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Notes -
Election deflection, C-section abjection, complexion dejection, the Meccan deception
Psyops and "gotcha" questions as tools for exposing dishonesty, cowardice and ideological rifts
I
Jay Clayton is the US attorney for the southern district of New York, and the nominee to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Last week, he appeared before the Senate Select Committee to judge his suitability for the role, during which Senator Jon Ossoff repeatedly asked him who won the 2020 presidential election. Clayton declined to answer.
With this simple question, Ossoff has just provided a powerful counter to one that so many progressives have tripped over in the last decade, "what is a woman?" The first example of its deployment that occurred to me was this clip, in which Jo Swinson (then-party leader of the Liberal Democrats) took questions on a call-in radio show. Clearly taken aback, she stumbled through a vague, digressive answer about how "we know what we are" and that all women are important regardless of ethnicity, sexuality or social class. It was like something out of The Thick of It.
Other prominent examples of the question's use include the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (to which she memorably replied "I'm not a biologist") and Sen. Josh Hawley grilling a physician on whether or not men can get pregnant.
But while conservatives and gender-criticals understand how effective "what is a woman?" is in making their ideological opponents look absurd, I think many fail to grasp its precise mechanism of action. You'll often hear such people crowing "How can you claim to know how to run a country, when you don't even know what a woman is?" But of course Swinson knows what a woman is. While she might pretend to endorse a trans-inclusive definition, her revealed preferences surely tell a very different story. I fancy that if she was using a public bathroom and a specimen like "Karen" White strolled in, she'd be out of there like a shot.
Within the progressive coalition, there are a small number of people who subscribe to the woo-y circularity of "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman", a "definition"1 that sounds preposterous to anyone with an ounce of common sense. There is a much larger group of people who don't endorse this definition, but are afraid to say so publicly for fear of alienating the crazy people who do. This makes "what is a woman?" a powerful "gotcha" question, as there's no answer a progressive politician2 can give which doesn't serve the inquirer:
The fact that Swinson took the third option strongly suggests that she doesn't endorse gender ideology, but feared alienating the people in her camp who do. She may be a dishonest coward, but she isn't a lunatic: she does, in fact, know what a woman is.
Likewise with Jay Clayton in the clip above. From watching the clip, I imagine many progressives (and perhaps also many conservatives) will conclude that Clayton thinks Trump won in 2020, but refuses to say so outright, knowing that it's an opinion most people rightfully consider absurd. But I would put money on Clayton knowing full well that Biden won, but being too afraid to say so publicly for fear of angering the lunatics in his camp. (And by "the lunatics", I of course mean "the current occupant of the Oval Office and his army of true believers"). Ossoff appears to agree, asking Clayton if it's "humiliating" that Clayton is expected to "indulge the President's delusions". Clayton isn't crazy or stupid: he's just a coward who lacks integrity.
To sum up: "what is a woman?" and "who won the 2020 election?" can expose someone as a lunatic with crazy beliefs. But even if they don't, they can still expose them as a coward or a traitor to their cause, and in some cases that can be just as useful.
II
When I started writing this, it occurred to me that the structure of these "gotcha" questions (wherein the respondent stands to lose face no matter how they answer the question) bears a familial resemblance to a series of anti-woke psyops from a few years back. Beginning in 2017, a group of anonymous pranksters mounted posters around American college campuses bearing the legend "it's okay to be white". If you're a person who agrees that it's okay to be white (not "being white is better than being non-white"; merely that being white is "okay"), you'll respond to these posters with "well, duh". The ingenuity of the psyop was that it forced the people who disagree with the sentiment to lay their cards on the table. The only people who could find something objectionable in the statement "it's okay to be white" are those who actually think white people ought to feel ashamed of themselves for the colour of the skin - something the most extreme woke people obviously believe, even if many of them pretend otherwise. By responding to this utterly milquetoast statement with shock and outrage, these people out themselves, exposing the gulf between their stated and revealed preferences.
