[Blog note: this is a comment policy post, and thus obviously not a rerun.]
My beloved Scott Alexander has popularized the concept of motte and bailey.
Unfortunately, y’all have abused your right to use this concept to instead be like “well, my strawman is totally justified because the reasonable point the person I’m arguing with is making is the motte, and my strawman is the bailey!” It is annoying me, and I am the Lord High Dictator of my blog comments and I am allowed to ban things that annoy me.
So no more using the words “motte” and “bailey”, or things which are really obviously substitutes for the words “motte” and “bailey”, unless you also present evidence that the bailey is a belief stated by either the person you are arguing with or a significant number of prominent members of the group you disagree with.
Thing of Things 
I have heroically resisted the urge to make a meta-joke about Ozy’s M&B standards.
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Evidently not.
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That was a meta-meta-joke. Doesn’t count.
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Oops. Well I still look forward to that post.
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And by the way – I was thinking of other people, with whom I’ve argued in person. I wasn’t accusing you of a motte-bailey 🙂
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I dunno. If it’s necessary for you to explain the “real” meaning of certain words or concepts on your blog (fetishization, objectification, feminism, etc), that means one of two things: either a great many people misunderstand the concept through no fault of the people who use it, or the people who use it tend to do so in a way inconsistent with the “real” meaning.
In other words, if fetishization isn’t “feminists hate your boner”, then why do so many people think fetishization is “feminists hate your boner” (so much so that you feel compelled to explain the real meaning), unless fetishization was, at some point, presented to them as “feminists hate your boner”?
In that long post about nerds and entitlement on SSC, Scott mentions a lesbian who felt guilty for years because she had internalized the idea of objectification to mean “being attracted to a woman, physically”. Did she just, randomly and of her own accord, misunderstand the concept of objectification, or is it more likely that “being physically attracted to women is objectification” is the actual message she received (along with Scott, Scott, and lots of other people, who seem to have a similar experience)?
I would venture to guess that, if you need to explain what the “real’ meaning of something is, and that explanation sounds like a motte, that indicates that there’s probably a lot of people out there throwing around the bailey.
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A lot of these terms have unfortunately non-intuitive meanings — perhaps they were chosen for impact, but there is a trade-off in clarity.
For example, when someone hears of “rape culture”, they might think “wait, are these people saying that our society openly encourages and celebrates rape? that’s crazy!” — but the intended meaning is far more subtle.
Or, someone hears “objectification” and thinks “well, people don’t talk to rocks, and they do talk to women, so what are feminists complaining about?”.
“Homophobia” and “misogyny” suffer from a similar problem — “Why am I called homophobic? I’m not scared of gays, I just find them revolting?” (actual quote). The real feeling the modern meanings of these two words are trying to capture, I think, is contempt, but “ἐξουδένωσις” is a bit too long for a compound component.
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I am not explicitly endorsing any of the hypothetical positions below. But I want to illustrate that this language makes it very difficult to even articulate certain positions without seeming absurd. Examples of how things might sound:
“I agree we live in a rape culture. However I still want to increase protections for those accused of rape.”
“We live in a patriarchy. But society needs to focus more on men failing behind in education and being dramatically over-represented in prisons. We also need to increase funding for men’s health initiatives since the gender gap in life expectancy is very large and historical trends imply its probably not biological.”
An alternate explanation is that some people took words with very strong emotional connotations and then gave them “academic” definitions. Whether this was intentional or not this allows certain groups to control the debate. In general if language functions in a deceptive way we shouldn’t support that language.
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What is the difference between “chosen for impact” and “chosen to evoke a bailey”?
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@nita, I think we’re talking about two different situations. You seem to be talking about people hearing certain SJ terms, being used correctly, and misinterpreting them. I’m talking about those terms being deliberately misused, and interpreted by their usage rather than the “correct” meaning.
For example, a white man says “Asian women are really sexy.” By way of Ozy’s really-quite-reasonable-and-uncontroversial definition of fetishization, he hasn’t fetishized Asian women, but merely indicated an attraction to them. But to someone looking for injustice, they hear “Asian women are really sexy,” and the thought process becomes “Whites have systemic power over other races -> This white guy is attracted to Asian women -> His attraction may have something to do with stereotypes or power -> We should assume it does -> This man is fetishizing Asian women!”
When the preferred interpretation is always the most cynical, the operational definition of the terms used changes. So “I find transwomen attractive” = fetishization. Glancing at a woman’s body = objectification. Not wanting to experiment sexually = homophobia. Approaching a woman at the bar = rape culture.
I mean, the Social Justice machine has managed to turn the Scotts statement of “I was so afraid of upsetting women that I avoided doing anything that might upset them to the point of my own personal depression and developmental problems” into “I think women are sex objects and I’m angry they didn’t give me the sex I’m entitled to!”
In a previous post on SSC, Scott talks about the online lynching of a male feminist. In the post, he shows a screenshot of the person saying that, since they were sexually assaulted, they always take lots of precautions to make sure they don’t run the risk of even accidentally violating another persons boundaries. The response? “DID HE JUST SAY HE MIGHT RAPE SOMEONE?!”….”YES!!!”. So “I take super extra care to never encroach upon someone else’s feelings of safety” becomes “I might rape somebody!”
Now, do you think those same people aren’t going to be bastardizing and appropriating terms like “rape culture”, “fetishization”, “objectification”, etc? And isn’t bastardizing and appropriating a reasonable term exactly the definition of “motte and bailey”?
I mean, it’s Ozy’s blog. If Ozy wants to delete any comment that uses the words or concept of motte and bailey, I can’t say anything. However, to deny the fact that the motte and bailey doctrine applies to a myriad of SJ terminology, I think, is incorrect.
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I’ve come to prefer to therm “sexual pursuit culture” over “rape culture.” I think it describes very much the same thing without having to turn the dial all the way up to “rape.”
Most people are not rapist. Most people are not raped. Most of us participate in sexual pursuit culture.
(I feel the same about “Schrodinger’s rapist.” I’m far more concerned with “Schrodinger’s douchebag who can’t take a hint that it’s over.”)
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Well, there is a *thing* about white men who are into Asian women, so if a man makes of point of talking about them, I’m going to be a bit suspicious. Like, why is he into them? Cuz a lot of men seem to have kinda weird reasons having to do with cultural dominance/submission patterns, which really sucks if you are an Asian woman who *ain’t into that shit*. And if the man has self-awareness about this stuff, he is much less likely to ramble on about it.
So anyway, yeah, I like anime too, but don’t be weird about it.
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@Anon
Your argument (as I understand it) went like this:
(1) There are a lot of people who misunderstand these terms.
(2) Therefore, either
(2a) “a great many people misunderstand the concept through no fault of the people who use it”, or
(2b) “the people who use it tend to do so in a way inconsistent with the “real” meaning”.
(3) Since (2a) is unlikely, it must be (2b).
I just pointed out a factor that makes (2a) quite likely as well. Personally, I think it’s both.
On the Scotts:
The nature of the fear remains underspecified. Here are two very different thoughts, both consistent with the sentence above:
(a) “Since I don’t understand every woman perfectly, I might accidentally do something bad, and that would be awful”;
(b) “Since I know that women are unreasonable and their complaints are taken too seriously, they might destroy my life for no good reason, and that would be awful”.
Either a charitable reader or someone who is familiar with either Scott would imagine something like (a). But Amanda Marcotte is an ANTIcharitable reader, so she goes with (b).
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veronica d-
I always felt sort of weird about the Schrodinger’s rapist argument. I can’t help but read it (uncharitably, I know) as implying that it’s only acceptable to turn people down if you’re ~afraid for your personal safety,~ rather than, you know, because you just don’t feel like being hit on.
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@bem:
That’s odd; I always thought the argument meant, “any man can be a rapist; and if you are female then being raped is a horrible experience that will effectively end your life as you know it; and therefore you should stay as far away from men as possible — especially ones who are hitting on you”.
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Safety matters. But rape is actually pretty low on my concern list.
