I think focusing on simplicity is crucial to reach a wide audience. Our culture tends to edify and exalt the "argument from authority". If an idea is embraced by a range of "experts" it tends to be accepted at face value. Covid, climate change, identity based discrimination are just three examples.
I can't remember if you addressed this variant of offiensiveness in your book, but I have noticed that there has been a movement from speech being "offensive" to being "threatening" or constituting "violence." I was cancelled in a professional organization because my ideas made a group of activists feel "unsafe."
Thinking of a suitable term to capture the essence of this technique. "Hyperbolic detonation" comes to mind. Each time an individual cowers in retreat from substance by claims of assault, a linguistic bomb goes off. The explosion and its fallout decimates all rational discourse by redirecting focus to the lout who has upended the universe with 'unsafety.'
First, I think I need to change my reading priorities—your book is still buried under a pile of others waiting to be read.
If you're looking for examples, one of the most egregious uses of motte-and-bailey rhetoric can be found in an 2023 editorial by Science's editor-in-chief, Holden Thorp, on the hotly contested "In Defense of Merit in Science" paper (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/it-matters-who-does-science). I have written a short commentary on it, highlighting its many argumentative flaws and informal fallacies, here: https://streetwiseethics.substack.com/p/holdens-motte-and-thorps-bailey. It’s disheartening to see such poor reasoning and commentary in a scientific journal, giving science’s flagship publication a worrying tabloid twist.
Another tactic I observe frequently is the deliberate use of category errors and false (moral) analogies. Oxford philosopher Amia Srinivasan recently wrote in the London Review of Books on open letters and campus protests (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n10/amia-srinivasan/if-we-say-yes), tacitly accepting some of these flaws in her reasoning in support of free expression. She employs these tactics to bolster her dismissive stance towards the perceived shortcomings of "prominent free-speech warriors," particularly when commenting on campus protests, including criticism of FIRE and Lukianoff. I have commented on this here, pointing out some of the false analogies she constructs to defend her argument, while also acknowledging her admirable stance against the censure of academic colleagues with whom she strongly disagrees: https://streetwiseethics.substack.com/p/if-we-say-nothing.
Your (collective) work has shown that arguments are not only driven by their logical properties or fallacies - but also by psychological dispositions and - ideology. Ideology is the ultimate amplifier of rhetorical fortresses when it becomes cult like and makes it part of orthodoxy not to engage with outsiders. If you add the current devastating twist that any knowledge generated by the other is inherently contaminated by false consciousness or hidden evil intent - well you could really do without any other fallacies, couldn't you (although you still might fall back upon them in a pinch). So you need strategies for dealing with cult like thinking if you don't have a common ground agreement that fallacies are a bad thing.
Your list applies well to arguments that have two sides. I frequently am misperceived as presenting a perspective from “that other side,” when in fact I usually recognize multiple credible perspectives on most issues. I think that my adversaries in these cases really do believe that there are only two sides, theirs and the opposite of theirs. This limitation in their thinking is the fundamental difference between my position and theirs, whereas the content of that particular argument is less relevant.
The most common tactic of liberals is "ad hominem"; liberals are convinced that "debate" consists of hurling insults - the more insulting, the better the "argument".
Hello Greg - first of all, let me give you two a big thanks! I am using your work as part of what I do with training teachers and also with supporting parent groups.
I have also been using Jonothan H's work as well - and I was very interested in chapter 8 of the Anxious Generation book, which is in line with other research I am reading (e.g. Horwitz).
Might you consider reflecting on what Haidt calls the 'transcendent', or in some of his work, the sacred - as a buffer or amplifier (Pearcey quotes research to say it can be both, depending on how manifested)?
Doe FIRE have the capability (personnel) to rebut false claims in the MSM like Lorraine Ali's in the LA Times,even if it is only in the Letter to the Editors section of the LA Times ?
An innovation on Motte & Bailey is the Crossover Word; a word for which an in-crowd has given a new definition.
“Racism” is a great example. The regular people see it as “The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.”
But In-crowd folk see it as “privilege plus power (with power being static in all contexts)”, i.e. white people always have power everywhere, therefore white people are the only ones who can be racist.
