Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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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.
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Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
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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.
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Notes -
I'm not a prolific writer, but I used to keep a blog, every couple of days, for probably eight years. Under my real name, because it had started as an assignment in college, and just kept going. One day, someone I was working for brought up the blog as a problem, as proof that I was an insufficiently cheerful person for the position I was in, as a a prelude to forcing me to leave what I had been doing. I never blogged publicly again.
The only pre-blog writer I can think of who would have flourished at it is GK Chesterton.
In general, it seems almost impossible to continue putting out high quality writing at a typical blogger pace over long time periods. I used to read Rod Dreher's blog, but he puts out negative content like mad -- three or four articles about something that upsets him a day, sometimes! There's no way that's healthy. There's a religious blog I quite enjoy (Fr. Stephen Freeman), and it's been going along nicely for quite some time now, and he seems to be doing fine with it. I suspect Orthodox priests have a better support network and feedback for what they're saying than bloggers, and his blog posts are an extension of his in-person talks and sermons.
Personally, I would like to write again when the children are a bit older, but perhaps for a small group of people I know a bit about. Blogging was the best when I would get comments from a handful of people I could either talk with in person, or whose blogs I also read. Or perhaps even letters. Not even emails, but physical letters. Maybe I want a penpal or something, and also send original watercolors.
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