The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

In effect we are dealing with the old ‘motte and bailey’ tactic. This relates to the medieval castle structure comprising a fortress on a raised mound (the motte) surrounded by a walled courtyard (the bailey). Given its location and fortifications, the motte is relatively easy to protect, as opposed to the bailey which is vulnerable to attack. As an informal fallacy in argumentation, the metaphor works as follows. Someone advances a tendentious viewpoint which we refer to as the ‘bailey’ because it is so difficult to defend. When challenged, our disputant retreats to the ‘motte’, which represents a far more modest proposal, and is able to claim that his or her ‘bailey’ argument has not been successfully refuted. When activists champion ‘woke’ causes, they are referring by and large to the kind of postmodern purity culture that is the subject of this book. When challenged in any way, they are able to cite the traditional definition of ‘woke’, which is ‘to be alert to injustice, especially racism’. This ‘motte’ represents the kind of position held by virtually everyone, which means that they are able to entice others into its walls and claim them for their ‘bailey’. This technique means that liberal-minded people are coaxed into advocating illiberal causes, or at the very least are counted as fellow travellers.