Fortunately, since dcat has not yet passed judgment on all ad hominem attacks on individuals who have demonstrably earned them (just on those comparing people to evil and murderous dictators and regimes, and to the Prince of Darkness): Jerry Falwell is a jackass. (So are you, Hugo Chavez.)
Monday, September 25, 2006
The Satan Analogy
We have come to a general consensus at dcat: The Nazi/Fascist/Hitler analogy is bad and wrong and deserves our contempt; ditto the Communist/Stalinist analogy. And we're wary of the new tendency to equate people with whom you disagree with Osama/al Qaeda or with being a friend of Osama/al Qaeda. So can we agree that comparing people (unfavorably) to the devil, as Jerry Falwell did this weekend with Hillary Clinton on the receiving end, is probably a bad idea? Let us go further: Any organization tied to the Value Voters Summit, however peripherally, needs to have its tax exempt status revisited and eventually revoked.
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6 comments:
While ad hominems are generally a good idea to shy away from - (BTW, you mean just for third party subject material, right?), if you can do it in a subtle and witty way, that either tends make it not so bad, or if the target isn't intelligent enough to understand the quip, it tends to invite even more ire. All of this assumes that the barb is topical and thereby, conforms to Nietzsche's exception. As such, I think we can safely assume that "jackass" doesn't meet such criteria in the case in question.
And you're right along with Godwin about the other thing. Quick Nazi analogies and Hitlerian parallels are the best litmus test for gauging the quality of intellectual legitimacy of pretty much any on-line discussion. One time I had someone attempt to discredit Clausewitz on the basis of the fact that Hitler quoted him. Maybe his works on military strategy should now be barred from being taught in all those non-Nazi military academies. Damn! I'm pretty sure Hitler used conjunctions as well, which means, I think, that anyone using conjunctions is a shill for tyranny.
MUL --
I think that the prtoblem with the Nazi analogy and all of the others is that it is just that -- an analogy -- and not a sustained comparison. I do think we can still learn things from Nazism and Stalinism and, I suppose, Satan (see, eg. South Park) and I do think that there may be times when it's ok to draw some comparisons. i thought Richard Durbin took a lot more grief than he deserved given what he said last summer, but even that was not graceful enough, I think.
i say all of this because I am likely going to take on the torture issue, and I do think it is powerful to say here is what some want the US to support. Here is who else has engaged in behavior X. here, in other words, are those who have taken this course. I just think that the short-term vision for those who advocate torture pales when compared to the cost in the long run.
In any cxase, I stand by my assertion: Falwell and Chavez are both jackasses, and they have, by their own jackassery, earned the appelation.
dcat
Well good luck and Kudos for deciding to take on the torture issue. I see you've starting linking The Blogfather Mr. Sullivan himself to your roll, and his forum is an outspoken one on this, so you've got a good and important ally.
I think what's really starting to do it for me is Bush's attempt to somehow get congress to bypass the way the Third Geneva Convention is interpreted. This is such a wussy and decadent maneuver. If you don't like what a treaty means, withdraw from it. The Iranian approach (to its wiggling around NPT, for instance) is surely not the way to go.
And if you can believe it, I'm watching John Stewart interview Musharraf right now. How surreal. It was one thing to watch Wolf Blitzer interviewing him through closed-captions on the cafeteria monitors at work earlier today, and quite a bit more captivating. I think more than any other leader in the world right now, this guy has more cards and pressures in holding the seething balance of power in this world between a vengeful West and the forces of Islamist extremism than anyone else. It's all him.
MUL --
I actually have been a big fan of Sullivan's for years and we had him on the blogroll over at rebunk, but for a long time I accessed him based simply from my favorites list (our blogroll is as much for my convenience as for anyone else's!) because really, Andrew Sullivan won't be getting many hits from dcat! In any case, he is great on torture and on a lot of things -- even where I disagree with him, and given our different affiliations -- I'm liberal, he's conservative, for example -- I disagree with him a lot, i think he is smart and thoughtful and scrupulous.
I am going to catch the late showing of Stewart and Colbert -- am watching the Contender finale now.
And I agree -- if we want to w ithdraw from a treaty or other international agreement, that's one thing. but to try to weasel around it is pathetic and shows an abdication of moral, political, legal, and intellectual leadership. Not that I am surprised, but my lack of shock does not mitigate the disappointment.
dcat
Getting back to your previous point, for some time now I've thought that "Assjackery" would be a curious turnabout. Haven't yet had the opportunity to employ it so much as I have merely the epithet "Assjack."
I'm convinced the reversal came to me after hearing a prof say "Bass Ackwards" instead of the more formal, "Ass Backwards."
Assjack and assjackery get the dcat seal of approval and will enter the lexicon herewith.
dcat
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