A kafkatrap is an argument substitute that attempts to intimidate its target into agreement
or silence.
It does this by shifting attention from the issue at hand to the moral or political character
of the target.
Kafkatraps are fallacious and socially destructive, so reasonable arguers should never use them,
and should identify and criticize their use.
Throughout this account, I am indebted to Eric Raymond’s 2010 blog post, which I link
in the description below.
The name “kafkatrap” comes from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, in which a man
is subjected to vague accusations that he cannot refute.
The whole process of accusation is designed to degrade him and break his will to defend himself.
A kafkatrap is not an argument, as it does not attempt to establish a conclusion by appeal
to reasons and inferences.
Its goal is to gain the target’s agreement with a judgment of his character: that he
is guilty of or complicit in some social sin, such as racism or economic oppression.
Once the target has acquiesced in this judgment, he is told he has forfeited his moral authority
to argue against critics of that oppression.
The silence or cooperation of the target is the kafkatrapper’s immediate goal.
Eric Raymond observes: “Real crimes – actual transgressions against flesh-and-blood individuals
– are generally not specified.
The aim of the kafkatrap is to produce a kind of free-floating guilt in the subject, a conviction
of sinfulness that can be manipulated by the operator to make the subject say and do things
that are convenient to the operator’s personal, political, or religious goals.”
Let’s talk about types of Kafkatrap. Kafkatraps vary in content and in form.
Each variety relies on the target’s revulsion at some social evil or unpopular ideology.
It does not matter whether the social evil is real one, like racism, or is merely thought
to be one, like being insufficiently opposed to witchcraft.
So long as the target is convinced that his position in society or an important social group would
be endangered by connection to the social evil, a kafkatrap is possible.
Racism, sexism, and hatred of immigrants or homosexuals are the most common bases for
a kafkatrap, though smaller social groups may have their own particular abhorred social evils.
The form of a kafkatrap varies according to the accusation used to coerce the target.
I have arranged and renamed some types Raymond gives into three broad categories, each containing
three models, for nine models total.
The three Type 1 kafkatraps attack the target’s profession of innocence.
The Type 2 models attack the target’s skepticism about the charge, and Type 3’s attack the
requirements of rational discourse itself.
Type 1 kafkatraps are the most common, and the most easily seen in light of Kafka’s novel.
The target’s profession of innocence is used to cement more firmly the certainty of his guilt.
The target is invited to acknowledge and own this guilt by agreeing with the kafkatrapper’s indictment.
The standard Type 1 kafkatrap is Model A: “Your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty
of [oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.] proves that you are guilty of [oppression, etc.]”
This is the standard style kafkatrap.
The target’s refusal to acknowledge the truth of the charge is used against him.
If he admits his guilt then he is guilty, and if he denies, or even postpones admitting
he is guilty, then he is guilty. Kafkatrap!
Notice the logical structure of the Model A kafkatrap:
Premise: You refuse to acknowledge that you are guilty of X.
Conclusion: You are guilty of X.
Neither the premise nor the conclusion is about X (oppression, racism, etc.) per se.
The premise is about what the target has said, and the conclusion is about the target’s character.
In this regard, the Model A kafkatrap resembles the imputation of attitudes based on speech
or actions, as when we say: “You laughed at a racist joke, so you are a racist,”
or “You used a sexist epithet, so you are a sexist.”
In the kafkatrap, however, the speech involved is the denial of guilt.
The target is invited to put “I am not guilty of racism” into the same category of self-implicating
speech as the use of a racial slur.
The logically required assumed premise is something like “All people (or all people
like the target) who refuse to acknowledge their guilt of X are guilty of X.”
If the target accepts the assumed premise, there is no escape for him.
We will discuss strategies for escaping from a kafkatrap in another video.
The second Type 1 kafkatrap is Model B: “Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of
X, you are guilty because you have benefitted from the X behavior of others in the X system.”
Model B calls the target’s attention to his position as a beneficiary of a corrupt system.
It aims to produce self-condemnation based not on the target’s own choices, but on
the choices of other people.
People who feel unresolved guilt about their unearned position within a social hierarchy
are especially vulnerable to this type of kafkatrap.
Model B succeeds by getting the target to assume personal responsibility for the free
choices of other people, and to seek to atone for them himself.
The third Type 1 kafkatrap is Model P: “Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of
X, you are guilty because you occupy a privileged position in the X system.”
Model P depends on the target’s not recognizing that the demand for self-condemnation is being
imposed by the kafkatrapper’ ascription of a group identity to the target.
This ascription can be rejected, and the target can assert his individuality.
One counterplay to this might be for the kafkatrapper to then insist that asserting individuality
is another proof that one is X. Following this line, we may end up with a kafkatrap
within a kafkatrap.
None of the Type 1 model kafkatraps specifies any wrongdoing by the target.
Instead, they aim to hook on to self-doubt already present in the target’s psyche,
then inflate it to serve the kafkatrapper’s political objective.
Type 2 kafkatraps attack the target’s professed doubt or skepticism about generalized claims
of oppression, or about the theoretical grounding of anti-oppression critiques, or about specific
anecdotal cases of oppression.
Consider Model S1: “Your skepticism about this anecdotal account of X proves that you
are guilty of or complicit in X.”
And Model S2: “Your denial that this anecdotal account of X indicates a systemic problem
proves that you are guilty of X.”
In models S1 and S2, your questions in the discourse condemn you.
They are different from Type 1 models, in that a specific crime against a specific individual
is alleged; this is the anecdote.
Types S1 and S2 use the target’s legitimate revulsion against the details of the anecdote
to mask the fact that the target is not personally responsible for the oppression described.
The questions of the anecdote’s truth (in S1) and representativeness (in S2) are suppressed.
Ignoring these, the target is invited to associate his skepticism with oppression, and to abandon
it in disgust.
The third Type 2 kafkatrap is Model S3: “Your insistence on applying rational skepticism
in evaluating assertions of pervasive X proves that you are guilty of X.”
Model S3 is similar to Model S2, but without the details of a specific event.
This is not an attempt to induce guilt, so much as a flank maneuver to accompany other
forms of kafkatrap.
The goal is to weaken the target’s attachment to his skepticism by associating it with the
relevant social sin.
By insisting that skepticism can only be motivated by an attempt to cover up or minimize actual
oppression, the kafkatrapper protects himself from having his own motives questioned.
All three Type 2 kafkatrap models attack the target’s skepticism, with or without details
of a specific crime.
Type 3 kafkatraps attack various other requirements of rational discourse.
Model D attacks the desire for clear and consistent definitions of key terms: “Your demand for
a definition of X that can be critically evaluated proves that you are guilty of X.”
Model M suggests that the target lacks the intelligence or virtue to embrace the grand
theory behind the kafkatrapper’s ideology.
“Arguing against anti-X proves that you are either X or do not understand the theory
of anti-X. Therefore you are either morally corrupt or intellectually incompetent.”
Model M makes a double-barrelled allegation, giving the target a choice between being thought
evil or being thought stupid.
It may be most effective on intellectuals, and people who would prefer not to be tagged
as ignorant of advanced theory.
Finally, the Model T kafkatrap attacks the character of members of the community defended
by the kafkatrapper who refuse to embrace his ideology.
“Members of an oppressed group who question any part of the theory of X thereby show that
they are not authentic members of the oppressed group.
Therefore, their thoughts and arguments should be dismissed as originating from internalized X.”
Model T attacks the intellectual integrity
of the in-group dissenter, on the grounds that identity in the relevant community requires
accepting the kafkatrapper’s ideology.
The dissenter may or may not be the kafkatrapper’s immediate target.
All the Type 3 models have this in common: they undermine some key element of rational
discourse in order to scare the target away from discussion, and steer him toward unreasoned
agreement with the kafkatrapper.
So that’s my quick overview of nine different models of kafaktrap and what they have in common.
I’ll talk in a different video about the logical structure of kafkatraps, and about
how to escape from them if you find one played on you in conversation.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.