Motivated Reasoning and Contradictory Internet Memes: Bottomless Irony and the Affective Conditions of Assent

Abstract

There is a saying that “my contradiction is your dilemma.” The argumentative logic of consistency posits that answering a contradiction poses a dilemma because every answer requires replicating the initial tension. However, recent developments in motivated cognition question this assumption. A motivated cognition approach to argument examines the ways that arguments most often work as methods of self-defense rather than engagement. The result is that argumentative contradictions offer argumentative opportunities.