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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26810 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Gentlemen of The Motte! We have often been led into discussion about What Is Wrong With Women Today? arising out of topics from directly dealing with the current crisis of male loneliness, female pickiness, and TFR decline to discussion of recent election results, leading to the happy dreams of an economic crash that will finally put women in their proper place:

Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

Well, you may be heartened and warmed to know that this is not a new problem, nor are the proposed solutions new either! Back in the November 1904-April 1905 issue of Popular Science Monthly, a learned gentleman (both a BA and an MD, so qualified to speak for both the arts and the sciences) diagnosed the ills of the day due to the pernicious habit of educating women, and shewed forth the path of ruin that society would continue to tread if matters were not taken in hand.

Alas, the gentleman of a bygone day was proven lamentably correct, but you can take solace from knowing you are not alone, and that women have been ever thus. I myself was introduced to this gem via a Tumblr post and I humbly link it here, while extracting some plums for the delectation of the superior sex. Though I am too agéd and raddled with the ill-effects of promoting independent mindedness in the feeble brain of a female via excess of schooling, mayhap it may save some younger woman from the travails of pride and neglecting her womanly destiny! (While the scholarly concern of the paper also touches lightly and briefly on the adverse effects of extending higher education to the common class of men as well, I am assured the audience of The Motte are of a finer fabric and thus well deserving of the benefits of this, and so at no danger of ill-effect):

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN AND RACE SUICIDE
BY A. LAPTHORN SMITH, B.A., M.D.
MONTREAL.

'You can not have too much of a good thing' they say, and the very highest possible degree of education for women is none too good or too great for them. But to those who look beyond the present and only a little way into the future a great danger is gradually arising, a danger which will go on increasing until it brings about a revolution the signs of which are already beginning to be seen and which will effectually put an end to the evil which is to form the subject of this paper. The author will limit himself principally to a discussion of the harm resulting from too high an education of women, because on that part of the subject he has had exceptional opportunities for observation and for drawing accurate conclusions; but, incidentally, he will take the liberty of questioning the advisability of affording higher education freely to the people at large, of the male, as well as of the female sex.

Brace yourselves for some hard biological facts which only a medical man can speak on with assurance: higher education renders women insane! Yes, due to the strain it puts upon the delicate female brain, the added stresses of maternity leave what reason a woman may possess overturned!

...He will endeavor to show, as he believes to be the case, that the higher education of women is surely extinguishing her race, both directly by its effects on her organization, and, indirectly, by rendering early marriage impossible for the average man.

First of all, is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? This is a very important question, because the duties of wifehood, and still more of motherhood, do not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but they must absolutely have a strong development of the body. Not only does wifehood and motherhood not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but the latter is a decided barrier against the proper performance of these duties. Any family physician could give innumerable cases out of his experience of failures of marriage, directly due to too great a cultivation of the female intellect, which results in the scorning to perform those duties which are cheerfully performed, and even desired, by the uneducated wife. The duties of motherhood are direct rivals of brain work, for they both require for their performance an exclusive and plentiful supply of phosphates. These are obtained from the food in greater or less quantity, but rarely, if ever, in sufficient quantity to supply an active and highly educated intellect, and, at the same time, the wants of the growing child. The latter before birth must extract from its mother's blood all the chemical salts necessary for the formation of its bony skeleton and for other tissues; and in this rivalry between the offspring and the intellect how often has not the family physician seen the brain lose in the struggle. The mother's reason totters and falls, in some cases to such an extent as to require her removal to an insane asylum; while in others, she only regains her reason after the prolonged administration of phosphates, to make up for the loss entailed by the growth of the child. Sometimes, however, it is the child which suffers, and it is born defectively nourished or rickety, and, owing to the poor quality of the mother's milk, it obtains a precarious existence from artificial foods, which at the best are a poor substitute for nature's nourishment. The highly educated woman seems to know that she will make a poor mother, for she marries rarely and late and, when she does, the number of children its very small.

You see? It is more advantageous for women to be lightly educated to a basic level but remain somewhat ignorant and indeed be slightly dumb (but strong as ox) in order to better fulfil their wifely and motherly duties. Science has proven it! And who can gainsay what Science has said?

But read on! The dreadful custom of late marriage has both rendered women incapable of performing their natural functions, and imperilled not alone the health but the souls of men:

...But even supposing that the highly educated woman were able and willing to bear and rear her children like any other woman, she has one drawback from having a fairly large family, and that is the lateness at which she marries, the average being between twenty-six and twenty-seven years. Now, as a woman of that age should marry a man between ten and fifteen years older than herself, for a woman of twenty-seven is as old as a man of forty for the purpose of marriage, both she and her husband are too old to begin the raising of an ordinary sized family. Men and women of that age are old maids and old bachelors. They have been living their own lives during their best years; they have become set in their ways, they must have their own pleasures; in a word, they have become selfish. And, after having had one or at the most two children, the woman objects to having any more, and this is the beginning of the end of marital happiness.

...At a recent meeting of a well-known society of specialists for obstetrics and diseases of women, one of the fellows with the largest practise in the largest city on this continent stated that it was physically impossible for the majority of his patients to have a natural labor, because their power to feel pain was so great, while their muscular power was so little. On these two questions the whole profession is agreed, but I am bound to say that there is a difference of opinion as to the reason. Several of the most distinguished fellows of the above society claim that the generally prevalent breakdown of women is due to their inordinate pursuit of pleasure during the ten years which elapse between their leaving school and their marriage. This includes late hours, turning night into day, insufficient sleep, improper diet, improper clothing and want of exercise. The writer claims that most of the generally admitted poor health of women is due to over education, which first deprives them of sunlight and fresh air for the greater part of their time; second, takes every drop of blood away to the brain from the growing organs of generation; third, develops their nervous system at the expense of all their other systems, muscular, digestive, generative, etc.; fourth, leads them to live an abnormal single life until the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven instead of being married at eighteen, which is the latest that nature meant them to remain single; fifth, raises their requirements so high that they can not marry a young man in good health.

If your daughter refuses to wed straight out of high school (should you even permit her to attend such an institution), then it is her fault and none other if Roistering Ralph, a slip of a youth of thirty, engages in drinking, smoking, gambling, and patronising ladies of the evening. He, poor chap, cannot help himself; it is the duty of young ladies to lead, guide, and control the menfolk.

...We all want to be happy, and to that end we all want to be good ; and, I have already said, we want our children, especially our boys, to be good and happy. But those who know anything about virtue in the male know that the marriage of our young men under twenty-five, to a woman with a sound body about eighteen years of age, is almost, if not the only, means of preserving the virtue of the rising generation of men. People, and even mothers, speak lightly of their daughters at twenty-six or twenty-seven marrying men who have sown their wild oats; but one must reap what he sows and do they realize what an awful misfortune such a harvest has brought to the character of the man, and will almost surely bring to the health of the innocent woman? If one has any doubts on this subject they would soon be set right by the testimony of any physician who has made a specialty of attending men, or who has devoted his practise especially to women.

Over-education makes women picky, fastidious, fussy, and renders them unable to appreciate a good, decent man:

...Another way in which the higher education is making people unhappy is in the cultivation of the powers of analysis and criticism. When the power of analysis is applied to one's own self it is especially unfortunate, for then it becomes introspection, a faculty which is carried so far with some women that their whole life is spent in looking into themselves, caring nothing for the trials or troubles of those about them. This produces an intense form of egotism and selfishness. These people are exceedingly unhappy, very often suffering from what is wrongly called 'nervous prostration,' but which should rather be called ' nervous prosperity.' When the wonderful power of criticizing is applied to others it takes the form of fault-finding. Such a woman must have many victims ; will she make them happy?

Even if these harpies deign to wed, they then impose impossible demands upon their husbands in order to maintain luxurious and idle lifestyles:

...There is another aspect of the question, which is not often discussed, but which has an important bearing upon it. The very essence of cultivation of intellect to its highest point consists in raising the standard of one's requirements. A contented mind makes a man happy. Does a high education make one's mind contented, or does it make it discontented with the present, and ever struggle towards a higher ideal in the future? Is the woman who is versed in art and literature contented with a simple home, or must she be surrounded with objects of art and more or less costly books; and, if so, is she satisfied with her lot when she marries an average man, who is able to provide for her all the necessaries of life, but is not possessed of sufficient wealth to provide those things which would be useless luxuries to a woman of ordinary education, but which are necessities for her? Not only must the highly educated woman have an artistic home, large enough to hold her artistic and literary collections, and roomy enough in which to entertain her artistic friends, but she must have a certain number of expensive and highly trained assistants, to keep these large collections in proper order. In plain language, she must have servants to clean them and move them about without destroying them. Can such a woman, anxious and worried over the care of several thousands or hundreds of objects of art, devote the same care to the bearing and bringing up of her family as the woman whose ordinary education has made her feel no need of possessing such objects, but who, on the contrary, is content with a home and furniture which she herself is oftentimes alone capable of taking care of?

In short, better a content, submissive, stupid woman as wife even if she is inferior to you in social class:

There is no doubt that women can do everything that men can do, and a great deal more; but the knowledge of their ability brings with it an aggressive, self-assertive, independent character, which renders it impossible to love, honor and obey the men of their social circles who are the brothers of their schoolmates, and who in the effort to become rich enough to afford the luxury of a highly educated wife have to begin young at business or in the factory, and for whom it is impossible to ever place themselves on an intellectual equality with the women whom they should marry. These men are, as a rule, refused by the brilliant college graduate, and are either shipwrecked for life and for eternity by remaining single, or are only saved by marrying a woman who is their social inferior, but who, by reason of her contented mind, in the end makes them a much better helpmate than the fault-finding intellectual woman who is looking for an impossible ideal.

Women, do your duty to avert the perils of race suicide! Men, be stalwart as fathers to guide your daughters in the way they should go!

.... It is well known that were it not for the enormous immigration pouring into America day by day and week by week, the population of this continent would have died out ere now. And it is generally admitted that the original American people have almost died out. Even the foreigners who are so quickly assimilated soon learn the practise of race-suicide, although never to the appalling extent of the native-born Americans. As far as my experience goes, the crime is most prevalent among the highly educated classes, while it is almost unknown among those with an ordinary education.

  • -26

As a long time lurker/reader of this place for years, I am accustomed to the regular hand-wringing about the evaporative cooling of the community, as positions become more entrenched and the ideological capture of institutions is displayed time and time again as placards from the culture war. The combative nature of debate here is a boon, not something to be despised. However, the value of this place as an open space for discussion grows less and less if so many people here share similar opinions. Maybe this is one of the many malaises academia caught and proliferated across the rest of the body politic, where over time they just self-selected, intentionally or otherwise, for people who suited them and their worldview.

Because I’ve observed what this place does to people who aren’t in that worldview. They flame out, or become embittered, even while the avowed purpose of this place in arriving at a stronger truth through open discussion and truth-seeking is in no way compromised!

I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been. It has its origins in the Grey tribe and is a place for heretics, witches, and people who want to discuss verboten. The fact that this pattern matches to a place where right-wing people can openly discuss things naturally says a lot about the current political leanings of the Cathedral and the dominant modes of thought (“There’s no difference between good and bad things, you imbecile, you fucking moron”) outside this place. However, if the goal is to accommodate a more diverse array of viewpoints, why are reactionaries, “-ists” of every stripe, and salivating over people getting what they deserve good and hard so common here? Upvotes and downvotes are an unfortunate Reddit holdover, but it’s a quick way to see where the motte-hivemind is trending.

