site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2904 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 15, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The black church is not always viewed as positively among cultural conservatives as the evangelical church, or the white Catholic or orthodox churches. Part of that is politics but part of it is quite literally that liberal views on sexual morality are not viewed as being compatible with helping the black community fixing its broken culture, because that broken culture is viewed as being downstream of promiscuity and poor family values.

I remember my mother- red tribe leftist- saying ‘black kids don’t have dads because their churches put women as heads of household’. Liberal views about family, gender, and sexuality are probably more of a mainline Protestant thing, but their existence in the black church takes a lot of the blame for black dysfunction in the broader red tribe.

Interesting! I've never heard that critique, possibly because I'm less into the Protestant infighting.

Still, I'd contend that it's much more likely that a person who says that inner cities need more religion would still say that despite that critique of existing black churches, they would simply say they need more proper churches.

Probably, yes. And there are distinctively black socially conservative religious movements, such as NOI and the black Hebrew Israelites. For some reason these groups are no more popular with the religious right than with anyone else, despite being sociologically pretty similar. On the other hand black KJV-onlyists seem popular with their evangelical counterparts despite predictable voting differences.

I would be very interested in examinations of the outcomes of kids born in these groups.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats