Uncle Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (chapter 1)

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances of their own choosing, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionising themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language.

It depends on whether you wanted to talk about transgenderism or Motte and Bailey in particular I guess. I assumed it was the latter. — I like sushi

I’m interested in both the abstract and the concrete, and how they relate. So the answer is something like: the latter, and both, because we can only properly understand M&B in the light of concrete examples, whose content, I contend, cannot simply be put to one side. This itself is controversial, I suppose, but it’s at least interesting I hope.

And that truly high-minded participants extend Charity, even Steelman Variation and don't commit Siege. To me, that is a mark of intellect and enlightenment — TonesInDeepFreeze

In my opinion, cranks rarely deserve Charity or Steelman Variation. — TonesInDeepFreeze

There’s a tension here, don’t you think?

But maybe it’s like the problem of democracy: do we extend democratic rights to radical anti-democrats, e.g., fascists? Surely not, and this itself necessitates anti-democratic elements, like written constitutions. Similarly, precisely because we value the principle of charity we shouldn’t extend charity to irrational interlocutors, those who hold bigoted positions or, perhaps, those whose rhetorical tactics undermine the rationality of discussion, e.g., with motte-and-bailey, strawmanning, etc.

Very nice and probably in harmony with what @apokrisis was saying.

That’s interesting. Do you mean that the actual occurrence of the fallacy is a means, within the debate, of finding a bridge; or do you mean that an awareness of the fallacy, that is, a real-time identification of it by an interlocutor, can be that means?

So it looks like the phrase “all I’m saying” is the biggest clue to the presence of this fallacy.

I think you’re committing the motte-and-bailey fallacy yourself. You started out with the claim that it was B who was fallacious and that A merely rephrased the first statement, and now you’ve retreated to a softer position.

(A) was pushed, yes, pushed into retreat.

So I think A’s natural response is to be defensive because such accusations could mean ostracism and violence, and I don’t think he’s retreating as if B had the better argument. — NOS4A2

Even if that’s the case it doesn’t matter. It’s a retreat to a more defensible position.

Could be. The content of the example was not meant to relate in any way at all to the substance of Shackel’s criticism of postmodernism.

Although I get the impression that it's not a tactical retreat to go from Christian God to original designer, but just that they didn't realize there was a difference--or it's just a step in their overarching argumentative project heading towards the proof of the Christian God. In neither case is it an example of motte-and-bailey, I don't think.

Yes, I'm sure I've seen that on TPF even just recently.

Yeah, on the one hand it's a good example precisely because it highlights the context sensitivity--and I must admit I chose it for that reason, that it might be controversial because of the non-obvious role of context--but on the other hand it is a bit irresponsible since some people will conclude that the bigots are not really bigots.

On the third hand, those people can be countered here in a way that exposes their biases in a way that wouldn't come to light otherwise, at the same time as exploring context dependence.

Didn't Contrapoints do a bunch of work to show what the bailey was and what the motte was? I remember that they've previously shown that comment to be used by people who are almost assuredly transphobic, since they follow, reshare and post in transphobic communities (bailey). And those people also defend themselves in terms of the "biological definition" motte. — fdrake

Yep.

Nevertheless, the kind of person who makes that statement in the kind of context that it tends to arise is justifiably expected to be making a prejudiced comment. If the person really really wanted to engage in the "what is gender identity" discussion in good faith, that's a bit different from the motte and bailey thing above. It might just highlight a gap in their understanding - or at least a lack of awareness of where the ideas can lead (and I think should lead). — fdrake

Totally. You might say it was irresponsible of me to so casually take it out of context and use it as an example, since without knowing about the context—the common situations that ContraPoints describes at length—one could look at the example and think that (A) is being reasonable or at least innocent of bigotry, which would make B look unreasonable.

In which case, your post functions as a necessary corrective. :up:

The second statement of A seems more of a response to the appeal to emotion of B and not necessarily a retreat of any sort. B is where the fallacy is.

I don’t think rephrasing an argument into terms that are less crippling for some brains is unwarranted. — NOS4A2

But A's second statement is not just a different way of putting the first statement. If A is fully aware of the issues, they know that the word "woman" is about gender, or about both sex and gender, or is at least ambiguous and controversial; whereas the second statement is explicitly about biological sex and thus represents a retreat. The first statement is a categorical proposition that relies on an equivocation and therefore cannot stand up to scrutiny.

