just enough light

“Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries.”  -Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister

Huh? This was the Canadian response to President Trump’s advisers following their criticism of the Prime Minister after the G7 meetings. The response was clear and direct, yet subtle and reasonable. Trump and his advisors got taken to school and to the woodshed at the same time.

I had to look up ad hominem. I’d heard the phrase before and had a vague idea of what it meant, but to hear it used both casually and precisely prompted an immediate search.

Ad hominem is short for argumentum ad hominem (Latin). This is an argumentative strategy in which the genuine topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument. In other words, if you are thin on information, discredit your opponent. Take attention away from the fact that you have no bullets in your mental clip and instead, call your opponent derogatory names or make stuff up about the one who is showing you up.

Our president is master of this strategy. Like a child with a mallet as his only toy, everything gets pounded. This is his default approach when responding to disagreement. Beginning with his campaign, he gave each of the Republican candidates a denigrating nickname. Whenever the debates ranged into an area in which he could not hold his own, almost every topic, he used the nicknames and turned a debate about issues into an attack on the person.

Our president did not invent this strategy, nor is he the first to use it in political discourse. However, he has elevated it to a dangerous level, using it now in global diplomacy, and practicing it so often in daily utterances that he has normalized the strategy. We are no longer appalled when he belittles, and we’re no longer surprised when no one confronts him on this adolescent behavior.

With a Supreme Court nomination and mid-term elections approaching, we can expect a new barrage of this approach from both sides.

But this is not just about the president. I too am guilty. I rarely discuss politics with anyone who may have a different opinion, because I too often end up walking away muttering “What an idiot” rather than having a conversation. Argumentum ad hominem at work.

These days, separating the issue from the person is difficult. That, to me, is behind much of the polarization in our nation. For one example, when a football player takes a knee during the national anthem, the player is attacked as unpatriotic and the discussion about the treatment of people of color in our country is derailed. Argumentum ad hominem at work.

Bring up any issue; reproductive choice, gun regulation, immigration, same-sex rights, voter suppression, health care; then watch for the labeling and nicknaming that ensues, each label bearing baggage that may or may not be true for the person stating the opinion.

These and a host of other issues are not merely problems to be solved. These are complex and multi-faceted realities that need to be addressed with attention to the consequences to all who are impacted by those realities.

We have a president who has shown little propensity to consider complexity or consequences. Instead, he simplifies these life-altering issues into win-lose events, encouraging people to line up on one side or the other. Regardless of the passion involved, such issues are NEVER simple. NEVER.

I make an issue seem simple when I see it only through my own eyes and how it will impact me. Then it’s easy to come down on one side or the other and assign labels to everyone else. Simplification makes name-calling easy, almost necessary. Argumentum ad hominem at work.

That gets me nowhere. I have to start by listening. Listening, really listening, with genuine curiosity, without an agenda, without trying to persuade the other, without trying to win is hard. It’s nearly impossible in today’s politics. These days I rarely listen with ears and heart wide open. I rarely listen in order to learn what makes the other person tick, what brought them to the conclusion that differs from mine, what scares and motivates them to hold the positions they hold. That’s where I have to start. It’s just so much easier to walk away muttering, “What an idiot.” Argumentum ad hominem at work.