Kn0w1llusions
The Force is Strong With This One
I came across this article not too long ago that discusses the "Motte and Bailey Doctrine" by Nicholas Shackel which I believe is an invaluable tool in countering fallacious arguments. Indeed, the doctrine was made expressly as a tool to counter post-modernism's more pernicious tendencies.
Article found here: _http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/
Original paper by Shackel: _http://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf
Another excellent article on it: _https://deusdiapente.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/the-motte-and-bailey-doctrine/
There's plenty of salient points made in the above material, definitely a lot of "meat to chew on". Here's a straightforward definition by Scott Alexander in the first article:
What I interpret this to mean is that it's a rather cynical, almost juvenile, debating tactic to kind of force someone to accept a "Trojan horse" argument by essentially blackmailing them. You advocate a controversial or even offensive position/argument/policy that caters to your prejudices and beliefs that often attacks and disenfranchises other people and would, under normal circumstances, come under heavy criticism and objection. People generally are aware of this so they know they have to disguise this as something innocuous to get it through and distill their argument to a emotional satisfying platitude so unoffensive that only an irrational bigot would reject it. In other words, it's a genuinely cowardly move to provoke or insult someone, then retreat to a "safe impregnable ideological fort" whenever the heat in the kitchen gets too hot. Just think of the recent "The Interview" and Charlie Hebdo debacles where people automatically retreated to "defending free speech" as an excuse which is, at best, a disingenuous non-sequitor or, at worst, an open tacit approval of "soft" white supremacism.
Here are few examples using common ideologies and their "textbook definitions" reworded to make them sound innocent and wholesome while disguising the real agenda that would no doubt encounter considerable opposition.
Capitalism:
(Bailey) The freedom to work hard, gain wealth, let children run lemonade stands and clear driveways in the winter, etc.
(Motte) Structural Adjustments, neoliberalism, wholesale pillaging of entire economies, et al.
Communism:
(Bailey) Everyone shares the resources, no one's left to starve and die in the streets, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need
(Motte) Secret police, Gulags, bureaucracy, totalitarian cruelty
Feminism:
(Bailey) Ensuring women are legally equal in all regards to in men in all facets of society
(Motte) Ensuring women have privilege over men with society and laws all biased in favour of women at the expense of men
Gay rights:
(Bailey) Finally allowing gays, lesbians, transgenders to be treated as equals in society, free of persecution and discrimination
(Motte) Ramming a distasteful "gay culture" down everyone's throats and scream "homophobe" and "bigot" whenever there's the inevitable gag reflex that follows (e.g. Bryan Singer's twink pool parties. Incidentally, I heard first hand from a friend who knew someone who ended up in Singer's "superman" bedroom during one of these parties and described it accurately before the whole thing blew up, but I digress)
You get the idea. As Alexander points out, it's similar to the "weak man" fallacy, and no doubt many people were already aware of this phenomenon at least unconsciously because, frankly, people do this all the time, and now Western universities, heck Western popular culture in general, are practically training thousands of young adults to engage in this kind of
despicable behaviour. (Alexander's comments on the whole "Social Justice" movement expands on this further: _http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/)
Deus Diapente touches upon the lack of free will and how it's people who "don't know their own machine" who will often use this. Here's some good bits:
Living in Montreal which has literally become a fundamentalist secular mecca, I'm amazed at the sheer amount of people who engage in this type of behaviour; who are guilty of the very same things they accuse religious people of doing (ditto for the Gay Rights activists who have become just as bullying, thuggish, intolerant and bigoted as their supposed detractors and have even become in some cases outright racists). The overwhelming hypocrisy in people around here who preach this liberal-secularist extremism is enough to give your brain and soul a raging fever.
The most obnoxious (to put it politely) are the so-called New Atheists who's hypocrisy can be best summarized by the case of notorious blowhard and "Bulls**t" peddler, Penn Jilette. Here's his article where he insists as a "professional skeptic" that "He doesn't know" (_http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/03/opinion/oe-jillette3) and yet when it comes to the question of the existence of God he is adamant in knowing that there is no God (_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UFNksTXMd0). Suddenly, "I don't know" goes out the window, and yet this is typical of his ilk and their fanbase. This glaring contradictory statements predicated on egocentric beliefs over things that can't be objectively proven one way or the other is the hallmark of these types; it's all onanistic pretension by douchebags who seem more interested in catering their insecurities by trolling others and showing the world how "smart" and clever they are rather than actually trying to make it a better place (as Marc Maron said, there are no Atheist soup kitchens).
