Name calling
Directing insulting or demeaning labels
Name-calling is a form of argument in which insulting or demeaning labels are directed at an individual or group. This phenomenon is studied by a variety of academic disciplines such as anthropology, child psychology, and political science. It is also studied in rhetoric and a variety of other disciplines.
01In politics and public opinion
Politicians sometimes resort to name-calling during political campaigns or public events with the intentions of gaining advantage over, or defending themselves from, an opponent or critic. Often such name-calling takes the form of labelling an opponent as an unreliable and untrustworthy source, such as use of the term "flip-flopper".
02Common misconceptions
Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" is not on its own an example of the abusive argumentum ad hominem logical fallacy. The fallacy occurs only if personal attacks are employed to devalue a speaker's argument by attacking the speaker; personal insults in the middle of an otherwise sound argument are not fallacious ad hominem attacks.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Name calling”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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