Favorite teachers

(I wrote the following before watching Barack Obama's convention speech, so there aren't any specific references to that speech here but, wow, there really probably should be.)

Rick Perlstein recalls a famous anecdote about Adlai Stevenson and explains why it illustrates a dead end for Democrats:

Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and '56, famously quipped when one of his supporters, overflowing with exuberance after one of his speeches, cried, "Governor Stevenson, you'll have the vote of every thinking American!" Stevenson replied: "But I need a majority."

Techically, a true thing to say. But politically, so very, very wrong. In wryly congratuling himself and his audience for comprising some sort of superior intellectual elect, he was calling everyone who didn't like Adlai Stevenson an idiot. And no one likes to hear that they are an idiot. Especially if they are, in fact, an idiot.

Accusing your opponents and their supporters of being idiots is not an effective electoral strategy. Most candidates have figured that out -- although, as Al Gore discovered in his debates with George W. Bush, it can be hard not to treat your opponent as an idiot when he's playing the part with such enthusiasm.

The bigger problem for Democrats nowadays is that no matter how careful they are not to display a Stevensonian condescension, they'll end up being accused of it anyway. Gore and Kerry were accused of "elitism" not because they acted like elitists, but because accusing Democrats of elitism is a standard tactic employed by Republican campaigns. The Democrats could nominate Archie Bunker or some Capra-esque Everyman and their nominee would still be accused of elitism. Whether or not the Democratic candidate treats voters as though they were unenlightened idiots in need of re-education, they will be accused of doing so. And, as Perlstein points out, if that accusation sticks they will lose.

Related to this is what we could call the Smartest Guy in the Room dilemma. Nobody likes the Smartest Guy in the Room. Nobody likes to be lectured. Gore, God bless him, has always had a problem with this. He strikes a lot of people as a very smart college professor giving a lecture and that rubs them the wrong way. Even when they have to acknowledge that he really is a very smart guy. Even when they have to acknowledge that his lectures are, inconveniently, true and urgent and even necessary. They end up resenting him for being right rather than admiring him for it.

Which brings us to Barack Obama. He's clearly a very smart man and he has actually worked as a bona fide college professor. Does this mean he's doomed as a candidate to have his intelligence used against him?

We'll get back to Barack Obama in a minute, but first let me tell you about Mrs. Mog.

Mrs. Mog was my favorite teacher in school. I had plenty of good teachers, many of whom probably knew their stuff better than Mrs. Mog did, but I still got more out of her classes than out of any of those others.

And that wasn't just true for me, she was everybody's favorite teacher. We all loved Mrs. Mog for one very simple reason: We knew that she loved us. As a result, she never had to waste class time on discipline or playing traffic cop. None of us wanted to disappoint her by causing trouble. And we all worked hard to learn the middle school Social Studies curriculum she taught us -- the states and capitals, how a bill becomes a law, how Lenni Lenape longhouses were built -- but none of that was the most important thing we learned in her class. The most important thing that Mrs. Mog taught us was that we could do anything.

Mrs. Mog believed that we were capable of being better, of being good, of being great. And because she believed it, she made us believe it too. She made us want to be better, good, great. We wanted to become the people she seemed to see when she looked at us, and thanks to her we believed we could.

If you're very lucky, then maybe you had a teacher like that too. I hope you did.

The point here, of course, is that Mrs. Mog made all of us, each of us, feel like we were the Smartest Guys in the Room. Whether or not we deserved it, whether or not it was true, she made us believe that it could be true, which led us all to try to make it true -- or, at least, to make it closer to true than it had been before. And she didn't do this through shallow flattery -- we'd have seen through that. She did this by challenging us and inspiring us to meet that challenge.

I'm guessing you see where I'm going with this.

At his best, Barack Obama is a lot more like Mrs. Mog than he is like Adlai Stevenson. That's why, if he continues to be at his best, Barack Obama makes it very difficult for his myriad opponents to brand him as a condescending elitist.

It's become fashionable -- particularly among a certain kind of Stevensonian elite -- to dismiss Obama's oratory and rhetoric as, by definition, insubstantial. The implication, often explicit, is that his audiences are rubes, idiots spellbound by a lot of pretty talk. But it is precisely the substance, not the style, of Obama's oratory that has been winning over his audiences. That substance is egalitarian, democratic, inclusive and aspirational -- precisely the opposite of elitist or condescending.

At his best, in other words, Barack Obama doesn't come across as a college professor lecturing voters, but as the kind of teacher who makes the class want to be better, to be good, to be great, and to believe that such a thing is possible.

That's the kind of teacher you want your kids to have. That's the kind of candidate you want your party to have. That's the kind of president you want your country to have.

Comments

[aunursa]

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

This portion of his speech really touched me. I'm glad he said that we should disagree without resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Not only would Obama agree that it's not an effective strategy to insult your opponent's intelligence just because he disagrees with you, but I expect that if you asked him, he would say that it's not true. And anyone who thinks it demeans himself.

[aunursa]

And, like everyone else, I too have been guilty of such attacks on occasion.