I hope that tangent wasn't too offbase but it goes to show that the people who claim to be the most rational are in fact some of the most irrational, they just have more sophisticated ways of covering it up and more access to the media to promote it without criticism, and that the Motte and Bailey serves very handily for that end.
Anyway I wanted to get the ball rolling on the Motte and Bailey Doctrine by bringing it to everyone's attention. I also wanted to link it to my idea of The Marketplace of Ideas.
About a decade ago I first promoted this idea on this forum (I couldn't find the original thread after several attempts, in either case it wasn't very elaborate).
I have no doubt that others have come up with similar, if not identical, theories on this concept but I figure I'd put it here to again provide some food for thought. Along with rise of propaganda in the West and the absolute essential role it plays in controlling Western "democratic" societies (a la Noam Chomsky's work such as Manufacturing Consent and Adam Curtis' Century of Self) there is a need to cater to the divergent beliefs and value systems of the numerous individuals and groups that make up the social mosiacs of Western societies, particularly the multicultural parts of North America.
Early on in childhood, certain values are instilled or are seeded and gestated inside the psyches of human beings, usually put in by parents or society at large. This is before children are able to think critically and don't have the capacity to challenge those values, either cognitively or practically (you can't exactly tell your abusive parents you don't buy into their beliefs and risk suffering the life-threatening consequences). An invaluable example of this would be someone like Grover Norquist who's father taught him "taxes were bad" by taking bites out of his ice cream as a child or Ayn Rand who's mother took her toys away also as a child. These were likely key events in the formation of the world views of both these individuals; the supposed "libertarian" rational for pure selfishness that has found such fertile ground in our polluted society. I forget who it was that said it (John Chuckman, perhaps) but they suggested looking into these innocuous incidents as a source for these distorted, unhealthy worldviews and to apply this as a scientific inquiry.
The point is that a value system in an individual, apart from that shaped externally, is often shaped internally by their emotional reactions to their lives' experiences, the injustices (both real and perceived) they suffer under and the emotional reactions to them. Once the emotions are strong enough the value-ideological-worldview of an individual can rapidly get set into stone and, baring a massive shocking event that can "wake them up" and prompt them to reevaluate their preconceived prejudices, they are usually stuck with this worldview for life as it guides their politics, relationships, etc. Insofar, that parents, teachers, mass media, et al. can shape this, the internal formation of this worldview is largely up to the individual; external influences, no matter how powerful, can only go so far and it's never a guarantee. So how do you make sure that not too many people end up "straying from the flock"?
This is where the "Marketplace of Ideas" comes in. The PTB no doubt realized likely over a century ago that while the more opinion-makers you have playing pied pipers to the "ignorant masses" the more risk they have that those same opinion-makers not conform to the desired ways of thinking, you still need to have these "shepards/pied pipers" covering a wide range of thoughts, beliefs, and worldviews, to keep as many people inside "official culture" as possible. If you have, say, 50 opinion makers shaping the thoughts and values of a country, all of whom more or less conform to each other along a very narrow ideological framework, even if it's shaped as a Hegelian Dialectic, you will still run the risk of having people who won't find any of it appealing or emotionally satisfying to their own experiences and worldviews. Thus, this being a consumer culture offering "choice" and all, you use the "invisible hand of the free market" towards the "Marketplace of Ideas". You offer "brands" and "products" marketed just right to appeal to every type of acceptable ideology and worldview.
Are you a sentimentalist liberal who still wants to viewed as realist and a patriot? No problem. Depending on your attention span, age and/or education you can go for something high brow like PBS, NPR, The Nation, etc. or you can go for entertainers like John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Michael Moore (BTW has anyone else noticed that most young people who are "political" are merely just regurgitating whatever Steward and Colbert said the night before?). Want a bit more bite and snark to your liberalism while giving enough variation to make it seem you're more sophisticated? Easy, Bill Maher and Cenk Unger got just the right amount of sarcasm and bile for you. Are you a mainstream conservative who isn't too set in the standard definition? Bill O'Reilly can speak to your soul. More angry as a conservative and don't care about offending anyone? Let Ann Coulter pour honey into your ears. Are either one too mainstream for you? Easy, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck will help you get emotionally worked up over the "New World Order". I could go on but I believe the point has been made.
