“A very common (and newly-named) informal rhetorical trick I’ve been observing, both online and in real life, is this one right here. The motte-and-bailey fallacy (also known as the ‘motte-and-bailey doctrine’). Although it is often found in arguments made by supporters of social justice, a lot of extremist ideologies also use it.
Effectively, it is bait-and-switch. Example:
Monique: All white people are racist.
Joshua: Why do you believe that, when you don’t know every white person nor their beliefs?
Monique: Well, when we say “all whites are racist”, what we really mean is, all whites are racially biased as a result of being brought up with certain beliefs in the context of a racialised society.
Ignore the lack of specificity in Monique’s argument for a moment. Notice what she does. She asserts a controversial position (the bailey), which is desired, but hard to defend. When Joshua challenges her, she retreats to a less controversial position (the motte), which is easier to defend, but undesired. She then attempts to equate the two positions to obscure the fact that her claim was effectively stepped down.
The power of this fallacy lies in the ability to defend a less controversial, or “weaker” position, while giving the impression that a “stronger”, or more controversial one, was defended instead.
Another example of bait-and-switch:
Tim: Feminism is the radical notion that women are people. If you believe that, then surely, you must be a feminist.
This is motte-and-bailey as well, but without the bailey at first – call it the ‘Hidden Bailey’ fallacy. Tim gives an uncontroversial position, and equates it with his ideology – feminism – which is actually more than is implied in that statement. Virtually everyone will agree that women are people, yet, other concepts in feminism – like patriarchy theory, rape culture, etc. are far more contested and may not be agreed upon by people who accept the first statement. Tim is baiting people into thinking they agree with him, only to switch to his real beliefs afterwards.”
Did you want to learn about the Motte and Bailey with further context of how it is being used to leverage specious ‘social justice’ claims in our society? Take a listen to the New Discourses podcast on the topic.
“Increasingly, Western societies – especially the English-speaking countries – are becoming two different peoples speaking two very different languages and believing in two modes of living. One camp believes in some form of objective truth and labels humans as either male or female. They acknowledge there are endless variations in the ways humans express themselves, but they are certain there are only two sexes. The concept of two sexes is so ancient and fundamental to our makeup as a species, we’re still wrapping our heads around having to verbalize what was always common sense. Defending the obvious is exhausting.
Clash of two camps: If universal truths are no longer recognized and everything is a “construct,” writes the author, society becomes increasingly divided even at the level of basic understanding and language. Shown are: (top) the 2023 Drag Up Fight Back protest, San Francisco, CA; (bottom) the meeting against minor children transgender policies, Vancouver, B.C. (Sources of photos: (top) Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock; (bottom) EJ Nickerson/Shutterstock)
The other camp believes in a post-modernist version of constructed truth in which there are dozens of “fluid” genders that negate sex and biology. They also believe that anyone who does not subscribe to this belief is a heretic and as evil as a Nazi. They have the news and entertainment media, most of academia, much of the corporate world, and more and more of the state apparatus (from educational bureaucracies to human rights commissions) on their side.
How do these two camps speak to one another? The two belief systems require very different laws and social norms. If there are only two sexes, the man in my mother’s story is not allowed in the women’s changeroom. If sex is a social construct and can change through self-declaration or self-perception, that man can be a woman and is therefore allowed in the women’s changeroom. Right now, it seems the latter camp is winning and that we no longer share a common understanding of basic truths or even of language. Words like “man” or “woman” that were once universal are no longer.
A society that does not have a shared language cannot share thoughts. A society that is divided on whether or not there is objective truth, outside of personal feelings and emotions, cannot set laws or policies that work for the broadest range of people. A society where women and girls are cowed into silence when a crime is perpetrated against them for fear of being labelled the enemy is a shaky society indeed.”
You cannot cure what you don’t understand. Let’s, with the help from Woke Watch Canada, understand what is going on under the hood of the activist Left and their gender ideology.
