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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3025 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025

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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So, what are you reading?

Still on a bunch of stuff. Picking up Rawls' A Theory of Justice. Scott Alexander's claim that the book converted a lot of academic Marxists to left-liberalism has intrigued me.

Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery. A popular nonfiction book written by a practicing brain surgeon, that explores the profession from a medical, historical, and social perspective. Who knew that the surgeons, in order to access the brain, literally drill four holes in the skull, slip a cutting wire through two of them, and saw back-and-forth, repeating on all the holes until a square is cut out? It's a glimpse into a field that is usually inaccessible to outsiders. I'm only about a quarter of the way through but I would highly recommend 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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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