-- John Rogers
Constant appeals to emotion and resorting to a wide array of fallacies allows for strongmen to build tribes which follow them blindly (no need to bother forming policy) and is how we end up with Trump vs Clinton in 2016 (see [1] for the impact on the legislative process). Reducing the quality of debate is therefore a harmful thing with real consequences.
One line of argument might be to criticise the paranoid nature of the quote: it is entirely possible that a mess of laws arises naturally from a mix of special interests doing some lobbying to preserve small advantages for themselves, and bad laws arising as a form of horse trading necessary to get policy enacted. Only then does this mess presents an opportunity to manipulators.
[1] http://imgur.com/a/Wmoex - "Voting Relationships between Senators in the 101st through 113th Congresses"
Ad hominem would have been to attack Ayn Rand. I didn't do that. The quote I used doesn't attack the author, it attacks the work. I happen to agree with it. If you want to criticize it, you would do better to point out that the quote I used is not constructive criticism. I would agree with that, but I would probably also point out that humorous quips rarely are.
I'll now explain what I mean by taking both your quote and your reply and dissecting how I interpret them:
> "childish fantasy" "lifelong obsession" "unbelievable heroes" "emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood" "unable to deal with the real world"
The argument here goes: people who like Ayn Rand are immature and live in a dream world, which means you should not listen to what they have to say because it bears little relation with the real world. It's pretty obvious what the ad hominem is if you use this quote straight after someone quotes Ayn Rand: it is targeted at the poster and implies he is, himself, immature, living in a dream world, meaning one should dismiss his arguments without consideration.
> I was tempted to reply with a "found the objectivist"
This one is on par with telling a new black acquaintance about your black friends, or sending them news about black people doing great things. I should not need to explain it, but I will.
First, your original comment, as explained above, painted all "Objectivists" (Ayn Rand "fans", for those unaware of her writings; she groups her ideas under the term Objectivism) as immature dreamers whose arguments should be dismissed.
Then, you hint at what is on your mind, much as the man sending "black news" to his black acquaintance is hinting pretty strongly at the only thing he can think about looking at him. "I was tempted" might work in a bar discussion as a sufficient disclaimer, but HN is sophisticated and sensitive to such "fake disclaimers" (although those who point them out can be tarred with the "SJW" brush).
Your line of argument here is "I am stating that you are an Objectivist, therefore your arguments are not worth listening to because Objectivists are immature/unable to deal with the real world/see above". This is the literal definition of ad hominem, even if you hinted instead of outright stating. The context - HN, and its sophisticated audience and level of discussion - make it intentional and the equivalent of stating it outright.
You reinforce this line with the end of the sentence:
> but I'm waiting for a build, so I have time to kill
This really means "you are not ordinarily worth engaging with, because [see above], but since I have nothing to do, I will". This is reinforcing the ad hominem by introducing superiority and dismissiveness. "Here, child, let me explain."
> The quote I used doesn't attack the author, it attacks the work
It is extremely rare to attack a work using appeal to emotion without attacking the author. Usually, the best way to clear the doubt is to spell it out. You didn't. In fact, the brevity and context of the use of the quote, coupled with the fact it explicitly attacks Ayn Rand, imply the opposite.
> If you want to criticize it, you would do better to point out that the quote I used is not constructive criticism.
I did criticise it. Pointing out that appeal to emotion is not a valid line of argument is a constructive criticism. I have expanded on the idea earlier in this reply, but the core of it is that appeal to emotion attempts to use emotion to make you skip logical steps and accept a conclusion you might not have ordinarily.
> humorous quips rarely are
Ridicule is one of the most effective appeals to emotion. I could probably point 10 examples from the first 15 minutes of the Presidential debate last week. Even the words used by both candidates are carefully chosen (see [1]). Your particular quip is only humorous if you belong to the tribe that likes to auto-ridicule Ayn Rand readers (without having ever read the books or even the arguments), and otherwise serves to silence those unwilling to take the social penalty of speaking out against it.
Lest you think it is personal, it is not. Hell, I know where you're coming from - in a previous era, I was banned for several weeks from an internet forum for calling someone an "internet redneck" for presenting Republican-favouring arguments.
