As in, SellsWords
Philosophical Mercenaries.
That's the next big enemy. In fact, they've been here all along, but it's gotten to the point where the red line in the sand is encroaching upon their ability to act, and they are primed to self-destruct.
You probably don't know exactly what I mean, so that's what this post is about.
There has long existed a class of philosophers and popular speakers whose primary goal and vocation has been to infiltrate a political movement, appear as intellectual allies to that political movement, promote talking points and engage in philosophical debates, and carefully craft narratives and theoretical equivalencies which have strategically exploitable backdoors which the enemies of that movement can use to undermine said political movement.
Spies and Insurgents, in a way.
The original name for such a vocation, and class, is called Sophism. Anyone who goes about creating arguments with backdoors which can be hacked apart by the opposition are called Sophists.
https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/sophism
SOPH'ISM, noun [Latin sophisma.] A specious but fallacious argument; asubtilty in reasoning; an argument that is not supported by sound reasoning , or in which the inference is not justly deduced from the premises. When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism or fallacy.
These SellsWords are especially dangerous because they can produce memes which a movement will get wrapped up in and subsequently burned by association as the Mass Media entities tear it apart. They win by forcing you to die on a hill which they secretly built up to explode.
Such schemes can be as subtle as they are malicious.
For example, consider the difference between these two similar debate points:
- Men cannot get pregnant.
- Only women can get pregnant.
What, you may ask, is the difference? Well, the first is an objective fact. The second is the Sophist's argument with an explosive backdoor.
Saying "only women can get pregnant" implies that women who are barren, and infertile, are not women, and therefore the argument and your stance is void because you are not accounting for all variables and exceptions to the rule.
By phrasing things just so, it permits the enemy to exploit the position by shifting the argument in a lateral direction, away from your key logical point, and towards a ground which they can cast you as a villain and as uncompassionate towards those who are infertile.
Among us in the movement are imposters*(kek)*, who promote flawed talking points and then casually send out flares for the stooges on social media to use as a que, at which point they then work to discredit the movement by deposing the intentionally flawed talking point.
Some of the laziest arguments can be seen as flat-earthers, jew-haters, boomer-bashers, etc. Those pushing such talking points are the lowest paid.
Then there are the highest paid shills and purveyors of subterfuge, who will drop red-pill after red-pill but make sure the capsule is dampened such that it gets caught in the throat on the way down. They make sure we end up re-tweeting and supporting their causes, and then plop out a big fat turd which is used to discredit them and those who follow them.
They give spicy hot-takes, and may even run for office at times.
Eventually, however, they manage to net enough of a following into their words that they become too hazardous to the enemy in terms of red-pilling, even if some of the arguments get stuck half-way down. They get so big that the discrediting efforts get overlooked.
At this point they must self-destruct and as a result lead their followers to feel abandoned, hopeless, demoralized, and even wanderers looking for another home, then taking their flawed arguments other places and souring their legitimacy as well.
Some of the bigger examples which I personally suspect are the likes of Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and possibly Jordan Peterson.
Those that remember the days of The Colbert Report might recall that he made a lot of pro-Conservative points in contrast to John Stewart's The Daily Show. I remember agreeing to some of his jokes that bashed Obama and Democrats, and that's what made him so dangerous. Those jokes were crafted specifically to undermine Conservative free-thought and allow them to curate and control the debate points on both sides.
Often, what they say isn't false, it's how they say it. When you parrot those talking points exactly, it allows their base to fire back with effective "got-ya's!"
Much of it is very true and revealing; just like the statement "only women can get pregnant" isn't necessarily false. However, the way the fact is stated and presented can result in the Truth being cast in a negative light, which turns away Normies.
We call this Controlled Opposition, but the original name for the vocation is a Sophist. A paid philosopher hired to be an intellectual insurgent in a political movement.
Beware the SellsWords.
Ok, cool.
So if your first statement is bulletproof, please explain how these sophists wouldn’t just use Thomas Beatie to “prove you wrong?”
Or Trystan Reese for that matter?
Anyone can be a sophist. I prefer the term pedantic.
The sophists wouldn't be proving me wrong.
You sorta miss the point if you think that.
A Sophist works in a movement to subvert that movement by offering up flawed arguments for the movement's enemies to pick apart, thereby whittling down the movement's credibility from within.
Therefore, a Sophist would use the second statement rather than the first because it can more easily shift the conversation instead of addressing the objective fact. Subversion from within is the goal.
Men can't get pregnant, because men do not have a womb. There's no place for a baby to form.
But just because there is a place for the baby to form, that also doesn't mean a pregnancy can occur. However, even barren women can often get pregnant through invitro fertilization, so long as the uterus hasn't collapsed. Their ovaries may be shot, but there is still a place for a baby. The amount of chop-shop you'd have to do to a man for a womb transplant just to give birth means you're less a man and more a monstrous chimera at that point...
Keep in mind, we aren't defining men by the lack of a uterus, because there are women who don't have uteruses. Instead, we open by defining men by their inability to get pregnant at all. Then, when asked to clarify on behalf of women who can't get pregnant, it's much easier to say they aren't men because they still have a uterus. Then, asked to clarify again, for women who also lack a uterus, we can simply present that they simply have no gender at that point, because they lack ANY ability to reproduce. No testicles, no penis, no ovaries, no uterus... What percent in the population are born that way? So long as their genetics are closer to woman than man, even if they lack all reproductive organs, then they are a woman.
All that said, there will always be exceptions to pick at, but if you approach it top-down rather than try to fight up, it's easier to make distinctions that make sense. "Men cannot get pregnant" is a better starting point for this discussion than "only women can get pregnant" simply because there is less room for them to keep saying "then what about this!"
Extremely long explanations like this are not selling me on the point you are trying to make.
I don’t disagree that we have to be cognizant of what messages are being put out there, and what, if any, weakness may be “built in,” but the example you gave here is not convincing me of the crux of your argument.
Because examples exist—the “pregnant men”—that those on the woke side will use to argue against both statements.