From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 05:35:03 MDT
Harvey Newstrom said:
> I have no more intention of letting ad hominem slide then George Bush has
of
> letting terrorists slide. Letting them get away with it will only
encourage
> more attacks.
In some extreme cases I guess it is appropriate to attack someone
personally, so she or he gets a chance to reevaluate his/her thoughts.
Whenever it comes to the support of killing people for any cause whatsoever,
except for oself defense I think I even have the obligation for a personal
attack.
When Robert Bradbury made his sick nuking proposal the other day, he did
express a monstrous, ultimate example of the ugliness of utilitarian
philosophy, moral depravity and mega-fascism: wiping out a huge group of
humans for his beloved fetish, called technological advance. This abhorrent
example of hubris was based on a blasé academic glass bead game, in which
R.B. displayed the astonishing abiltity to hijack some free lancing and
innocent exponential digits from Euler space, hold them as hostages and
abuse them by rearranging them maliciously for a cracked up point of view,
Hitler, Goering and Goebbels would have been proud of thinking them up
as their own original idea.
The ad hominem rules might be appropriate most of the time, but they loose
their effectiveness at the event horizon of black hole thinking desasters
like the one Mr. Bradbury has proved to be capable of. Here the ad hominem
protections crumble under the gravity of his comment and are transformed
into a useless collection of academic placebo pills. With other words: a
load of bullshit.
Returning to cases where ad hominem might be appropriate: transhumanists
supporting a war of aggression. I know in advance, that I will get a bloody
nose if I, say, kick some weapons of ass destruction (no misspelling here!)
into a crowd of proud patriots that represent the majority of the actively
posting members of this virtual community. But that's okay, I accept it and
I can live with the bruises. Maybe it has to do with a different kind of
ironic and sarcastic discussion culture in intellectual German circles where
no one is surprised if he receives a personal attack for his shitty views.
Frankly, I am surprised how many puritans and preacher's daughters are
present on this list and who are ready to faint if someone uses more
substantial and hearty words without making an affected fuss about it.
Gloomy regards from Nietzsche's Dragon,
humania
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jul 20 2003 - 05:44:34 MDT