[MD] humpty dumpty

[MarshaV]

Hi dmb,

More ad hominem attacks?  Really?  RMP has said the ad hominem argument is a form of evil.

On Jul 30, 2012, at 11:21 PM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

>> My hunch, Dan, is that you've followed Marsha's line of thinking and ended up with an excessively anti-intellectual position as a result. I'm not a mind-reader, of course, but I think it's quite clear that a bogus anti-intellectualism is her central mistake, from which many other mistakes flow. For whatever it's worth, I really think that reading her posts are a waste of time and you ought not take her views seriously. She'll only lead you down some dark alley or dead end. Here brand of vacuous nihilism is very un-Pirsigian, I think, and it's not very Buddhist either.

Marsha:
I've asked you repeatedly over the past year to define the MoQ's term for 'intellectual' if you are going to accuse me of anti-intellectualism???   I've also asked you to present evidence and citing the exact statements, and posts they came from to include the context.  You do understand the word 'context' don't you?  You NEVER have presented this material.  Calling me 'anti-intellectual' and 'nihilistic' is an ad hominem attack not a legitimate argument or discussion.  

"To say that a comment is “stupid” is to imply that the person who makes it is stupid. This is the ad hominem argument: meaning, “to the person.” Logically it is irrelevant. If Joe says the sun is shining and you argue that Joe is insane, or Joe is a Nazi or Joe is stupid, what does this tell us about the condition of the sun? That the ad hominem argument is irrelevant is usually all the logic texts say about it, but the MOQ allows one to go deeper and make what may be an original contribution. It says the ad hominem argument is a form of evil. The MOQ divides the hominem, or “individual,” into four parts: inorganic, biological, social and intellectual. Once this analysis is made, the ad hominem argument can be defined more clearly: it is an attempt to destroy the intellectual patterns of an individual by attacking his social status. In other words, a lower form of evolution is being used to destroy a higher form. That is evil. However, the MOQ suggests that this only an intellectual evil. In politics, for example, to identify your political opponent as a former Nazi is not evil if he really was a Nazi, because politics is a dominantly social activity rather than an intellectual activity."
          (RMP, LILA's CHILD). 


Marsha