My goal in starting this inquiry into Critical Pedagogy was to understand where and how it’s influencing our system of education, why it does so much damage, and how it managed to exert so much influence over American Education . This piece details the structure of my chapter-by-chapter analysis of The Critical Turn in Education1, and how it will be effective in addressing the questions I’m interested in.
Basic Summary
First, I’ll give a basic summary of the chapter. The idea here is to get the lay of the land as the advocates of Critical Pedagogy see it. Specifically, I’ll be identifying key thinkers in the movement, scrutinizing the content and timeline of their objectives, and indicating how these ideas are implemented (both in schools of education and in generic classrooms). I will likely be doing some speculation here, but I will try to differentiate between speculation, interpretation, and direct quotations.
Crossover Terms
One of the hallmarks of Critical Social Justice is a specialized usage of words in the form of what Lindsay and Pincourt refer to as “crossover terms.” In this context, crossover terms are words or phrases that have one meaning colloquially, but another (and often very radical) meaning in the context of Critical Social Justice.
The particular metaphor that I have found helpful in understanding the purpose and use of these terms is the “Motte and Bailey,” a formalism I’ve seen used by Lindsay2, Pincourt, a YouTuber with the nom de guerre, “King Crocoduck,”3 and others as well. The tactic works as follows: In Medieval Europe, the motte was a highly defensible keep, tower, or fort, while the bailey was the pleasant land surrounding the motte. When attacked, all residents would retreat to the motte because it could be easily defended. When the attackers left, they would return to the bailey because this was a better place to live, grow food, etc.
In an argument, the motte is an uncontroversial position that is easily defended. Taking the The 1619 Project as an example, the motte would be something like: “Slavery is an institution of America’s past and must not be ignored when teaching American History.” This is an obvious statement that hardly anybody would actually argue against. Advocates of The 1619 Project will retreat to this position when they are criticized and try to re-center the argument around it. By reframing the issue around the motte, they are able to contend that their critics are arguing that the history of slavery in America should not be taught in schools at all, which again, is something that virtually nobody advocates for. By claiming that they are “just teaching about slavery,” they can defend against criticism without having to support (or even acknowledge) their more controversial claims about the nature of slavery in America.
The rhetorical purpose of the bailey is to have a very radical proposition that is put forward when not facing criticism. It’s the actual goal they want to accomplish. In the case of The 1619 Project, the bailey would be something like: “America was founded on the institution of slavery, with the purpose of preserving slavery.” This is a contentious statement that would seem to be contradicted by some fairly basic facts (like the writings of many of the founding fathers). The Woke want this position taught in schools, but they don’t want to have to defend it, because it’s indefensible—just like a bailey. Thus, when confronted, they retreat back to the motte position.
Crossover terms serve a similar function when the Woke use them. Charles Pincourt documents an overt use of this tactic that is a favored method to smuggle woke ideas into the policies of specific institutions (usually universities). He calls it: “The Reverse Motte & Bailey Trojan Horse.” His book Counter Wokecraft documents how it works in greater detail. I believe that the Woke tendency to fill their own texts and teachings with crossover terms uses a similar motte and bailey effect to ease new students, converts, and maybe sometimes even themselves into being comfortable with a more controversial position. Ultimately, it’s the motte and bailey aspects of these crossover terms that allow the Woke to take the moral high ground by claiming that they are just articulating “what it means to be a decent person,” when they are, in fact, holding an extremely radical position.
In many ways, the Motte and Bailey crossover terms serve as mini “bait-and-switch” fallacies while maintaining an illusion that no such switch has taken place. It is a bit more complex than a simple bait-and-switch, because the arguer will often switch back and forth between meanings when convenient rather than just performing the switch once.
I want to identify these crossover terms, define both the motte and bailey definitions for them, and finally, as Lindsay and Pincourt indicate, “Seize the Motte and Bomb the Bailey.” Or put another way, to explicitly acknowledge the value of the motte position and explicitly reject bailey position as wrong, because it is ultimately irreconcilable with the motte position.
Below are a few examples of what I want to do with some common crossover terms that just about everyone is familiar with:
Diversity
Motte: A wide array of perspectives and experiences that will help us to incorporate as many experiences as possible into our decision making
Bailey: A wide array of people with superficially diverse characteristics like skin color, sexual orientation, gender, etc; but who all approach things from a Critical Social Justice perspective.