The definitions are very different, and under the layman’s def, the in-crowd’s def is text-book racist.
Members of the in crowd, then, can talk about fighting racism when they are, in fact, perpetuating it.
BTW, the distinction of “Crossover Word” is not mine. Someone else came up with that label. I noticed it on my own and, when talking to a friend about it, they said, “That’s a Crossover Word.” I think she read about it in a book called “Wokecraft.”
Name calling would seem to fall under The Minefield as you have this organized. It is outright character assassination, which is distinct from other semi-intellectual attacks on character. Donald Trump seems the obvious reigning champion of this type of ad hominim attack
I think it is important to assess all administrative policies and programs: Porter, D., (2012). “Assessment as a subversive activity.” Journal of Academic Freedom (on-line journal of the American Association of University Professors). http://www.academicfreedomjournal.org/index.html pp 1-28.
After a calamitous Title XI persecution of a colleague, I engaged my I/O psychology class in developing a survey of perceptions about hostile environments and judgments about academic freedom protections.
David Porter. 2022. “How Hostile Environment Perceptions Imperil Academic Freedom: The Effects of Identity & Beliefs on Perceptions & Judgments.” Researchers.One, available at https://researchers.one/articles/22.11.00007v1 (accessed 4-20-2023).
As a result, I was suspended immediately; my students and advisees assigned to other faculty members; I was forbidden from communicating with students (even those who might testify on my behalf); I was forbidden from using or sharing the results of the survey (especially those that supported the academic merit of the survey); I was declared a danger to the well-being of certain (unidentified students and faculty members) and banished from campus; and 10 weeks later, condemned by four faculty members to be dismissed from the college despite my status as a tenured professor.
My case has been in federal court for the last 6 years and is now on appeal before the 6th circuit. My efforts to presents the results from our survey continue:
I think you omitted "mobbing", overwhelming someone but she force of numbers, no argumentation required.
I think focusing on simplicity is crucial to reach a wide audience. Our culture tends to edify and exalt the "argument from authority". If an idea is embraced by a range of "experts" it tends to be accepted at face value. Covid, climate change, identity based discrimination are just three examples.
I can't remember if you addressed this variant of offiensiveness in your book, but I have noticed that there has been a movement from speech being "offensive" to being "threatening" or constituting "violence." I was cancelled in a professional organization because my ideas made a group of activists feel "unsafe."
Thinking of a suitable term to capture the essence of this technique. "Hyperbolic detonation" comes to mind. Each time an individual cowers in retreat from substance by claims of assault, a linguistic bomb goes off. The explosion and its fallout decimates all rational discourse by redirecting focus to the lout who has upended the universe with 'unsafety.'
I can't believe I never heard the term "underdogging" until today. It is deployed so often, that it makes sense that there would be a word for it.
First, I think I need to change my reading priorities—your book is still buried under a pile of others waiting to be read.
If you're looking for examples, one of the most egregious uses of motte-and-bailey rhetoric can be found in an 2023 editorial by Science's editor-in-chief, Holden Thorp, on the hotly contested "In Defense of Merit in Science" paper (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/it-matters-who-does-science). I have written a short commentary on it, highlighting its many argumentative flaws and informal fallacies, here: https://streetwiseethics.substack.com/p/holdens-motte-and-thorps-bailey. It’s disheartening to see such poor reasoning and commentary in a scientific journal, giving science’s flagship publication a worrying tabloid twist.
Another tactic I observe frequently is the deliberate use of category errors and false (moral) analogies. Oxford philosopher Amia Srinivasan recently wrote in the London Review of Books on open letters and campus protests (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n10/amia-srinivasan/if-we-say-yes), tacitly accepting some of these flaws in her reasoning in support of free expression. She employs these tactics to bolster her dismissive stance towards the perceived shortcomings of "prominent free-speech warriors," particularly when commenting on campus protests, including criticism of FIRE and Lukianoff. I have commented on this here, pointing out some of the false analogies she constructs to defend her argument, while also acknowledging her admirable stance against the censure of academic colleagues with whom she strongly disagrees: https://streetwiseethics.substack.com/p/if-we-say-nothing.
