Kafkatrapping and other bad argument tactics.

[Rageaholic]

Another one I see a lot is abusing the (citation needed) function. Demanding a citation for things which are either well known or not necessary for the argument. An example of the former would be demanding proof of the moon landing and then nitpicking the hell out of anything provided. An example of the later; demanding proof of someone experiencing harassment when it's just used as one example. There are already enough examples of harassment out there. And even if there wasn't, is it much to ask to accept it for the sake of argument?

The phrase "I'm not here to educate you" is pretty obnoxious, but I understand where it comes from.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

The phrase "I'm not here to educate you" is pretty obnoxious, but I understand where it comes from.

I can understand something like that, but the scenarios are very specific.

IE - When a person ends up finding research based on another person's very vague statements. Like "there was an article that said XYZ." Other people shouldn't have to hunt and search for articles for YOU argument, YOU provide them.

But most of the time when I see it is like this;

Person A - Well there are a few articles that say <XXX> which is where I am arguing from.

Person B - Link to articles please?

Person A - I'M NOT HERE TO EDUCATE YOU.


Uuhh... yes, yes you are. When you debate you are trying to pull people to your side via facts and logical reasoning. You ARE here to educate people.

[TheHuckster]

Another one I see a lot is abusing the (citation needed) function. Demanding a citation for things which are either well known or not necessary for the argument. An example of the former would be demanding proof of the moon landing and then nitpicking the hell out of anything provided.

Well, to be fair, when you're debating something like the truth of the moon landing, you're usually dealing with a special breed of nutjob who will use pseudoscience to "prove" it was faked. As soon as people start talking about faked moon landings and chemtrails, I just try to change the subject. That's a topic that will be painful during the entire course of discussing it.

[Rageaholic]

@AmbrosiaWriter That's why I think the "I'm not here to educate you" is still a very obnoxious tactic in a debate. The purpose of a debate is to educate or at least present your views. I think that outside of a debate, it's understandable. Like if you're trying to explain to a friend or family member why you're uncomfortable doing something and they just won't get it. For those people, no explaination (other than "fuck off and die") will suffice.

So it comes down to who's demanding what. If the person who doesn't want to be an educator is demanding others educate themselves, than they are being an asshole. But if someone is demanding someone explain themselves, especially when they won't accept the answers, that's just as (if not more) obnoxious.

[Canarr]

Well, remember the "bad guys" also think they are fighting the good fight for a just cause so...

That's sort of my point. If both sides claim to be on the right side, and the "real" Good Guys use the same asshole tactics as the "real" Bad Guys, then how are you - as a generic, non-affiliated third party - supposed to know which side to support?

Sure, sometimes it's easy; if you have a side that supports forming mobs to beat up immigrant children in a train station, that's probably not the side you wanna be seen supporting. But not all social issues, and the corresponding discussions, are that simple in nature.

Whatever happened to keeping the moral high ground? Why is that not an issue nowadays?

[Gravekeeper]

Whatever happened to keeping the moral high ground? Why is that not an issue nowadays?

Many people claim to live in the moral high ground but really just rent a post office box in the neighbourhood.

Like you were saying earlier though, its sort of a matter of optics and its a pretty common counter tactic for the Bad Guys(tm) to hunt down one bad example of something in an otherwise good cause. Then champion that as a condemnation of the entire group. Entire media outlets are based on it in the US. -.-

Its a tactic used constantly against social justice issues among other things. ( See Climate Change for example ).

I'm not entirely sure what to call it. Its like a cult of confirmation bias.

[BlaqueKatt]

Person A - I'M NOT HERE TO EDUCATE YOU.


Uuhh... yes, yes you are. When you debate you are trying to pull people to your side via facts and logical reasoning. You ARE here to educate people.

