There’s a type of argumentative manoeuvre I find frustrating but which I don’t have a good name for.
I’m talking about whenever someone rejects the arguments of another, not by pointing out how they’re wrong, but by claiming they’ve been… well kind of brainwashed.
Examples include:
- “False consciousness” — the idea that the oppressed willfully support the ideologies of their oppressors
- Dismissing a woman who appears to be making anti-feminist arguments as having “internalised misogyny”
- The idea people need to “decolonize” their minds
- Attributing the left-of-centre views of college students to the influence of left-wing academia
- Blaming the tabloids for giving working class people conservative ideas
- Anything “The Media”
There are other arguments that dismiss but don’t engage the arguments of an opponent, with ad hominems being the obvious example. If you call your opponent a liar, hypocrite or in the pay of corrupt forces, then you don’t have to deal with their actual claims.
But what feels different here is the patronising tone. “No-one in your position could reasonably believe what you say you do so there must be some other influence at work.”
It’s not that you’re maliciously wrong, just sadly, don’t-know-any-better wrong.
I would call it a fallacy but it feels more aggressive than that. A brutal blanking out of what someone is saying.
It’s not that there is never a place for these discussions. Why do so many people believe in conspiracy theories? So many climate sceptics? Those are questions I’m interested in, but I just hope that such answers go alongside arguments that deal with the points of these positions, rather than simply replace them.