Your (collective) work has shown that arguments are not only driven by their logical properties or fallacies - but also by psychological dispositions and - ideology. Ideology is the ultimate amplifier of rhetorical fortresses when it becomes cult like and makes it part of orthodoxy not to engage with outsiders. If you add the current devastating twist that any knowledge generated by the other is inherently contaminated by false consciousness or hidden evil intent - well you could really do without any other fallacies, couldn't you (although you still might fall back upon them in a pinch). So you need strategies for dealing with cult like thinking if you don't have a common ground agreement that fallacies are a bad thing.
Your list applies well to arguments that have two sides. I frequently am misperceived as presenting a perspective from “that other side,” when in fact I usually recognize multiple credible perspectives on most issues. I think that my adversaries in these cases really do believe that there are only two sides, theirs and the opposite of theirs. This limitation in their thinking is the fundamental difference between my position and theirs, whereas the content of that particular argument is less relevant.
The most common tactic of liberals is "ad hominem"; liberals are convinced that "debate" consists of hurling insults - the more insulting, the better the "argument".
Hello Greg - first of all, let me give you two a big thanks! I am using your work as part of what I do with training teachers and also with supporting parent groups.
I have also been using Jonothan H's work as well - and I was very interested in chapter 8 of the Anxious Generation book, which is in line with other research I am reading (e.g. Horwitz).
Might you consider reflecting on what Haidt calls the 'transcendent', or in some of his work, the sacred - as a buffer or amplifier (Pearcey quotes research to say it can be both, depending on how manifested)?
Thanks again,
Stephen Fyson
Australia
Doe FIRE have the capability (personnel) to rebut false claims in the MSM like Lorraine Ali's in the LA Times,even if it is only in the Letter to the Editors section of the LA Times ?
An innovation on Motte & Bailey is the Crossover Word; a word for which an in-crowd has given a new definition.
“Racism” is a great example. The regular people see it as “The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.”
But In-crowd folk see it as “privilege plus power (with power being static in all contexts)”, i.e. white people always have power everywhere, therefore white people are the only ones who can be racist.
The definitions are very different, and under the layman’s def, the in-crowd’s def is text-book racist.
Members of the in crowd, then, can talk about fighting racism when they are, in fact, perpetuating it.
BTW, the distinction of “Crossover Word” is not mine. Someone else came up with that label. I noticed it on my own and, when talking to a friend about it, they said, “That’s a Crossover Word.” I think she read about it in a book called “Wokecraft.”
Name calling would seem to fall under The Minefield as you have this organized. It is outright character assassination, which is distinct from other semi-intellectual attacks on character. Donald Trump seems the obvious reigning champion of this type of ad hominim attack
I think it is important to assess all administrative policies and programs: Porter, D., (2012). “Assessment as a subversive activity.” Journal of Academic Freedom (on-line journal of the American Association of University Professors). http://www.academicfreedomjournal.org/index.html pp 1-28.
After a calamitous Title XI persecution of a colleague, I engaged my I/O psychology class in developing a survey of perceptions about hostile environments and judgments about academic freedom protections.
David Porter. 2022. “How Hostile Environment Perceptions Imperil Academic Freedom: The Effects of Identity & Beliefs on Perceptions & Judgments.” Researchers.One, available at https://researchers.one/articles/22.11.00007v1 (accessed 4-20-2023).
As a result, I was suspended immediately; my students and advisees assigned to other faculty members; I was forbidden from communicating with students (even those who might testify on my behalf); I was forbidden from using or sharing the results of the survey (especially those that supported the academic merit of the survey); I was declared a danger to the well-being of certain (unidentified students and faculty members) and banished from campus; and 10 weeks later, condemned by four faculty members to be dismissed from the college despite my status as a tenured professor.
https://lawrencekrauss.substack.com/p/the-sad-case-of-david-porter-and
https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/an-open-letter-to-lyle-d-roelofs-president-of-berea-college
My case has been in federal court for the last 6 years and is now on appeal before the 6th circuit. My efforts to presents the results from our survey continue:
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/04/16/the-baffling-bull-behind-title-ix/
Please contact me if you would like to learn more about my case or the strategies the administration used to cancel me. (dave.porter.berea@gmail.com)