Which, okay, this is just me. Women get to evaluate these risks on their own terms. But personally I feel we always turn the discourse all the way up to rape and that misses much nuance. Like, say someone had a magic spell that *ruled out actual rape*, then I still would not want strange men on the train trying to pick me up.
Cuz there is a ton of other shit that ain’t rape that can still make this stuff unpleasant. Like *persistent guy* or *angry-at-being-rejected guy* or *guy who just makes it awkward*.
And if you date the guy, what if he is *PUA-guy who makes everything negging and LMR tactics all night long*, or *guy who asks for second date and gets weird about it*, or *guy who keeps trying to get you into his car even though you keep saying no and he just won’t stop and he won’t stop and he is forcing me to be rude and he seems kinda twitchy and if I don’t call my roommate by 9:30 she knows to call the cops, but I told her at be at {restaurant} and not {whereverthefuckhewantstotakeme}*, stuff like that.
Which, none of this stuff is withing a 1000 miles of being rape, but it still sucks.
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Well, there is a *thing* about white men who are into Asian women, so if a man makes of point of talking about them, I’m going to be a bit suspicious. Like, why is he into them?
So, granted, but we have to keep straight the distinction between what a person says, and what is implied by the fact that they bothered to say it. Like, normally there’s nothing wrong with making such inferences. But I think if you’re having what’s supposed to be what’s supposed to be a reasonable discussion, if you’re in what you’d expect to be a place for reasonable discussions, then that both reduces what inferences of that form you can make (because people will be saying things for different purposes than usual) and the range of appropriate reactions to them (because it’s not very helpful to, as a statement of certain fact, make a statement about what someone else is thinking — obviously asking or saying “something like That you [bother to] say this would seem to suggest…; do I have that right?” is fine). And I think a lot of the whole problem here is “garden subversion” — taking spaces where you could have a reasonable discussion, and turning them into Blue Tribe echo chambers where you have to constantly watch what you say.
But maybe you were implicitly excluding that case! I have little problem with getting suspicious of people outside of such contexts; I mean, I do that all the time…
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@veronica d:
I am totally on board with what you said, but now I’m even more confused. Given all of that, what does the “Schroedinger’s Rapist” argument actually mean ? Does it mean anything at all, or is it one of those words like “socialist” which has been politicized into meaninglessness (despite having a pretty clear dictionary definition) ? Above, Bem proposed one possible interpretation; I proposed a different one; but it looks like neither of them are correct, and I’m not sure what the real answer is…
On a side note:
> And if you date the guy, what if he is *PUA-guy who makes everything negging and LMR tactics all night long*
Wow, do they really exist ? I always thought that all of that PUA stuff was kinda like fantasy football, but I guess I was wrong…
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@Bugmaster
Here’s my (charitable) interpretation of Schroedinger’s Rapist (I found the original essay to refresh my memory):
“Dear well-meaning man!
Please don’t get upset or angry if I, a random woman in a public place, don’t respond to your romantic advances. It’s not necessarily your fault, and it’s not personal — I’m just really worried about bad stuff, and I don’t (yet) know what a lovely, kind person you are — because, well, I don’t know you.
Here are some helpful things you could do, not just for me, but for every person like me:
1. Please understand that some people don’t want to be approached at all — it’s sad that they will be missing out on your awesome company, but pushing would only make them more uncomfortable, so let’s just leave them alone, OK?
2. Please consider what impression you might make on a total stranger. Do you look like a gang member or a little too crazy? Do you look dirty or smell? If so, try online dating.
3. Also, please take a look at the situation. Are there other people around? Is it easy to leave?
4. And lastly, throughout the conversation, please pay attention to their body language and reactions — do they seem comfortable and happy to engage, or do they seem busy with other things? Are they trying to end the interaction?
tl;dr: people who don’t know you may be wary of you; back off gracefully if unwelcome”
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@Sniffoy — Yeah, I agree. There are contexts where saying that would be pretty unremarkable.
For example, I find Asian women attractive. 🙂
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@Bugmaster — What @Nita said.
Story time!
Okay, so it’s probably half past one on the Redline and I’m on my way home from a club, dressed sexy, kinda tired, kinda coming down from my buzz. I’m listening to headphones. The train car is empty but for me.
