Argumentum ad Hominem. Argumentation Strategies of Conspiracy Theories Advocates in Slovak Internet Discussions

The article tries to analyse argumentation strategies of conspiracy theories advocates in Slovak Internet discussions. The goal is to comprehend the causes of persuasiveness and successful cultural transmission of conspiracy theories. The article is based on the presumption that arguments used by contributors in the discussion, are an image of what they consider to be persuasive, and for this reason, they reflect - to a certain extent - the successful cultural transmission. The results show that the pro-conspiracy argumentation in the discussions systematically repeats the “argument ad hominem”, which - instead of attacking the essence and content of arguments in official stories - attacked the sources of information or persons that supported them in a given discussion. The attacks accused them of intentional deception and participation in the conspiracy. Referring to cognitive-psychological literature, the author comes to a conclusion that this phenomenon can be explained by people´s natural tendency to prefer explanations that offer other people´s intentions as a cause of an event. Figuratively speaking, the conspiracy theories “sponge” on the natural property of human thinking to occupy oneself with intentions of other people.