Thread by @jholbo1

There could hardly be a clearer example of James Lindsay just making up rules than this. The rule is: equity, as a value, may only be derived from a quirky axiom set consisting of Kendi (2019) and Jones and Okum (2001). I am sure I have never seen that rule in a logic text.

Evidently you aren't even allowed to read A and C charitably. If you accept A, you are only allowed to go full "Harrison Bergeron" with it, per B. There isn't any allowed move in the game like: perfect equity would be kind of absurd, but we need more than we've got.

You aren't even allowed to point out that 'equity' is obviously a more general concept and defining it in terms of race couldn't be right. You would have to define it more generally and then apply it based on empirical propositions about actual, unequal race relations.

And so we see the problem. Equity is a value I subscribe to, in qualified ways, for broadly liberal (social democratic) Rawls-ish reasons. And I would be happy to defend it using standard liberal arguments. I believe in equity and I did so before 2001, for sure before 2019.

But nooo. James Lindsay makes the rules, and so the rule is: if you believe in equity, you must rest your case on half-baked books, argument from authority-wise, thereby putting yourself on the hook for contradictions. And if you don't it's a No True Scotsman.

And that's the grift. Lindsay didn't just tweet out THAT it's a grift, like Rufo. But the sleight of hand is obvious. There are ever so many progressive and liberal values and policies that can be defended credibly - but that can also be defended incoherently.

This just follows from the general truth that any idea, however good, can be defended badly. So: you just make it a rule that that bad defense is the only allowable defense.

Lindsay's Rule: For all X, if X is a liberal or progressive value, X can only be maintained for the most half-baked reason ever put down, on paper, for X. If it turns out that X, believed for a very bad reason, implies some contradiction, X must be rejected.

Note what the strategy is here. You want to avoid debating whether the other side's position basically has merit. That's losing ground. If Lindsay were to pick on any but the worst arguments he'd be in a real debate.

His schtick is he's a debunker. He can slice through the other side's arguments with effortless contempt. It's a rhetorically-appealing stance but it depends on the opposition staying obligingly straw-like. If Lindsay were ever in a real debate, he'd need a different style.

Lindsay's Rule is illogical, but why would it even FEEL vaguely logical to think in his terms? The idea is, intuitively: if Kendi is silly, yet Kendi has a bestselling book, there couldn't be non-silly arguments for what Kendi is saying. His must be roughly the best versions.

This is a weak argument, sociologically and psychologically. I haven't read Kendi myself, but I suspect, based on 2nd-hand accounts, I wouldn't be too impressed by the analytic framework, philosophically. But the real ringer in Lindsay's set is C. It's just dumb.

If you are allowed to make a pile of books that are sort of 'on the same side', but then you can take the dumbest claim in any and treat it like some axiom all of the books are on the hook for - well, obviously, you can make sophistical mischief.

Every possible thought-chain, related to all the books, becomes as weak as the weakest link in the weakest chain forged, actually, in any of them. Obviously the sane thing would be to remove the weak link, build the chain better. But noo. Because Lindsay makes the rules.

Excuse me: I typed 'you aren't allowed to read A and C charitably'. That itself is a good example of a claim needing to be read charitably! I meant to type 'A and B'. C is obviously just hopeless.