The only time I've ever seen that phrase used is during arguments about "isms" and other social justice issues, usually a member(or a dogpile of them) of the *oppressive* group demanding the marginalized person in question explain exactly why what they said did is offensive. Usually looks like:

Person a-Well all x are y anyway.
Person from group x-um, no and that's horribly offensive
Person a- I'm not an "ist", tell me why, including all history, it's offensive, because as not a member of group x it doesn't offend ME, or my friend who is in group x, he agrees with me.
person from group x- I'm not here to educate you.

explained well by Kat Blaque (no realtion)
Why Pressuring Someone to ‘Educate’ You About Their Struggles Is Oppression, Not Understanding

more in depth here

[Canarr]

Interesting article, thanks (the latter one). And it does acknowledge both scenarios for this issue:

(1) A common dynamic online:

Person A is writing about or discussing Social Justice Things online.
Person B comes across Person A’s writing or discussions, perhaps on Twitter or Tumblr, and has a basic-level question about Social Justice Things–sometimes the particular ones under discussion here, or maybe just something else that Person A might know about.
Person B asks Person A a basic-level question, hoping to learn more about the topic.
Person A is annoyed at the request and responds angrily: “I’m not here to educate you!” “Go Google it!” “[link to Let Me Google That For You results]”
Person B feels embarrassed and hurt, and concludes that Person A doesn’t really care whether Person B understands Social Justice Things or not. Person B may develop a very negative opinion about Social Justice People and Social Justice Things, because that’s how cognitive bias works.

(2) Here’s another common dynamic, perhaps an even more common one:

Person A has a blog or a Twitter account that they use to discuss Social Justice Things with like-minded folks. Person A posts something.
Person B comes across Person A’s writing or discussions. Person B is privileged relative to Person A on the issues being discussed–gender, race, class, etc. Person B feels annoyed at this discussion. They find all this Social Justice Stuff to be whiny and irritating and they don’t understand why people keep making such a big deal over such little things.
Person B asks Person A a basic-level question, perhaps worded in a way that reveals their irritation (“Yeah well, how are men supposed to meet women if we can’t even compliment a cute girl on the train?” “Okay so are you suggesting that white people just stop accepting job offers because a Black person should get them instead?”).
Person A is annoyed. They were just trying to discuss Social Justice Things with people they trust. They have answered these exact questions on their blog or Twitter dozens of times, as have many other writers. Maybe right now they don’t want to discuss basics like why street harassment is street harassment, or what affirmative action actually is. They are irritated at Person B’s entitled-sounding tone and the fact that Person B doesn’t seem to have done even the bare minimum to teach themselves about these issues.
Person A responds angrily: “I’m not here to educate you!” “Go Google it!” “[link to Let Me Google That For You results]”
Person B’s confirmation bias leads them to view this as yet another example of Social Justice People being awful rather than viewing this slightly rude response in the context in which it happened.

Here’s the problem: in practice, these dynamics can be almost indistinguishable.

And they realize that "the response to being angrily told to educate yourself will rarely be to educate yourself".

That one, I think, is important. And they also link to this article, where they say a few interesting things about "Callout Culture" - somewhat like the darker side of Social Justice:

Callout culture, for those who are not familiar, is a toxic dynamic that social justice communities, especially those on the Internet, tend to fall into. Callout culture essentially means that when you do something oppressive, everyone is allowed to yell at you as much as they like and whatever they like, even if you apologize. It reaches its epitome on Tumblr, in which people occasionally tell suicidal people to kill themselves because they used the word “crazy.”

[Rageaholic]

That's sort of my point. If both sides claim to be on the right side, and the "real" Good Guys use the same asshole tactics as the "real" Bad Guys, then how are you - as a generic, non-affiliated third party - supposed to know which side to support?

Sure, sometimes it's easy; if you have a side that supports forming mobs to beat up immigrant children in a train station, that's probably not the side you wanna be seen supporting. But not all social issues, and the corresponding discussions, are that simple in nature.

Whatever happened to keeping the moral high ground? Why is that not an issue nowadays?