Watching these people dutifully step onto the rake laid in front of them was hilarious, but became a bit disturbing when you mentally substitute the specific sentiment they condemned so loudly. "It's sickening and disgusting to know that people think [it's okay to be white]." Superintendent Andy Bennett stated "It is inexplicable and unacceptable [to believe that it's okay to be white]". "[Believing that it's okay to be white is] completely wrong."
A later example followed a similar format. In Winchester, Massachusetts, pranksters hung up posters which simply read "Islam is RIGHT about women". A local woman tore several posters down and reported them to the police, but when pressed, she found it remarkably difficult to articulate what, exactly, she found offensive about them. (It certainly wasn't anything as simple as her disagreeing with the sentiment on its face.)
Here, the purpose of the posters was to expose cognitive dissonance. Here, the purpose of the posters was to expose cognitive dissonance. A person who disagrees with Islamic attitudes to women and isn’t afraid to say so would be disgusted by the poster. A person who endorses Islamic attitudes to women would read the poster and think "well, duh", as would a person who had swallowed the silly lie-to-children that Islam is a progressive, feminist religion (a sanitised, sanewashed version of the faith that bears essentially no relationship to the genuine article). The only person who would be outraged by the sentiment "Islam is right about women" (without being able to articulate the source of their outrage) is someone who privately believes that Islamic attitudes towards women are abominable, but who feels uncomfortable saying so out loud for fear of appearing racist. The slogan explodes this obvious contradiction, an experience many Winchester residents found (to quote them directly) "confusing" and "upsetting". It's rather telling that none of the people interviewed said anything like "the posters are correct, because Islam is a progressive feminist faith" or "the posters are wrong, because Islam is a misogynistic religion".
One last example. TERF activist Posie Parker paid for billboards bearing the slogan "woman: adult human female". The gender ideologues just couldn't help themselves, promptly calling for the billboards to be taken down and declaring the definition transphobic. Over at Wikipedia, the phrase is bizarrely included in the category "pejorative terms for women", alongside old stalwarts like "bitch", "slut" and "whore".
III
From the analysis above, "gotcha" questions and psyops serve three essential functions:
Hmm - a political coalition whose constituent factions have massive, irreconcilable points of disagreement which go studiously unremarked upon. A political movement whose members' stated opinions routinely appear vastly out of step with their revealed preferences. A political movement beset by cognitive dissonance at every conceivable resolution.
No doubt there are numerous movements meeting the descriptions above, but for me the first that comes to mind is the pro-Palestine/anti-Zionist movement.
As noted by Yassine Meskhout, if you attend a pro-Palestine march you're almost equally likely to encounter a well-meaning young person who's simply upset by gory war footage in her Instagram feed, and a nutcase who thinks that Hamas are nobly trying to finish the job dear old Adolf started. This fundamental difference of worldview is an absolute godsend for maintaining the movement's superficially positive optics, and is virtually never remarked upon by anyone within the movement:
Earlier this week, Shany Mor posted an excellent article in which he observed that, while most pro-Palestinian types claim to be disinterested humanitarians who object to Israel's war in Gaza solely on account of the needless suffering it imposes upon Gaza's civilian population - in many cases their revealed preferences indicate that they are closeted Hamas supporters who wish to see Hamas accomplish its stated aims, even if that entails more death and suffering among Gaza's civilian populace than would happen otherwise. And while I would like to think the accusation of cognitive dissonance is so obvious that it requires no elucidation, for completeness's sake I will note the peculiar irony that many pro-Palestinians accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing while chanting a slogan whose original untranslated wording3 is a transparent call for ethnic cleansing. They accuse Israel of genocide with every waking breath, while relentlessly signal-boosting propaganda published by an organisation whose founding charter is openly, unabashedly genocidal. It's a movement that purports to be anti-racist, but which is perfectly happy to recycle all of the old blood libels and canards against Jews (Jews secretly control the world, Jews murder Gentile children for their own amusement, Jews are sexually deviant etc.) provided they clarify that they are only addressing them towards "Zionists" * wink wink *.
