The Ad Hominem Survival Guide
I began my previous blog post discussing the most common logical fallacy, the ad hominem attack. But rather than approaching it clinically, which was my intent, the more I wrote, the angrier I became. Ruining a person's reputation is, I believe, the worst thing you can do. I realize it is not going away and remains the number one go-to method for the more Machiavellian among us. Should I be fatalistic and just accept it—you know, as just a part of life? Well, it is a part of life, but that doesn't mean we are powerless to weaken its force, if not completely neutralize it. This is why I am presenting the following five steps to fight against someone who is trying to ruin your good name.
So before I work through the steps, let’s find an ad hominem example. Ruining people’s reputations is very emotional, so I picked a situation from history that we can look at dispassionately. The victim: George Washington. In 1796, Thomas Paine wrote a 15,000-word open letter viciously insulting the president. This wasn’t off-the-cuff anger, but a deliberate diatribe. However, a good case could be made for Paine’s anger. Paine was imprisoned in France during the French Revolution. He expected that, being an American citizen, he would be released, especially if the United States government intervened. But Washington refused to help because of complicated international relationships. Why he refused is beyond the scope of this essay. What I am interested in is the text of the ad hominem attacks, which will provide an example of each of the elements of the guide. I have links to the supporting research for each step if you wish to look at this more deeply (see disclaimer below).
1. Quarantine, Containing the Slur
The first thing you do is to not repeat the slur. If someone says you are lazy, the first instinct will be to say, “I’m not lazy.” In spite of voicing it in the negative (“not lazy”), which you would think would weaken it, it does the opposite. Directly voicing the slur in any form increases its power. Instead, simply acknowledge that an attack has occurred, then frame the incident as an insignificant distraction to your primary goals. Here is how George Washington might have contained the insult as he focused on the duties of his office:
I have been made aware of certain recent publications originating from overseas. While it is the right of every individual to vent their personal frustrations in print, the duties of the Executive leave little room for the distractions of private grievances. My character has been a matter of public record for twenty years; it requires no new defense against the transient passions of an embittered pen.
— An imagined response by George Washington
By the way, I have deliberately not divulged what Paine said. By reading George Washington’s response, we only know that “personal frustrations” were made public in the press. He also didn’t even repeat Paine’s name, furthering the quarantine. Here are those “frustrations”:
As to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.
—Thomas Paine, Letter to George Washington: On Affairs Public and Private, July 30, 1796 (Paris)
Treacherous, hypocrite, apostate. These words are totally absent from Washington's response, thus bleaching them from the public discourse.
2. Decontaminate, Reframe the Target
So you’re being attacked. The attacker is trying to invoke disgust among the people you work with. Instead, give the attacker a taste of his own bitter medicine. Point out that he is the attacker and his vitriol is unwarranted and, to use an overused bureaucratic phrase, totally unacceptable. Since Thomas Paine was a famous figure of the American Revolution, there is an opportunity to show how far he has fallen; he is the one with the fatal flaws:
It is a sad sight to witness a mind once capable of “Common Sense” succumb to the fever of personal resentment. The trials my adversary has endured abroad seem to have left him with a jaundiced eye, seeing betrayal where there is only the steady hand of neutral governance.
— An imagined response by George Washington
There are other ways to reframe the target. For example, something of high value can be used to “replace the target.” Washington’s farewell address certainly works here, since he shifted the focus from his personal record to the survival of the United States, replacing his own reputation with the high-value cause of American stability. Whatever tactic is chosen, the most important thing is to move the focus to an unrelated object of value, thus starving the insult.
Here is the truly depressing part of the ad hominem attack and why it works so well. While you are being attacked, 90% of people will just watch and not intervene. Even if the attacks are completely insane, the vast majority will cower, afraid that if they get involved, they may become outcasts as well. This is a dispiriting, repeating circumstance among those who have endured cancel culture. Even friends and colleagues who have worked alongside the victim for decades shy away and leave the victim to fend for himself. At least, though, there is the 10% who can help. These rare souls are able to decohere the slander from the victim's positive attributes. They also are psychologically strong enough to resist unjust social pressures. (In fact, if you encounter such people and they are conscientious, make them part of your life. They are true gems!)
George Washington solves this by saying the American people are on his side. He doesn’t need a few brave individuals to intervene (like one might need in an unjust work tribunal); he just needs to show he’s got allies, lots of them. So why not claim that the entire country is on your side? That is, after all, one of the perks of being president:
The American people have always shown a remarkable immunity to the language of the gutter. While some may attempt to destabilize our national confidence with the rhetoric of the riot, I trust in the sober judgment of my fellow citizens. Our strength lies in our shared commitment to a higher standard of discourse.
—An imagined response by George Washington
The ad hominem attacker is trying to make everything about you appear “infected.” One would think that it is your beliefs and ideas that are under attack, and this is often correct. But to the ad hominem pro, he would like you to appear physically infected as well. That’s why turning crimson red with embarrassment or yelling back in a rage further strengthens his hand. To neutralize the “viral load,” one must appear calm and in control; in fact, the calmest person in the room. Exhibiting a certain vitality, or even injecting humor, will also be effective. If you are lucky, the attacker will lose it and look irrational. This will work wonders in slowing down the contagion of the victim, perhaps even completely neutralizing it. Here’s what George could say:
If the character of a President could be dismantled by the grievances of a single, embittered heart, then our Republic would be a fragile thing indeed. But I trust the American people to look not at the accusations of a single man, but at the decades of service I have laid before them. I shall not descend into the mud to wrestle with my accuser; the air up here remains clear, and I intend to keep it so.
—An imagined response by George Washington
The unfortunate reality is that the ad hominem slur will be with us forever. The best way to slow its effects, or even deter saboteurs from attacking you, is to build a “body of work” over time. The nature of such work varies widely since we all lead very different lives. For example, a YouTuber should carefully build a library of videos demonstrating sophistication and restraint. A software architect can build libraries of well-designed open-source code to ward off attacks of incompetence. A stock trader can share his old trades, both good and bad, in a newsletter showing his well-developed abilities.
As for Washington, he certainly cemented his reputation through his response to the Nicola Letter. In short, Colonel Lewis Nicola felt the new nation in 1782 was failing; the Continental Congress was bankrupt, the states were bickering, and the army was unpaid and starving. Nicola hoped that a constitutional monarchy would be installed—essentially a coup. But Washington felt otherwise:
With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment I have read with attention the Sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured Sir, no occurrence in the course of the War, has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the Army as you have expressed, and I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity.
— George Washington, May 22, 1782
Now that is reputational armor! We are not George Washington, but in our own way, we can build reputations that at least slow the scourge of the ad hominem attack.
Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV. Although a peer-reviewed study supports each individual step, following this five-step sequence is my personal process. I share these strategies because I have found them useful in my own life; however, no formal data exists (at least not yet) that measures the overall effectiveness of this guide for the reader as she attempts to neutralize unwarranted assaults on her character.