I am simply fed up with the rising market share of appeal to emotion in all kinds of domains from advertising (thank you uBlock, Privacy Badger etc. for making the internet useable for me again) all the way up to politics and the legislative process. This is my little contribution to fighting against this trend. And yes, the use of the word "fighting" is itself an appeal to emotion.
[1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147998060931/the-dark-and-rotte... - "The Dark and Rotten Election" - Scott Adams
Saying that Scott Adams has been known to be irrational is at best tangential to the example he gives to qualify whether the Trump and Clinton campaigns are using emotional manipulation, especially ad hominem attacks, to achieve their respective goals.
It's an appeal to emotion built upon an ad hominem: you use your attack on Scott Adams' ability to reason coupled with an association fallacy [1] to attack me in order to invalidate my line of argument.
Specifically: Scott Adams is irrational; you presented an example by Scott Adams; you therefore agree with an irrational man; this makes you irrational; your arguments are therefore irrational; let's not bother debating your irrational arguments.
I might be wrong, so attack the flaws in my reasoning, not me or the author or my examples.
It is perfectly fair to say "Scott Adams makes claims about himself which cannot charitably be interpreted as rational or reasonable, therefore appealing to Scott Adams (hint: appeal to authority!) when talking about a desire for more rational and reasoned and impersonal debate does not lend credibility to your argument".
On the contrary, the problem with a natural language is that is imprecise, vague and ambiguous. This is why it's so easy to allow assumptions to creep into one's interpretation of it. A substantial part of your interpretation of my comments is based on your own assumptions, a lot of which do not hold up. I'm not inclined to address all of them -- for the same reasons I will elaborate when I address your interpretation of my having "time to kill" -- but I will try to address a few I found interesting.
> It's pretty obvious what the ad hominem is if you use this quote straight after someone quotes Ayn Rand: it is targeted at the poster and implies he is, himself, immature, living in a dream world, meaning one should dismiss his arguments without consideration.
I don't know if the poster is an objectivist. The poster remembered a quote from "Atlas Shrugged" that resonated with them and posted it in a comment, which does not necessarily imply that the poster is a fan of "Atlas Shrugged" or Ayn Rand in general; I could probably find myself in a situation where I could consider a comment from Meyer's "Twilight" relevant, without changing my opinion that "Twilight" is an utter piece of crap. I used the quote I posted to express my opinion of "Atlas Shrugged". Which brings me to the next assumption I would like to address:
> It is extremely rare to attack a work using appeal to emotion without attacking the author.
To paraphrase, instead of quoting: You keep mentioning that fallacy; I do not think it means what you think it means. "Appeal to emotion" is a logical fallacy that consists of trying to support your argument with pathos instead of logos. Not every form of discourse is an argument. Mine certainly wasn't and I suspect John's wasn't either. As I mentioned before, I was stating an opinion -- to wit, that I find "Atlas Shrugged" sorely lacking in certain aspects and that I think that staunch objectivists have certain flaws -- not refuting a point made by the poster. As a matter of fact, I did state in another comment that I agree, to a degree, with the poster's point, but dislike the quote he used to make that point.
> This really means "you are not ordinarily worth engaging with, because [see above], but since I have nothing to do, I will". This is reinforcing the ad hominem by introducing superiority and dismissiveness. "Here, child, let me explain."
You're right about one thing here: my reply to you did, indeed, contain an intentional ad hominem. That doesn't mean that the assumption underlying your interpretation of "time to kill" is correct. Rather than implying that objectivists, as a whole group, are not worth engaging with, I was implying that I ordinarily would not find a comment like yours worth replying to. Is that dismissive? It certainly is. Does it imply a feeling of superiority? Not at all. Just because I don't think that, under normal circumstances, I can produce more worth by spending my time on other things rather than replying to that particular kind of argument, it doesn't mean I'm superior (or feel like it) to you. Rather, it means that I don't think I'm good enough at arguing to produce any net worth by engaging in the discussion of a comment like yours.
> This one is on par with telling a new black acquaintance about your black friends, or sending them news about black people doing great things. I should not need to explain it, but I will.