I think the pro-Palestine movement is long overdue for its very own "what is a woman?" or "it's okay to be white", a psyop or "gotcha" question calculated to expose the irreconcilable tensions in the multiple factions gunning for a "free Palestine", and the gulf between what its members purport to believe and what they actually believe.
I'm not entirely sure what this would look like in practice. At last year's Berlin Film Festival, director Jun Li read out a speech on behalf of the actor Erfan Shekarriz, who boycotted the festival in protest of its purported lack of support to Palestinians. Li was heckled by audience members, one of whom yelled "Free Palestine from Hamas." That's a good start. I've noticed that when I discuss the conflict with my peers (most of whom are very hostile to Israel), many of them get quite taken aback when I point out that the most recent war in Gaza began when Hamas invaded Israel - the relentless focus on the perceived brutality of Israel's military response has caused many to overlook the basic fact that it isn't a war Israel started. Many also give vague evasive non-answers when asked "if you object to how Israel is prosecuting its war in Gaza, then how do you think they should have responded to October 7th?" Some pro-Palestine types explicitly object to admitting Gazan refugees into Europe (or even neighbouring countries) on the grounds that doing so would constitute "ethnic cleansing"; applying this logic to other world conflicts could be fertile ground for exposing the cognitive dissonance (e.g. "why should we play into Putin's hands by allowing him to ethnically cleanse the Ukraine?").
These are only off the top of my head, I'm just spitballing here. I'm sure someone more creative than I could think of something to rival "Islam is RIGHT about women" in wicked ingenuity.
1 I don't even think it rises to the level of a "definition", frankly. Circular definitions are no such thing.
2 The question is most effective when posed to politicians in democratic societies, as it's the nature of the job that such people have to appeal to a broad swathe of voters with heterogenous beliefs and opinions. It is not half as effective when posed to, say, activists working in the NGO space, wherein the incentives (per the iron law of institutions) favour ostentatious displays of ideological purity, even if you make yourself look ridiculous and insane to ordinary people in the process. Such people don't care what the "median voter" thinks, and will happily respond "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" with a shit-eating grin.
3 من المية للمية / فلسطين عربية, "From the water to the water / Palestine is Arab". I suspect it's not an accident that the English translation sounds so much more palatable to Western ideas of liberty and democracy.
What? No, this is base Bulverism. You are ruling out the only answer which matters.
Have you stopped beating your wife?
As you’ve framed it, the only reasons to take the third option are if you aren’t an abuser, but feel the need to pretend you are, or if you are an abuser, but realize you can’t say it out loud. Hence “dishonest coward.”
This is stupid. There is an obvious third reason: you aren’t an abuser, but it takes more verbiage to explain so, because the question is stacked against you. Both of the one-word answers are inadequate by design. You are forced to spend more time structuring your defense than the opponent had to spend making the attack.
Yes, this is a bad thing.
In the simple case, the accuser only gets a little mileage from an asymmetric question. Extending “no” to “no, because I never beat her at all” is relatively cheap. Anyone who cares can see the full version.
But we don’t live in the simple case. Setting aside intentional misrepresentation, a bad actor can get more advantage by extending the question. “Have you stopped beating your wife?” has an obvious gotcha. “Where were you on the night of September 13th, 1987?” is not immediately obvious, even if it eventually unfurls into the same accusation. Asymmetrical questions are the simplest building block of narrative control. Narrative control does not converge on the truth.
Okay, but I like it when my team controls the narrative!
Great. Unfortunately, so does everyone else. I think you should uphold norms which favor the truth rather than ones which flatter whomever has the initiative. Right now that involves some gender-critical congressmen. In two to four years, who can say?
