site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   984 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 7, 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, what are you reading?

I'm still on The Dawn of Everything. Finally getting around to Bax' The Fraud of Feminism, which has been on my list for a while.

I finished Freedom this past week. In short, I think it's one of the best books I've read in a long time.

So few writers can pull off truly distinct characters without dressing them up in a variety of cultures or ethnicities. They had their own beliefs, decision-making process, and appearance to everyone else. In short, they all felt real.

Some of them were actually better than others, which seems like something other novelists are allergic to admitting when writing a book that's about just people. Other books devolve into sloppy morally-ambiguous mess, which was cool when I was 13 and is now totally insufferable.

Franzen apparently wrote it primarily before the culture war amped up, with it being published in 2010. I shudder to think what would have happened if he'd done it any later.

So many little things just stuck out and made me stop to think and savor. The way he writes about 9/11 felt like it captured what both it and Covid meant to me. Midwestern culture that so many people overlook and don't appreciate. The ways that love and lust and beauty influence us.

Any more and I'll spoil it, but I've already recommended it to 3 people and I don't do that as a rule.

One-third of the way through Cryptonomicon. The likelihood of my finishing this book before the end of the year is narrowing.

If you're not enjoying it now, you won't enjoy it later. You should drop it.

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying it. But my progress on it has been slow because I've been busy and the print is very small.

Still reading the Divine Comedy. I finished Purgatorio and am now into Paradiso. I'm still enjoying it enough to keep going, though it is definitely a slog as a non-enjoyer of poetry. I've also resumed trying to read through Theology of the Body, which is often very difficult to follow (which is very unusual for me), but I hate to let it be said that I didn't finish a book because it was too hard for me.

Are you reading the original Italian or a translation?

A translation. I'm reading this edition, which seems to be pretty decent.

Vault: Unbound Book 8 by Nicoli Gonnella.

Sovietistan. Norwegian journalist visits ex-Soviet Central Asia. A little annoying in some ways (she's a pushy liberal that's shocked by people not giving a fuck about democracy), but it's been really cool to learn about a part of the world that I didn't know anything about before.

Huh, might pick this up as a stocking-stuffer.

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!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


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.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats