Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Transnational Thursday for September 26, 2024
- 45
- 5
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Maybe I phrased it incorrectly, but I just meant the traditional party system. Since the end of occupation, France has been ran by either Gaullists or Socialists. The exact name of the party changes and sometimes there are breakups and mergers or whatever, but the French electoral system just kind of implies two major parties - one on centre-left and one on centre-right. Since it's not pure FPTP, other parties are not quite as screwed as they are in Britain or USA, but they're nonetheless strongly underrepresented.
Over the past two decades France has kind of gone through and electorally murdered every single imaginable combination of these traditional governing elites. UMP/LR (centre-right) were wiped out after Sarkozy, then PS (centre-left) got wiped out even worse under Hollande, with power falling to a defector from PS, Macron, making a centrist (really kind of just basic liberal) party, whose popularity was initially huge, but has progressivey lost ground.
My point is that there really aren't any tricks left up the sleeve of the traditional political forces. They all have a popularity akin to Hitler at a synagogue or something. Macron appointed a premier out of LR despite having no prospect whatsoever of it having parliamentary support. How all of this will keep workin until the next election is going to be fascinating. My guess is that not much will get done in general.
Vous semblez utiliser le clavier français, lol.
Les espaces avant le point d'interrogation vous ont trahi 😁
This was crazy insightful. Thanks dude !
Nope, just a dude with bad habits.
My French is limited to 'se Kis kis pas', 'se vu play', 'saba' and random groans.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link