Motte and Bailey fallacy [click here].

I see this fallacy happening with RP more than anywhere else. With RP, the basic stance is usually:

  • amoral dating strategy
  • based on a theory of intersexual dynamics (men and women are different)
  • opposition to "blue pilled" theories elsewhere that men and women are supposed to be "the same" and the mainstream dating advice that is supposed to be based on this fallacious assumption

This is the "motte" - the position RP want to defend, the position they want everyone else to think they believe in and therefore, this makes it easier to reel people in and makes it easier to defend against criticism towards RP.

For example, the fact that RPs are saying things like,

Chicks have different “rules” for guys based on their appearance. I have had females insist that I forcibly remove unattractive guys who barely touched them only to let “hawt” guys finger-fuck them on the dance floor two songs later.

Chicks use alcohol as an excuse to act slutty. Yes, drinking lessens inhibition, but I have seen girls start acting inebriated, and slutty, before they finish their first Fireball.

...

Girl’s night out is a myth. Last Saturday night a group of ladies, most of them wearing rings, celebrating the forthcoming nuptials of a friend, showed up and soon began giving lap-dances to the regular Chads. As God is my witness, I saw the bride-to-be sneak out to the parking lot with a well-known, albeit local, MMA fighter only to return in about 30 minutes looking flushed. I’m not sure what they did, but wouldn’t be too surprised if semen were involved.

Girls can get away with sexual assault. Even though I am half-a-century old and gruff, I get propositioned in the most vulgar ways every night, am constantly being “twerked” and have even had my penis grabbed a few times.

... which are obviously detours away from the basic principles about dating strategy and theory of intersexual dynamics where men and women are different to subtly promote generalising AWALT theories about women and hypergamy. And they do this rather than look at general tendencies of women that have been scientifically backed (rather than anecdotal experience) or look at some of the social or biological causes/justifications of higher standards of attraction among women compared to men.

But if a PP or a BP dares bring this up,

"oh no, that's not what RP as a whole believes, these individuals don't represent the subreddit as a whole [in spite of the 1.5k upvotes on that particular post for example]. We are just a dating strategy based on a theory of intersexual dynamics."

But the theory of intersexual dynamics is flawed anyway because it's true that men and women have differences but they have similarities too anyway, which would suggest more of a middle ground between RP the gender theories and the BP gender theories which were simply "everything other" than RP. Which brings me to my next point which is that if a PP dares to point out that they occupy a different position than what has been vaguely defined as "otherism" to RP, then oh no, we must be BP because that is simply "eveything other" to RP. There isn't a spectrum of beliefs, either just "your with us or your against us". So of course BP have parodied this view and PP have come to the conclusion that the parameters set by RP in this discussion were historically fallacious to begin with because realistically, people can have a variety of belief systems.

But BP are guilty of motte and bailey fallacy also. Because clearly BP has been referred to as a conventional attitude that men are typically to blame for their dating struggles, women don't have overall higher standards and other tenets that seem to fall in line with a feminist ethic. So BP has been used to refer to a set of dating principles that seem to have been designed primarily with the intention of prioritising the feminist ethic and giving guys dating advice that ensures they are respectful of women's boundaries, that they are polite, sweet, kind and empathetic and that they don't pretend to be nice just to turn sour after a rejection (hence the Nice GuyTM) trope. But the problem with these dating principles is that it's primarily about protecting women's interests. Rather than giving guys the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they aren't going to creep out on women, these columns don't really give a shit about reasonable dating concerns of Good Men [click here]. So they just throw the guys breadcrumb advice and feel good platitudes that don't actually work mainly in the hope that guys who need to turn to dating advice will leave women alone (mostly in the assumption that, "if they need dating advice, they obviously just don't have what it takes to attract women in the first place").

When PP and RP point this out about BP, they don't just admit that BP is clearly being referred to as a position that is progressive/feminist. Instead they prefer to argue along the lines that

"oh no we are just a parody sub of RP, we don't believe all that. And you can't define BP anyway, BP just means 'something other' to RP. Just because I happen to be progressive/feminist doesn't mean that We have a unified progressive/feminist stance, honest."

So again, we see examples of manipulative debate tactics from RP/BP but never PP who mostly take a back seat in the discussion because nobody has came along before to provide a succinct definition on what PP stance is [click here]. That's just lead to PP being seen as the quiet men and women, the nice guys, the agreeable and reasonable types that will "listen", "smile and nod" like therapists or something and mostly agree with what your saying but only occasionally point to a certain stance or topic where you could "potentially consider a different point of view". This kind of placid stance isn't because PPs are weak minded but because of the way the parameters of the debate have been established and dominated by BPs and RPs shouting at each other. But because now we are working towards a succinct definition and theoretical framework for PP, we're moving away from this back seat role and PP is finally becoming something that can be action driven and assertive in its ideological theorising. This means that, finally, we can see through the Motte and Bailey stances and succinctly point towards RP and BP bullshit. In this way, we have a moral high ground now as an ideology where we both call out the RPs/BPs on their machiavellian tactics and stick to our guns with clearly rather than pulling some lame Motte and Bailey at the last moment - "oh no, we don't believe that what we believe is actually this". We don't need to do this because our stance is strong enough as it is. It's clearly defined and we stick to it without needing psychologically weak, manipulative machiavellian debate tactics like what RP proudly proclaim to engage in and BP pretend like they don't [click here]:

  • egalitarianism or intersectional-humanism
  • ideological centrism (state-regulated capitalism)
  • moral rather than amoral
  • dating strategy that requires women take equal responsibilities as well as privileges
  • women and men have both similarities and differences but ultimately are of equal worth, not equal attributes in a material sense

NB, I'm talking in this post about the polarised tenets in BP/RP thought, not the folk who are already PP leaners like on this subreddit.