Much hay has been made of the motte-and-bailied line “diversity is our strength”, but doesn’t the defense consider viewpoint diversity as a strength? Isn’t this why academia is pilloried today for being majority female and nearly all writing, voting, and having opinions indistinguishable from a neutered LLM ordered to repeat DNC voting points?

I’m sympathetic to these claims, even though I believe quite strongly that if the Cathedral trended the other way, the heretics, witches and verboten-enjoyers would be actual lynch-everyone-with-glasses Communists. I consider it important to know what different sides think, what the normies think, even if it’s become increasingly clear that one side can model their enemies fine (after all, they are surrounded) and the other is tilting at cartoonish caricatures. It is important to have ideologically opposed people who can argue from first principles, who can defend their positions properly, and provide evidence for their claims, if you believe in the free market of open ideas at all. If you don’t, well…

That’s why it’s super frustrating to see posts like yours. Is this the best you can do? Is this rehashed, warmed-over bigot word salad genuinely the best you can do? This isn’t even an argument. It weakens the entire point of having a place to discuss ideas; you’re not interested in discussion, you’re here to be smug and own the autists. Why are you even here? You’re not providing argument for or against Lapthorn-Smith’s position, other than the fact that it’s dated, and he at least had the temerity to attach his name to his work. Have you addressed his points, disputed his argument, provided evidence for and against it? It’s from 1904; have you satisfied the counter-argument with the last hundred and twenty-one years to prove him wrong? His question is right the fuck there: is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? There’s much more recent research on this topic, and there’s probably a conversation worth having there about how modern life ill suits both sexes, and how the human mind and body is not designed to be overworked, overstimulated, overeducated in the way that we are now vs the way we have been operating in societies for centuries.

How am I supposed to decry the lack of viewpoint diversity here when posts like yours are indicative of the quality of discussion I can expect? This isn’t even a strawman, it is a cutout made from paper tissue. There have been several of these; sneering smug self-assured American leftists here to gawk at the deplorables, like they’re on safari or something. Here to get evidence so they can parade the evil of the enemy in front of their peers, “look how much like Voldemort they sound, they’re discussing human bio-diversity again!” It’s made me so cynical of these feeble attempts that my default assumption is trolls or sockpuppets.

I don’t like the fact that there is something approaching a general consensus here: that the time for discussion and dialogue is over and the normies can be led around by the nose to believe and fight for whatever makes them feel good. I’m already frustrated over what seems like a decreased ability to discuss things in common language; not two screens but two voices, and if two why not ten, fifteen, a thousand. So please, for the love of civilization, if you’re not a troll or a sockpuppet, think about what you’re doing. Think about why you’re doing it, and if “owning the chuds”, as if posting something written by someone you think is disgusting is "owning", is a productive use of your time. For your sake, if not anyone else’s.

I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been.

I'm coming to this post from the AAQCs thread. This is farcically wrong. This site absolutely tilts right pretty far. That's not to say it's exclusively right-wing, but the following are all true:

  • The Quality Contributions threads are a combination of nonpartisan wonkposts, and right-wingers creatively sneering at the left. There is no equivalent of left-wingers creatively sneering at the right due to a combination of fewer left-wingers, and since any left-leaning effortpost is much less likely to be nominated.
  • Upvotes/downvotes skew rightward. They also skew towards longer/higher quality posts which some people try to point as the only effect, but low-quality left-leaning posts will almost always be heavily downvoted, while there are plenty of low-quality right-leaning posts that will be highly upvoted.
  • Consistently left-leaning posters have much higher moderator scrutiny and can follow all the rules and still get banned for frivolous rules that plenty of right-leaning accounts violate all the time. A great example is Darwin, who was a prolific left-leaning poster. There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

You're right, but the predominance of right-wing though here is not by design, or by tendentious moderation. IMO It's also not by left-wingers being naturally more wrong or thinner-skinned. As I see it, it's a nazi bar. Left-wingers can congregate where they like. Right-wingers have to congregate where they can.

