There's a big commotion! Garbage was dumped illegally in a forest. But the perpetrators weren't particularly smart, as all entrances to the forest were monitored by cameras. The culprits are found fairly quickly. Three men were responsible and all are equally responsible for the pollution. However, there are major differences between the three.
The first is a self-proclaimed climate activist and usually preaches non-stop about environmental protection and nature conservation. He leaves questions about his actions uncommented. The second denies the act, although there is clear evidence from the cameras. No matter how many times you show him the footage, he feels no guilt. The third, on the other hand, admits the crime and even claims that he regularly dumps his garbage in the forest because he doesn't mind pollution.
Something extraordinary is happening in our society. The sympathies of the general public seem to be divided as follows: the self-confident perpetrator seems to encounter the least opposition, then comes the liar and lastly the hypocrite. Almost all attention is focused on him. Voices are raised in general. How could he?! Otherwise he preaches about waste separation and now this! The liar is simply not intelligent and the self-confident polluter at least stands by his act. It almost seems as if the hypocrite polluted the forest all by himself. But they all did exactly the same amount of damage. So why is the hypocrite the scapegoat? Looking at the overall situation, he should be in the best position. At least he otherwise talks about environmental protection and contributes his small part. On the other hand, most of the voices should be raised with the unscrupulous perpetrator, after all he admitted that it was not the first time that he had polluted the forest. In society, a discrepancy has arisen between general acceptance and reality. But where does that come from?
This invented example with the polluted forest shows one thing very clearly: We humans are not purely objective beings. An action, a message or an argument should actually always speak for itself. Differentiating this content from the author is an art that unfortunately not everyone has mastered. Exploiting this discrepancy in a targeted manner is the nastiest of all bogus arguments. Argument ad hominem. Targeting the position of an opponent with resentment without reacting to the actual argument. Do not even allow a discussion about the content of a message, since the author of the message offers a much larger target for attack. After all, nobody is perfect.
Not letting such spurious arguments gain the upper hand over a discourse is a real challenge. There is no panacea for this and no suitable sentence that counters every ad hominem. We see this more and more often in our society. Sad, isn't it? But then why this blog? It is certainly not my intention to make any reader feel bad. Even if you can't really counteract ad hominem arguments, you can still use them to your advantage.