In the end, these "pied pipers" end up becoming brands no different from cars, computers, smartphones, etc. They have their "fanboys" who follow each of their words religiously. Whatever differences between them are as minute and tactical as they are between democrats and republicans. If you want a bit of drama you can throw in a little controversy every now and then, have some "beef" between them, and it'll turn into a wrestling-styled soap opera with everyone defending their respective "teams" all while masquerading as kind of sophisticated political jaw-jawing (it isn't but in Western society the overriding goal is simply to APPEAR being "smart" not actually being "smart" or contributing anything substantive aside from regurgitating ideological rhetoric).
These soothsayers need not necessarily meet up in a dark room and work out the particulars of their drama but then reality isn't terribly far from that either (Michael Moore's tax records showing he owns stock in Halliburton come to mind). It isn't even necessary really. A lot of these people are friends, follow the same social circles and are part of the same milieus as celebrities who want to hold and maintain their privileged lifestyles; it's no different from blue bloods or upper classes in general. As I said, differences are tactical, most of the time they conform to the prevailing ideological headwinds and when push comes to shove they'll happily defend each other as "friends" (see Michael Moore defending Maher's Islamophobia).
You would think the advent of the Internet would give people a wider range of ranges and more diverse opinions but as I'm sure anyone reading this already knows that that is flatout not the case, and in fact, reality is opposite. People have become MORE conformed and the number of differing opinions has dropped markedly. People merely find their favourite pied pipers who gives them the emotionally satisfying highs they crave that reinforce their biases and prejudices and the worldviews they had since they were children. Why bother using the internet to find different or opposing views when all it does is bring "thinky pain" to your brain? Human beings are creatures who are born to follow the path of lease resistance after all.
How this ties to the Motte and Bailey Doctrine is that the Doctrine serves as a marketing tool for a given ideology/worldview/opinion. Kind of like how people think drinking a milkshake will make them lose weight because it says "Slim Fast" on it, or that a sugary drink is healthy because the name has "Vitamins" on it. You make a sales pitch for an idea ("product") highlight it's ostensible benefits, gets the buyer emotionally worked out to the point where they don't think critically or read the fine print. And if anyone does and raises their objections, the seller can wax indignant and retreat back to their "Motte". It goes without saying that being aware of this kind of trick can go a long way in the consumerist, conformist West.
I'll wrap it up now and let others add and contribute to this. I do hope that this forum finds value in this post. I don't have much time to really contribute to this forum but when I do I like to bring something worth everyone's while.
Article found here: _http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/
Original paper by Shackel: _http://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf
Another excellent article on it: _https://deusdiapente.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/the-motte-and-bailey-doctrine/
There's plenty of salient points made in the above material, definitely a lot of "meat to chew on". Here's a straightforward definition by Scott Alexander in the first article:
Alexander said:
What I interpret this to mean is that it's a rather cynical, almost juvenile, debating tactic to kind of force someone to accept a "Trojan horse" argument by essentially blackmailing them. You advocate a controversial or even offensive position/argument/policy that caters to your prejudices and beliefs that often attacks and disenfranchises other people and would, under normal circumstances, come under heavy criticism and objection. People generally are aware of this so they know they have to disguise this as something innocuous to get it through and distill their argument to a emotional satisfying platitude so unoffensive that only an irrational bigot would reject it. In other words, it's a genuinely cowardly move to provoke or insult someone, then retreat to a "safe impregnable ideological fort" whenever the heat in the kitchen gets too hot. Just think of the recent "The Interview" and Charlie Hebdo debacles where people automatically retreated to "defending free speech" as an excuse which is, at best, a disingenuous non-sequitor or, at worst, an open tacit approval of "soft" white supremacism.
Here are few examples using common ideologies and their "textbook definitions" reworded to make them sound innocent and wholesome while disguising the real agenda that would no doubt encounter considerable opposition.
Capitalism:
(Bailey) The freedom to work hard, gain wealth, let children run lemonade stands and clear driveways in the winter, etc.
(Motte) Structural Adjustments, neoliberalism, wholesale pillaging of entire economies, et al.
Communism:
(Bailey) Everyone shares the resources, no one's left to starve and die in the streets, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need
(Motte) Secret police, Gulags, bureaucracy, totalitarian cruelty
Feminism:
(Bailey) Ensuring women are legally equal in all regards to in men in all facets of society
(Motte) Ensuring women have privilege over men with society and laws all biased in favour of women at the expense of men
Gay rights:
(Bailey) Finally allowing gays, lesbians, transgenders to be treated as equals in society, free of persecution and discrimination
(Motte) Ramming a distasteful "gay culture" down everyone's throats and scream "homophobe" and "bigot" whenever there's the inevitable gag reflex that follows (e.g. Bryan Singer's twink pool parties. Incidentally, I heard first hand from a friend who knew someone who ended up in Singer's "superman" bedroom during one of these parties and described it accurately before the whole thing blew up, but I digress)
You get the idea. As Alexander points out, it's similar to the "weak man" fallacy, and no doubt many people were already aware of this phenomenon at least unconsciously because, frankly, people do this all the time, and now Western universities, heck Western popular culture in general, are practically training thousands of young adults to engage in this kind of
despicable behaviour. (Alexander's comments on the whole "Social Justice" movement expands on this further: _http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/)
Deus Diapente touches upon the lack of free will and how it's people who "don't know their own machine" who will often use this. Here's some good bits:
Diapente said:
Living in Montreal which has literally become a fundamentalist secular mecca, I'm amazed at the sheer amount of people who engage in this type of behaviour; who are guilty of the very same things they accuse religious people of doing (ditto for the Gay Rights activists who have become just as bullying, thuggish, intolerant and bigoted as their supposed detractors and have even become in some cases outright racists). The overwhelming hypocrisy in people around here who preach this liberal-secularist extremism is enough to give your brain and soul a raging fever.
The most obnoxious (to put it politely) are the so-called New Atheists who's hypocrisy can be best summarized by the case of notorious blowhard and "Bulls**t" peddler, Penn Jilette. Here's his article where he insists as a "professional skeptic" that "He doesn't know" (_http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/03/opinion/oe-jillette3) and yet when it comes to the question of the existence of God he is adamant in knowing that there is no God (_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UFNksTXMd0). Suddenly, "I don't know" goes out the window, and yet this is typical of his ilk and their fanbase. This glaring contradictory statements predicated on egocentric beliefs over things that can't be objectively proven one way or the other is the hallmark of these types; it's all onanistic pretension by douchebags who seem more interested in catering their insecurities by trolling others and showing the world how "smart" and clever they are rather than actually trying to make it a better place (as Marc Maron said, there are no Atheist soup kitchens).
I hope that tangent wasn't too offbase but it goes to show that the people who claim to be the most rational are in fact some of the most irrational, they just have more sophisticated ways of covering it up and more access to the media to promote it without criticism, and that the Motte and Bailey serves very handily for that end.
Anyway I wanted to get the ball rolling on the Motte and Bailey Doctrine by bringing it to everyone's attention. I also wanted to link it to my idea of The Marketplace of Ideas.
About a decade ago I first promoted this idea on this forum (I couldn't find the original thread after several attempts, in either case it wasn't very elaborate).
I have no doubt that others have come up with similar, if not identical, theories on this concept but I figure I'd put it here to again provide some food for thought. Along with rise of propaganda in the West and the absolute essential role it plays in controlling Western "democratic" societies (a la Noam Chomsky's work such as Manufacturing Consent and Adam Curtis' Century of Self) there is a need to cater to the divergent beliefs and value systems of the numerous individuals and groups that make up the social mosiacs of Western societies, particularly the multicultural parts of North America.
Early on in childhood, certain values are instilled or are seeded and gestated inside the psyches of human beings, usually put in by parents or society at large. This is before children are able to think critically and don't have the capacity to challenge those values, either cognitively or practically (you can't exactly tell your abusive parents you don't buy into their beliefs and risk suffering the life-threatening consequences). An invaluable example of this would be someone like Grover Norquist who's father taught him "taxes were bad" by taking bites out of his ice cream as a child or Ayn Rand who's mother took her toys away also as a child. These were likely key events in the formation of the world views of both these individuals; the supposed "libertarian" rational for pure selfishness that has found such fertile ground in our polluted society. I forget who it was that said it (John Chuckman, perhaps) but they suggested looking into these innocuous incidents as a source for these distorted, unhealthy worldviews and to apply this as a scientific inquiry.
The point is that a value system in an individual, apart from that shaped externally, is often shaped internally by their emotional reactions to their lives' experiences, the injustices (both real and perceived) they suffer under and the emotional reactions to them. Once the emotions are strong enough the value-ideological-worldview of an individual can rapidly get set into stone and, baring a massive shocking event that can "wake them up" and prompt them to reevaluate their preconceived prejudices, they are usually stuck with this worldview for life as it guides their politics, relationships, etc. Insofar, that parents, teachers, mass media, et al. can shape this, the internal formation of this worldview is largely up to the individual; external influences, no matter how powerful, can only go so far and it's never a guarantee. So how do you make sure that not too many people end up "straying from the flock"?
