Moral trap memes are extremely popular these days as the war for moral supremacy rages on. They are meant to draw a moral line in the sand in order to force people to prove that they are not standing on the wrong side of the line.
These memes are extremely manipulative as they use shame, guilt, belonging, and gaslighting together in a very effective way. But once you know how to spot them, it's relatively easy to avoid them.
One version I'll speak of today is the "If you... but... then..." classic manipulative strategy.
Let's try this one:
"If you love me but won't do everything I say, then you're a monster and not worth living on this planet"
How lovely is THAT? Have any partners or friends who tells you things like this?
Let's look at this a bit closer. The structure looks like this:
"If you <target clause: what actions/words/qualities identifies the target>,
but <negative moral proof clause: actions/words/qualities that shows the target is wrong/bad/awful>,
then <negative moral conclusion clause: what shows how morally wrong the target is>."
This is, of course, a setup. Each piece does NOT need to connect to the other pieces. I could just as well say:
"If you drive a car, but you don't donate to the red cross, then you are going to hell."
or
"If you eat meat, but have a cat, then you do not care about the unicorns."
or
"If you read Shakespeare, but you don't kill flies, then you are racist."
See how easy it is?
I could create a hundred memes like this in an hour. An AI could create thousands in a seconds. The most important bits are:
1. in the first (target) clause, you can use anything that identify your target group as a morally reprehensible out-group. as long as the group *might* identify with the statement and it doesn't include members of your in-group, you have your "net". this will cause the target reader to realize they have been identified as part of the morally "bad" group, which will manipulate them into wanting to be out of the out-group and in the in-group.
2. in the second (moral proof) clause, you can use anything good that your in-group *might* do that your target group doesn't do. this will manipulate the out-group reader to feel guilt/shame for what they are doing and make them want to not do that anymore. Note that you don't have to prove that you or your in-group doesn't do these things, just that it would be reasonable to assume you or your in-group doesn't.
3. in the third (moral conclusion) clause, you can use anything that sounds morally reprehensible to your in-group. this will further manipulate the out-group reader to feel guilt/shame about being in the out-group in order to not want to be in that group anymore in order to not feel wrong. Note that you don't have to prove that you or your in-group doesn't fit this conclusion, just that it would be reasonable to assume you or your in-group doesn't.
Now take all 3 clauses and put them together, and you have the perfect recipe for gaslighting. Let's try it again:
"If you are white or white-passing but you are not acknowledging your privilege and actively working to end racism through anti-racism, then you are complicit in the system of white supremacy"
Amazing, right? So easy, so simple to create and send to your friends.
But it's not logic, it's not even intelligence. It's pure moral manipulation.
I had originally done a much more detailed examination of each clause in the first meme below, but then realized how simple the pattern was.
And it's the pattern of anyone who is co-dependent enough to try to bend you to their will can use in order *make* you behave according to their needs/desires regardless of your consent.
It's essentially a way of dismissing/deconstructing one person's/group's reality in favors of another person's/group's. Which is what gaslighting is: one person's reality dismissing another person's reality.
Which is the essence of oppressive behavior.
And just notice how this "statement" is all about others, not about self, and as such it holds no responsibility beyond the declaration of that statement. So let's take the previous one about white people, and let's add a bit about the self:
"It is my personal opinion that if you are white or white-passing but you are not acknowledging your privilege and actively working to end racism through anti-racism, then you are complicit in the system of white supremacy"
Ok great! This is more clear. Someone holds a narrative about something (whether they acknowledge it or not) or someone, and they constructed it in a particular way to prove their reasons for believing what they believe, and are now looking for ways to test their new toy.
So what do you do about this?
Don't walk into the trap. It's only for you if you get caught.
Add "It is my personal opinion that..." in front of their meme to understand that it's not objective truth.
Also many memes assume something to be true just because it's in the meme, so if you show up and speak otherwise, you just became the target audience for the "denier" of the meme, which will then expose you to a similar trap.
Take a look at the second meme, which, when spelled out, looks like this:
"If you need an illustration of white privilege (ie you're one of those people who need it), and don't think you have privilege, then you needing this illustration is your white privilege talking (and it might also show your fragility for good measure)."
Cool, no? This one is a bit more simple because it's circular: any resistance to something, including lack of acknowledgment of something or seeing something the argument as true or existing is a sign that your are blind to it, which is why you resist it and can't see it."
Of course, it could NEVER mean that the assertion is wrong or off-base, only that resistance means the assertion is true
And, it's also classic gaslighting.
Let me know if you have any other memes you'd like me to look at!