The train stops in Southie. Two dudes get on, kinda dopey looking. Not really nerds, but maybe geek-adjacent. The soft-faced one smiles at me. I smile back, but briefly, just to be friendly.
He smiles more, give *the look*. I look away. Oops. Bitch shield fail.
He comes over and sits next to me.
Like, he sits next to me in a giant empty train car. With his buddy near.
Okay so I ignore him. Cross my legs, shift my body away. I see that he says something, but I don’t hear him. I look off into space.
He taps my shoulder. I pop up and stomp down the train car (in platform boots!) and sit on the far end of the car. He says some shit to me but I cannot hear.
No big deal. No real harm. But thing is, I don’t want to deal with this guy. He should read body language. He should respect. A woman in headphones crossing her legs and turning away is OFF FUCKING LIMITS! ’Specially at half past one on a subway car.
Now, thing is, I was not physically afraid. Not really, even alone and late at night. This dude was soft like pillows. His friend was skinny-boy. I’m a six-foot tranny who eats nails for breakfast. I would end them.
That’s not the point. The point was, I was *done for the evening*, and I don’t owe dudes my time. Who knows what he wanted, but it clearly involved lust.
(Which look, some guys are subtle. This guy was not.)
Anyway, for me it’s about Schroedinger’s jerkface. It’s about *that guy*. It’s about *I don’t owe you my time to find out what a precious little monster you are* — even if you think I do.
Don’t get mad if you interrupt me and I brush you off. I got my own shit to do.
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@Nita: It seems to me that “chosen for impact” is synonymous with “chosen in order to let assumptions and/or emotional reactions that override rational analysis do the heavy lifting on the motte side of things.”
Because what’s going to happen if a feminist accuses me of supporting rape culture, under a hyper-expansive definition that they’re using consistently*? Either I back down (in which case I lose), I argue that her definition of “rape culture” is crap (in which case I’m dismissed as being unwilling to do my homework on feminism 101), or I say “if that’s rape culture, then not all rape culture is a bad thing.” The third is the path I’m most likely to take personally, but the probable consequences are: (1) The person I’m arguing with declares that they not willing to argue with a self admitted rape apologist**, (2) word gets out that I said “not all rape culture is a bad thing” and (2a) some people who’ve never encountered the term make entirely reasonable inferences about what it must mean, and conclude that I’m a monster and (2b) some people who do know the definition nevertheless get mindkilled by hearing “not all rape . . . is a bad thing” and come to the same conclusion.
*Which has, in fact, happened.
**Dropping “culture” at the right moment is a neat little slight of hand that I’ve seen performed several times.
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@veronica: What would you intend for “sexual pursuit culture?” Intuitively, that seems to cover an awful lot of territory.
I’m far more concerned with “Schrodinger’s douchebag who can’t take a hint that it’s over.”
I’m not totally sure about your personal intentions, but “douchebag who can’t take a hint” seems to me to have a lot of tacit ableism lurking in it. With my neural wiring, I worry a lot more about “Schrodinger’s passive-aggressive woman who can’t come out and say what she means.”
And if the man has self-awareness about this stuff, he is much less likely to ramble on about it. [. . .]
@Sniffoy — Yeah, I agree. There are contexts where saying that would be pretty unremarkable.
For example, I find Asian women attractive. 🙂
From my own experience, I can tell you: This kind of dichotomy kicks the crap out of people who have difficulty understanding bizarre tacit rules about what to say when that no one ever states explicitly.
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@osberend
You did see the word “perhaps”, right? So, you do realize that it’s just idle speculation on my part? I didn’t have the time to research the actual etymology of these words. I’m sorry. You’ll have to do it on your own.
Not to mention that pathos is an ancient and respected tool of persuasion, whether weirdos like us like it or not.
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@veronica d:
Once again, I am on board with what you said (except that I have no idea what a Redline is, though I assume it is some sort of a motorized rail-guided conveyance); but… Do we really need a special term to describe this situation, and do we really need to equate pushy or clueless social behavior with rape ?
