Human thinking has floors. At the top is the penthouse: airy, lateral, furnished with evidence. At the bottom is the basement, where someone is shouting, “Well, you would say that.”
This is the ad hominem, Latin for “I have misplaced my argument, so let us discuss your personality.”
The ad hominem appears when a person cannot dismantle an idea and therefore tries to dismantle its owner.
A junior analyst predicts a product will fail. Management replies that she is young. A scientist presents data on nuclear energy. Critics announce he is a corporate shill. An economist questions a spending policy. He is declared heartless. A citizen is a Vietnam veteran and is abused a baby-killer. Some ad hominems can be just a playful tease others are meant to cause harm.
Politicians adore the device. Ask an awkward question and, before you know it, the reporter is “fake,” the expert is “biased,” and the arithmetic has been escorted from the building.
The trick works because identity is noisier than evidence. It drags discussion from searching the facts into the mud of tribal feeling.
I call these ploys the Limbic Games. Flow, adrenalin, flow.
So when someone attacks you instead of your idea you can just shrug. You needn’t follow them downstairs. Return to the dopamine penthouse.
An ad hominem can never be a rebuttal. It may even be an intellectual white flag, waved angrily from the basement.