[Mad Latinist]

Yet humbly enough you did not claim your well-earned "FIRST!" ;)

[Froborr]

Hear, hear!

Also, *I* like the Smartest Guy in the Room.

aunursa: As time goes on, that's what impresses me most about Obama. He appears to actually, genuinely operate on the assumption that everyone else is intelligent and acting in good faith, and that disagreement arises not because they are evil or stupid, but because they see things differently. You could argue that it's naive, but I find it incredibly refreshing.

[Erl]

Lol Obama is Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society? It's an interesting angle--I never thought of it before.

[Ecks]

First off, that speach was about an 11 on a 5 point scale. I was wowserized.

Second, I thought that line about McCain not taking his positions for political reasons was:
a) sincerely pronounced
b) a brilliant gambit
c) weird, because he so clearly *has* taken them for political reasons, and it's not hard to read between the lines that it's eating him up.

[konrad_arflane]

"c) weird, because he so clearly *has* taken them for political reasons, and it's not hard to read between the lines that it's eating him up."

Or maybe not so weird. After all, some of the positions he has taken for political reasons are fairly despicable. And also, this approach puts the burden on McCain to show that he can defend all his positions with the (ahem) passionate sincerity you'd expect from someone who held them honestly.

[Ecks]

Well that's why it's weird. In essence he's (privately) nailing John with his own hypocrisy by insisting with wide eyed (public) sincerity that he's not being hypocritical. It's a cold ass move achieved by being warm. It's almost a play to the old McCain saying (in a very personal, friend to friend intimation) "look, you hate this, just come out and admit you're piling on the bullshit, and you can respect yourself again, and we'll all respect you too". Which is sort of a manipulative thing to do, but arrived at by decrying manipulativeness and making a show of forthright honest belief and goodwill.

As I say, weird.

[Praline]

Again, I'd like to recommend The Political Brain by Drew Westen. He makes the point that decisions are almost always made on emotional rather than intellectual grounds, and that the Democrats have lost out massively by neglecting this. Despite, you'd think, being the party of the heart, who want things like children having enough to eat and compassion for the poor, they tend to preach to the intellect, and in so doing, neglect their biggest selling point. There's nothing wrong with appealing to people's emotions; few people like having their feelings treated as unimportant.

As 'elistism' is a bad word about Democrats used by Republicans, 'emotion' has been tainted for Democrats by association with Republican demagoguery. But that's wrong: if the Republicans have traditionally been better at appealing to emotions, the only solution is to get better at it than them, and pick better emotions to appeal to. Hope and compassion are just as powerful as fear and hatred, if you can work out how to speak to them.

Quote:

The first great political theorist, Plato, was an ardent admirer of reason. Yet he recognized that reason and passion each had its proper place in mind and state. When one or the other consistently takes control in an individual, Plato asserted, the result is 'injustice of the soul.' The same imbalance between reason and passion can lead, he argued, to injustice in the state.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats today could probably learn from Plato, as one party has the illusion that appeals to emotion are sufficient not only for electoral victory but for good governance, and the other has the illusion that appeals to reason are sufficient for both.

[bulbul]

I'm glad he said that we should disagree without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
And once again, I see the term 'ad hominem' misused. First, I don't think the phrase 'ad hominem attack' even makes sense. 'Ad hominem' does not refer to any attack on someone's personality as opposed to a debate on the issue at hand. 'Ad hominem' is a logical fallacy. Let me give you an example:

1. Michael Moore is fat / a liberal, therefore anything in 'Sicko' is a lie.
2. Obama is not a patriot, because he doesn't wear a flag pin.

(1) is an ad hominem fallacy - the speaker has made a judgement not based on evidence, but based on specific (physical) characteristic of that person.
(2) is not an ad hominem argument, it is simply a statement or. Whether what is presented therein follows and the absence of a flag lapel pin is truly indicative of one's lack of patriotism (and what counts as patriotism) is another issue, but there is no logical fallacy in (2).

Now let's move closer to home:

3. We can't believe anything aunursa says because he's a Jew / conservative / torture-monkey.
4. aunursa is an evil person because he supports torture.

(3) is a classic example of an ad hominem fallacy where once again the speaker does not evaluate the content of aunursa's arguments, but dismisses them outright based on a personal characteristic either innate or acquired.
(4) is not an ad hominem argument, it is simply an evaluation of aunursa's character. Whether aunursa's support for torture does indeed qualify aunursa as an evil person and what does 'evil' even mean, that's another matter. But again, there is no ad hominem logical fallacy here.

Nobody likes the Smartest Guy in the Room.
This statement contains at least three fundamental truths about present-day America. Anybody wants to have a go at a more detailed analysis?

Lol Obama is Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society?
More like Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love :)

Barack Obama makes it very difficult for his myriad opponents to brand him as a condescending elitist.
But they've had a lot of practice, they're masters at this and they have tons of money. They'll try real hard.

[cjmr's husband]

Nobody likes the Smartest Guy in the Room.

I have learned over the course of my career that the best meeting survival technique is to go in with the correct solution, quietly propose it, take a nap for an hour and a half while everyone else proposes their ideas and fights over them, and then repeat my idea as the logical result of everyone else's arguments.

