This should be the dictionary definition of ad Hominem.

[James’ Reply: They are more often simply non sequitors, I suspect. To be an ad hominem attack, you not only have to protest that something is an ad hominem attack when it isn’t one, you also have to use that as a reason not to consider the all the other arguments that your opponent, whatever they are. For example: “You are just an ad hominem arguer, so I don’t have to listen to anything you say!”]

That said I think that one of the things that often happens is that some people interpret emotional as personal. It is a matter of engagement, some people want to come into work, do their jobs and never really get involved at an emotional level. They don’t care if the product is good or bad, it doesn’t matter if you ship on time or late. Any problem that can be assigned to someone else is not their problem.

People who are engaged on a project have a different attitude. They want the product to be as good as it needs to be. They want it to ship as soon as possible. Any problem that threatens the project is a shared project that given the appropriate priority they are willing to contribute to. I think of these people as being emotionally involved, they care.

The conflict comes when you have interaction between the engaged and the dis-engaged. Imagine someone in a meeting, just waiting for yabba dabba do time roll around, just doing their job. In rolls a couple of engaged team members. They start to argue, they really get into it, they get emotional!!!

I have found that those people who are not engaged will often have a response of, don’t get so emotional, don’t make it personal.

Those people that are engaged, they don’t see it as personal. They see it as doing there job. How often have you walked out of meeting, having had a great argument, with a new respect with your opponent? How often have you and your opponent walked away not with one person right and another wrong, but with a new solution that is better than anything either of you were initially proposing?

I love it when people when come into a meeting and get emotional about the work. It brings out the best in me and provides the best solutions to the problems we face. If I find that an encounter strays over that thin line between emotional and into the personal, means only one thing. Time to de-escalate. Right or wrong, good or bad, nothing good is going to happen when it is personal.

Humor, diversion, calling a break… Just do not expect to continue hammering on the same personal issues and expect a different outcome.

Scott Rosenbaum

In your example, I think you were not making a personal attack. You were confronting bad behavior. This is different than making a personal attack.

Confronting bad behavior:
“I think you are behaving unethically by stating or implying, in your advertising literature…”

Personal Attack:
“You are an unethical person”

It is good to confront bad behavior in both personal and work relationships. Resorting to personal attacks is almost always bad for relationships, and therefore bad for any goal you may share in common with that person. If you resort to personal attacks, then you have some bad behavior of your own that needs confronting…

[James Reply: Ach! Great idea. I like that usage better. Thank you.]

By usually, I mean essentially the Fundamental Attribution Error. Humans have a tendancy to attribute behaviour to disposition over other situational explanations. Usually this means they make an incorrect attribution.

I think it is wrong not to have a direct, explicit, and specific confrontation when bad behaviour has occurred. Note that the subtle, silent ostracization you’ve described is a personal attack, just not an explicit one.

The error is the assumption that the only choice is personal attack or do nothing (which inevitably ends up leaking out into subtle attack anyway). I believe the term is bifurcation fallacy.

You can directly confront behaviour without engaging in personal attack. I like Crucial Conversations / Crucial Confrontations as references for how to do this.

Are you talking about all personal attacks? By “usually” do you mean to imply that our system of criminal justice, in which every prosecution is a personal attack on the accused, is more than half of the time aiming its attacks at innocent people? Certainly we presume that people are innocent until proven guilty, but it is not out of bounds in any community to have and to enforce moral and ethical standards, if there is evidence of misbehavior.

I’m not confident that I know what it means to attack a “personality”, but I can look at someone’s behavior and make judgments about that, just as I am subject to the judgments of other people. This happens in the public sphere and in the private sphere, as well as the semi-public spheres represented by communities of practice.

Of course, there are alternatives to making a personal attack. Sometimes I don’t see a better alternative. That’s what I was saying. The particular person and issue that inspired this blog posting has a long history with me, and I already tried several alternatives before “flipping the bozo bit”. It’s a last resort. It has to be a last resort, because after that most other possibilities are off the table.

Don’t you think it is wrong, in some cases, to refrain from making a personal attack? I’m talking about a forthright accusation that the accused person has an opportunity to answer. I have many times seen people subtly and silently ostracized in such a way that they never know who has turned against them or why. That behavior makes my skin crawl. I don’t want to do that to people, and I hope no one does it to me.
– James

It is definitely worthwhile to speak up against bad behaviour. It is likely a mistake to assume that the bad behaviour is due to personality, thus justifying a personal attack. It is definitely a mistake to believe that the only alternative to attacking people is to do nothing.