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Oct. 20, 2006 - A Quick Logic Lesson

During my first year of college I enrolled in a class on logic, as I needed an "honors" course as it were as a term of the conditions of my scholarship. In short, the course was a linguistic equivalent to the joyous geometry classes I despised in high school - my thinking being, if Pythagoras says his theorem is correct, why do I need to prove it? I'll take his word.

One item that always stayed with me was the ad hominem argument, the last refuge of those with no other means of defending their point. It's also dear to my heart as my children are experts: "I know you are but what am I?"

I've learned to avoid most bubble blogs, and even a large portion of the bubble debate, because of the prevalence of the ad hominem argument. There's little interest in actual discourse. Rather, this crowd is interested solely in capitulation - confess your sins upon the altar of the Bubble Gods or else! Any attempt to discuss the issue in any rationale manner only proves your status as a heretic.

It was interesting to see the same logic has entered into the buyers' compensation debate. Either agree that flat-rate or fee-for-service compensation or face the withering bluster of an ad hominem attack.

Sadly, capitulation really isn't in our nature. Not this boy's. And certainly not in Tobey's.

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes