Ad Hominem is a fancy philosophy term for name-calling. It sources from the Latin dialect and means (essentially) “towards the man”, meaning during an academic argument or social debate that rather than commenting on a point in the target’s discussion the speaker who abuses might call their Narcissistic Rival some kind of insult or unflattering name.
People who are losing a point in a debate who are Machiavellian and prone to using words to harm rather than to communicate in a prosocial manner are likely to blurt something like, “Well you are short!” or “You have a big fat arse” or “You are __________…” (insert insult that implies someone is something like stupid, from a bad family, or in some way physically repulsive).
The Machiavellian person uses insulting a conversational target’s looks, social status, skin color, gender, gender orientation, religion, political background, whatever they know about the target that they can say to unnerve, offend, and to insult that person an attempt to shift the conversation away from its point by getting personal and offensive about things the Hospitality Abuser’s victim more than likely has no ability to change.
Born tall? You are mocked and asked if you play Basketball. Born short? Midget jokes abound, complete with Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize (the French American actor from the television series “Fantasy Island” exclaiming that the seaplane ferrying guests to Mister Roarke’s private island getaway is about to arrive. Born of average height and weight expect to be mocked by people taller for being short and ridiculed by short people for being taller.
Bottom line, when and if someone uses ad hominem attacks to undermine a person or peer group they perceive as a social competitor, everyone loses. Face and time are sacrificed to granting air time to the anti-social and medically sabotaging blurts of low EQ and socially deplorable blurting individuals who are likely to pride themselves on using things like words and fists or neglect to harm anyone who happens to cross their path who is unwilling to play Sycophant.
“If you bring up a topic that threatens a narcissist’s ego, he may resort to name-calling, questioning your intelligence, or attacking your character. This technique is designed to distract from the topic at hand and make you feel you have to defend yourself…” shares Psych Central.
They go on to give the following example of an ad hominem attack on someone’s character by a conversational Hospitality Abuser striving to avoid validating a legitimate and or established fact that is common knowledge or taking into account another person’s subjective opinion in such a way that it shows the Conversation Controller understands not only the subject matter but the other person’s premise and or logical academic argument points and conversational structure being asserted by whomever they seek to intellectually, socially, and or emotionally knock.
Example: When you voice an opinion opposite of what a narcissist believes, the narcissist may say, “You’re delusional. You are clueless, as usual.”
Once you know what key terms and turns of phrase to listen for that people with Narcissistic, Anti-social, BPD, Narcopath, Psychopath, and or that Malignant Narcissists use to create emotional distress in conversational targets, it becomes easier in any moment facing them not to personalize or to be upset by their nonsense.
The master Abuse Recovery Advocate is likely to also make mental and social note that when an Abuser blurts ad hominem attacks they almost always choose key terms, key phrases, and insults that made they themselves feel small or dehumanized by their own elders or Conversational Controllers who bested them.
The insults they apply, therefore, no matter how coincidentally on point they might seemingly work to pour salt in a wound or to point out an obvious flaw or life difficulty that seems on the surface to be incredibly personal, are simply generic reveals of the Verbal Abuser’s personal belief system and insecurities.
Do they make fun of your gender? Expect someone taught them the concept of gender politics and pitted the Abuser against their own mother, father, sister, brother, etcetera. Expect they were made to feel larger or smaller themselves only by comparing themselves to outside sources and by competing with others who, if healthy, are likely to be focused strictly on socially collaborating.
Do they obsess about your sexual orientation or what you do or do not do with your private parts? We do not know about you, but what healthy and normal person spends all their time worrying about who is having sex with whom for what reason and why.
Who shamed them into thinking when they have sex or sexual desires that it is someone else’s right to nose their way into that wholly private and subjective personal time and headspace of other people?
Who wanted them to feel small or dirty or unloved by society and or by a God for being human and made in loving ways to give pleasure to self and others in ways that cause the healthy production of pro-social Oxytocin? Because we are willing to bet that person or peer group was not very fun to hang out with at parties.
Has someone made caustic remarks about your skin based on its appearance, color, or tone? You are too dark. Too light. Too tan. Not tan enough. You have freckles. You don’t have freckles. You have blemishes, You have scars. You have an exterior coating that keeps all your muscles in place to hold together your mix of guts, water, and bone that hues, seats, and glistens with an oily or matte sparkling sheen on occasion.
