The Motte and Bailey Doctrine
The New York Times doxxing blogger Scott Alexander has materially damaged my ability to send links explaining concepts I use. I decided to write an explanation of my favourite rhetorical trick: the Motte and Bailey Doctrine.
First proposed by Nicholas Shackel in his paper The Vacuity of Postmodern Methodology, a Motte and Bailey works something like this:
“A Motte and Bailey castle is a medieval system of defence in which a stone tower on a mound (the Motte) is surrounded by an area of land (the Bailey) which in turn is encompassed by some sort of a barrier such as a ditch. Being dark and dank, the Motte is not a habitation of choice. The only reason for its existence is the desirability of the Bailey, which the combination of the Motte and ditch makes relatively easy to retain despite attack by marauders. When only lightly pressed, the ditch makes small numbers of attackers easy to defeat as they struggle across it: when heavily pressed the ditch is not defensible and so neither is the Bailey. Rather one retreats to the insalubrious but defensible, perhaps impregnable, Motte. Eventually the marauders give up, when one is well placed to reoccupy desirable land. … the Bailey, represents a philosophical doctrine or position with similar properties: desirable to its proponent but only lightly defensible. The Motte is the defensible but undesired position to which one retreats when hard pressed.” — Nicholas Shackel, the Vacuity of Postmodern Methodology
I’m a big supporter of any philosophical concept named after medieval war tactics, and this concept is also useful as an inoculation against bad-faith rhetoric.
In laymen’s terms, pulling a Motte and Bailey means: Saying something wildly provocative, and, when criticized, retreating to an obviously true claim and pretending that’s what you were saying all along.
See below for a pictoral definition and example of a Motte and Bailey in action:
I hope you can see how this trick might be abused to sneak bad ideas into public discourse.
Shackel originally used this to describe the linguistic obfuscation of various postmodern philosophers — Foucault, Rorty, and approximately every academic with a conspicuously French last name. Here’s the trick he claims Foucault pulls in his analysis of truth and power:
The essential political problem for the intellectual is not to criticise the ideological contents supposedly linked to science, or to ensure that his own scientific practice is accompanied by a correct ideology, but that of ascertaining the possibility of constituting a new politics of truth. The problem is not changing people’s consciousnesses — or what’s in their heads — but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth….
It’s not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time. — Foucault, 1972
This is a wildly interesting claim. A new politics of truth? Truth as politics? Truth as explicitly intertwined with hegemonic systems of power? I bet Foucault’s sold a lot of books and lecture gigs with this claim. But here’s what he says later:
“Truth” is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements. — Foucault, 1972
Weird definition of Truth, right? Most people when you say “truth” imagine something like: a statement that accurately describes reality. Foucault instead defines truth as the processes that regulate, distribute, circulate, and operationalized statements! This is an important distinction, and his original argument of the Truth being pure politics becomes a lot less exciting. A translated version of Foucault’s statements might look something like this:
“We must emancipate [the production, regulation, distribution, circulation, and operation of statements] from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which they operate at the present time.” — Milne, 2020
This is very reasonable. The people in power shouldn’t solely decide what gets circulated, distributed, and regulated. I expect very few people would disagree with Foucault in this sense. But when do you think Foucault reverts to this tamed definition? When convenient. The remainder of his time is spent arguing against Truth and making wildly exciting claims that get one tenure and fancy lecture gigs.
A conversation with someone using the Motte and Bailey Doctrine might go something like this:
Alice: Aliens exist, I met one.
Bob: When did you meet one? Do you have evidence they exist?
Alice: Um, if you bothered to learn the Drake Equation, you’d know the vast quantity of stars with habitable planets implies it is very likely that aliens exist.
Bob: …. Yeah, but you just said you met one?
Alice: Listen, I don’t have time to educate you. Look it up on Wikipedia.
Bob leaves, and Alice goes back to loudly proclaiming aliens are real and she’s hitching a ride to Mars next Tuesday.
This is a contrived example — I confess I’ve never met a diehard believer-in-aliens before — but I think you get the idea.
Who uses this trick?
