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Being able to freely discuss and share one’s thoughts in the public sphere is one of the hallmarks of a society that embraces freedom and freedom of speech. We, as responsible concerned citizens, should not be afraid to examine, discuss, and delve deeply into any topic that is important or relevant to our society and our social experience.
Authoritarians on the both the Right and the Left are opposed to citizenry in free societies discussing their pet issues in the public square and will use many tactics to shut down debate or at least increase the social cost of doing so, as to discourage most people from engaging.
Personally, I get this most when trying defend the notion that gender identity movement in its current form is actively harmful toward female rights, boundaries, and safety in our society. Trying to discuss the notion that men (regardless of how they identify) should not be in female prisons is a prime example of the rhetorical cartwheels seemingly engaged automatically when this topic is broached. “You hate trans people!” or “You’re transphobic!”…. Erm… No, it is just that there is a real safety problem with putting men into female single sex spaces that SHOULD have been discussed and debated before we actual did it here in Canadian society – So now we have to do it post hoc, ,and deal with the consequences of this foolish decision – that is females are being abused and sexually assaulted in female prisons by men who (falsely) claim they are women.
Men’s feelings about their gender should not outweigh the safety and security of women in institutional settings. This discussion needs to be had and should have been had in our public political landscape.
I digress a bit, but one of the many ways in which authoritarians attempt to discourage discussion – see the name calling example above – is the deployment of the motte-and-bailey fallacy. W.Alexander Bell tackles the fallacy in his essay quoted below:
“One way that happens is by using the motte-and-bailey fallacy. One modest and easy-to-defend position (the motte) is replaced by a much more controversial position (the bailey). A person will argue the bailey, but then replace it with the motte when questioned.
For example, a key concept of critical race theory and the broader social justice movement is the notion of lived experience, which means that marginalized people have better access to knowledge about their own experiences of oppression than privileged people do. On the surface, that seems quite reasonable. A white person can never know how it feels to be called the n-word, and a man might be oblivious to how it feels to be a woman in a male-dominated profession. Sexism and racism do exist, so it seems reasonable to assume that members of the majority are less likely to recognize such prejudices.
However, the proponents of critical race theory and intersectionality do not stop there. Smuggled into their notion of lived experience is an adherence to the more controversial “standpoint epistemology,” a postmodern theory of knowledge that rejects reaching for objectivity and argues that marginalized people have authoritative knowledge about complex systems of oppression and society itself.
For example, a colleague of mine at a Swedish university cited his lived experience when he argued that critics of Sweden’s immigration policies are all racists and should be banned from speaking at universities.
When I told him that his lived experience was just anecdotal—that there is no way he could generalize about millions of people based on a few bad encounters—he doubled down and replied, “that’s a very white male thing to say.” Initially, I worried that I wasn’t sympathetic enough to his experiences as an immigrant, despite being one myself. However, I now realize that I was being emotionally manipulated and shamed into silence through a very clever bait-and-switch. These tactics are not part of a good-faith debate, but rather a rhetorical strategy to claim epistemic authority and gain power.
Retreating to the motte of lived experience is a manipulative tactic that the disciples of the social justice movement use to exploit compassionate peoples’ desire not to offend others. The motte-and-bailey allows pseudo-academics and activists to shut down important discussions without making an argument or citing any credible scholarship or data. It also allows them to drown out well-reasoned arguments with selective anecdotes, emotional appeals, shaming tactics, and religious zealotry.
The idea that suffering brings enlightenment—that a class of “woke” individuals will lead us to the promised land with their “revealed knowledge”—has much more in common with religious mysticism than academic inquiry. In an age when we are dealing with increasingly urgent and complex issues such as climate change and a global pandemic, well-reasoned arguments have even greater importance. Personal experience doesn’t need to be ignored, but a personal anecdote cannot be a substitute for data and honest debate.”
Watch for it while you engage with (faux) progressives. Actually progressives want to make society better through thoughtful discussion and authentic inclusion of many different viewpoints. Faux-progressives will attempt to curate discussion and shutdown debate/discussion that is unpalatable to them.
For more on the Motte-and-Bailey fallacy see James Lindsey’s podcast on the topic.
This book is on my Xmas list.
The words of a teacher currently under investigation for wrongthink.
“For example, “racism is wrong” is an obvious, non-controversial statement, and what it means in the eyes of most people is that we should not judge others by the colour of their skin; everyone should be treated the same regardless of their race.
However, because the language has now been hijacked by “social justice” activists, normal, well-meaning individuals who agree with the above sentiment are being led astray, and agreeing to statements that do not mean what they imagine them to mean. For example, the idea of “anti-racism” might seem intuitively worthy of support, but it is in fact a politically charged concept which signals adherence to this illiberal doctrine. Compelling teachers to be “anti-racist”, as if that is the only morally acceptable stance, is akin to imposing religious views on them, and by extension on their students, and it is wrong.