But as @Mikie pointed out, (A) might not in fact be aware of all that. The reason I chose the example is precisely because under a certain light it's not crystal clear who is in the wrong and why.

Where the motte-and-bailey image fails is that in a serious argument, both sides would be going back to basics this way.

In the trans women example, the axiomatic basis on one side would seem to be that biological truth trumps cultural fiction. On the other, it would be some version of the reverse.

The stepping back by one side ought to be an invitation to the other to take up the challenge of defending the reverse in good old dialectic fashion. — apokrisis

Yes. However, it's not the motte-and-bailey image but rather the participants themselves who sometimes fail. Motte-and-baily identifies one way in which people fail in debate, and isn't that exactly what the identification of informal fallacies is meant to do?

See above. — I like sushi

You haven't posted anything arguing that it's a poor example.

Poor example. — I like sushi

It's a good example.

What now?

To the posters that are saying it's similar, I'm not seeing where the strawman fallacy comes into play here. What would be considered the strawman in this scenario? Person A's initial (bailey) argument? — Mikie

It's made clearer in the OP:

In other words, B might just as often be guilty of a failure to observe the principle of charity in taking A to be in the bailey, i.e., distorting A's position such that they can easily defeat them. This looks like a description of strawmanning. — Jamal

So the motte-and-bailey fallacy and the straw man fallacy seem to be two sides of the same coin. One is the reverse of the other. I think @Janus said this too.

M&B: A, putting forward claims, moves from a bold to a safe claim
SM: B, in interpreting A's claim, moves it from a safe claim to a bold claim

That is, in a straw man fallacy B interprets A to be saying something much easier to defeat.

I know it's just an example, and I don't want to go off about transgenderism, but just so I'm clear: The more correct statement would be that "trans women are not female," yes? Since "woman" (and "girl") can often relate to gender identity. — Mikie

I don’t entirely go along with this. Examples of more correct statements in this kind of context would be “trans women were not born female” and perhaps “trans women are not biologically female”. (I imagine that a small minority of trans people would dispute the latter two, but I won't get into that).

It's true that people making statements like (A) are probably bigoted. But in the cases where a person is meaning to express the corrected statement, it may just be an honest mistake. I would put myself in this camp, although I see no reason to make either statement. — Mikie

The point of the example is that A retreated from a claim when challenged, probably knowing full well that it was controversial. In these debates it is usually effectively bigoted, even if you can interpret it charitably to be referring only to biological sex. Having said that, you’re no doubt right that people still confuse and conflate sex and gender. But if one wants to distinguish between trans women and non-trans-women, we already have a term that’s better than “men”, which is … “trans women”.

We can see B’s response as a bad one. If A meant it more innocently, just to mean biological sex, without having thought about the issue carefully, then B’s response was unfair and counterproductive. And even if A was aware of the all the issues, B could have given a more direct and measured response, like “I think you ought to more carefully distinguish between gender and biological sex…” etc. But in the example, B’s response just functions as a challenge that causes a retreat.

You could argue then that the example isn’t a good one, because it’s complex, and it’s meant to show the fallacy of A while B is not totally blameless either. But its complexity is why I like it.

Has Jamal or his mod minions, decided to 'diminish' this thread?
I apologise in advance for such a terrible accusation if it's just a tech hitch.
In truth I am not that bothered anyway. It's lived a long life in the league of page one threads.
It seems to be getting pushed down the pages, regardless of any new posts on it. — universeness

Yes, I “sunk” it, which means new posts no longer push it up the page. As you say, it’s had a long enough life, and it’s now more like a private conversation.

I haven't heard of this fallacy before and I think it is helpful. — Art48

I agree, I like it. I do find it occasionally confusing though, when for some reason I’m associating the strong claim with the strong position in the castle.

I think it's vaguely like the moving the goalposts fallacy — Art48

Maybe they overlap. When you move the goalposts you move them to where it’s more difficult for your opponent to score, which is like retreating to the defendable position.

You didn’t put it in the Lounge. I did. This is pretty clear from what I said above:

From now on I’ll be deleting discussions like this rather than moving them to the Lounge — Jamal

I tend to think the idea of the insentient nature of matter goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks. Judaism and Christianity, but it's a nuanced issue to be sure, and I'm no expert. — Janus

Yes, but to view people or animals as at bottom inanimate or as divided between animate and inanimate might be more recent.