“So what is the ideology behind the activists pushing these expanded pride flags? First it is clear that the ever more complex flags we are seeing represent the entrenchment of Critical Theory- the belief that our society is a kind of caste system made up of a hierarchy of identity based groups. Your intersectional identity supposedly dictates your place in this dystopian country we are said to inhabit. We are told it is our duty to break this oppressive system down! But don’t ask for actual empirical evidence that this hierarchy exists (do believe any anecdotal evidence, though) and don’t ask too many questions about what the system that is going to replace the current one will look like.
Trans activists claim their place at the zenith of the oppression hierarchy (most oppressed) and thus portray any opposition to their gender ideology- a belief system holds that a person’s gender is some kind of ethereal essence, akin to a soul, which is untethered to the biological sex of a person’s body- as transphobia. Their goal is to win maximum public acceptance of this belief system. The key to entrenching any ideology is of course the indoctrinaiton of youth. Thus the battle rages in our schools. Youth, who are confused in general as they are learning about the ever more complex world in which they find themselves, are exceptionally vulnerable. The gender activists know that, which is why they try to keep potentially recalcitrant parents in the dark as long as possible.
Since this “sexed soul” concept is a rather hard sell among rationally minded people, activists have another front on their attack which is to deny the biological sex binary even exists. These denials usually come from social scientists rather than biologists but are nevertheless often effective in conflating biological sex with gender identity (a person’s internal feeling as to the sex to which they belong) among the general public, most of whom are not well versed when it comes to reproductive biology.
Given all the above, you can see why people generally, and devoutly religious people especially, would object to the indoctrination into gender ideology taking place in Ontario schools. For the gender ideology activists, it is convenient to point to the many truly homo and transphobic people out there and then paint all opposed to gender ideology with one brush, but that does not change the fact that there are plenty of people who accept and support the rights of gay and trans people yet do not accept gender ideology. Many such people are in fact gay or trans themselves!
In a free and democratic society, no schools should be indoctrinating kids into any kind of ideology. Students should be taught what we currently understand to be scientific fact, along with the understanding that what is believed to be true today may be proved false tomorrow. Knowledge is not socially constructed, as the Critical Theory proponents would have you believe, but rather acquired by making observations, formulating hypotheses, and then testing those hypotheses through carefully controlled experiments.
The idea that sex is anything other than the body’s intended reproductive strategy has no scientific validity at all. Of course gender identity, on the other hand, is a personal matter. But it should be pointed out that without a clear definition of biological sex, it would be impossible to associate behaviours, attitudes, feelings, etc. as male or female. Thus gender identity rests on the sex binary (which holds notwithstanding the tiny number of intersex people). This is an example of the kind of nuance kids need to be able to understand before making permanent and life-altering decisions like drug regimens and surgeries.
Gender ideology has gained a great deal of traction in the Western world. It has captured many of our institutions. Given the egregious history of oppression gay and trans people have faced, the lure to want to be “on the right side of history” and accept the ideology is understandable. But anyone who ever embraced any ideology always believed that they were right, and looking back at the 20th century we see the human misery in the wake of many fervently held ideologies, all of which employed the strategy of state indoctrination of youth.
Thus, while it is appropriate that students should learn about Critical Theory and gender ideology in school when they are old enough to understand them, it is equally important that they not be indoctrinated into these belief systems.
Sadly, the pride flag, which once simply represented a basic call for acceptance and human dignity for gay people, has been appropriated by gender ideologues who would tell young kids that they may have been “born in the wrong body”. People who, in the interest of promoting their personal ideology, are ready to shepherd our youth down an irreversible path of drugs and surgeries based on nothing more than the coerced say-so of kids as young as 4 years old. Decades of studies, as related in the excellent BBC video Transgender Kids, exist to show that most gender dysphoria-suffering kids eventually grow to accept their bodies and go on to be relatively well adjusted adults.“
This is from a resource aimed at children and teachers to ‘educate’ them on the finer points of gender-woo. It is here the notion of the unfalsifiable gender-soul is born. This woo, because of Bill C-16 is a category. In the same list as “sex” in our Charter.
See the problem yet? Sex is based on physical observable reality. Gender Identity is nebulous at very best. I’m sure nothing can go wrong with these two aspects sharing the same priority in our Nations Charter or Rights and Freedoms…
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