As a quick aside, I don't have any assumption to address here; I just wanted to point out that I have no idea what that whole "black news" analogy is supposed to mean; you might have tried to explain it, but I failed to understand it.
But you do delve a lot into the ad hominem in that part of my sentence, so I should probably address that. Yes, I assumed from your comment that you're an objectivist and that, as an objectivist, you share the flaws I ascribe to the whole group. No, that assumption is not based on any hard facts, but my experience with similar comments and, as such, might very well be incorrect. Yes, I do imply that being an objectivist would explain why you misintepreted my original comment as an ad hominem. Yes, I did intentionally include an ad hominem in a comment that points out that my previous comment was not an ad hominem.
In closing, many of the assumptions on which you based your interpretations are wrong. It's not that I believe that they're wrong -- most of them are factually wrong, because most are assumptions about what I meant to say or was trying to say. The reason I point this out at all is because you're trying to engage in a highly rational argument out of a highly emotional motivation and I suspect those emotions are creeping into your assumptions and invalidating your efforts. The reason I suspect that is because I used to do the same thing: get riled up about something I read and then try to deconstruct the offending text with what I believe were purely rational arguments. In hindsight, it never worked out, even when I believed I "won" the discussion.
Regardless of the context of HN "and its sophisticated audience and level of discussion", sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes a person might state the equivalent of "I think 'Atlas Shrugged' is crap and adults who wholeheartedly buy into it should know better" and it might not be a slippery slope to a dystopian future where all rational argument has been replaced by Trump/Clinton debates; sometimes a person's sense of humor is impolite to a certain audience and the best reply is more along the lines of "Dude, don't be a jerk" rather than "The test results say you are a horrible person; we weren't even testing for that." ;)
> On the contrary, the problem with a natural language is that is imprecise, vague and ambiguous.
These are attributes of natural language, but I do not see how their existence invalidates my argument. Natural language is ambiguous because words are like variables that can take different values depending on the situation. Any advanced society necessarily requires the shared context and for the other side to make assumptions about what is not said in order to communicate at the very high bandwidth required to deal with the complexity of life.
For example, imagine two buddies meeting at the bar after a hard day of work. One of them sips his beer then says "man... that was a long, long day." He does not literally mean that the day contained more work hours than usual. He is bonding by expressing a hint of shared feelings (that they are satisfied with a hard day's work and can begin relaxing) to his colleague with whom he just shared an experience. I just provided you with context with the early part of the story: bar, long day, beer... which allows you to understand what he says.
And this is why I need to make assumptions in order to further understanding and discussion:
> it's so easy to allow assumptions to creep into one's interpretation of it
> I don't know if the poster is an objectivist
It does not matter if you know or not. Every word posted on a public forum is an attempt at convincing somebody of something, a means of spreading a message or communicating a feeling (as in the case above - although these comments are relatively rare on HN). A brief one liner has to be very well chosen in order to be effective, as it assumes a good read on people's mindsets, the context, and their background in order to have the intended effect. My comment was that the way your comment read was an attack on more than the book.
> "Appeal to emotion" is a logical fallacy
The way I understand it, appeal to emotion is a family of fallacies used to advance arguments without taking a reasoned path, with a subconscious or conscious goal to do so.
> Not every form of discourse is an argument. Mine certainly wasn't and I suspect John's wasn't either.
This is where we disagree. Anything you post here will be read by others and might influence their thinking. Whether or not you want to, you send a message with your comments. Whether or not you meant to have an impact, your words will have that impact. "I didn't mean to hurt X" is not an excuse for inconsiderateness.
> Rather, it means that I don't think I'm good enough at arguing to produce any net worth by engaging in the discussion of a comment like yours.
A different opinion is ALWAYS welcome. The only way to learn is to put oneself in the other's point of view and see if there is something to it...
> out of a highly emotional motivation
What would you guess is my motivation? Most highly emotional "motivation" of irrational arguments is linked to belonging to a tribe and having to accept its arguments in order to further the power of its voice (as members acting in concert predictably are exponentially more powerful as a result). My understanding is that you believe/d that I belong to the "Objectivist" tribe. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have no interest in debating ownership or not to a tribe; I think such arguments are automatic ways to engage discussion onto emotional ground and away from what you might call "fact".
