The Fonz wrote:You accused him of not reading. He said you were patronising. I can't see how the former is any more Adhom than the latter.
Er...
It's important to remember that ad hominem isn't identical to "throwing insults around."
It's a logical fallacy where rather than responding to someone's arguments, you attack them, personally -- a good (as it were) adhom on BM would be "you're using the same arguments you used in XXX" (where you were scum) or "you're just being BM, this makes no sense", or, for that matter, a spelling or whatnot complaint that attacked him (and his posting style) but didn't actually address his points.
My point -- that his statement was contrary to the facts of what actually -happened- on day 1 -- was self evident (do you disagree? Does anyone?). That I also questioned whether he'd read reading day 1 was a side insult (if, I think, a deserved one) but not my main point. By contrast, his response was a -classic- ad hominem, amounting to "your points are wrong because you're patronizing me." It doesn't matter whether I patronize you; it matters whether your arguments are sound, and whether mine are. My arguments are not made less sound because they're written in a patronizing tone, or in crayon, or spelled like I'm on a three-day bender (or just typing like Sparks
.
But your arguments -are- less sound (and by "your" I mean "BM's" in this case) if they're not only not backed up by textual evidence, but also clearly contrary to the facts.
I.O.W., my attack on BM was perfunctory because what he was saying was obviously untrue. I didn't attack him to attack his arguments, I just threw out a statement of frustration and let them disprove themselves; they weren't worthy of serious rebuttal. His response consisted of an ad hominem attack, which aside from the logical fallacy, also didn't even attempt to validate his statements.
(oh, and not as an adhom, but just to make Firefox's spellchecker happy -- it's patronizing, with a z, not an s. Good for scrabble, I guess
