BulletPeople » “I Decline the Motive Game and Resume the Discussion”

“I Decline the Motive Game and Resume the Discussion”

20 December 2009 No Comment

C.S. Lewis was even cooler than I thought or so I concluded when I ran across this masterful put-down that I had never read before:

[Responding to a critic.] The Professor has his own explanation … he thinks that I am unconsciously motivated by the fact that I ‘stand to lose by social change’. And indeed it would be hard for me to welcome a change which might well consign me to a concentration camp. I might add that it would likewise be easy for the Professor to welcome a change which might place him in the highest rank of an omnicompetent oligarchy. That is why the motive game is so uninteresting. Each side can go on playing ad nauseam, but when all the mud has been flung every man’s views still remain to be considered on their merits. I decline the motive game and resume the discussion.

From the Wikipedia entry on “Bulverism” quoting A Reply to Professor Haldane

Let’s agree that Bulverism should always remain only a tactic employed by progressives. But let’s also agree to identify their arguments as Bulverism at every opportunity. I see this almost daily in the comments to the Jack Webb Schools Obama on Healthcare video. Here’s the most recent:

5random1 (23 minutes ago)
Old white men telling him what their lives are all about. Demanding buy-in to their system.

Worked against “communism.”

– from an old white man — time for change — big change.

So apparently because the men speaking are old white men this in and of itself suffices to refute their statements. The only proper response is as Lewis said to ”decline the motive game and resume the discussion.”