Whatever the case, whatever your color or skin affectation… people who throw shade about what other people’s skin looks like compared to their own tend to be raised by Somatic Psychopaths. Even Somatic Narcissists are seldom so low brow, socially retarded functionally processing moral behavior, and cold.
Someone ridiculing you about your religion because you refuse to do or say unkind things to or about other people? Realize their family is likely crazy. As in nucking futz, backwoods, frozen neuroplasticity, have another sip of Hooch or more backwoods Moonshine because clearly they have a form of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome induced Rampant Object Permanence Syndrome running in their family members.
Is someone picking on you for being affiliated with a group they and their social support network perceives as a rival social, political, and or spiritual faction? If they cannot recite back their own sacred religious texts and the history of their social printing and creation as well as have an informed, competent academic discussion with you to compare and contrast the premises of both your religions… they are not worth your time to esteem their opinion.
Someone mad you are younger than them? How about older? Do they know you in person? Have they shared a meal with you lately in your home? Why do they care if your arse is flat or round, your breasts are perkier than theirs or more sagged in comparison, or what year you personally were shoved into a Kindergarten unless someone who raised them chose to fixate on those notes?
Think of the fifty-something Real Estate Maven angry with the new girl in the office for her being younger and for having long, luxurious, youthful-looking hair. Or the thirty-year-old up and coming twenty-something concerned suddenly with fading into social and professional oblivion angry at all the 20-year-old girls for dating men who are already in the forty plus-year-old range.
That same man is likely to also disrespect elders at his current company, looking down on “Old Guys” and “Geezers” they seek to replace socially as they themselves compete for social and fiscal as well as for professional strength. Someone taught them to perceive rivals rather than valued members of a team, pack, or tribe. Someone taught them to devalue anyone who they feel they can compare to themselves in anti-social ways that are seldom if ever pragmatic or wise.
The Con Artist move comes into play when a listener falls for the blurt and personalized the insult in a self-injuring way. By convincing the target they have a flaw that is so socially obvious that they act like whatever the Abuser said was forefront in the mind’s eye of anyone who interacts with their victim, they make people uncomfortable at best or insecure in the short or long term about whatever the insult was at it’s worst.
The Con Artist makes little girls think they are dumb. And that women cannot work for places like NASA in such a way their work product would ever be valued or taken seriously. The Con Artist makes little boys think women are socially and professionally inferior to men while they blurt to encourage others to use the fallacy of hasty generalization to Abuse By Proxy for them. The Con Artists says there is no value in things like try or in the process. Only do matters to them… followed by conning their abuse targets into believing whatever [they or we] do is somehow flawed or not good enough.
Ever sit through an academic class where papers are peer-reviewed and rather than the staff encouraging people to develop what is right in a paper or praising an item as a whole presentation, they are trained to always pretend to find something wrong even when there is not? You just paid tuition to a pack of Hyenas pretending to be Vipers who ate your soul whole while they strove to socially and professionally devalue your work.
Bullies and Con Artists really are the same thing. One is overt, the second Covert. Whatever the case, both will try to trick and deceive you and anyone else who lends them time or an ear that you and whomever else they choose to pick on that day is to be estranged and derided from civilization based on their word while gaslighting that whatever is “wrong” with them makes them less than human and therefore to be socially shunned and invalidated personally and professionally — essentially eliminated from conversational consideration — by the Hospitality Abuser’s Narcissistic Harem.
Stop esteeming their assertions if and when you are ready to be socially and emotionally done with them.
If someone infuses any conversation with gaslighting or any form of ad hominem attack designed to keep people off facts they are socially dangerous and never a person or peer to include in anyone’s Circle of Trust. If they use words to make a person or peer feel alienated from others (real or imagined) the Con Artist bullying others into feeling small or estranged is [in their mind at least] effective and a social coup them perceive as making them feel successful.
If you let an Abuser use words to get into your head they will without exception do damage to you medically without ever actually needing to lay a hand or finger on you directly. It is dangerous to entertain their Narcissistic Abuse internal Sad Scientist house call process.
Chances are whatever they chose to say to make you feel insulted or insecure about something related to your age, gender, sexual orientation, and/or your appearance is the Abuser reporting their own insecurities while hoping that you will make them your own.
Refuse to give that Bad Dog a bone. Con Artists and Bullies might think they are masters but really they are the people who hold themselves and everyone’s ancestors and relatives nothing but socially, emotionally, and intellectually hostage.
