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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   4363 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022

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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Uh... have you considered to possibility we act the way we do, because we want to, not because we're subconsciously threatened into it?

I don't know about this "we" but I have been posting in the motte for over 2 years now (various usernames) and have skirted around saying things plainly many times because of reddit associated nuisances (read my other comment on this post).

So I am pattern matching and assume that a lot of people speaking like I do, are doing it that way for the same reason I spoke that way.

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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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