For example, you might debate the idea of taxing pollution. You can argue about it from the point of view of Tragedy of the Commons in economics and trying to establish some kind of net welfare equation, or you can argue against it by saying "you pinko commie" and for it by saying "you fascist tax evader from the 1%". The latter form of argumentation is extremely noxious to civilisation, which is why I oppose it.
> Regardless of the context of HN "and its sophisticated audience and level of discussion", sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes a person might state the equivalent of "I think 'Atlas Shrugged' is crap and adults who wholeheartedly buy into it should know better" and it might not be a slippery slope to a dystopian future where all rational argument has been replaced by Trump/Clinton debates; sometimes a person's sense of humor is impolite to a certain audience and the best reply is more along the lines of "Dude, don't be a jerk" rather than "The test results say you are a horrible person; we weren't even testing for that." ;)
But not when assuming they are Rand's followers?
Because you criticized the parent poster exactly for making such an assumption (whether he made it or not)...
I go on quite at length as to why I believe that he did. Feel free to disagree with me, so long as you explain why.
IMO, if you are relying on a work of mid-20th century fiction to make your case that corporate corruption in the U.S. in the 21st century is somehow going out of control, then your argument has already defeated itself.
The first quote laid out a case using a narrative as a metaphor. It explicitly states its position, and as such is an appropriate use of a quote.
The second quote is entirely composed of appeals to emotion and its sole purpose is to ridicule the author of the first quote as well as any readers who might agree with it. As such it is not an appropriate response.
An appropriate response would have first established the premise of the first quote, then argued for or against it.
> "mid-20th century" "21st century"
The age of an idea has no bearing on its quality. To an extent, humanity refines and builds on ideas over time but the basis of Western civilisation dates from Antiquity. To take your specific date range, this post is typed on a browser, operating system, machine, and global network that all date from ideas from the mid 20th century which themselves build on a few centuries of reasoning.
Tell us more about the appropriate uses of quotes.
Apparently when a quote doesn't explicitly state its position, but it makes it implicitly very clear, it's not appropriate?
My position is that emotional manipulation leads to a worse understanding of the world and decrease net welfare by encouraging people to be less rational. As such arguments that abuse emotion are not desirable (perhaps "appropriate" is the wrong word: any argument is appropriate on HN so long as it is civil, according to moderation and history).
To go deeper into the subject would require a discussion of whether the end justifies the means, which I'm not willing to spend considerable time and mental effort on right now (otherwise I'd have commented on the article at the top of this page already).
That's circular reasoning. "Emotional is bad because it's less rational" (given that rational is the opposite of emotional).
Why would emotional be worse? Or generally worse? It is itself a useful way of deciding, that originated from evolution. In fact there would be a thing as being too rational. Besides, if the ultimate goal is one's happiness (and rationally, there's no way to objectively establish any other goal over it), that's something inherently tied to emotions anyway.
Here's some food for thought:
The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions—mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illus...
So yes, time matters as does the context in which the works were written. The world itself has become more integrated and capital much more mobile and the role of government is also less clearcut than it was in the middle of the 20th century. Many of the dangers of overreach in government that the writer was worried about have been reduced but at the same time new dangers, including those of global corporations overreaching into our daily lives, have increased.
TL;DR: Snowcrash is probably more helpful to understanding this story than Atlas Shrugged.
What I am reading in your comment is an implication:
- that by attacking the use of a quote to ridicule those who have read Ayn Rand and attempt to present her ideas, I am myself promoting Ayn Rand's ideas,
- and that the other ideas of Ayn Rand's (beyond those illustrated by the metaphors used in Atlas Shrugged that lead to this quote, which is very specifically about government use of bad laws for manipulation) are relevant to this discussion.
This would lead for a need for a response to Ayn Rand's body of ideas as relates to "economic and common-sense grounds" (which I assume is not related to the quote by the grandparent), as opposed to specifically the original post or the direction I have put the thread in.
Is this the correct interpretation?
