The Kahanist ‘Motte and Bailey’

First, what is the “Motte and Bailey” fallacy?

From a certain wiki:

Motte and bailey (MAB) is a combination of bait-and-switch and equivocation in which someone switches between a “motte” (an easy-to-defend and often common-sense statement, such as “culture shapes our experiences”) and a “bailey” (a hard-to-defend and more controversial statement, such as “cultural knowledge is just as valid as scientific knowledge”) in order to defend a viewpoint. Someone will argue the easy-to-defend position (motte) temporarily, to ward off critics, while the less-defensible position (bailey) remains the desired belief, yet is never actually defended.

In short: instead of defending a weak position (the “bailey”), the arguer retreats to a strong position (the “motte”), while acting as though the positions are equivalent. When the motte has been accepted (or found impenetrable) by an opponent, the arguer continues to believe (and perhaps promote) the bailey.

Note that the MAB works only if the motte and the bailey are sufficiently similar (at least superficially) that one can switch between them while pretending that they are equivalent. There exist a number of common rhetorical ploys and ‘sleights-of-tongue’ which can mask the apparency of such a transition.

Where does the expression come from?

Says Wikipedia:

A Motte and Bailey castle is a medieval system of defence in which a stone tower on a mound (the Motte) is surrounded by an area of land (the Bailey) which in turn is encompassed by some sort of a barrier such as a ditch. Being dark and dank, the Motte is not a habitation of choice. The only reason for its existence is the desirability of the Bailey, which the combination of the Motte and ditch makes relatively easy to retain despite attack by marauders. When only lightly pressed, the ditch makes small numbers of attackers easy to defeat as they struggle across it: when heavily pressed the ditch is not defensible and so neither is the Bailey. Rather one retreats to the insalubrious but defensible, perhaps impregnable, Motte. Eventually the marauders give up, when one is well placed to reoccupy desirable land. … the Bailey, represents a philosophical doctrine or position with similar properties: desirable to its proponent but only lightly defensible. The Motte is the defensible but undesired position to which one retreats when hard pressed.

So, a Kahanist will first argue we should actively rejoice upon seeing the suffering of the wicked for its own sake, not as a means to the goal, and quote pesukim of Jewish cruelty in war, ישמח צדיק כי חזה נקם פעמיו ירחץ בדם הרשע and אשרי שיאחז ונפץ את עלליך אל הסלע (Motte).

Then, when confronted with careful analysis, and counters, the Kahanist retreats to saying we should merely rejoice in the downfall of the wicked, even if this entails human suffering (Bailey).

דוק ותשכח.