The title of this blog is from Latin: translation, "to the man". In logic, a branch of Philosophy, it is generally related to a fallacious attempt to attack an argument someone is making by attacking the person making the argument, not the argument itself. The expression usually refers to a personal attack or a personal abuse of a person in the way of insults or belittlement. One would think an ad hominem would have no place in chess, but unfortunately, we see it all too often. We especially see it in Missouri chess for some reason. Most chess websites, unless they are highly professional, seem to dedicate themselves to either explaining a personal attack or publish attacks on others. Perhaps chess creates an over inflated sense of ego in those who play the game and somehow if you play this game your views on the world supercede everyone elses, who knows?
In the late 1970's thru the 1990's, it was done through mailings (which I received all too frequently) and I assume the person making the mailings got names and addresses from chess membership lists. These mailings usually attacked one particular person for things not related to chess, but the intent as far as I could discern was to get the person out of the chess community. It also appears, that politics have a lot to do with these attacks in that one person or group of people think the people in "chess power" have too much power. We see this not only in Missouri chess, but on the national scene as well. I vowed this site would not be a party to such bickerings, no exceptions, and thus the reason for this blog, and the hope is, that if this is read, other sites will remove such commentary. I feel it is harmful to the promotion of chess and the community at large. I do not have any pretenses: I know these chess websites are not viewed by that many people. But the few that do read them, see an ugliness that is not the beauty of the game. It seems when the stakes are low, people want power; afterall, we are talking about chess here and we all know how much money and influence are up for grabs in the most lucrative world of chess, particularly at the local level! Let the game speak for itself and let's remove the behind the scenes personal vendettas from our chess websites. If and when an unpleasantness rears its head, the game and its culture demand an appropriate response, but not one of a personal nature.
In the late 1970's thru the 1990's, it was done through mailings (which I received all too frequently) and I assume the person making the mailings got names and addresses from chess membership lists. These mailings usually attacked one particular person for things not related to chess, but the intent as far as I could discern was to get the person out of the chess community. It also appears, that politics have a lot to do with these attacks in that one person or group of people think the people in "chess power" have too much power. We see this not only in Missouri chess, but on the national scene as well. I vowed this site would not be a party to such bickerings, no exceptions, and thus the reason for this blog, and the hope is, that if this is read, other sites will remove such commentary. I feel it is harmful to the promotion of chess and the community at large. I do not have any pretenses: I know these chess websites are not viewed by that many people. But the few that do read them, see an ugliness that is not the beauty of the game. It seems when the stakes are low, people want power; afterall, we are talking about chess here and we all know how much money and influence are up for grabs in the most lucrative world of chess, particularly at the local level! Let the game speak for itself and let's remove the behind the scenes personal vendettas from our chess websites. If and when an unpleasantness rears its head, the game and its culture demand an appropriate response, but not one of a personal nature.
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