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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25289 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

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Alright, I actually am going to push back on this. (Ping @AhhhTheFrench so you don't feel like you're grumbling into the void.)

Courtesy is the first section in the rules. That's not an accident, it's literally the first goal. And yes, this sometimes - probably often - means that we tell people not to speak as if they're in a group of friends, but rather as if they're in a group of professional colleagues. The reason is that incivility gradually corrodes what we're going for here. Not all at once, but one step at a time; it gets normalized, it gets standardized, and a significant part of the possible community finds that the place is now hostile.

From the rules:

Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.

Some of the things we discuss are controversial, and even stating a controversial belief can antagonize people. That's OK, you can't avoid that, but try to phrase it in the least antagonistic manner possible. If a reasonable reader would find something antagonistic, and it could have been phrased in a way that preserves the core meaning but dramatically reduces the antagonism, then it probably should have been phrased differently.

"Leftoids" is dismissive towards roughly half the population and there's just no good reason for it; you're not getting anything out of it for the argument, you're just using a slur against your outgroup.

Don't do that, please.

It's internet slang... It's how I talk and I use rightoids just as freely.

you're just using a slur against your outgroup.

Is this really where the bar of a slur is?

Edit: Do you really know what my outgroup is? (I'm a trans centrist... I guess everyone is my outgroup, lol). Are you going to apply this level of sensitivity to everyone?

This really seems like an overreach. In my opinion anyway...

Is this really where the bar of a slur is?

Yeah, frankly. We keep it pretty low.

Are you going to apply this level of sensitivity to everyone?

Yes. If you think someone's pushing the line, report it; if it gets approved and you disagree, you're welcome to ping modmail if you feel strongly about it.

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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."

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