[TimW]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The definition of an ad hominem attack is attacking the person, rather than addressing the point. Attacking one person mentioned in an article doesn't address the important points raised in the article.

I wasn't addressing the whole article, I was addressing the portion that Steve quoted which elevated Wylie to the status of "reasonable spokesman." In case you didn't know, an ad hominem argument isn't necessarily fallacious. If an individual is shown to be of extremely poor character or grossly hypocritical, it's fair game. His well-deserved moniker "Jackal" suggests he's an opportunistic scavenger. It wasn't a problem for him to sign exclusive digital deals with Amazon four years ago for some famous books...even he must have realized his publishing rights were questionable. He finally had to turn them over to Random House when they started squeezing him. Gessen sets him up as the "reasonable guy" when he asks Wylie why he, "the scourge of the publishers," was siding with them against Amazon. The implication was, if "scourge Wylie" is siding with the "scourged publishers" against Amazon, Ammy must be REALLY bad. But the most appalling statement comes at the end of this excerpt:

I pointed out to Wylie that his willingness to take the fight to Amazon partly on behalf of the publishers was a curious position for the famous scourge of publishers. He said, “It’s the first time since I got into the business that the interests of print publishers and authors have been closely aligned. And the reason is that, like ISIS, Amazon is so determined to wreak havoc on the culture that unlikely alliances have been formed.”

I'm sure you've heard of Godwin's Law? The longer a discussion goes on, the probability that the Nazis or Hitler is invoked approaches one. The person who commits the Reductio ad Hitlerum automatically loses, of course. A reasonable corollary would be comparing one person or group to a second group who happen to be bloodthirsty murderers, when the first group has murdered no one at all. Making such an outrageous comparison is positively obscene. It mocks the victims of ISIS and makes their painful deaths by decapitation morally equivalent to a retailer operating in a non-murderous fashion. Yes, Wylie automatically loses. There is nothing I could say that could be considered an ad hominem against Andrew Wylie when he administered the coup de grâce against himself with that foul statement.

Edit: I'm finished with any references to ISIS. I don't want the thread to degenerate into a P&R discussion; that happens easily enough. Rant over.