5 ms·

I also wasn't sure about the exact meaning of ad hominem. But I found this definition (which is a bit more detailed than Wikipedia's) on Rational Wiki [1], and

by gnull 7y ago

I also wasn't sure about the exact meaning of ad hominem. But I found this definition (which is a bit more detailed than Wikipedia's) on Rational Wiki [1], and it seems to match our situation: > Premise 1: Person A makes claim X > Premise 2: There is something objectionable about person A > Conclusion: Therefore, claim X is false raxxorrax made a claim on what he would feel if he was a minority (probably implying that this is how some of the minorities might feel right now, I'm not sure if this was part of his point). My understanding is that you objected to his claim by saying that he can't imagine what minorities think because he isn't a minority. [1]: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_hominem https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_hominem --- A couple of times I had similar arguments with my friends, when I said something about how I think minorities should think or act, and my friend would say that I can't understand minorities, because I'm not one. My friends had a reason to think I'm not a minority, because I'm a white male living in a country where my ethnicity is prevalent (> 80% of the population). The thing they didn't know is that I grew up in a different place, where my ethnicity was a minority, and I went to a high school where > 90% percent of kids were of different ethnicity and religion. And this all happened in a provincial town in Central Asia, where people don't care much about diversity and tolerance, especially if they are your teenager classmates in a boys-only high school. So I think in some points of my life I did experience certain stress and discomfort because of being a minority, although right now I don't feel myself being a victim or anything of that sort. This is why I got triggered by your first comment, and made that remark about ad hominem. Because of its resemblance to a situation I was in a few times. And actually, for me it isn't such a big deal to start a new argument about whether it's an instance of ad hominem or not.

pnutjam 7y ago
Thank you for responding. Many of these threads end up being shouts in the dark. I truly felt like the "you're not a minority" part of my comment was incidental. My larger point was that in asking people to accept an opinion that is outside the mainstream, or to consider how different your upbringing was, you're asking people to respect a diversity of opinions. I tried to point out the a big part of the diversity movement is recognizing these diversities, which often come with different genders or different ethnicity. Maybe I did a poor job of communicating this.

by gnull 7y ago

pnutjam 7y ago

Thank you for responding. Many of these threads end up being shouts in the dark. I truly felt like the "you're not a minority" part of my comment was incidental. My larger point was that in asking people to accept an opinion that is outside the mainstream, or to consider how different your upbringing was, you're asking people to respect a diversity of opinions. I tried to point out the a big part of the diversity movement is recognizing these diversities, which often come with different genders or different ethnicity. Maybe I did a poor job of communicating this.