For a different perspective, consider this.
Bulverism is when, rather than demonstrating that someone is wrong, you assume that they are and then explain how they came to be so silly. Asking them "what is a woman?" or "who won the 2020 election?" does not assume that they're mistaken about anything. Indeed, you are providing them with an opportunity to demonstrate that their model of how the world works is accurate.
I genuinely don't understand how you arrived at the conclusion that "what is a woman?" or "who won the 2020 election?" are loaded questions in the way "have you stopped beating your wife?" is.
The reason "have you stopped beating your wife?" is an unfair loaded question is because it assumes a premise which may be untrue of the person to whom it is put. What false premises are assumed by "what is a woman?" or "who won the 2020 election?"
You'll note that "what is a woman?" is not a question which calls for a one-word answer. "Who won the 2020 election?" does, but it is entirely possible to give a factually correct answer to this question which is one word long ("Biden"). I'm really not seeing the parallels.
I'm calling gender ideologues and 2020 election truthers stupid. Whose "team" do you think I'm on, exactly?
Asking gotcha questions is not bulverizing. Watching someone answer such a question, then theorizing on how they must be a turncoat, lunatic, or dishonest coward, though?
There is an excluded option, what I thought was the obvious one: they don’t want to play a rigged game. They recognize a loaded question, or outrage bait, and try not to walk into the minefield. Sometimes this works out. Sometimes it looks cringey and gives the baiters what they wanted. Regardless, it doesn’t require lunacy or cowardice or even cognitive dissonance.
Trying to rehabilitate “gotchas” as a totally legitimate strategy, one that only works on the deluded, is wishful thinking at best. One can score rhetorical points playing for any team.
As the prophet once said:
I’m not trying to accuse you of bad faith. I think you have a standard human blind spot for tribal affiliation, and right now, it’s telling you that this weapon only works on the outgroup. That’s wrong. It works on whomever you can put on the spot.
If Swinson had responded to the question "what is a woman?" with "a woman is an adult female human", I nor any gender-critical person would consider her a turncoat. The gender ideologues in her camp, however, surely would have. Likewise with Clayton: I wouldn't consider him a turncoat for saying "Biden won the 2020 election", but Trump and hardcore MAGAs would have. Do you disagree with either claim?
If Swinson had responded "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman", the gender ideologues would not consider her a lunatic (indeed, they would be cheering with delight). But gender-critical people (and, dare I say it, most normal non-extremely online people) would consider her a lunatic. Likewise with Clayton. Do you disagree with either claim?
These questions aren't Bulverism, and nor is my diagnosis of why they're effective. They are designed to expose either that someone has crazy opinions, or that they're fearful of alienating the people in their camp who have crazy opinions.
I've asked before and I'll ask again. What makes "what is a woman?" a loaded question? What controversial assumption is encoded into the question "what is a woman?" Likewise "who won the 2020 election?" What makes either of these questions "loaded"?
Firstly, I've already asked you who you think my "outgroup" is, and you refused to answer. Downthread, I argued that the number of Americans who are neither 2020 election truthers nor gender ideologues are probably a minority: a depressing state of affairs, to be sure, but that doesn't make it any less true. I likewise argued that, while I'm confident I don't suffer from either of these blind spots, there may well be a blind spot I suffer from that could be exposed by a gotcha question. If and when it comes up, I promise to let all of you know about it. As a moderator, I thought you might be a bit more cautious about ascribing opinions to people that they've never expressed and don't endorse.
Yes. Is this a bad thing?
We might say that gotcha questions of this sort are effective on anyone who a) believes things the average person considers crazy; or b) doesn't believe crazy things, but can't be seen to publicly disagree with the people in their camp who do. Does that describe literally every person in existence? Maybe it does. That doesn't mean "gotcha" questions are a bad or underhanded tactic: it means that, like so many other rhetorical or argumentative strategies, they expose the fundamental irrationality of the human species.
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