Is it a scientific view that makes it look puzzling, or just the commonsense view of matter as being "inanimate", not to mention insentient and insapient? — Janus

They’re the same thing. Or in other words, yes, but this is a particular commonsense view that we get from science, from the culture of a secular society in which science has been paramount for a few hundred years. Science, that is, of a particular kind—and here I hand wave in the direction of Descartes.

A total outlier in my musical pantheon but he’s great. Julian Cope.

But such is politics isn't it? I don't like that my local school board has decided to change the bus schedules, so the neighbors and I get a bunch of signs and scream and yell and call for the outster of them all. We can substitute "change the bus schedules" to whatever issue du jour is before the community, but to think I should be limited in some way from fighting for what I want else be accused of trying to cancel someone doesn't seem fair.

A director has to be able to deal with angry students. If Arono is the sort that wants only to be bothered with the academic part of his job, then that's what he needs to limit himself to. He just seems like a really weak director.

But I guess I could snipe at the example you've provided all day long. — Hanover

I still think you're being too hasty in your judgements, not knowing much about the context. He had been working hard for a year or so to walk a line between, on the one hand, guidance and conditional support for students, and on the other hand, criticism of their approach and defence of the autonomy of the academics at the Institute, which he was deeply committed to. He had been involved in discussions with the student protesters and had supported students in conflicts with the authorities (although as I've already related he also called the police on them once).

That he couldn't deal with the disruptions might be evidence of the extreme behaviour of the students rather than of his own weakness. He had dealt with disruptions before, and you'll surely agree that when a conflict like this becomes increasingly intense there must come a point when one man cannot stand up to a room full of angry students. I don't want to label the students as terrorists but it's important to remember that the incident took place in the context of a violent long-running conflict that culminated in a series of terrorist attacks.

But if it were shown that he was just a big baby and an incompetent director, it wouldn't matter much. All I can say is that from what I've read, I don't think that's how it was. But it has to be said that he was a little old man and an old-fashioned bourgeois intellectual so he was doubtless not cut out for physical confrontation. And as I said before, I'm not here to evoke sympathy for poor little Adorno, victim of topless girls.

Your most substantive point is that the students ought to have been free to disrupt his lectures in protest at whatever they were protesting against. Well, they were free to do that, and they didn't suffer personal consequences for it as far as I know--but the result was that he couldn't lecture and found it impossible to maintain the distance from the conflict that he felt was essential in his role as independent theoritician.

What I'll accept is that there are plenty of examples of professors and administrators being denied promotions and success based upon their ideologies and not academic abilities. That is, the very concept of being free to say whatever you want without reprisal (the tenure system basically) is being misued to only allow those club members in that pass a certain belief litmus test.

That is a problem. It is the politicalization of every nook and cranny in society, from what beer we are to drink to which professor gets which appointment. It's not the wokeness. It's the Element O. I do think it forms the stated basis for why DeSantis did what he did when he re-organized the school. Whether his intent really went beyond just wanting to slap the left is very doubtful though. — Hanover

Cool. But what you call Element O is probably just an aspect of what I've been calling woke politics.

This is why I went down the path of comparing the right and the left's wokeness. It's because you were asserting there was something distinguishing in the left's wokeness that is alarming but not the right's, which I take to be that you always thought the right had a morally failed position, but not so for the left. I was only trying to point out that they've both always been morally flawed to some degree, so your belief that one prevailed over the other was just bias. — Hanover

I get that, but I disagree. I think woke politics is a particular way of doing politics that comes out of progressive neoliberalism, was originally and is still primarily left-wing (in the sense of socially progressive), but may now have become the way of doing politics across the board.

Your problem, I'd submit, is that you are having trouble understanding your anti-wokeness instinct that your brothers and sisters well to the right of you are openly embracing when those to the left of you are rejecting it. You don't sit often in the right isle, and it feels a bit uncomfortable nodding your head when you hear some of the anti-trans talk (for example). So, the question is whether the left really has to accept the consequences of what were once considered reductio ad absurdum arguments to remain on the left.

The answer, as the ideologies grow more developed, are made more logically consistent, and become less pragmatic, appears to be yes. You're left in these polarized positions where you have to accept some degree of nonsense because it flowed from your first principles. — Hanover

I understand. There’s a kernel of truth here, but you’ve got me somewhat wrong (maybe mostly). I’ve been pretty anti-woke and anti-identity-politics for decades, and have recently become more mellow and tolerant towards it. And I don’t know who you think is to the left of me; the targets of my criticism don’t seem to be.