If so, I disagree that Ayn Rand's entire body of ideas is relevant to the discussion of the specific case put forward by her metaphor and narrative in the context of this quote and discussion.
An example of this kind of association fallacy: Heinlein promoted incest in his later novels (e.g. Lazarus Long's relationship with his mother post time travel). Incest has negative connotations in modern society. It would be possible to use an appeal to emotion: "Heinlein promotes incest! You like Heinlein, so I can't listen to your argument, since you promote incest." It would, however, be manipulation to do so. A similar line of argument is used to attack certain religions today (I've even seen some French politicians try to paint Muslims as barbarians by pointing out a few incidents of goats slaughtered ritually in the bath tubs of social housing projects).
Every writer, every body of work has flaws. The beauty of discussing ideas is to hash out a better set of values and ideas to better model and understand the world we live in. There are even valid uses of appeal to emotion, when emotion is used to transmit higher information content than can be done via contextual awareness and shared culture, or to transmit complex ideas quickly. You could even argue that's a large reason for the existence of art (much of which is paid propaganda, other propaganda of the artist's ideas spread using appeal to emotion).
To use a writer's flaws to censor their work out of discussion is a subtler, more powerful version of Orwell's 1984 book censorship. I hold that all books should be discussed, even the "unpalatable" ones.
Examples?
First, obviously one can suggest a book that they think "demolishes" Ayn Rand's (or any other author's) views, regardless of whether they think that the person they suggest it to supports Rand or not.
But let's get into the implication and see, if it was true, whether it could be justified.
So, you protest on the implication you think the parent makes that "by attacking the use of a quote to ridicule those who have read Ayn Rand and attempt to present her ideas, I am myself promoting Ayn Rand's ideas".
And you name various fallacies to show why this is not necessarily true.
Well, it might not be a logical conclusion in the formal logic sense, but it's a very probable conclusion given all we know about human behavior, how conversations go, etc -- not to mention your writing style.
In life, as opposed to pure math, we often need, and do, judgement calls based on incomplete data, calls that don't actually follow with 100% logical certainty, but are nevertheless quite clear from the general context. Sure, we might be wrong in some cases. That's still a net positive, if we are correct in most cases. 100% correctness is for the inhabitants of Vulcan.
I don't know what the parent consider you -- he might consider you a fellow anti-Rand person for all I know, and suggested the book because you'd appreciate it being such.
But to my eyes you totally look like a pro-Rand person -- not just because you jumped to criticize the quote (yes, it appealed to emotion -- but people tend to ignore that when it concerns emotions and quotes they are in favor of), but also because of the overall tone of the responses and the fallacitis ("oh, I discovered this blunt tool on the internet, let's hammer every conversation into a inquiry for objective truth").
Yes, one can. My complaint here was that it was not relevant to what was being discussed. It's similar to a discussion on the latest Postgres being hijacked by yet another languages war.
> In life, as opposed to pure math, we often need, and do, judgement calls based on incomplete data, calls that don't actually follow with 100% logical certainty, but are nevertheless quite clear from the general context
Agreed.
> 100% correctness is for the inhabitants of Vulcan.
Disagree. You make the best decision based on the incomplete data available, and your own value system. That decision is by definition "correct". There are always costs to any path.
> to my eyes you totally look like a pro-Rand person
This is irrelevant to the discussion, except as an ad hominem. Ad hominems are justified in a very small number of cases where directly relevant to the situation. Learning that an investor has a history of playing hardball with his portfolio companies is relevant when examining his term sheet. Dismissing entire arguments due to them not being branded right is not.
I am not trying to defend myself from belonging to a certain tribe or not, as it would not add to the discussion and would probably detract from it by taking it further down the road to the Trump/Clinton debates' tone. I am attempting to clarify arguments, values, premises and ideas for myself and others. You may assume it is propaganda: my own ideas, that I am trying to convince others of.
> because of the overall tone of the responses
What is the appropriate tone for responding? I believe I was sufficiently polite and civil, and fair in presenting my position. Please help me improve my communication style by pointing out how this was not the case.