I find it works even better if I skip the first part.

Emotions:

Eight years ago, it was the bleeding-heart liberals who were the wimpy emotional party, and True Dispassionate Logic clearly dictated that we MUST cut taxes. That was before Rove, and the discovery that "fear" was also an emotion.

The transition was amusing. I actually saw in 2001 one of the office liberals and one of the office conservatives arguing simultaneously that *their* party was the one with logic behind them, and only the idiots in the other party made all their decisions with their emotions.

It does boil down to an important point: When they shut their brains off, liberals tend to say that they think with their "heart", and conservatives tend to say that they think with their "gut".

BTW, I had tests run on both last month, and the opinion of the cardiologist and the gastroenterologist seem to be that I am a liberal...

[Praline]

I actually saw in 2001 one of the office liberals and one of the office conservatives arguing simultaneously that *their* party was the one with logic behind them, and only the idiots in the other party made all their decisions with their emotions.

Such arguments do nobody any good, because they ignore the people the argument is actually supposed to convince: the public. In private debates, A tries to convince B and vice versa, but political debates involve A trying to convince anyone listening that he's a good guy and B can't be trusted, and vice versa. A good political debate speech goes right over the head of the candidate it's ostensibly addressed to and speaks to the people in the audience - who will, after all, be very much affected by whatever gets decided. To debate in a way that ignores your audience is actually rude. When I watch nature documentaries where stags crack antlers over mating rights, I sometimes wonder whether the doe ever wishes the stags would just ask her who she'd prefer rather than paying all their attention to each other...

It's a mistake to assume that Smart People only use their reason; every smart person I know makes decisions based on emotion just as much as anyone else. That's because we're all people. I think we're less like clay waiting to be molded, and more a set of consciousnesses that are waiting for somebody to say something that makes us feel, 'Hey! Yeah! That's how it is!' That sense of motivation is something everyone needs.

There are ways and ways of being smart, and in politics, you need social intelligence as well as abstract intelligence. Few education systems place much value on social intelligence once you get over the 'Say please, don't push, take turns' phase. Social intelligence teaching dies out at the age of about eight, and consquently people who value education can wind up thinking of it as a lesser trait. But really, I think they're being dumb. All human interaction involves, to some extent, thinking about how you're making the other person feel - and nobody likes a person who doesn't consider that.

[Dash]

Nobody likes the Smartest Guy in the Room.
bulbul: This statement contains at least three fundamental truths about present-day America. Anybody wants to have a go at a more detailed analysis?

Glad to see you back in the comments, bulbul. For starters, of course, American anti-intellectualism is well documented; and of course, the phrase also assumes that likeability is the measure of all things. If Britain is, as Thatcher said, a nation of shopkeepers, the U.S. appears to be aspiring to be a nation of salespeople.

So I'm curious: do other languages/cultures have phrases equivalent to that one? And, while we're at it, there are a couple of others I'm curious about. One is the distinction between "book-smart" and something best expressed as "having common sense" (or, as we like to say where I come from "having the sense God gave geese"). There's also "street-smart" as another form of "smarts," but it's not necessarily opposed to "book-smart." "Book-smart" also suggests a lack of the kind of social intelligence Praline mentioned above.

The other is "too smart for his/her own good."

Both suggest that intelligence or learning are not only not particularly positive but downright negative. Anything equivalent elsewhere?

[inge]

I don't think it's that easy for liberals to go for emotions. Unless they can ride the wave of the zeitgeist, a moment in time when everyone feels hopeful and energetic and like living in the early days of a better nation, the most visceral, most easily played emotions seem to be pride, fear and envy. Transforming pride into responsibility, replacing envy with compassion and daring to hope is energy intensive and needs upkeep. Which is what reason does.

[cjmr's husband]

I don't think it's that easy for liberals to go for emotions.

In particular in this country. The republicans have been deriding liberals for being Compassionate(TM) for decades now -- as if this was a bad thing. (apparently, compassion interferes with profits, and is only acceptable as part of a marketing campaign)

Which is why every liberal program now must be backed up by sound (or sound-sounding) business logic.

[inge]

Dash: Both suggest that intelligence or learning are not only not particularly positive but downright negative. Anything equivalent elsewhere?

Well, there is "Grau, guter Freund ist alle Theorie/Doch gruen des Lebens gold'ner Baum" [Grey, good friend, is all book learning, but green is life's golden tree] -- said in a famous Germany play by the Devil.

Apart from that, I have to stretch.

"Dummheit ist immer Natur, Klugheit ein Kunstprodukt." [Stupid is natural, wise is artificial.] This is more against nature than against wisdom.

[twig]

Liberalism requires sharing. Sharing requires the risk of being hurt. Nobody likes to be hurt.

Being a conservative is much, much easier at the most basic level.

[Geds]

Liberalism requires sharing. Sharing requires the risk of being hurt. Nobody likes to be hurt.

It's also why Obama is being accused of the dreaded C-word by otherwise intelligent people. "Share" is, like, a key word for "Communism," and we can't have that.

