What is going on at Spartacus?

[Peter Presland]

Well, over here at Deep Politics Forum, you can call forum members an "idiot son" and a "sap" ... especially if you are a moderator.

Well FWIW I think Robert has a point.

All that was on a heavyweights thread and there was ad-hominem stuff from both sides - albeit often couched in clever rhetorical devices that provided a fig-leaf of plausible deniability, but ad hominems nonetheless. Dawn stepped in quite late once. I was tempted but have little time available for moderating. I was also anxious that the issues themselves were not cut off without a thorough airing.

I haven't kept a score card but, of all the ad-hominems thrown, Robert Morrow was probably on the receiving end of the most and, a bit like Paul Newman in 'Cool Hand Luke', just kept coming back for more without, for the most part, responding in kind. To a disinterested bystander, and discounting the arguments being pressed, 'Cool-Hand-Luke-like' sympathy was generated. People need to recognise that, in the eyes of the mass audience that needs persuading, such sympathy (empathy) generation probably plays a bigger part in 'winning' an argument than the facts themselves.

I just wish EVERYONE involved in vigorous intellectual dispute over very complex issues would make a conscious effort, however irresistible, to play the ball and not the man.