, as under 3, the "question of the person (or persons)" is the actual issue under discussion, or if the real issue, as under 2, is "what is a practical way for me to proceed in relation to this issue?" In either case, the impression that "the fallacy" has somehow failed is based upon a misidentification of the actual question or mischaracterization of the actual topic under discussion. We might, to use an example used elsewhere on this thread, be under the illusion that we are discussing issues relating directly to sexual preference, but in fact we are discussing a different question as to the advancement or suppression of those taking one or another side on whatever particular issue.
5. One’s standing to say something can be relevant to what is said.
A version of 2: It's not useful for me to listen to what someone who I reasonably believe knows nothing useful. Again, the prudential question regarding interlocutors does not speak to the argumentum ad hominem. Similarly, to say that someone is arguing in bad faith or known to argue in bad faith speaks to the question of qualification or prudence of entering into discussion at all. It says nothing about the the subject or potential subject of discussion or potential discussion.
6. Ad hominems help us discern inconsistencies in others’ arguments.
Another version of the prudential question.
7. Something something postmodernism something.
In short, the post-modernist view as defined in the post would be self-disqualifying regarding any discussion at all. If all discussion is according to this "post-modern view" is "fallacious," then fallacies are irrelevant - or we are operating from a different notion of "fallacy": The "true" or "non-fallacious" argument is the argument that has won. We have defined the "true" as "the accepted." It is for the same reason that "the post-modern view" has been held to be incompatible with the presumptions of liberal democracy, or that the propagation of this mode of thinking (or "thinking") has been thought to undermine the project of liberal-democratic self-governance as understood by its original proponents and contemporary defenders.
On “Morning Ed: World {2016.07.14.Th}”
"Stavrides" - retired Admiral. But she can't pick him because it would violate the "one-syllable name = strength" rule, and isn't a big part of the idea of picking a military MAN to convey stronger than strong strength vs. the Strongman on the other side?
On “She Is Bad At This”
Well, to be libertarian devil's advocate: Either the non-existence of "a law against," or the affirmation of "a right to," does not imply the proliferation of "acts of." But surely you've heard the argument already, so I won't belabor the point except to say that for a true-believing libertarian, conceding the rationality of this type of objection might amount to conceding the whole libertarian enchilada.
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@tod-kelly
You aren't under any obligation at all, RTod! Never implied you were. Indeed, my presumption that you could be under any such obligation might, for certain libertarians, be a very un-libertarian way of viewing politics!
Other realities having intruded, I never went to part 2 of my little-read projected series on why this is in fact a core problem for libertarianism and by extension for all American political parties, roughly in proportion to their commitment to the older (but not oldest!) liberalism rather than the newer (post-WW2) social- or state-liberal one. I imagine that the guy who did the striptease at this typically unconventional convention sees the Libertarian Party more as a vehicle to express defiance of common political presumptions - presumptions about what's "serious" - than to re-produce them. We can feel chagrined that it leads to missing the moment or what we might hope was a moment, but he's not interested, I suspect, or, to the extent he sees this moment as a moment, he probably sees it as a moment to let you know exactly what he thinks about conventional politics.
Anyway, as I've been assuming was his main point, you can't accuse him of having a hidden agenda. The larger point, that somehow remains easy to miss even and now especially for many of those previously dedicated to advancing it, is that for libertarians and fellow travelers, following a longstanding and "foundational" American tradition, the political system or the political administrative state (and its conventions, predispositions, etc.) should be de-emphasized and reduced in importance. Producing stink-bomb candidates is a very rational way of seeking or affirming this end. The methodology is hardly restricted to libertarians and self-styled conservatives. It's typically embraced on the other end of the conventional political spectrum as well, against the existing state and its quo, but in favor of leftist statism.
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I don't think that's correct - or anyway it's ambiguously phrased, in a way that reflects a common difficulty in partisan politics. "Strongest" candidate might be taken to mean "candidate most likely to get votes," or it might mean "candidate most likely to advance the authentic libertarian cause." Some people might believe that "getting the most votes" would satisfy "advance the cause," but it wouldn't if the best way for a libertarian to get votes is to deny libertarianism, while what it means to advance or deny libertarianism is something that partisans may also disagree about in any number of ways: For some the amount and type of emphasis to put on relative electoral success vs other aims may become the most important issue of all.
The problem is usually more obvious for fringe parties or highly committed factions in larger parties, but this year we've seen the disagreement over which matters most - "principles" or "democracy" (in multiple dimensions) - underlying central conflicts within the major parties.
On some level, the general election itself will address an underlying "crisis of self-definition." It always does. When things seem in some sense to be falling apart, rules and precedents no longer apply, predictability dies, and so on, the crisis becomes more readily discernible as such.
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