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@Nita: I’m a little confused by your reply. You raised a possibility, and I gave my thoughts on the implications of that possibility being correct. What statement or question of mine did you parse as a demand that you research/have already researched the etymology in question?
Pathos is certainly ancient, and often well-respected. And I’ll admit that there are legitimate uses for honest pathos. But triggering emotional reactions to A whenever someone advocates B, where B is not a subset of A, is dishonest pathos, and should be condemned wherever it is found. (Including in hypotheticals.)
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@osberend
Sorry if I sounded short-tempered. It just seemed like you (along with a few other people) were drawing far-reaching conclusions (something like “feminists are evil hypocrites”) from my offhand guess, and that was alarming.
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Apology accepted. And, to be fair, I do have draw some fairly broad conclusions on issues like this, but not quite that broad.
Possible tangent: If this were half a year ago, I’d add “in fact, I identify as feminist myself,” but these days, I’m not sure. I still agree with all the motte-y definitions, but I’m not sure whether that’s enough, given how frequently I find myself on the other side of the bailey. The experience is nothing new (it’s been many years since I was banned from an online feminist community because “cultural imperialism is unfeminist” or something along those lines), but it seems to be getting more pervasive. My attitude toward the word “feminist” hasn’t reached the point that my attitude toward “social justice” has (roughly “people who use it (at least online) are the enemy*, using it wrong, or both”), but it’s become far from unambiguously positive.
*A few of whom are also friends. Politics is funny that way.
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@Bugmaster — The Redline is part of the Boston subway system.
Okay, so actually I’m specifically saying we should *not* equate that to rape. Which, if you scroll up you’ll see me say we should talk about “sexual pursuit culture” instead of “rape culture” and likewise for “Schrodinger’s rapist.”
That said, I’m also trying to say that much of the *actual content* of such terms is real and we need to talk about them. “Rape culture” names a real thing, but the *name* works poorly. “Sexual pursuit culture” names pretty much the same thing, but in a way that is not needlessly provocative.
On the Schrodinger stuff, many men are either (or both) 1) sexually aggressive or 2) quite irate when women refuse. Thus women are often somewhat cagey around strange men. Specifically, if you try to chat me up on the train, maybe we have a nice conversation, but there are all kinds of way this can go wrong, including ultimately violence.
But even short of violence things can really suck. At the minimum, some dude is interrupting me when I’m trying to think. That alone is annoying. And if his advances are *sexual*, that adds a whole psychologically *fraught* dimension to the encounter. Furthermore, these men are usually persistent. It can be difficult to shake them off without being rude. They manipulate the rules of politeness, so I have learned to become rude very quickly.
Being harassed this way happens to women far more than men. It also tends to be more sexualized when it happens to women. In fact, I’d say on balance men are more likely to impose themselves on women than the reverse. I’ve experienced this clearly myself, being trans. Back in my dudely days I was seldom interrupted. These days it happens often. (It literally happened as I wrote this post. I’m not kidding. A man I work with sat at my table and began talking to me, totally unconcerned that he was interrupting me. It wasn’t sexual. But still! This is a thing. When you add the sexual dimension, it becomes a minefield.)
Anyway, this does not mean that men should never make advances to women. I’m not trying to create more *Scott Aaronson when he was young and lonely* guys. It’s just, please understand *why* a woman might be abrupt with you, why she might brush you off. These are skills she has been forced to learn.
####
Some further thoughts:
On violence, I am six foot and I know how to fight. Many women are smaller and have more reasonable fear. Such women often *play along* with unwanted advances until they can get away.
Furthermore, such women become frustrated at having to do this, so when they are in an environment where they feel safe, they often *take out their frustration* on some hapless man. Which sucks for the man. This is probably why some women are *horrible* to nerdy men who make advances. This sucks.
Also note, the men who are truly awful are *very seldom* shy, awkward nerds. This is a different set. But shy, awkward nerds get caught up in the bad dynamic.
