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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4452 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023

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.

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Because the prevailing sentiment here is that anti-semitism is stupid but not particularly threatening.

It's not unthreatening, I just don't put it in a different category than other grand narratives about who/what is really responsible for modern woes, and I find it faintly disgusting that it is elevated to a special dais by tastemakers. Ideas are dangerous. That's the nature of the beast. Communism will be the obvious whipping boy here, but it wasn't too long ago Jacobins flew into a bloody frenzy over ideas we today consider utterly banal.

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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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