> "oh, I discovered this blunt tool on the internet, let's hammer every conversation into a inquiry for objective truth"
It predates the internet. Technically I was first exposed to these ideas in Critical Thinking classes in high school, although self-study of logic and various books and life experience helped pad out most of it.
I would just add that the complexity of objective truth, and its lack of total discoverability (due to personal subjectivity, etc.) does not imply its inexistence, or the inadvisability of seeking to get closer to it. My philosophy chops are not developed enough to discuss this one much further though.
It is irrelevant to the original theme of the post, but it is quite relevant to the subthread that started with two quotes from and about Rand, and you coming to criticize the poster of the second quote. We're way too into that subthread for it to be irrelevant.
>What is the appropriate tone for responding? I believe I was sufficiently polite and civil, and fair in presenting my position. Please help me improve my communication style by pointing out how this was not the case.
That would be relevant if I had accused you that your tone was bad. What I say is completely different: that your tone made me think that you are a pro-Rand person (concerned with objectivity, overuse of logical fallacies, defensive of Rand, etc).
>It predates the internet.
Yes, but most people one meets online discovered it on the internet, often as part of a whole related culture (skeptics, etc.) and use it as a blunt instrument. The laundry list of fallacies wasn't that popular before the internet anyway, not even in philosophical and logician's discourses.
My belonging to the Ayn Rand tribe is irrelevant to the quality of my arguments, in the same way as your distaste for her work does not stop you from seeing the value in the original quote.
> "your tone was bad" "your tone made me think that you are a pro-Rand person (concerned with objectivity, overuse of logical fallacies, defensive of Rand, etc)"
Everything in the brackets strikes me as "bad" except "concerned with objectivity" (shouldn't we all be?) although in that case I think you meant to say Objectivism. If the tone, as opposed to the arguments, implies bad things, then the tone is bad.
This is a bit more complicated if the tone is merely a signal which might indicate belonging to a bad tribe, as opposed to the tone being objectively bad, because then we get on to deciding which tribe is good or bad. Personally, I have no inclination for going down that path for previously mentioned reasons.
I try hard not to judge people based on the signals they emit, except when I do not have the time to form a proper judgement, and I always hear what they have to say, as it is a way to learn something new (sometimes).
I still disagree with your implying that I am merely "laundry listing" big words as opposed to making points using them to rapidly communicate relevant concepts, but at this point I do not think we will reach agreement so I will agree to disagree and move on to the next thread.
Thankfully, that was not an ad hominem. It was a quote against a particular BOOK.
>Constant appeals to emotion and resorting to a wide array of fallacies allows for strongmen to build tribes which follow them blindly
So, kind of like Ayn Rand, which had a known history of blind following entourage?
I've explained in detail why I disagree with you on this.
I see you have engaged into the discussion further, for which I thank you as this is a lot of fun (and I mean this genuinely, in a "thank you for taking the time and effort to engage into a discussion with me" way). Although this is the top comment reply right now, I'll continue the conversation on the other thread.
> So, kind of like Ayn Rand, which had a known history of blind following entourage?
Do I need to expand on why this, in this context, is ad hominem coupled with an inappropriate use of the association fallacy?
FWIW I happen to agree with your statement to an extent (that there exists a bit of a cult, and that it resembles blind following), but disagree with its relevance to this line of discussion, or the assumption I half get the impression of that all people who reference Ayn Rand are blind followers.
I personally know hundreds of people who have taken value from Ayn Rand's writings without agreeing with her on everything. Note that I am not sure whether that is what you are implying, but I'm addressing the possibility that it is.
Without any sort of quantification, that is a very hollow argument. All systems of ideas, and originators of such systems, have a history of "blind following".
Saying that Objectivists are less critical of their own and competing ideas strikes me as pretty laughable, especially when compared to the more popular ideas - like Marxism. Maybe Ayn just doesn't look as good on a T-shirt as Che...
But since this is blown up since I last looked at it, why not take a moment to try to diagnose this.
It is not in fact an 'ad hominem', as you said, since an ad hominem attacks an argument by attacking a person (or group). Though it is, to me, perfectly fine to call it that, since that is the result, the second quote does not in fact attack any argument directly.