The kernel of truth is that it is difficult to challenge woke politics from the left, because most of its critics are on the right. And that can be uncomfortable. As I admitted elsewhere on the forum, I did come to realize some time ago that I had grown too enamoured of criticisms of wokeness that, as it turned out, were functioning to defend hierarchy and oppression. And I know it was just an example but for the record I don’t find myself nodding along to any “anti-trans talk”. (Although some would say I just have a high bar for what I consider “anti-trans talk”, but that’s another matter)

So yes, it’s difficult and uncomfortable, but no, I’m not surprised about it or mystified as to my own instincts, which I have no doubt are compatible with a principled Marxist position.

And of course, I don’t accept that what I’m complaining about stems from my, or the left’s, first principles. How does that work?

To summarize: nice try but no cigar!

Isn't it rather a strange question? — Wayfarer

I kind of feel that way too; as a philosophical orientation it looks odd. However, taken as an object of science it makes sense to puzzle over phenomenal consciousness. And perhaps unlike you, I don't see any reason in principle why it shouldn't be an object of science.

So in philosophical mode my question in place of Humphrey's would be something like, "what is it about a scientific view that makes phenomenal experience look so puzzling?"

That said, I like his answer.

The student activism exhibited sentiments that repeated around the world -- they were anti-war and anti-exploitation of the people. They were also pro-technocrats. — L'éléphant

I don't think so, at least not obviously so. The 1960s student movement, particularly the German one, was explicitly for the democratization of the universities, and against bureaucratic control. And you'll notice that Adorno says "I do not doubt for a moment that the student movement in its current form is heading towards that technocratization of the university that it claims it wants to prevent". He was intimately familiar with the movement, so I don't think he was imagining things.

However, I'm not quite clear on your point so I'd be interested if you have more to say.

Political economy and political philosophy are different fields. — Jamal

Are they? In academics, maybe. In life, not so much. In political life, economy is central: it frames so many issues, influences so many decisions, determines so many policies. Is it really possible to keep them in separate arenas? — Vera Mont

Well, political economy and political philosophy, which the OP asked about, are just the names of academic disciplines, so that's really what I was talking about. And anyway, the separation I described is not between economics and politics but between a social science that combines both on one side (political economy), and a branch of philosophy on the other (political philosophy).

But I'm all for an interdisciplinary approach and I'm all for applying these things in everyday life. One of the things I like about Marx and critical theory (at least early critical theory) is their resistance to a specialization that leads to the splitting of knowledge into smaller and smaller discrete chunks.

The episode has obvious parallels with what’s been going on in American universities over the past few years, where woke activism has led to the cancellation of academics whose opinions are not in line with orthodox identity politics. — Jamal

If you could make a case that he was being denied promotions or faced termination based upon his beliefs and not his academic accomplishments, then I'd think you'd have a parallel, but if you only have obnoxious and provocative objectors to his speech, then that seems fair game. — Hanover

I said I’d come back to it, and here I am.

As you might have predicted, my response is: sure, they’re different in some ways, but there are important similarities.

I was wrong above when I said that Horkheimer was the director of the Institute—he had already stepped down. It turns out that Adorno himself was the director at the time. So as well as being the intellectual star attraction, he was the boss. This put him in a different position to the present-day academics who are in fear of dismissal and so on. The challenge he faced was more direct.

But it was the same kind of challenge, namely that of radical students who tried to enforce the party line on a member of the academic staff, to prevent him from lecturing if he didn’t show support (and express regret for his previous unsupportive actions), and to stage direct action against the institution if it didn’t comply with their demands.

Either way it can fairly be called cancellation. That said, I’m not totally committed to the idea that he was cancelled—it doesn’t matter what we call it, but there’s certainly a parallel there.

EDIT: By the way, I'm not really interested in evoking sympathy for Adorno by portraying him as a victim, even though he was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. He was a powerful intellectual who was used to being listened to, and he was doing all right (except when he died a few months later, which was definitely a low point for him). I'm interested in the politics more than the personalities, although the latter give it some colour and drama.

I don’t want to do battle over who is more open-minded, left or right. The question is too abstract and ahistorical. Sometimes it’s the left, sometimes the right.

