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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   1601 thread views

Transnational Thursday for August 29, 2024

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 lot of people here at The Motte seem to be pro russian, why?

Because Russian society does not normalize ethnomasochism.

I encourage you to google-translate Russian rhetoric aimed at their own people.

The one white Christian country where the state sanctions native ethnic supremacism and supports traditional religion is... Ukraine, currently being invaded by Russia.

From a white ethnonationalist perspective, any European expression of ethnonationalist sentiment is immediately suspect if the Washingtonian globohomo empire / GAE not only permits it to exist but actively encourages and bankrolls it as a local enforcer of its overseas aspirations. It's doubly suspect if it's justified by claims of ethnogenesis that have no basis in reality, unlike those of Polish, Baltic and Finnish nationalists, to be fair to them.

Ethnicity is a meme. There is never any essential, objective "basis in reality". In that regard, if the Ukrainian nationalists can meme it like the Finns did, they they have it.

Unlike the Ukrainians, unfortunately (for this point of view, that is) the Finns aren't Slavs, aren't Orthodox Christians and have their own peculiar language.

And?

You're regurgutating Russian justifications for their very mundane geopolitical ambitions, not any real obstacles that would prevent ethnogenesis. Humans are evolved to break themselves apart into groups much smaller than a modern nation-state.

And?

And that means that Finns are markedly different from Russians in multiple aspects. Ukrainians, on the other hand, aren't.

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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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