[Praline]

I don't think it's that easy for liberals to go for emotions. Unless they can ride the wave of the zeitgeist, a moment in time when everyone feels hopeful and energetic and like living in the early days of a better nation, the most visceral, most easily played emotions seem to be pride, fear and envy.

But you can take pride in anything; the problem with liberals is that they don't act proud enoug of their ideals. Fear is the flipside of wanting to feel safe; why not go the other way and encourage people to feel safe and reassured, or else point out what the genuine risks are? Envy is the dark side of aspiration; why not speak to dreams of what could be instead of resentments of what isn't? Liberals haven't been good, historically, at doing it, but read over the writings of liberals of the past. There's plenty of passion there. People want to feel like good people, like they're part of something great. It's an honourable impulse that neocons palm off with cheap lies; why not work with it and give it something good?

[schism]

[Barack Obama comes across] as the kind of teacher who makes the class want to be better, to be good, to be great, and to believe that such a thing is possible.

What does that make McCain? The clueless sub who demands everyone remain in their seats while the tornado sirens go off?

[Cerberus]

Nobody likes the Smartest Guy in the Room.

And this is why we're doomed, always will be doomed, and will never ever be able to pull ourselves out of the spiral we have created.

We have whittled down "allowable" discourse in this country to what will sound good in a ten second soundbite on CNN. There is no context by which larger issues can be discussed or mentioned and thus trying to mention them is being professorial.

It is also hard as the "other side" (ignoring that both parties are the other side of my personal beliefs) has literally attempted to hold the most contemptible and idiotic viewpoints as accurate. Statements that when introduced to reality are much like "the sky is neon green." As such any attempt to prove why this is wrong is raising the discourse and is acting professorial.

Also it is impossible to be anything but dismissive to beliefs that are moronic and the very act of acting like it is the wise consensus of well-meaning people has been the very tools the right has used to legitimize these reprehensible and other-worldly beliefs because they are at the center of a debate that can't have a right or wrong answer without someone looking like "The Smartest Guy in the Room".

The problem is, by weeding out all the smart guys, the bar is even lower for that elitism and it is now the very act of believing that observational reality and causation are real are so-called elitist Stevensonian actions.

As such, we're doomed. As the problem is and remains that Stevenson was right. The thinking public is a minority and is even smaller now that we have no reliable source of information. In such a society, it is difficult to sell the right course of action.

[Praline]

And this is why we're doomed, always will be doomed, and will never ever be able to pull ourselves out of the spiral we have created.

Jeez, no wonder the Republicans keep winning. Pull yourself together! This is an absolutely critical issue. Do you want another neoconservative term? People will be destroyed if the Republicans keep winning. This is not a theoretical issue. Lives are at stake. Nothing's perfect, but bemoaning what's wrong as if it can never be changed is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that's a prophecy that the whole world cannot afford to see fulfilled.

Something has to give. If it isn't the neocons' stranglehold on the Presidency, it'll be all the rest of us. And defeatism won't break that stranglehold. Yes, it's difficult, and lamenting is easier than fighting for change, but if you sit down and complain, you're abandoning everyone who's trying to make a difference, and materially hurting the chances that a difference will ever be made.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

And this is why we're doomed, always will be doomed, and will never ever be able to pull ourselves out of the spiral we have created.

If that's how you feel, why bother talking about it? You aren't proposing solutions when you assert the impossibility of solutions. The only possibly good I can see from you shouting "We're dooooomed!" is the comfort and reaffirmation you derive from convincing others to share your despair, and maybe the mean little warm glow from being able to say "I told you so!" when/if things get worse--and of course, if enough people decide not to bother trying to make things better, things will get worse, making your little prophecy brilliantly self-fulfilling.

How selfish.

I think working to convince people that things are hopeless, that they should give up, is acting in the service of evil.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

Praline: Do you want another neoconservative term?

Supposed response from Cerberus: "Doesn't matter what *I* want. That we're doooomed is simply a fact."

Of course, maybe Cerberus will surprise us and come back and say something less lazy, cynical, and/or evil.

[Brandi]

the mean little warm glow from being able to say "I told you so!" when/if things get worse

Hey, it worked for Jeremiah.

[hapax]

maybe Cerberus will surprise us and come back and say something less lazy, cynical, and/or evil.

Hey, hey now. Lighten up a little.

Maybe I'm just a hopeless idealist, but I read Cerberus's post more as an anguished cri du coeur than as counsel to despair.

It's sort of like after watching Obama's speech last night, my husband and I spent a while basking in the fiery enthusiasm.

Then this morning, reading the regurgitated right-wing sewage that passes for the morning paper, husband's first question was, "So, how long before someone shoots him?" He wasn't advocating surrender, let alone violence; but to pretend this isn't a hell of a heavy boulder we're pushing up this Sisyphean mountain is just another way of checking out of reality.

[SchrodingersDuck]

And once again, I see the term 'ad hominem' misused.

And it would be a misuse - if questioning Obama's patriotism was the be all and end all of the argument.