Seize the Motte and Bomb the Bailey: A wide array of perspectives will help a group of people come to better solutions. Diverse perspectives generate more discussion of ideas, which is how the best paths forward are discovered. It is absolutely a mistake to equate someone’s skin color, gender, or sexuality with the content of their mind or character (as Rep. Pressley did in her comment about how she didn’t need “any black faces who didn’t want to be black voices”). Furthermore, a diversity of ideas must include perspectives other than those of the Woke.
Equity
Motte: A state of affairs in which a person’s unchosen characteristics or background do not unfairly handicap them in life
Bailey: A forcible redistribution of shares (income, wealth, authority, awards, etc) such that all groups have equal outcomes irrespective of the agency of individuals in that group. (As an aside, it’s worth noting that the idea of equity has become so entrenched that the bailey position has become more acceptable to a significant number of people. This serves as an example of what happens if these terms go unchallenged for too long).
Seize the Motte and Bomb the Bailey: It is absolutely desirable to live in a society in which people are not held down by burdens they had no choice in taking on. However, even under these conditions we should not expect equal outcomes, as there are factors other than an individual’s background that affect where they go in life. To politically enforce this kind of equality for all requires a violation of individual rights on a massive scale. Historical attempts to do such things have never been successful and have often resulted in genocide.
Inclusion
Motte: Providing an environment in which all perspectives are welcome to be considered on their merits.
Bailey: Creating an environment in which adherence to the Critical Social Justice perspective (or at least a decent facsimile of adherence) is required for participation. In this context “participation” could be employment (the proliferation of required DEI statements as part of the job application process), involvement in conversation or policy discussion (the claim that “the white, male’s story has already been told”), or even the ability to engage in commerce (we’ve now seen a Western government permit the the freezing of private bank accounts based on the claim that people’s ideas constituted a threat to society).
Seize the Motte and Bomb the Bailey: It is beneficial to have an environment in which everybody involved feels welcome to voice their perspective in order to add to the discussion. Adhering to Critical Social Justice doctrines as a prerequisite for inclusion in the discussion has the opposite effect, ensuring that only the Critical Social Justice perspective is recognized.
I’ve encountered many younger Woke people who firmly believe that the positions they hold are merely common sense decency. This would be consonant with a naïve, motte position of the terms they use, but these people also have no problem with supporting the bailey position as well. At minimum, a person should be able to acknowledge that the things they advocate for are in conflict with many of the values of a liberal (free) society: rights, equality of opportunity, and merit to name a few. How does one get to this mental state? I believe a good number of people who become a member of the Woke, or “woke-Proximate” (those who may not be knowledgeable about Critical Social Justice, but adhere to its perspective or prescriptions) as Pincourt calls them, get to this point because they initially accept the motte definition of these terms, and gradually come to see the bailey as the same the thing.
Finding the Major Propositions for Education
Critical Pedagogy has a number of prescriptions for the way education should be, many of which have already been implemented over the years. My goal is to identify these prescriptions as I read through The Critical Turn in Education (other books as well), and once I find them, I want to look at why they are plausible, what they actually look like when implemented, and what harms come when education takes this tack.
I suspect this will probably be harder, and the motte and bailey certainly won’t be the only tactic, but even if I don’t see specific use of crossover terms, it will be worthwhile to keep that as a mental model for analyzing prescriptions in Critical Pedagogy: look for the reasonable position, the radical position, and then make a clear distinction between the two.
Unanswered Questions
As I read through the Editor’s Introduction to The Critical Turn in Education, some of it appeared little better than gibberish to me (more on this in the next piece). I’ll indicate the questions I have, then, if possible, hypothesize about the answer to the question or the purpose of the statement. It’s fair to say that this will likely involve more speculation on my part, but in line with what I understand the motivations and intent of Critical Pedagogy to be.
Now that the preliminaries are finished, my next piece will analyze the Editor’s Introduction to The Critical Turn in Education.
Image Credit: User: SineofTan
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motte_and_Bailey_Fallacy.jpg
Gottesman, Isaac H. The critical turn in education: from Marxist critique to poststructuralist feminism to critical theories of race. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/05/stealing-motte-critical-social-justice-principle-charity/
https://www.youtube.com/user/KingCrocoduck/videos?app=desktop