THERE is a gutter mentality syndrome that pervades many of our so-called intellectuals of this country. It is suggesting that many of them are so intellectually bankrupt that they are unable to present sufficient facts and evidence to support their arguments when trying to convince the audience that their points of view are correct.

It was only recently that Dr Ian McDonald wrote an appropriate article in the Stabroek News in which he highlighted the various fallacies used in arguments, but it seems to me that some of the ‘bright boys’ failed to read that article(‘Political Rhetoric’-March 3,  2013) or it came too late for a learned Attorney-at-law in Berbice to read it.
On March 2 at an AFC meeting at Adelphi, Attorney-at-Law Mr Charrandass Persaud made some extremely disparaging statements with regard to Dr V. Sharma, the Medical Superintendent attached to the New Amsterdam Hospital. He tried to project to the audience at that meeting that the problems at the Hospital was because there ‘is a really oversized doctor named Sharma’ and that ‘Sharma is trying to control her own bodyweight and she can’t do that; she is controlling the whole of the New Amsterdam Hospital operation’ then he dived deeper into the cesspool. The AFC National Executive Council member continued that, ‘the girl is so fat that she cannot fit in the front seat of a jeep. She can’t control her own bodyweight. She is controlling our lives.’ This statement is a disgrace to our women and people generally.                                                                                                                                                                       As a practising attorney, Mr Persaud should be very acquainted with the various fallacies which will invalidate his arguments, he must have heard about ‘argumentum ad hominem. This is where a speaker or writer launches a personal attack against a person without addressing the issues at hand. He must have also heard about ‘cum hoc ergo propter hoc’- correlation proves causation. This is a faulty assumption which states that one thing caused the other thing to happen-if someone is fat then that person cannot do his/her job properly. When people who are supposed to be the intellectuals in society are stooping so low to appeal and persuade their audience it smacks of intellectual bankruptcy.
History is replete with the achievements of ‘really oversized’ people- Sir Winston Churchill –Prime Minister of England; Mr. Howard Taft-President of the United States and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Theodore Roosevelt-President of the United States; Queen Victoria of England and Catherine the Great of Russia. These are just a few! Moreover, many of the nicest people I know are ‘really oversized’ ones. But it seems that some people feel that the most competent people today are the ones who have model-like bodies and are attractive and beautiful or handsome. Genetic fallacies make poor and useless arguments.
Unfortunately, this type of gutter language seems to pervade deeply in our society today and it is this type of language that seems to appeal to most people in society.
How can we bring about a change in society when we are behaving worse that the people we want to lead? Where is the intellectual honesty? Where is our moral compass? How can a person who belongs to a high profession stoop so low?
Lastly, we must deal with our intellectual ‘fitness’ before dealing with our ‘physical fitness’-the way a person looks, his/her bodyweight, his ethnicity ,race and all the other outward characteristics have absolutely nothing to do with his/her ability to do his/her job, and the sooner this is recognised the faster progress will be made.
Mr. Persaud,a word of advice:stop using formal and informal fallacies when presenting your arguments in the future. We need facts not fallacies!