In politics, practically all personal attacks are ad hominem simply because they don't address the matter at hand. Should Obama wear a flag lapel pin? What does it matter - it doesn't affect Democratic policy one jot. Does McCain own too many houses? Probably, but how is that relevant to the Republican manifesto?

The clear subtext of every attack is that "if the leader is this bad, imagine what kind of horrific policies they're trying to push". This non-sequitur rejection of political arguments based solely on politician espousing them is rarely stated outright, but just because it's subtextual doesn't mean it's not there.

[Chuck]

schism: What does that make McCain? The clueless sub who demands everyone remain in their seats while the tornado sirens go off?

McCain is a second-career teacher who's been given a textbook that doesn't match his personal experience, but the entirety of the guidance he's been given by the school administration is that, if he cares about his job, he'd better follow that textbook. So he gives it his all to be into it, sometimes teaching things that contradict, sometimes getting confused by this crap they didn't have when he was in school.

To clarify my metaphor, BushCo produced the textbook.

[Chuck]

SchrodingersDuck: Does McCain own too many houses? Probably, but how is that relevant to the Republican manifesto?

I think the context of that was, "He's too rich to relate to the common man, therefore he won't push policies that benefit the common man." There's some logic there, if you happen to believe the first principles are valid, which I do.

The flag lapel pin only requires more tin-foil-hattery to make use of similar logic: If he's not patriotic, then he wants the terrorists to come over and force us to convert to Islam before they kill us all and replace us with little brown babies.

[Praline]

to pretend this isn't a hell of a heavy boulder we're pushing up this Sisyphean mountain is just another way of checking out of reality.

To pretend it isn't heavy may be checking out of reality, but concluding that it's Sisyphean is only going to make it feel heavier. And as it's got to be pushed - and as better presidents than Bush and McCain have been elected in the past - what else is there to do except push and try not to make it worse. Cheering can make it go easier. Go team!

The clear subtext of every attack is that "if the leader is this bad, imagine what kind of horrific policies they're trying to push". This non-sequitur rejection of political arguments based solely on politician espousing them is rarely stated outright, but just because it's subtextual doesn't mean it's not there.

Just to play the other side for a moment, I do think that emotional assessments of a candidate aren't always unreasonable. We all use instincts every day to decide whether we can trust people or not; that's why we open the door to the postman but not to the shifty-eyed swaying guy babbling on the doorstep. Those instincts can be sound. Most non-Americans read an aggressive and self-serving foreign policy into George Bush's John-Wayne swagger, for instance, and history is bearing that out: he walks like a man who thinks he's a cowboy, and he legislates like one too. I never voted for Tony Blair, though I would have voted for Labour otherwise, because I found something about him slimy: he seemed to me glib and self-advancing rather than principled and his subsequent sell-out to Bush more or less backed up my sense that he was out for himself rather than for the greater good - or rather, that he seemed to consider them one and the same thing. (I was too mad at people getting killed to take any pleasure in having been right, mind you.)

The thing is, a leader isn't just a set of policies; he's also a human being who will sometimes act on impulse, be stubborn, contract himself, give in to temptation or otherwise compromise his ostensible principles. Some people do this more than others, and it's a reasonable voter who tries to get some sense of how often this particular guy will do it.

Cunning politicians get advisers who can tell them to drop the smirk, or to smile occasionally for Petesake, so the tendency to assess a candidate's can be played, but trying to work out whether the candidate is a basically sincere politician who intends to act on his promises, a reed blowing in the wind, or a bastard saying whatever it takes to get his hands on the coffers, is a self-protective strategy. And that very much is 'the matter at hand'. Rather than ignoring such signals because they can be faked, we should all be working to get better at spotting bad actors.

[J Neo Marvin]

I think you nailed the basis of Obama's appeal, Fred.

I know that, as president, he will do many things that I'll disagree with, but what's most important from my perspective is that Barack Obama has the potential to bring out the best in Americans, which will be a huge relief after years of an administration designed to bring out the worst in them.

[bulbul]

Dash,

thanks :)

do other languages/cultures have phrases equivalent to that one?
Some do, some don't, but it's doubtful whether that means anything and it is reminiscent of the

SchrodingersDuck,

In politics, practically all personal attacks are ad hominem simply because they don't address the matter at hand.
Sorry, no. 'Ad hominem' is NOT a personal attack. It is a logical fallacy or, in other words, a particular method of reasoning applied to evaluating someone's argument. In this case, the argument made by that someone is dismissed based purely on a negative characteristic ascribed to that person (and it makes no difference if that characteristic is innate or acquired). See the examples I gave above.
An ad hominem argument is a particular type of fallacious reasoning.

Should Obama wear a flag lapel pin?
But that's not the issue at hand. Wingnuts argue that the absence of the pin is indicative of Obama's lack of patriotism. That's their argument. If I were to engage in ad hominem reasoning, I'd say that that argument is bullshit, because it was made by a conservative / a journalist (I hate journalists, present company exempt). That's an argument ad hominem. If I point out that a flag pin does not say anything about a person's patriotism, however one may wish to define it, I'm just evaluating

Does McCain own too many houses?
Again, that's not the issue at hand. Besides, what does it even mean 'too many' houses? Ain't no such thing and noone said that. Liberals (such as myself) picked up on the fact that McCain doesn't even know how many houses he has. This is indicative of the fact that he is very rich and, as Chuck said, cannot therefore relate to the economic problems of people less fortunate than him. To others, it also indicates his and Republicans' hypocrisy which comes to light every time they speak of Obama's elitism. Whether that conclusion is logical, that's another issue. I happen to think it is.