It is a response to the act of quoting Rand, rather than to anything specific that Rand was quoted as saying.
Secondly it is also not an 'appeal to emotion', since an appeal to emotion is again directed at making a particular argument, in this case by making people feel instead of think. This again does not fit the second quote, because it does not make any specific argument at all.
From what I can tell, the most descriptive term we can find for what makes this quote by 'John Rogers' so upsetting, as evidenced by the amount of discussion below and above, is that it is a 'smear'.
Its nature is that it does not attack the argument made by the quote it is posted in reply to, but instead attacks anyone who might believe, and quote, anything from that book, presumably including the OP.
To quote Wikipedia [1]:
> A [smear] is an intentional, premeditated effort to undermine an individual's or group's reputation, credibility, and character.
...
> Smear tactics differ from normal discourse or debate in that they do not bear upon the issues or arguments in question. A smear is a simple attempt to malign a group or an individual with the aim of undermining their credibility.
> Smears often consist of ad hominem attacks in the form of unverifiable rumors and distortions, half-truths, or even outright lies; smear campaigns are often propagated by gossip magazines. Even when the facts behind a smear campaign are demonstrated to lack proper foundation, the tactic is often effective because the target's reputation is tarnished before the truth is known.
> Smears are also effective in diverting attention away from the matter in question and onto the a specific individual or group. The target of the smear typically must focus on correcting the false information rather than on the original issue.
> Smear tactics are considered by many to be a low, disingenuous form of discourse; they are nevertheless very common.
So, while this is not strictly one of the traditional logical fallacies, I think it is nevertheless clearly a bad form of discourse, and frankly inappropriate.
That was pretty much the entirely of Atlas Shrugged. Make a Mary-Sue world of perfect rhetorical convenience populated by heroes and strawmen...
A complex tax code favors those that will contribute to politicians in order to gain a special benefit or avoid a specific harm. Paraphrased obviously. Here's the original lecture: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TruCIPy79w8
Anecdotally I too had this "They Live" sunglasses moment.
You are reading Atlas Shrugged and you think this book is the Truth this is IT. Those other silly teenagers getting into religion or socialism or drugs or music they are so deluded.
This is why the John Rogers quip was particularly apt here.
Again the Rand quote is a good/truthful axiom/premise. The problem comes when someone impressionable treats the whole book as the bible.
Funnily enough the xkcd-comic you linked really made an impression on me when it was first posted, since at the time I was having that exact thought almost every day. XKCD showed me how foolish that was and I was and am really thankful for that. (Even though my false sense of superiority was pretty comforting)
Also like many thinkers, her solutions are often worse than the disease.
I'm not so sure he's in the best position to qualify as a literary critic.
However, I did read "The Prince" and I think there's a lot most can learn from it. While I find the majority of the book reprehensible, there are many powerful people in our society that seem to think of it as a bible / instruction manual. Given the fact that such ideas still play a significant role in our society; I feel it is worthwhile to learn about them.
Edit: Thanks for the clarification.
If you've lumped "The Art of War" into the same category in your mind as Ayn Rand's writings, I suggest you to read it. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised. Aside from being both commonly cited as influential (in greater or lesser unfortunate ways), there's really about zero similarity between the two.
I definitely mean in the greater of unfortunate ways. That there's zero similarity is irrelevant, they keep showing up in the same places. They're not brothers, they're friends.
Those same views of the nature of power were much better expressed by Orwell in his "1984". That's what I would call good.
Maybe I'm wrong/misremembering but I feel like all criticism of Atlas Shrugged I've read seems to assume that whoever reads it will be brainwashed into becoming a fanboy who cannot reflect on the work. I thought it was one of the more interesting books I've read but a bit long winded. I don't think it's well written but the content was interesting (I do think "The Driver" by Garrett is a better book). I do appreciate interesting ideas even if I don't agree with them (I partly agree with quite a few thoughts by Rand at least on some level)
Incidentally I've noticed that jokes structured like this have become so common in UK comedy shows that the punchline is often unnecessary or even omitted.
The passage, moustache-twirling or otherwise, is a fair presentation of the principle of threat-based leverage and its use.