{"id":5471,"date":"2018-10-16T21:45:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T02:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5471"},"modified":"2018-10-16T21:45:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T02:45:29","slug":"its-all-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5471","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s all interpretation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?attachment_id=5473\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-5473\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5473\" src=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/2018\/10\/trump-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/2018\/10\/trump-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/2018\/10\/trump-768x511.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/2018\/10\/trump.jpeg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There seems like there should be a name for the dialectical trap of saying something controversial, but then acting hurt that those who object to it interpreted it as controversial.\u00c2\u00a0 Talisse and I called a very closely related stategy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2016\/06\/spitballing.html\">spitballing<\/a>, that of covering the dialectical space with too many things to respond to.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Consider the following case.\u00c2\u00a0 President Trump has been the target of a defamation lawsuit by Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who allegedly had an affair with Trump years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Daniels&#8217; lawsuit has been dismissed, and Trump goes to Twitter:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"474\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cFederal Judge throws out Stormy Danials lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FoxNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@FoxNews<\/a> Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1052213711295930368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 16, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>So he calls Stormy Daniels &#8216;Horseface&#8217; when announcing the case is dropped. The President has a long history of saying nasty things about womens&#8217; appearances, so he was asked about it by the AP in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/ff81da8870fa434c90214799813ba5bc\">recent interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Trump also did not back down from derisively nicknaming porn actress Stormy Daniels \u00e2\u20ac\u0153horseface\u00e2\u20ac\u009d hours earlier.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">He says <strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153you can take it any way you want,<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when asked if it was appropriate to insult a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appearance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Such an off-base reply.\u00c2\u00a0 The question wasn&#8217;t what the statement <em>meant<\/em>, but whether the President <em>stands by <\/em>the statement given what it clearly means.\u00c2\u00a0 Moreover, what are the options for my preferences to interpret this statement, to begin with?\u00c2\u00a0 Is there another option, perhaps less misogynistic, to interpreting calling a woman &#8216;horseface&#8217; to be a way of maligning her looks?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it&#8217;s a shorthand that rich guys use to show that they know someone who looks like they own horses&#8230; you say &#8220;Ah, Sterling&#8230; he clearly has a wonderful set of stallions at home&#8230; <em>see his regal horseface<\/em>?&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 But still hard to take it in these lights when the expression is next to calling Danels&#8217; attorney, Michael Avenatti, a &#8220;third rate lawyer&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The question is what&#8217;s the problem?\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s a shot.\u00c2\u00a0 The problem is along two lines.\u00c2\u00a0 The first is just that it&#8217;s a form of incorrigibility &#8212; you get caught doing something that someone objects to, and even if you think it is fine even under their interpretation, you just say they are interpreting it all wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 So this is the &#8216;out of context&#8217; play with verbal indiscretion &#8212; you make the game of nailing down exactly what you said just more costly than what&#8217;s worth the points of making the objection.\u00c2\u00a0 In this case, making explicit what the problem is, what the interpetive options are, and so on, is just more work than is worth it.\u00c2\u00a0 (At least for the reporters&#8230; I&#8217;m an academic&#8230; this is my JAM!)<\/p>\n<p>The second part is the trap element.\u00c2\u00a0 The trap is as follows &#8212; if Trump has said that we can interpret the claim as we see fit, if we interpret it as offensive, that&#8217;s evidence that we&#8217;ve <em>chosen<\/em> to interpret the claim as something bad.\u00c2\u00a0 But who would do such a thing, except someone who suffers from an irrational, uncivil bias?\u00c2\u00a0 And so, by saying that this unqualifiedly objectionable piece of language can be taken as we wish, Trump, by his lights, is testing us for whether we choose to blindly resist him on everything and act all offended when we do that, or we just see that Stormy Daniels is as ugly as he thinks she is, and we agree.<\/p>\n<p>But the point, again, is the trap &#8212; once you <em>choose<\/em> to be offended by interpreting his statement in the offensive way &#8212; how is he <em>really <\/em>responsible for the objectionable stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 The only apology he would owe, then, would be that he&#8217;s sorry that people can&#8217;t help themselves but to interpret him in a nasty way all the time.<\/p>\n<p>With charges of straw man, those who make the challenge take on particular dialectical burdens.\u00c2\u00a0 One of them is to point out how the view that&#8217;s been straw manned is not only better than the representation, but that better view was accessible to those who performed the straw man.\u00c2\u00a0 Namely, that a reasonable interpretation was available that did not suffer from the problems with the represented view.\u00c2\u00a0 But here&#8217;s the problem with the Trump case here with the trap &#8212; he hasn&#8217;t offered any alternative that&#8217;s a reasonable interpretation that&#8217;s not misogynistic.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Not a surprise, really.\u00c2\u00a0 But it&#8217;s useful for the theory of fallacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There seems like there should be a name for the dialectical trap of saying something controversial, but then acting hurt that those who object to it interpreted it as controversial.\u00c2\u00a0 Talisse and I called a very closely related stategy spitballing, that of covering the dialectical space with too many things to respond to.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Consider the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5471\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">It&#8217;s all interpretation<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,1,12],"tags":[2057,1964],"class_list":["post-5471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fallacies-of-ambiguity-fallacies-argument-problems","category-general","category-straw-man","tag-spitballing","tag-straw-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5474,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5471\/revisions\/5474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}