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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1734 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 27, 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?

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Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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One of my friends has a 9-year-old niece, and she's a fairly precocious reader (to his delight). She apparently, and I'm quoting here, "rips through books and has outgrown Highlights." He's asked for recommendations for a monthly magazine or book-club that is age appropriate and steers clear of culture war fodder/is non-woke. Any suggestions from the Motte?

If you can find the 80’s run of Cricket literary magazine for kids, I have very fond memories of it.

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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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