Homer, hyperbole & ad hominem

[Terrance]

Here is a review of a New Companion to Homer, I thought it
apt to our discussions here. 

Homeric studies have suffered so much from polemics in the
past that
    magnanimity towards colleagues whom one may personally
like has
    come to seem more worthwhile than the confutation of
error. However,
    this reaction, in which I have shared, has become a real
barrier to good
    scholarship, as this volume proves. Misapprehensions,
when often
    repeated by their authors, widely assimilated and long
left uncorrected,
    cause confusion and eventually a collapse of confidence
that anything
    can be known at all. Rebuking error by ignoring it has
not worked: it is
    time for Glasnost.	


However, if this volume is an image of the
    progress of Homeric scholarship since 1962, progress has
consisted
    largely in forgetting what once we knew, like vistas
hidden behind an
    orogenesis of verbiage. The prevalent focus on the
limits to our
    knowledge has become all too often a mask for ignorance
(inevitably
    most obvious in technical matters), the omission of
opposing views and
    evidence, a timorous refusal to believe anything, or
(worst of all) a
    failure to appreciate the greatness of Homer's poetry
and of his vision of
    humanity. 

http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/hyper-lists/bmcr-l/1998/98.5.20.html

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1997/97.07.12.html


 jporter said: 

"the Baudy Benny and the GR Holocaust opening are just not
to my taste,
 although I accept them as someone else's)."


The Bawdy Benny would be Dave Monroe's argument. 

The GR Holocaust Opening would be Doug Millison's reading. 

jbor wrote: 

"I think it is so so much more than a matter of mere
"taste". I think it is
to do with the integrity of the text and the integrity of
the literary
vision." 



OK, fair enough, jbor and jporter don't buy either the
Holocaust Opening as Doug presented it or the Bawdy Benny as
Dave Monroe presented here. 

OK,  It's not matter of taste. 

OK, although I'm surpised to see this come from jbor, both
from the integrity of the text and the integrity of the
literary vision assumption, these redings don't hold water. 


Be that as it may, what really concerns me here is the
analogy jbor wrote and used concerning Nazis and Nietzsche
in response to Jody's "it's matter of taste" post: 

jbor wrote:  


"Nietzsche's philosophy was "to the taste" of the Nazis, in
that it was a selective and self-serving interpretation of
Nietzsche's work which they constructed off their own bat.
Not so much
"irresponsible embellishment" as outright violation." 

The analogy doesn't work, anyone with even a spoonful of
Nietzsche knows why, but as an ad hominem it works
perfectly. Is it an ad hominem? 

Now, we can excuse jbor's error, if in fact it was an error,
but I think he should explain his meaning. 

Doug's hyperbole of the day was: 

"And I'm reminded of rj's interminable effort to erase the
Holocaust  from GR, in an interpretive move that would seem
to advance
a reading of Pynchon's novel which, by suppressing the
manifold direct 
allusions to the Holocaust in the text, could support the
neo-Nazi revisionist history project and the globalizing,
corporate
forces this project currently serves."


Hyperbole may not be an effective way to reply to ad
hominem, but why call attention to the hyperbole, if in fact
it is hyperbole and not ad hominem too, and ignore the more
offensive ad hominem?