Everybody — but in particular, grifters. People who make their money through social media channels where bold, 280-character claims can go viral while reasonable explanations sit beside soundcloud links under the original post.
I’ll try to give examples of Motte and Bailey in action across all areas of the political spectrum. I suspect I’ll touch on issues you care a lot about. Rest assured someone else is pissed off at me for criticizing the things you found unobjectionable.
I’ll also note that some people do legitimately believe the literal slogans I’m about to list. I’m going to dismiss those as a weak-man — a true but not representative example — and instead focus on those who say the slogan and mean something more reasonable.
“Alternative Medicine (acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractors, traditional Chinese medicine) can cure [insert disease]”
You can see this on just about any Alternative medicine website. It took me 30 seconds on google to find 3 good examples of this (site links removed):
If you aren’t familiar with the medical literature, check out this link for a walkthrough of the various attempts to verify the curative properties of various alternative medicines. To date, there is not high quality evidence that these treatments have a significant effect on these illnesses.
When faced with the lack of high-quality medical evidence, proponents of these treatments retreat to some variant of: “But Placebo’s are powerful! And it’s important to give people hope, so [treatment] can make them feel cared for. Don’t you want sick people with no hope to feel cared for?” (Motte)
Once you leave them alone, they go back to selling glorified water to desperate people looking to cure their cancer (Bailey).
“God exists and, if you pray hard enough, will do things for you”
Scott Alexander put it better than I can:
“The religious group that acts for all the world like God is a supernatural creator who builds universes, creates people out of other people’s ribs, parts seas, and heals the sick when asked very nicely (bailey). Then when atheists come around and say maybe there’s no God, the religious group objects “But God is just another name for the beauty and order in the Universe! You’re not denying that there’s beauty and order in the Universe, are you?” (motte). Then when the atheists go away they get back to making people out of other people’s ribs and stuff.” — SlateStarCodex. (Emphasis mine)
Intercessory prayer has a bad track record, which I don’t anticipate turning around anytime soon. Much like alternative medicine, proponents of prayer-as-action retreat to wholesome comments on the value of caring for others — conveniently forgetting their original assertion that prayer would do something material.
“Abolish the Police”
Topical. Spooky to write about. I agree with the “motte” here.
What people usually mean: divert some funding from police departments to affordable housing and mental health crisis centres, reduce the number of officers carrying guns, and train officers in de-escalation practices (Motte). The elimination or abolishment of law enforcement (Bailey) looks way better on signs, though:
One phrasing is way easier to spray-paint and put on a protest sign. So we’re left with “of course abolish the police doesn’t literally mean abolish the police, it actually means [list of reasonable policy proposals]”.
“Anyone Can Cook”
As fans of Pixar Studios’ hit movie Ratatouille may remember, food critic Anton Ego by the end of the movie said the following:
In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: “Anyone can cook.” [Bailey] But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. [Motte]
Source: This reddit thread
I will note that this case is unique in that both Motte AND Bailey statements make for great slogans. Usually the Motte doesn’t roll off the tongue. Stan Anton Ego?
Rapid-fire examples:
- Bailey: A fetus is a person. Motte: A fetus is biologically human
- Bailey: Communism kills people. Motte: The policies of historically communist states significantly increased the death rate. See: Holodomor.
- Bailey: Capitalism kills people. Motte: Free market systems and profit maximization have historically justified horrific acts. See: Colonialism.
- Bailey: Golf is a racist and classist sport. Motte: The land currently being used for golf could be put to better use, like affordable housing.
- Bailey: Trump will Make America Great Again!. Motte: Trump will fight for my pet issues, which I define as great.
- Bailey: [Housing/Food] is a Human Right and should be free! Motte: For those who can’t afford it, of course.
These examples aren’t all perfect; There is legitimate argument to be had surrounding the tradeoff between rhetorically powerful slogans and nuanced policy discussions. Regardless, I think this shows how common this rhetorical tool is.
Conclusion
Once you understand the Motte and Bailey Doctrine, you start seeing it everywhere. Challenge it when it happens.
