site banner
PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   1280 thread views

Transnational Thursday for November 7, 2024

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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Can someone put together an actual timeline of events here? It is proving very difficult to determine from the articles I've read. Those critical of the maccabi depend on them doing genocidal chants, vandalism, and low level violence prior to the game. Those staunchly on the other side are relying heavily on this being "preplanned" but the only pre planned attack evidence seems to be some messages on social media that they were sent the same day as the attacks? So presumably after the prior maccabi provocation? It's not clear to me.

Obviously mob violence is not justified by chants and vandalism, but if you fly into some other city and stir things up, it's not a pogrom or fitting with a "Europe has an antisemitism problem" when psycho locals escalate. This story seems hopelessly distorted in the news coverage.

I don't know who's right or who's wrong, but the article didn't even say if the Israeli team won the game (which would seem like an obvious trigger for the rioting, football fans being football fans).

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