The Ontario College of Teachers defines anti-racism not as the act of “judging people by their character and merit, rather than their skin colour”, but as “an active and consistent process of change to eliminate individual, institutional and systemic racism as well as the oppression and injustice racism causes”. And what do they mean by racism? Well, they are referring to the “attitudes, values and stereotypical beliefs” that are “deeply rooted”, and that people might not even be aware they have. This is grounded in the assumption that differential group outcomes in society only exist because of discrimination, which stems from CRT.
Based on this kind of flawed thinking, until all outcomes are completely equal for all groups of people in all facets of society (i.e., equity), we will need to continue the purification process of all white people, who are presumed to be guilty. Evidently, achieving equal outcomes for all groups will require brutal violations of individual rights, like discrimination based on skin colour, and we are already seeing these unjust practices in selecting only candidates of certain ethnicities for jobs, scholarships, or even for access to tax-payer funded homes. Anyone who does not see that allowing for this “skin colour first”, unjust playing field will only serve to inflame racial tensions, not diminish them, needs a wake up call.
When it comes to standing against the current push toward ideological conformity, each one of us has a role to play no matter our place in society. Teachers, in particular, who are entrusted with educating the next generation, must stand up and advocate for what it is we signed up to do. We are not preachers or moral guidance counsellors, and we are not political campaigners. Enough is enough!”
This is why it is so important to start from a place of definitional clarity so that you can understand what the other is trying to say (or not say). Part of the problem in dealing with activists is that they often jump to to the social pressure levers so that they do not have to explain their reasoning – don’t fall for it.
Excellent Summary.
Exhibit A: The Truth Matters
My fundamental right to assert the truth is the hill I am willing to die on. Here are some fundamental facts I will continue to assert because words have meanings and meanings matter:
· A “woman” is an adult human female.
· “Trans women” are not women. “Trans women” are trans-identifying males.
· A “man” is an adult human male. “Trans man” is a misleading oxymoron.
· Refusing to use misleading terminology to refer to trans people is not an expression of “hatred.”
· “Transphobia” cannot credibly be attributed to women because “phobia” means irrational fear. Female fear of male violence is perfectly rational because males are statistically significantly bigger, stronger and more prone to violence than females, particularly sexual violence.
Exhibit B: The Free Speech Argument.
Jordan Peterson was absolutely right that compelled speech is unacceptable. We have long accepted that threats of…
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Check out the rest of Peter Boghossian’s Channel for more demonstrations of how ‘woke-reasoning’ works.
The “Agree” participants in this debate are a case in point for what the gender ideology brainwashing does to your ability to make a coherent reasonable decision based on facts. What they do demonstrate is a new word, let’s take a look:
Bigoterring is precisely what is going on here in the later half of the video. Because gender ideology has no arguments other than hurt feelings and class antagonisms biogterring is almost always the card they play.
Pay particular attention when it comes to the part when Peter asks the Agree crowd to define their terms. Spoiler alert: They do not. Instead, they substitute personal attacks and bluster for arguments. It’s chilling to see supposedly educated adults engaging in such ruthless anti-intellectual behaviour.
Expect this though when you make a stand (and you must make a stand otherwise these confabulators win) for freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our society.
This is what we are going up against. The primacy of stand-point epistemology(1) versus the common reality we all share is huge barrier to overcome as any sort of argument of discussion can be had. I think this is the situation that we have to prepare for when dealing with people who have been knowingly or unknowingly indoctrinated into a Critical Theory (2) mind-set.
The ‘social workers’ failed on every level to even engage in a substantive dialogue with Peter Boghossian. What was demonstrated in their failure to engage with Dr.Boghossian was an unwillingness to think outside their ideological box – they had the right answers – just count how many times the words “triggered” was used. These are proto-professionals who cannot engage with ideas that do not match their own. It’s completely fucking scary.
(1) – In summary, standpoint epistemology (and related identity-based epistemologies) are a complicated and widely discredited way to create and justify a kind of gnosticism around critical conceptions of identity and the relevant power dynamics in society. In practice, this typically means it is yet another justification within Theory for only people who agree with Theory to be considered knowledgeable authorities, which is then used to silence opposition and install “professionals” in positions of authority and power based on group identity alone—or, almost alone, as such people tend to have to present a critical consciousness, i.e., be woke Critical Social Justice activists, as well (see also, diversity and inclusion).
(2) – Max Horkheimer defined a “Critical Theory” in direct opposition to a “Traditional Theory” in a 1937 piece called Traditional and Critical Theory. Whereas a Traditional Theory is meant to be descriptive of some phenomenon, usually social, and aims to understand how it works and why it works that way, a Critical Theory should proceed from a prescriptive normative moral vision for society, describe how the item being critiqued fails that vision (usually in a systemic sense), and prescribe activism to subvert, dismantle, disrupt, overthrow, or change it—that is, generally, to break and then remake society in accordance with the particular critical theory’s prescribed vision. This use of the word “critical” is drawn from Marx’s insistence that everything be “ruthlessly” criticized and from his admonition that the point of studying society is to change it. Of note, then, a Critical Theory is only tangentially concerned with understanding or truth and has, as Hume might have it, abandoned descriptions of what is in favor of pushing for what the particular critical theory holds ought to be. The critical methodology, then, is the central object of concern, and it is the tool by which Social Justice scholarship and activism proceed.
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