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@Bugmaster– Just to clarify, my comment above was intended more to mean that I think making “fear of rape” the central example in discussions of why women might not want to talk to every man who approaches them has the negative implications I described, not that people who talk about Schrodinger’s rapist are literally trying to make this argument. Nita’s charitable explanation corresponds much more closely to the intended argument as I understand it.
It’s also probably worth noting that, like, veronica d, I am confident enough in a fight that I’m not generally very worried about physical violence, but more about the zillion other ways that persistent strangers can make my life inconvenient. This isn’t everyone–some people really are worried about violence from strangers.
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Clearly, “motte and bailey” is the motte and “I can use strawmen/weak men in place of your actual arguments” is the bailey.
… damn, that’s actually true, isn’t it? I’ll just shut up, now …
More seriously, motte-and-bailey only works for policymaking, not finding truth; and only a very narrow domain of policymaking (what Official Terms from a preexisting philosophy should we assent to using, basically.)
The sky is blue, even if some git is using that as a cypher for a bunch of issues:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gt/a_fable_of_science_and_politics/
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How does this even happen? If you call Motte and Bailey on an argument then you’re calling the argument a motte. Which means you think it’s a perfect position which can’t possibly be assailed. It’s fine when you’re arguing against a concept or movement, I disagree with this movement because it’s stated goals and what the group actually believes are different things, but an argument? You just agreed with the argument and it’s implications.
Maybe “objectification” is used in problematic ways. In an immediate argument about objectification, that doesn’t matter, because the given definition isn’t something you have to accept outside of the argument.
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Motte-and-bailey isn’t an argument, it’s a rhetorical tactic. The problem is, it’s a tactic that almost anyone can be accused of with some degree of justice.
It reminds me of logical positivism — they went around accusing everyone else of lacking total intellectual rigor, but it turns out that literally everyone, including logical positivsts, lacks total intellectual rigor.
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The motte: A motte, as originally defined, is an obvious but useless truth used to protect a poor but useful argument.
The bailey: if you mention a motte and bailey, you think my argument is unassailable, and you don’t just mean “You’re dissembling between a stronger (but not unassailable) argument and a weaker, more useful one.”
Everything is a motte and bailey!
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Well, I’ve definitely seen instances of, for example, “Your argument seems reasonable, but other people are using it as a motte for the bailey of [vaguely related thing that I find objectionable]!” phrased in such a way that implies that if the argument ~could potentially~ be the bailey for this sort of dissembling, then the motte must also be invalid, with no further argument…which really makes very little sense.
I think that the issue is that since motte and bailey is understood to be an epistemological sin, people have a tendency to invoke it and then not actually point out where or whether their interlocutor is equivocating about their actual opinions. Which seems bad for productive discussion.
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I feel like maybe I should apologize for this, since I’m the one who introduced Scott to the term in the first place.
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Heh. I just said a motte and bailey thing over on the Fetishization thread. But it was before I read this post!
Please don’t hurt me!
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The secret moderation rule is that you get away with whatever you want if I like you. 😛
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Does “my experience is that people used this against me in the past to mean…” count as an example of “a significant number of prominent members”, or do we actually need names or quotes?
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Related: Is it forbidden to use the terminology without including examples, or merely without being able to provide them on request? If the latter, how long are we expected to monitor threads where we have used them in a comment too deply nested for a direct reply?
Not snarky, just trying to understand the rule.
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Use examples, please. (Or don’t use it at all, which is the strategy I recommend.)
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perhaps the optimal protocol for responding to what one percieves as ‘motte & bailey’ tactics is to ask *exactly* what claim the opponent makes, with clarification/taboo for vague terminology.
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Awwww, I did not get to use it even once. Well, your place, your rules. I think that the green Anon and stargirlprincess have a point, but there are other ways to point out the use of M&B and adjacent tactics (although asking for clarification/tabooing opens you to a “101” or “educate yourself” counter on other blogs).
TODO: shoehorn Kafkatrapping (before it’s gone?). Might be a net positive in the long term, seeing how much it has been overused recently.
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Re-reading myself, that probably came out as confrontational, which was not my intent.