Certainly I wish the left were able to reclaim the cause of freedom back from the clutches of the right, because if the left is not about freedom it’s dead and worthless. Same for open-mindedness I guess.

Political economy and political philosophy are different fields. The former is about economics in the context of politics, government, and nation states. In today’s terms it’s a social science, a combination of political science and economics. Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy, and as such it asks fundamental questions about government, the state, etc. It’s not a social science doing empirical investigation.

I haven’t read the Bataille. Looks weirdly interesting.

That’s all very praiseworthy and agreeable. But…

So, to be balanced, I must condemn Element O in all its forms, both liberal and conservative — Hanover

I would say to be balanced you must not present them as if they are equally pernicious and dominant when they are not.

Now, I’m not saying they’re not, and I (hope I) don’t want to downplay conservative Element O, but which form of Element O one is most concerned about depends on, among obvious other things, where one lives, works, etc. If we’re talking about universities then I would expect left woke politics to be more of a problem. Or, if we’re talking about universities in Massachusetts rather than in Florida.

The left Element O is more interesting to me because it concerns the problems of left politics, whereas the conservative version is just conservatism doing what it does, and my opposition to the imposition of the conservative belief system is just obvious, easy, and boring. Woke politics, by which I mean left Element O, is a more complex, difficult, and profound phenomenon, I think.

But actually yes, basically I agree. In looking at wokeness recently I’ve realized that I need to cover right-wing identity politics, because although identity politics is the politics primarily or originally of progressive neoliberalism, it’s a wider phenomenon now.

I'm unfamiliar with him, but I suspect this is another example of the technophobia we see in some philosophers. Just a guess, really. — Ciceronianus

I have a feeling you might interpret him more charitably when I tell you he really hated Heidegger, philosophy and all. Adorno’s attitude to technology is probably more complex than Heidegger’s, in that it is more ambivalent (i.e., dialectical). His primary targets in this area were instrumental reason, bureaucratic thinking, and science and technology that considers only means, not ends. This is a critique of modernity from within, in a spirit of self-critical enlightenment, rather than an instinctive conservatism or a reactionary attitude. Any Heideggerians reading this may be tempted to pounce on me at this point, and that’s fair, since I haven’t studied the guy’s work.

I also guess that academics sometimes think, mistakenly, that their students are more than privileged, self-important brats indulging themselves in various ways while they can do so in a more or less safe environment, one in which they're unaccountable for the most part. Just guessing, as I say. — Ciceronianus

Maybe, but the German student movement at the time was more than just that, even if—as Adorno says somewhere—it was partly that. There was police violence and an attempted assassination from the state, terrorism from the students (the Red Army Faction came out of it). It had a specific character and happened for specific reasons, rather than just students doing their thing.

Maybe I didn’t describe the incident very well or put it in its proper context. It was a disruption that prevented him from lecturing, the students were abusive and confrontational, he had withstood or been involved in protests and disruptions for a year already, he didn’t leave the Institute for seven weeks but merely postponed that particular course, a course that he had created himself and decided to do of his own volition after discussing it with his pal Horkheimer, the director of the Institute.

What you see in the US is both sides of this issue: Those academics not felt to be woke enough being canceled … and those academics felt too woke being canceled — Hanover

In presenting these in such a balanced way you obscure the fact that they’re not balanced. The first is a nationwide phenomenon and the second is due to the eccentricities of Ron DeSantis and his conservative board of trustees at a tiny and atypical university.

Still, you were right to question my parallel so as I say I’ll probably respond once I’ve done some thinking. I suspect the differences you point out will be enlightening.

Assuming you’re serious, you’ve jumped to a lot of silly conclusions there. Total misinterpretation of the events. However…

If you could make a case that he was being denied promotions or faced termination based upon his beliefs and not his academic accomplishments, then I'd think you'd have a parallel, but if you only have obnoxious and provocative objectors to his speech, then that seems fair game. — Hanover

This is a good point. Maybe I’ll come back to it and try to salvage my point somehow.

It’s tempting then to say that it didn’t really matter to them if it was implemented. I mentioned the basic aimlessness of the protests in 1968-69; but having aims and plans that are impractical, useless, or redundant is hardly different.

That’s great stuff and makes a lot of sense.

It occurs to me that there are more mundane reasons too, though they probably emerge out of the processes that you and Adorno identified. In 1968, the administrative society was a conscious target for the left. This century, not so much—people like David Graeber being an exception, I suppose.