Eh.
Discussion about people behind the ideas is also exceedingly important.
Marx was a horrible racist, husband, and father.
Fuocoult was a blatant pedophile.
And etc.
Yes, ideas are extremely important, but... Where they come from, who develops them, are also crucial to knowing a fuller context of what those ideas are and how they are meant to effect the world.
Ad hominem is not a principle to be upheld. It is a sham on our cognitive abilities. The fuller context, what the ideas are, and how they are meant to affect the world has nothing to do with the people who say them. It has to do with our efforts to study these ideas.
I will disagree with you. I don't think it is an ad hominem "attack" to point out the egregious failings of the darlings of the current crop of pseudo-intellectuals who are the main force behind everything that we are struggling against now.
Good ideas tend to come from good people. Bad ideas tend to come from bad people.
Also, I think you can do both. And you probably should do both when appropriate for topic.
You can say Hitler was horrible racists and maniac but despite that he was right on importance of I don't know, vitamins for example.
Yes.
I'm really not a fan of the concept of "separating the art from the artist" as it is not like those are at all separable.
Sure, some people may exhibit mastery of some sort, but... I'm less likely to like their art of they are some kind of wrongun.
Yes. Your brain is not working like that.
You can't separate it completely.
Stupid example, but in Twitter era, when all of the actors started to express their political views and opinions - I feel myself liking even good movie less for this reason. I see the actor and somewhere in background my brain is feeding me "he said this about free speech" etc. 😁
I'm the same way now with "that dude is a total pedo, I don't want to watch this."
Funny to me that people don't allow Christians this leeway.
