“It is always more difficult to fight against faith than knowledge.”
I strongly believe the above quote to be true. I agree with it. I think it is crucial to understanding mass psychology, society and politics. I also think it’s the principle that governs all propaganda and public relations.
Who said it? Adolph Hitler.
This therefore, must mean that I am a Nazi, a Nazi supporter or a fan of Hitler. Of course I’m none of these things and there are many people I’m sure who agree with the statement and are none of these things either. It’s an idea, and ideas have a certain level of independence from those who promote them. So do principles and policies.
This is all fairly evident. Most people understand this. However, many people willfully ignore it when it suits their purposes – mainly when they are trying to advance an argument. This is in fact a very common fallacious argument – ad hominem or “argument to the man”. It’s also extremely common on the Daily Kos rec list these days as Obama supporters use it relentlessly to shut down discussion on Ron Paul and the rightward shift of the Democratic Party.
Ad hominem is defined as – “attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument.”
In this instance the argument that is being ignored by many people is the one made by commentators like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Stoller and our own David Mizner. This is not a defence of Ron Paul’s argument. Nor is it advocacy for his candidacy. I fully expect this disclaimer to be ignored.
So why is ad hominem so commonly used? And why is using it wrong? The answer for both is the same. It allows you to escape having to address the argument itself and sometimes people do not have a satisfactory rebuttal to an argument. There’s another reason I personally don’t like ad hominem arguments – they depend on you shutting off your facilities for critical thought. Ad hominem appeals to bias and emotion, not reason. They in effect say “close your mind and shut your ears because the person making the argument is a (insert negative)”. I am always wary of people that try to make themselves or you do LESS thinking about something that requires thought. That, like Hitler’s quote, is the essence of propaganda. And it is used all the time at Daily Kos.
What exactly is the argument of the people who have been citing Ron Paul?
1. Ron Paul is in favour of some of the same policies that liberals are.
2. Members of the Democratic Party, including the president, do not support these policies or will not take any serious action to either promote or implement them.
3. As a consequence Paul is the only politician with the visibility of someone seeking the presidency that is advocating certain positions that are important to liberals.
4. Without him doing so there would be no voice discussing such issues in the presidential race.
5. There is something wrong with a political party when a member of the opposition party is the only one in the presidential contest advocating issues that are supposedly central to that party.
6. Some of the vitriol being directed at Ron Paul’s campaign by the Left is precisely because they recognize the schism within their own party.
This is what is being said. You don’t have to agree with these points but if you are going to rebut them then you should at least address them. Instead, what has been the repeated rebuttal to these points? Ron Paul is a kook and a racist. Glenn Greenwald is a self-promoting purist and Libertarian who supports Ron Paul and was for the invasion of Iraq. There are trolls and “Paulbots” on Daily Kos and they need to be banned. The underlying message is these people are so bad that you don’t have to address their arguments. Don’t use your critical faculties.
This has been a constant feature of this site over the last couple years. I think the ultimate example was the exquisite smear job on Jane Hamsher, or “Blackface Jane” as she came to be known. One of this site’s most celebrated diarists tore Hamsher to shreds because she did a cartoon of Joe Lieberman in blackface. It was an incredibly crude, racist and offensive thing Hamsher did and it certainly merited denouncing. The only thing is, the incident took place in 2006 and the diary was written in 2009. Why the big gap in dealing with this issue? Because the Blackface Jane diary was a rebuttal to points Hamsher was making. No she wasn’t talking about how great it is to put blackface on people. She was talking about the public option.
Blackface Jane was saying that the Democrats were trying to ditch the public option. She said that even though many had stated they would support it she did not trust them and had started a campaign to get them to sign a pledge that they would not sign a bill without the PO. Guess what. Blackface Jane wasn’t so off base, was she?
But through the power of pure ad hominem her points were ignored. I’m not a fan of Jane Hamsher. But I was a fan of the public option, and I’m telling you the top PR firms in the world could not have done a more effective neutralization of a very important perspective.
There’s another very popular fallacious argument at these parts – straw man.
The definition of a straw man is “a sham argument set up to be defeated”. In relation to the Ron Paul argument put forward by Greenwald, etc there are several.
1. Ron Paul is liberal.
2. Ron Paul should be president.
3. Ron Paul is better overall n the issues than Barack Obama.
4. Ron Paul is a great human being.
Hence the rec list is overrun with diaries about what an asshole Ron Paul is. Thing is, who said he wasn’t? Well maybe his supporters say so but the liberal critique using Ron Paul is not based on admiration for him. It’s based on the deficits in the Democratic Party.
Matt Stoller, in his excellent piece (in my opinion the best on this whole affair) states:
Now of course, Ron Paul pandered to racists, and there is no doubt that this is a legitimate political issue in the Presidential race. But the intellectual challenge that Ron Paul presents ultimately has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with contradictions within modern liberalism.
I’d like to say two final things. Firstly, even though I recognize that this is coming from liberal frustration with the lack of consistency from their political party and its hardcore loyalists, this is another example of bad tactics. We are good debaters but poor students of human nature. If you want to highlight how poorly the Democrats are carrying out their mandate and be effective in your argument the LAST thing you should do is compare them to a polarizing figure – someone not only in the opposition party but with a shit ton of baggage (particularly race-related baggage). Why? Even if you are correct you are inciting instinctive conflict. And you are also creating the condition for those who would rather not deal with your argument to not deal with it. Make no mistake, as outraged as the rec list is, comparing Ron Paul to the Democrats is an enormous gift to them. You gave them something else to focus on other than the issues and they will, with laser-like intensity.
Secondly, this is not a misunderstanding. What has it been, three years of misunderstanding? I have been trying in my own small way to get people to stop seeing Daily Kos as a community and more as a coalition. We share certain goals sometimes but sometimes we are deeply opposed. If you have to convince someone that killing civilians with predator drone strikes is a big deal then they are not in the same camp as you. Daily Kos is an important site and a great place to be but I worry that the liberal wing will get so caught up in the pie fights that we don’t actually do anything. Remember, there is a huge apparatus ensuring that what the Democratic Party wants, it gets. There isn’t one for liberals.
3:50 PM PT: So, thanks for all thoughtful responses, for and against me. I expected some negative but I did not expect this level of HR abuse. Anyway, that's not important, digital donuts can't make you fat.
One thing life has taught me, no matter how good the supposed outcome, be wary of anyone who tries to shut down debate, enforce ideas or get you to do less critical thinking. We were blessed with the capacity for moral reasoning, use it.