Both of those statements focus on the candidate's character and not his policies, so maybe that's why some people are confused and describe this as an ad hominem attack as opposed to a discussion of substantive issues. But as I pointed out a number of times, that's not what 'ad hominem' means.

[Froborr]

Actually, "ad hominem" just means "at the person". An ad hominem argument is one where you argue about the people involved instead of their views. Two examples:

1) McCain's views on taxation are always going to be wrong because he's rich. We shouldn't even listen to what they are.
2) McCain's views on torture are always going to be right because he was tortured. We shouldn't even listen to what his opponent says.

An ad hominem attack, on the other hand, is when you attack a person instead of their policies. This is an ad hominem attack:

1) McCain is smelly and has a bad haircut.

This is not:

1) McCain's position on torture is evil and wrong.

[Fraser]

On common-sense and street-smarts: The book "Seeing Like A State" has some discussion of "metis," a Greek word that means the knowledge of hands-on experience (more or less). For example, the difference between knowing what sold in the chain bookstore where I worked and getting 15 copies of something somebody further up in the hierarchy has decided is going to sell.

[bulbul]

Ah crap, pressed the Post button too soon:

do other languages/cultures have phrases equivalent to that one?
Some do, some don't, but it's doubtful whether that means anything and it is reminiscent of the old 'language X doesn't have a word for concept Y' fallacy. There are ignorant and malevolent people in every culture, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were phrases like that all over the place, from Abykh to Zulu. But I am surprised at how strong anti-intellectualism is in modern-day America and that it has been allowed into the political mainstream. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why people who work their asses off to send their children to college and then law school or medical school hate people who have graduated from those schools for that fact that they did.
And I think it goes a little deeper than that. I am often the smartest guy in the room - and then again, I am often not - and the people who resented or hated me just for that, few as they were, had in common a certain type of arrogance. It was as if they were personally threatened and offended by the fact that there was someone else in that room who knew more or could do something better than them. It's that arrogance, that sense of entitlement that I find most disconcerting.

[Lauren]

When I watch nature documentaries where stags crack antlers over mating rights, I sometimes wonder whether the doe ever wishes the stags would just ask her who she'd prefer rather than paying all their attention to each other... -Praline

(Silly to pick this point out of a perfectly reasonable political discussion, but I'm a biologist, I can't help it...)

Praline, you're not giving enough credit to the does and the stags. What you are witnessing when the stags crack antlers is female choice. The stags are expending a lot of energy to demonstrate that they have energy to spare, which means they have good genes that fight off disease and lead them to food. Rather than ignoring the does, the whole point of the display is to impress them, since the does watch the competition to see which stag will be the best to father her fawns. Once she has chosen, she'll follow her stag around, and any time he meets another stag, he'll fight again to prove he still has what it takes.

Contrast this to the human animal, where the female expends most of the energy to prove that she has what it takes to raise heathly offspring, and the male has most of the freedom to choose his mate.

(Also, isn't Obama great?)

[LL]

I studiously avoided all convention coverage. What little I know of Obama doesn't displease me. For good or for ill, Obama's most important qualification is that he's not a Republican. I would have voted for just about any Democrat over a Republican. That's how much they've damaged their brand. To vote Republican now is to vote for stupidity and irresponsibility and hypocrisy and incompetence and party loyalty over common sense. Nice job, Karl Rove.

I don't think picking a chick for VP is gonna help McCain all that much, but I could be wrong.

Too bad that whoever wins will have to actually do the job. I wouldn't want to be the president now. We think there's nowhere to go but up, but I fear that's not really true (vis a vis foreign affairs, economy, etc.).

[bulbul]

Froborr,

This is an ad hominem attack:
1) McCain is smelly and has a bad haircut.
No, that's not. 'Ad hominem' is short for 'argumentum ad hominem', i.e. 'argument against a person'. It has to be a logical claim with a premise and a conclusion, not just a single proposition. "Michael Moore is fat" is not an argument ad hominem. It's a proposition which happens to be true (for a certain definition of the term 'fat'). "Michael Moore is fat and therefore everything he says is a lie" is an argument ad hominem.
'Ad hominem' does not mean 'personal' (as opposed to 'substantive').

[Clinton Supporter]

McCain chose a woman for V.P. !!!!!!!!!

I waited till the Democratic roll call before I gave up on the Party--I hoped that somehow Clinton could be nominated. Not that I don't like Obama, but when it comes down to it: he's just another man running for president.

And so is McCain. Well, McCain will never get my vote, but Sarah Palin will.

If it's acceptable for African Americans to vote for Obama just because he's African Americans, then it's acceptable for women to vote for Palin just because she's a woman. That's why I supported Ferraro in '84 and why I supported Clinton in '08: we're never going to have a woman president if we wait till the perfect one comes along.