An example that comes to mind is the Black Lives Matter movement. some of the activists have been real assholes, but I think the cause is an important one. Which brings up two more bad arguments, dismissing an entire cause based on the actions of some of the members. The inverse is excusing the shitty actions of a group because of their cause. This is often done by accusing those who call out assholery of "tone policing" even if they support them. I don't like tone policing, but it has it's place and I don't think it should be thrown at those who don't agree 100%

[Mr Hero]

All I heard in that video is whining. I get it that it can get frustrating to field the same question many times. But why would you answer with hostility?

[Canarr]

All I heard in that video is whining. I get it that it can get frustrating to field the same question many times. But why would you answer with hostility?

Yeah, the video isn't all that great; the other article is better. At least, they recognize that:

"Unfortunately, the response to being angrily told to educate yourself will rarely be to educate yourself."

This article here puts things together even better, I think:

Anger can be empowering. Marginalized groups in general are policed about their anger against their marginalization. Some groups, such as people of color and the mentally ill, are stereotyped to be angry, so even the slightest expression of anger by those groups ends up being read as Scary Black Man or Monstrous Mentally Ill Person. Other groups, such as women, are not expected to be angry at all. For these reasons a lot of marginalized people tend to repress their anger.

For these groups, the right to be angry matters. Having a space where they are free to express their anger is liberating for a lot of people. Instead of pushing their anger down and smiling and making nice, they finally have a chance to express the emotions they actually feel. I mean, there’s a reason telling people that their emotions are Wrong Things and they Should Not Have Them is a tool of abuse: invalidating people’s emotions is seriously shitty for their mental health.

That doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. Probably the biggest flaw I see in callout culture thinking is the inability to separate “my anger is valid, liberating, and empowering” from “literally anything I do because of my anger is valid, liberating, and empowering.”

I think it's a bit like the situation over on CS:

One scenario is, you start a thread where you rant about an asshole customer who yelled at you for no reason. You're just looking to vent a little, maybe read posts from other CS people who can relate to the problem. What you don't want is someone butting in with remarks like, "Well, maybe he just had a bad day?" or "Sure you didn't do anything wrong yourself?" or "You do know that not all customers are assholes, right?" That wasn't your intention; you just wanted to blow off some steam, not educate people on basic social grace. That's where "Fuck off, try working a day in retail yourself!" is an appropriate response. There's a reason for the FTSTS rule.

The other scenario is, when you write a blog/hold a speech/seminar/whatever about improving the relations between customers and employees in retail. Here, you *want* to educate people, you *want* to make them see the light on how to interact with each other in a civil way where no side ends up feeling unjustly treated. In this case, you need to be able to back up your claims and suggestions with facts, as you are trying to make an argument to people, not just rant a little. In this case, people are actually entitled to being educated by you, since that is your own claim.

Unfortunately, in the internet, on Twitter or Tumblr or whatever, these two scenarios can easily blur.

[Hyena Dandy]

Weird place to find it. But still, doesn't change that it wasn't really in the interweb's consciousness prior to the shitstorm that popularized it amongst a certain sub-culture of assholes.

I saw it frequently as well. I don't know what 'the interweb's consciousness' is generally, but consideirng the number of places I saw it, I have to say it was at least 'around.'

As far as what it meant, before, it was generally 'Person doing something good in a way that is making it something bad.'

As far as 'It's not my job to educate you,' that comes from a very solid basis. Which is that people who come from marginalized groups are frequently asked to explain their lives to people. I remember having to try to explain homosexuality to someone at a time when all I wanted to do was talk to my boyfriend instead. That said, I believe that when you become an activist, you make it your job to educate someone, so when you say "I am going to fight for (X)," as opposed to just "Hi I'm someone effected by (X)," it's different.

Also, calls to educate oneself can be a mistake, I think, because if you don't at least help someone find the right SOURCE, there's a good chance someone will miseducate themselves by choosing a source that conforms to their pre-existing biases.