Maybe a better way to convey my thoughts: this blog deals with several communities, each having specific jargons, which may all be used to shut down discussion in various ways, accidentally or not. Banning specific lingo is certainly one solution, but when trying to address common misconceptions about jargons from other communities, I’m not sure it’s the best idea. Then most other things I can think of are more time-consuming for you, which is probably not acceptable.
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OK, so I think the problem with the whole “motte and bailey” thing is that its only a fallacy if it’s the same people defending both. Which in Scott’s original post, IIRC, was often the case. But pretty much every mention of it I’ve seen since then, it’s actually the accusation that’s the fallacy, because the alleged motte and bailey are different people.
Criticizing a position or ideology for being correlated with another position is fallacious.
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I thought it still constituted a motte and bailey if different members of the same group did it?
Even if it isn’t the same exact person holding both the useful but indefensible position and the highly defensible position, you end up with the same effect if every time you argue against the first, you’re met with opposition from the second, till you give up and the first come out of the woodwork again, with increased conviction (“because everybody who argues against X loses!”). I don’t think it makes a big difference whether you have one person switching definitions or two people in a tag-team situation.
If you have a different term for it when multiple people within the same group do it, I’m fine with using that. I’ve just never heard one.
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One of Scotts examples on the original forum was the Christian who believed that Hell was a literal fire and brimstone place where people are tortured for eternity (bailey). When confronted they would retreat to the argument that Hell was simply separation from God, and that God would allow people to be as happy as possible (motte).
I am a Christian who strongly believes the motte, but not the bailey, therefore if I argue for the motte I have not committed the fallacy. I only commit a fallacy if I change the definition of Hell in the middle of a discussion.
That’s the fundimental point on motte and bailey fallacies, the definition of the word must change in the middle of the discussion. On an internet forum, or when discussion is taken to mean “Broad dialogue between two movements/philosophies/social cliques”, then this can happen because multiple people make different arguments using the same words. The correct response to that would be: “Earlier person X said hell was separation from God. That doesn’t seem to be what person Y is talking about. Person Y what do you mean?”
In a discussion with only one person, if they keep their terms consistant, the closest you can get to a motte and bailey accusation is “I’ve typically heard that term used to mean, or justify something very different from what you’re using it for. It seems to me that others in your movement might be using it as a motte to support [bailey]. Do you believe [bailey]?”
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“That’s the fundimental point on motte and bailey fallacies, the definition of the word must change in the middle of the discussion.”
But, if you’re entering a discussion where someone else has been using the bailey, and you appear to defend the motte, has not the definition changed?
Your terms may be consistent, and his or her terms may be consistent, but they add up to an inconsistency which is designed to thwart any attacks on the bailey.
Besides, what good is it for you to have a nice, uncontroversial, really quite reasonable definition of hell when 99% of people use the term hell in the bailey sense? What good does it do to be told “attraction isn’t fetishization” by one person, only to then be told that expressing a particular attraction will conjure “suspicion” from another? What good does “Approaching people is fine as long as you don’t do specific things” do when people will still be called creeps for approaching people, even absent those specific things?
I can agree that your definition of hell is unobjectionable, as is Ozy’s definition of fetishization/objectification, etc. But those reasonable, unobjectionable definitions don’t make much difference when the same words are harmfully appropriated and weaponized.
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“Fallacy” has absolutely nothing to do with it. The point is perhaps more obvious when it’s the same person doing it, but it’s a matter of doctrine, not logic. Your objection makes as much sense as saying, “an armor advance covered by air support is only an effective doctrine if the tanks and the planes are the same vehicles.” As interesting as an advance consisting solely of A-10 warthogs might be, it is a degenerate case that wouldn’t actually be very effective at all. So is the case of fort and field doctrine as implemented by a single individual, and which is likewise not really the point of studying the doctrine.
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I’m pro cutting down on buzzwords that are too easily used as trump cards, whichever side of the aisle they seem to be serving. Good on you, Ozy.
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I think the saying “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” is better written as “When all you have on your mind is hammers, everything looks like nails.” I notice that when I learn new words or concepts, especially when they’re not really new, but formalizations of vague ideas I already have, they stick with me, and I try to apply them everywhere even vaguely relevant.
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