We need to support the women who are running, not the women we *wish* were running. Yes, Clinton would have been a better president than Palin will be a V.P., but Clinton won't be on the ballot this November.

[Cerberus]

You all make a very good point.

What can we do to fix our broken media system? Remove the system. The media is already running scared because people are starting to mistrust the news after the uninterrupted string of lies that have been going on since the neocon takeover of our airwaves. To that end we should all volunteer with any relatives or friends who are technophobic about where they can get trustworthy information. Ignore the diehard xenophobes for now because they can be toxic, but be polite and rebut all their emails with quiet and courteous rebuttals.

Never apologize for liberal or accurate statements or compassion. Combat all forms of racism or sexism that won't directly get you fired. Is there a risk of alienating racist or sexist friends? Maybe, but it can also expose them to the idea that they are in the wrong and that they need to change, not you to be polite. Correct strangers, they may control the top down dialogue, but we can fight on the streets.

Poltically, the system has failed. We need to nuke it. Vote for Obama, sure, I plan to, but he won't be allowed to fix anything because we have convinced ourselves we have a two party system. We have never had a two-party system and this voting for the lesser of two evils will never change and the rhetoric will only continue swinging right unless we stop it. Thus, we should take a page from the right wing playbook and start collecting signatures in any state that allows petitions to put constitutional amendments on state ballots to change the state governments from winner takes all elections to PR systems of government. Link here.

I haven't seen any information on whether or not anyone is already doing it and I can't start my own until I get back to the States in two years or so, but that's no reason any of you can't start now so that there's some infrastructure. We will lose and lose hard, but we need to start getting the idea out there and attacked because despite the dismantling of everything they're may be enough non-idiots left in the country to strike a small symbolic victory somewhere and that will at least open a side dialogue about moving past the two party system.

It's a slim hope, but hey, I'm one of those dumb cynics that believe this time there won't be an anvil in the glove.

What was I doing to combat the plague of evil? Protests, consciousness raising, self-education, and trying to figure out a peaceful way to essentially do a much needed revolution of thought.

What am I doing now? Less, unfortunately, I'm in grad school in Europe, so I lost a lot of my ground work so just consciousness raising and trying to see how countries like Denmark and France have had such success with their protests and socialist reform for hopeful export to America. Hospitals here are free, a train ride across country costs less than traveling one way in a city by car, and no one is afraid. There is no reason we should be different, but voices that say that are often found caught in the professorial trap or the "USA USA USA" chant that says we must be best at everything to be worthy of life. It is a difficult problem, a vexing problem, and an infuriating problem.

Final questions:
Do I want the neocons to win?
No.

Have they already won and will only continue to win without the ability to call them out on their intense bullshit?
Yes.

Does that make us doomed?
Yes, without massive overhaul on the problem of being able to be dismissive or to stand up for objective truth. I don't mean being assholes. I mean the ability to say, no, that will never work, it has never worked, and the principles it is founded on are wrong here here and here. As long as it's elitest and bad to be smart and call people out on their petty idiotic old ways of thinking, we'll never be able to improve those same idiots' lives.
I hope removing the media will solve this problem, but unfortunately, the problem may be much deeper and require both education and demystifying education. How to solve that? No idea, but I'm working on it. Any ideas? I'd be most welcome.

Why bother talking about it?
My apologies. My despair and cynicism had gotten the best of me. But I would have started with it nonetheless in other circumstances. We must state what is wrong before we can fix it. Unfortunately, with many of the old tools of reform stolen from us (non-complicit media, outward pressure from other strong countries, democratic protest meaning a thing) it makes it difficult and as you state despair is an easy pit to fall into. I am still unaware how I would enact the sort of change necessary to reverse all that has gone wrong in this country. That is why so many protesters get stuck on that "defeatist" step one of point out the problem. The old solutions and the easy right solutions are impossible to implement in a climate where having the right answers makes you an elitest. That culture needs to change, and the possible solutions available are limited and possibly fruitless because the greatest neocon success was convincing us that we still somehow have the democracy we knew and loved. It is difficult.

Will I return and say something less "lazy/cynical/selfish"?
I don't know. Did I? I know tone is hard to convey on the internets but this entire post is entirely serious. I am being earnest in every aspect of it and I delight to be hearing the serious debate of likeminded change oriented reformers...Ok, that last sentence was a little sarcastic, but the rest is true. I am being earnest and while I know putting all this out on a forum is like feeding a cat bees and then trying to give it a hug as what interests many is flame wars and the like, who knows?

Your statements make me feel like it's worth a shot to be pleasantly surprised for once.

How will we fix this country? For real when proposing change and indeed pointing out accurately where there are problems is seen as evil elitism?

[Drake Pope]

I don't think picking a chick for VP is gonna help McCain all that much, but I could be wrong.

Wikipedia says that he picked someone called Sarah Palin.

[Geds]

Sorry, no. 'Ad hominem' is NOT a personal attack. It is a logical fallacy or, in other words, a particular method of reasoning applied to evaluating someone's argument.

