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naraburns  nihil supernum  11mo ago (text post)   1449 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 21, 2023

After thirty weeks as @Soriek's passion project, Transnational Thursday is getting added to the auto-post bot. But it hasn't been added to the bot yet, I think, so I'm posting it this week, with apologies to anyone whose plans I've mussed!

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.

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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."

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