Motte and Bailey Rhetoric

[Starboard Song]

I came across this in a legal argument and think it is highly relevant on the other side of the PD looking glass.

Motte and Bailey rhetoric is a recent coinage for a type of concept-swapping. It is named for a midieval military strategy. The MOTTE is an undesirable but highly defensible bit of land. The BAILEY is nearby, and is hard to defend but large and desirable. In military strategy, people would boldly take control of the BAILEY, and if it were contested they would imediately fall back to the safety of the MOTTE, knowing they can try again later.

In argumentative rhetoric, particularly with my father-in-law, you start with the BAILEY: a bold and controversial statement, likely accusing me or my wife of some terrible something, and blaming and shaming anyone but yourself. When contested on the merits, in the slightest degree, you retreat with immediate and craven haste to the MOTTE ("Did you call us? No. Did you share the email? No.") : always a bare minimum accusation, an agreed-upon fact, a total nothing burger, or a falsehood. The trigger moment is this: when the other person concedes the MOTTE, or tires and walks away, you return to the BAILEY as if the incident had never occurred.

I realize now that the Motte and Bailey strategy is the meat and potatoes of my FIL's discourse. Perhaps y'all will recognize it in your situations.

[Cat of the Canals]

Oh yes, this definitely sounds familiar. My MIL is fond of making bombastic accusations, then when called out on the factual inaccuracies, retreats to some piddling "fact."

[Catothecat]

Sometimes bailey's are surrounded by moats...

Then you end up with siege warfare, which the PD is also an expert at since their weapons arsenal can seem endless. 

[moglow]

Lord have mercy - there's a NAME for it?? While I guarantee md has never heard of Motte or Bailey, this is her down to the knuckles. I can't begin to count the times over the years she came at me from the backstairs with some big [invented] drama for which I must answer. The instant I tried to speak reason and ask reasonable questions to clarify her surface statements, she smugly retreated into some long-resolved issue for which I *was* responsible. That's my life with her in a nutshell.

Motte and Bailey rhetoric. 

[square]

Excellent work, SS.

[bloomie]

Very helpful in recognizing this strategy, Starboard Song. Small highly defensible, but not desirable fallback after an encroachment into large, desirable, hard to defend territory. 🤔

[SonofThunder]

  Very interesting Starboard!  Thanks for sharing. 

Just love Mo's reply!   Thanks for the laugh MoGlow. Very much needed today.
"Lord have mercy - there's a NAME for it??......this is her down to the knuckles."
 

SoT

[moglow]

Always glad to spread joy, however delayed. Gallows humor is a particular talent of mine.

[SonofThunder]

Always glad to spread joy, however delayed. Gallows humor is a particular talent of mine.

Im glad its one of your talents. I have a coworker who has that same talent and to all the hardship we face on the job, he uses similar humor, claiming "if we cant find something in all this s#!t to laugh about, were all just going to go crazy".  "..down to the knuckles" is a keeper.

SoT