Exactly. In an attempt to say what bulbul has already said, but with a different set of words:

Bob makes a completely preposterous statement, such as, "The sky is beige, with a smattering of purple polka dots."

Jim, upon hearing this says:

(A) "You're completely wrong, the sky is blue, you crazy blind man."

or

(B) "You're completely wrong, but that's understandable since you drown kittens in your bathtub on weekends."

Response (A) is not an ad hominem, assuming Bob is actually blind (and, as a point of order, even if he is blind, since you'd have to be crazy and your companions would be right to wonder about your eyesight if you said the sky was polka dotted). Response (B) is an ad hominem, because Bob's weekend activities, while horrible, aren't at all the sort of thing that would ruin his eyesight or color sense.

With McCain it's perfectly appropriate to start a debate about what's good for the middle and lower classes from his lack of understanding about how many houses he owns. The vast majority of the electorate owns between zero and one house (and, for that matter, McCain's opponent has a lovely home in Hyde Park and probably fewer than seven additional domiciles) and is fully aware of their particular number and how much it costs them to live. If McCain doesn't know and doesn't have any close advisers who do, that's a sign of being out of touch. Meanwhile, if seven of his properties are rentals that he's using to make money, that's a possible sign that he's a lazy businessman who doesn't keep track of his assets. Now, if he has people who do that for him (and shows that they're trustworthy and he's good at picking, say, an accountant and a property manager, etc.), that can take the argument off the table and turn any further use in to something closely approximating ad hominem attacks.

Oddly enough, as best I can tell the Republican attacks against Obama's celebrity both are and are not ad hominem. The ones where they say, "Everyone likes him because he's a celebrity, but do we actually know what he's capable of?" are completely valid questions. The ones about how he's a good orator and uses that to cover for his lack of ideas, however, are at least somewhat ad hominem, as they completely ignore the point of the speeches and the fact that they do, in all actuality, have substance. The fact that Obama's substance is different from the measure the Republicans use has no place in the argument.

[Geds]

And so is McCain. Well, McCain will never get my vote, but Sarah Palin will.

Five bucks says that "Clinton Supporter" is actually some form of "McCain Supporter..."

[Cerberus]

To pretend it isn't heavy may be checking out of reality, but concluding that it's Sisyphean is only going to make it feel heavier.

No attack intended, this comment just needed response.

Of course, it's Sisyphean. All attempts of doing what is right, pushing for leftist, liberal reform (and I'm talking genuine reform, not the Democratic half-measures or wrong turns) is always a thankless task wherein little is seen to accomplish until usually decades or centuries after you are dead. If you're very lucky you'll see a little effect or maybe a symbolic victory or two, but that real change is often long long after your dead and gone.

It is always disheartening and Sisyphean and it will always look like the world is sabotaging you to continue evil. But all those activists had in common was that they didn't fight to become famous. They fought because they knew they were right. And nearly every one of them, throughout all of recorded history have eventually been proven right on those leftist liberal beliefs by the slow turn of history.

Yeah, progress is made, but it's still endless. The ball still rolls back sometimes and worse, often just by fighting, you've made yourself an object of ridicule and scorn. The task is indeed Sisyphean, but unavoidable by people of conscience.

[Froborr]

No, I'm sorry Geds and bulbul, but you're making the mistake of equating "ad hominem" to "argumentum ad hominem". I'm agreeing with you that my example about McCain being smelly is not an argumentum ad hominem and therefore not an example of the ad hominem fallacy. What I'm saying is that there is such a thing as an ad hominem attack, and it is different from the ad hominem logical fallacy.

[Cerberus]

Five bucks says that "Clinton Supporter" is actually some form of "McCain Supporter..."

No bet. They are often employed by the campaign itself. Or at least that's what most of the IP tracks have found.

[Chuck]

Geds: Five bucks says that "Clinton Supporter" is actually some form of "McCain Supporter..."

Seriously. It smells like trolls to me. Especially since the whole "Clinton supporters should vote for McCain out of spite!" meme has been financed and pushed by folks firmly in the McCain camp from the get-go.

[J Neo Marvin]

Shorter "Clinton Supporter":

One woman is as good as another. I'm such a committed feminist, dontcha love me?

[Cyllan]

Well, McCain will never get my vote, but Sarah Palin will.

Really? You're going to vote for someone based on the fact that they picked a V.P. who is a she and not a he? I realize that I know nothing of your politics, Clinton Supporter, but that just seems odd. Do you generally support the Republican policies? Do you believe that McCain will be the sort of President that you're looking for? Is there something particular you like about Ms. Palin's pro-life, pro-drilling, anti-corruption, pro-creationism policies? If so, can you explain why you supported Hillary Clinton's pro-choice, anti-drilling, generally completely the opposite platform? Is it only because they are both female? And if so, what are you hoping to see come out of a female President or Vice President?

Cause I really am curious about this.

[Cyllan]

Seriously. It smells like trolls to me.

I'm sorta hoping C.S. isn't a troll, because I really would like this viewpoint explained. Even if s/he is a troll, maybe I can get a summary of the official talking points explanation?