:) yeahbutt, Carrol's reasoning is that ascribing motives is a form of ad
hominem -- a logical fallacy. he's right. and whether or not he does it
himself every single day, doesn't matter. hypocrisy doesn't make someone's
argument wrong. it just makes them a hypocrite. e.g., if someone argues
that it's bad to pollute and drives an SUV, their argument that it's bad to
pollute isn't wrong because s/he drives an SUV. you have to go after the
argument on different grounds -- if you disagree, that is.
of course, we engage in this sort of discussion _all_ the time. and, we often do so, not as a way to challenge someone's argument, but simply as a way to understand, to bitch, to carry on vendettas, whathefuckever. and, sometimes, it's a legitimate mode of investigation and that analysis is applied by experts and laypeople alike, in this forum. what remains wrong, however, is trying to dismiss an argument on the basis of someone's supposed motivations. it doesn't really matter if, say, Thomas Brown is an opportunistic, petty, nasty guy or that Ward Churchill is. Doesn't matter if WC was beaten by his father and we decide that this is why he does what he does. That kind of analysis just helps us understand and maybe fish out clues from their rhetoric to find the weak spots in their arguments. In order to knock down their arguments, you still have to show how the argument is bad, not show how the person is bad.
carrol, of course, was careful not to claim that I was using logical fallacy to undermine his claims about whether or not a particular left terrain exists. That's because that is not what I was objecting to. I was objecting to an attack on Pugliese, Newman, and Dawson. Carrol could have effectively said the same thing without naming names: "There will always be provacateurs...."
But don't worry, as far as I remember, Doug is one of those people who habitually ascribe motives to people, according to Carrol. So, we're in good company. :)
In any event, if he could remember an approximate date, Carrol once posted a really great discussion of different rhetorical strategies -- ways to engage one another in a space like this list. Maybe he can post it again or remind me of the date so I can search my archives or the list archives. AT any rate, in it, he started to lay out a case for why some forms of particularly nasty ad hominem (not mere name calling) was divisive and should only be used against people you really feel ARE the enemy.
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering EE pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling