Andrew Tate is a person with whom I have many strong agreements and many strong disagreements. He once said that he likes to phrase things to deliberately upset the people he disagrees with. That way he can get them arguing against something that is obviously true.
His example is, instead of saying, “Women statistically have less upper body strength than men,” he says, “Women are weak.” When his opponent starts arguing exceptions to the rule, he can use the indisputable fact that women statistically have less upper body strength than men to win the argument.
In a previous essay, I said that the political right wing is focused on the big picture and the political left wing is focused on details and nuance. Big picture and nuance are the yin and yang of truth; you can’t reach the truth without equal respect for both. And Andrew Tate uses the power of the big picture to bowl over anyone who wants to focus on nuance.
My essay “Why Women Shouldn’t Vote” probably falls into that same “trolling” style of argumentation. The problem is that I don’t really have the personality to be a troll.
But think of it this way: one important role in farming is separating the wheat from the chaff. When the plant comes out of the ground, most of it is completely inedible. That chaff must be carefully and thoroughly discarded before the grain that remains can be made into life-giving bread.
Usually, I like to think of myself as a farmer and these essays are my idea thresher. When all I put out is the grain as I see it, there is less room for misinterpretation. But on the other hand, there is a dictum that you do no one any favors when you do something for them that they could have done for themselves. There is something empowering about providing the stalk and entrusting the threshing to the audience.
