Ad Hominem

Ad hominem is a rhetorical fallacy that refers to a personal attack that has nothing to do with the argument. I chose to pick this fallacy because I believe that it is everywhere we look. Whether it is in politics, religion, business, tabloids and even in our own personal lives, people use ad hominem to get out of sticky situations. It is one of the easiest fallacies to catch because the person avoids the question or argument and attempts to tarnish their opponent’s reputation instead. People naturally do not like getting blamed and in trouble, so, they often put someone else into a worse position to get themselves out of trouble and hopefully in good favor. Or they might not even be in trouble, but they want to look better by making everyone else look bad.

One of the most prominent places we will see ad hominem is in politics. Politics are known for using different tactics to avoid questions. Ad hominem is one of those tactics that saturates the political world, especially when it comes to campaigning. While looking at political ad hominem examples, I saw many titles suggesting that President Obama is the “Ad hominem President”. One of the stories I saw was at a fundraising event in New York City in 2013. President Obama talks about the problems with congress not being able to move forward. He blames many of the problems on his opposing political party, the Republicans. He says, “I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they are fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them…”  Instead of taking some responsibility as a President and addressing what can be done (which is what the question was), he immediately blames the opposing party and Rush Limbaugh who has nothing to do with congress. He makes the Republican Party seem petty with a concern of what someone might say about them. Instead of encouraging all of congress to figure things out, making everyone to blame, he attempts to tarnish the reputation of his opposing party and a man who does not agree with his agenda.

We are no less to blame. Everyone has used ad hominem at least once before in their lifetime. When we were younger, we all seemed to use this fallacy to get out of trouble. After eating treats that we knew we should not have, we attempt to make our accomplice seem worse than us by listing everything that they have done wrong and concluding that all we did was have one cookie! By personally attacking someone else, we hope that our reputation will look better than theirs, and either avoid the question or avoid getting into more serious trouble.