Well, then where is your argument? Where are all the leftists who can confidently defend their arguments?

I pointed out pretty obviously in the body of my post that I am waiting for someone to make that argument. The site tilts right because as I mentioned, the Cathedral is (culturally and socially) everywhere and the left has been wrong a lot. The right has been wrong a lot too, but the right's failures are plastered everywhere so the Cathedral can continue justifying its existence. Even so there are enough people here with blue and orange morality that don't match the American blue or red political axes at all; the only reason this pattern matches to someplace that looks right wing is that there is nowhere else to have these discussions that isn't explicitly left wing.

Fish don't see the water they swim in. The only way for them to find out about water is by trying to fly. If you don't realize this then maybe you've been lucky or privileged enough to never had to pretend basic truths don't apply around family members, friends, acquaintances or professional colleagues, for fear of suffering the social, financial, and personal consequences of being called "right wing".

This place is (supposedly) for truth, the enemy of truth is not upvotes or downvotes. It is falsehood. If you're complaining about the popularity of one or the other, go vote in an election. If you are complaining about the popularity of right wing arguments here and you are a leftist, try being less wrong. I am bemoaning the ideological conformity of this place, not the fact that it "tilts right".

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

Darwin was very good at violating the spirit of the rules as badly as possible while staying at least plausibly within the letter. His notable technique was to write so as to strongly imply an argument while not technically actually endorsing that argument himself, and then abuse the charity of those attempting to engage with the apparent meaning of his statements. To those who saw through this technique and deployed sufficient effort to actually nail the conversation down into something concrete, he retreated to abstractions and then ghosted the conversation. Throughout, he was insufferably smug and responded to most disagreements as though they were a vast, unreasonable imposition on his precious time, and was utterly incapable of meaningful charity, self-reflection, or admitting that he might be wrong.

If you would like specific, detailed examples, this thread, is my best attempt to provide. Notably, it contained a very amusing argument about how great Darwin was, and how comparisons to another poster who was posting terribly at the time in a distinctly Darwin-like manner were totally unfair, a week or two before that poster confirmed that they were a Darwin alt.

Darwin was banned for rulebreaking, but as others have noted, that ban ended. He has at least two known alts here, @guesswho and @cartman, but he doesn't comment much any more, likely because enough people understand his technique that it doesn't really work any more, and I and others will happily expend effort to point out the games he likes to play and the context behind them in sufficient detail that his efforts no longer bear much fruit.

"He has at least two known alts here"

I'm sure this boogeyman you're discussing would be happy to know their reach has pervaded so far that (once again) random left leanng posters like myself are accused of being them for unclear reasons, with a tone of seething annoyance throughout. This has happened 2 or 3 times previously when I poke my head in the door.

It would be more accurate to say suspected alts, unless you're aware of some knowledge or evidence the rest of us are not privy to??

It's funny that my username being tied to another left leaning user who lots of people dislike is being invoked in response to a comment decrying the right wing tilt of the Motte. It seems pretty obvious that a moderator of this community engaging in such behaviour would have a chilling effect on left leaning users. How many people do you think you've wrongly accused of being this person over the years and banned because of it?

Edit: Perhaps a better question for the right leaning on the forum and moderators: If I were a mod of this community, how many people do you think I would ban and/or flag-accusingly for being sockpuppet accounts based on them sharing similar right wing views and my own amateur writing analysis?

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

No.

Consistently left-leaning posters have much higher moderator scrutiny and can follow all the rules and still get banned for frivolous rules that plenty of right-leaning accounts violate all the time.

A sentiment completely detached from reality, stemming from left leaning posters being too used to Reddit.

A great example is Darwin, who was a prolific left-leaning poster.

...who isn't banned.

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

What's nebulous about this? He confidently asserted something as fact, was shown that he was wrong, and then got hostile about it. Do you think this is good behavior? Why are you even claiming his political point has anything to do with why people think he was bad?

Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.