This is where the "Marketplace of Ideas" comes in. The PTB no doubt realized likely over a century ago that while the more opinion-makers you have playing pied pipers to the "ignorant masses" the more risk they have that those same opinion-makers not conform to the desired ways of thinking, you still need to have these "shepards/pied pipers" covering a wide range of thoughts, beliefs, and worldviews, to keep as many people inside "official culture" as possible. If you have, say, 50 opinion makers shaping the thoughts and values of a country, all of whom more or less conform to each other along a very narrow ideological framework, even if it's shaped as a Hegelian Dialectic, you will still run the risk of having people who won't find any of it appealing or emotionally satisfying to their own experiences and worldviews. Thus, this being a consumer culture offering "choice" and all, you use the "invisible hand of the free market" towards the "Marketplace of Ideas". You offer "brands" and "products" marketed just right to appeal to every type of acceptable ideology and worldview.
Are you a sentimentalist liberal who still wants to viewed as realist and a patriot? No problem. Depending on your attention span, age and/or education you can go for something high brow like PBS, NPR, The Nation, etc. or you can go for entertainers like John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Michael Moore (BTW has anyone else noticed that most young people who are "political" are merely just regurgitating whatever Steward and Colbert said the night before?). Want a bit more bite and snark to your liberalism while giving enough variation to make it seem you're more sophisticated? Easy, Bill Maher and Cenk Unger got just the right amount of sarcasm and bile for you. Are you a mainstream conservative who isn't too set in the standard definition? Bill O'Reilly can speak to your soul. More angry as a conservative and don't care about offending anyone? Let Ann Coulter pour honey into your ears. Are either one too mainstream for you? Easy, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck will help you get emotionally worked up over the "New World Order". I could go on but I believe the point has been made.
In the end, these "pied pipers" end up becoming brands no different from cars, computers, smartphones, etc. They have their "fanboys" who follow each of their words religiously. Whatever differences between them are as minute and tactical as they are between democrats and republicans. If you want a bit of drama you can throw in a little controversy every now and then, have some "beef" between them, and it'll turn into a wrestling-styled soap opera with everyone defending their respective "teams" all while masquerading as kind of sophisticated political jaw-jawing (it isn't but in Western society the overriding goal is simply to APPEAR being "smart" not actually being "smart" or contributing anything substantive aside from regurgitating ideological rhetoric).
These soothsayers need not necessarily meet up in a dark room and work out the particulars of their drama but then reality isn't terribly far from that either (Michael Moore's tax records showing he owns stock in Halliburton come to mind). It isn't even necessary really. A lot of these people are friends, follow the same social circles and are part of the same milieus as celebrities who want to hold and maintain their privileged lifestyles; it's no different from blue bloods or upper classes in general. As I said, differences are tactical, most of the time they conform to the prevailing ideological headwinds and when push comes to shove they'll happily defend each other as "friends" (see Michael Moore defending Maher's Islamophobia).
You would think the advent of the Internet would give people a wider range of ranges and more diverse opinions but as I'm sure anyone reading this already knows that that is flatout not the case, and in fact, reality is opposite. People have become MORE conformed and the number of differing opinions has dropped markedly. People merely find their favourite pied pipers who gives them the emotionally satisfying highs they crave that reinforce their biases and prejudices and the worldviews they had since they were children. Why bother using the internet to find different or opposing views when all it does is bring "thinky pain" to your brain? Human beings are creatures who are born to follow the path of lease resistance after all.
How this ties to the Motte and Bailey Doctrine is that the Doctrine serves as a marketing tool for a given ideology/worldview/opinion. Kind of like how people think drinking a milkshake will make them lose weight because it says "Slim Fast" on it, or that a sugary drink is healthy because the name has "Vitamins" on it. You make a sales pitch for an idea ("product") highlight it's ostensible benefits, gets the buyer emotionally worked out to the point where they don't think critically or read the fine print. And if anyone does and raises their objections, the seller can wax indignant and retreat back to their "Motte". It goes without saying that being aware of this kind of trick can go a long way in the consumerist, conformist West.
I'll wrap it up now and let others add and contribute to this. I do hope that this forum finds value in this post. I don't have much time to really contribute to this forum but when I do I like to bring something worth everyone's while.