He confidently asserted something as fact, was shown that he was wrong, and then got hostile about it.

I've never seen an example of him getting hostile despite asking people multiple times for examples of his worst posts. I've only seen people getting hostile towards him.

Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.

Still no.

Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.

He was banned for a year back on Reddit. He got a clean slate after we moved here, and never got a long term ban after that. And you know that. It was explained to you by Amadan.

I've never seen an example of him getting hostile despite asking people multiple times for examples of his worst posts.

It's the very conversation you linked.

I don't recall Amadan explaining that to me, but maybe I just forgot or only glanced at his reply at some point. It doesn't really change my point, thought the fact he's not banned right now is something I'll keep in mind.

The conversation I linked is a great example of him not being hostile to anyone involved in the conversation, while people like Amadan are using tons of personal attacks.

I don't recall Amadan explaining that to me, but maybe I just forgot or only glanced at his reply at some point

Here.

It doesn't really change my point, thought the fact he's not banned right now is something I'll keep in mind.

Your point was about unfair moderator action, and you linked to that post as an example. What's the point of even "keeping it in mind" if you claim it doesn't change your point?

The conversation I linked is a great example of him not being hostile to anyone involved in the conversation, while people like Amadan are using tons of personal attacks.

For Amadan I can count "you are either being astoundingly clueless or just flat out disingenuous", and maybe "you have actually spouted a ton of bullshit", though applying your criteria it doesn't count since it's an attack on his claim, not on him.

For Darwin it's making a false claim, making another false claim to support the first one, and than declaring "I don't give a fuck about the claim being true". If that doesn't fit your definition of "hostile" I don't know how to convince you. Either way please explain to me how is having issues with this sort of behavior in any way "nebulous".

Much hay has been made of the motte-and-bailied line “diversity is our strength”, but doesn’t the defense consider viewpoint diversity as a strength? Isn’t this why academia is pilloried today for being majority female and nearly all writing, voting, and having opinions indistinguishable from a neutered LLM ordered to repeat DNC voting points?

Intellectual consensus isn’t the same thing as ideological conformity. What separates one from the other is whether or not there’s a forum for open debate and airing out disagreements. Sure I’ve noticed some of the latter here when certain topics come to the fore but on the whole, TM is absolutely ‘nothing’ like Reddit and thankfully so. You can still feel when you can’t discuss a certain issue because it grates against the preferences of people here. Most noticeably as well the phenomenon of downvoting someone’s comments while offering no comment response to you that disagree with anything you’ve said. Disapproval still exists. LW was considered for a long time to be a very “cold” and unwelcoming place by others. But it was a forum for very serious discussion. A lot of the topics there demanded a level of engagement I wasn’t willing to invest in. KF and PCM were communities I felt much more at home in when I felt like checking them out because they allowed much greater latitude in letting off and occasionally being a smart ass. Not all environments are equal. TM is very unfit for my usual style of argumentation which is to incorporate irony and sarcasm amid intellectual replies, but I’ve learned how to deal with it.

In a way you can’t avoid convergence of belief in certain domains. Especially where there are clear cut right and wrong answers waiting to be discovered. The rest is just open exploration. Evidence is found to be of the Bayesians, precisely that kind of evidence you only ever expect to find on one side an argument. Otherwise what are you expecting people to say? “Here’s a knockdown objection I haven’t accepted yet?” If you were capable of saying that then there’s clearly a problem with you. The best I can do is present you with strawman arguments all sorts of weak objections. And to that end, being “closed minded” isn’t a criticism because the same argument can be made the other way. It’s very easy. Whenever you’re faced with something you really don’t want to believe you simply say “… but how can I really know this? Isn’t science supposed to consider all the answers?…” and if that’s as far as you can bring yourself to a conclusion, where you can’t close your mind any further, then that’s the same thing as having made up your mind isn’t it? If you refuse to close it. “The point of having an open mind like having an open mouth is that it occasionally closes on something solid.”

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!

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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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