site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3320 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

5
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If you had found a killjoy childless academic condemning the Czech and Polish appropriation of American redneck culture, I think that would have made the comment a lot less jarring. As it was, I felt like I was looking at a comment that said "I don't like childless academics, and also look at this amazing video".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_tramping

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_tramping_music

This "appropriation" of American culture (more precisely image of American culture from cowboy novels and movies) is more than 100 years old (yes, for real) and is integral part of Czech culture by now.

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramping

In the Czech Republic, the first tramps were senior scouts who did not like certain rules of this organization - they paid more attention to taking care of nature. This took place during the First World War , when the name tramps did not yet function, they were called wild scouts.

Tramps gradually discovered still wild areas, such as the southern area of Prague (mainly in the basin of the Vltava and Sazawa rivers ), later the Berounka basin and forests near the Brda River. Later, tramps could be found in every corner of former Czechoslovakia. However, it was in the basin of the Vltava and Sasau that the first settlements were established, modeled on those organized when settling the West .

The tramps showed special respect for nature, their camps left no trace of human interference in the landscape.

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramping

The oldest known Czech settlement was founded around 1918 on the Vltava in a place called Svatojánské currents , today flooded by the waters of the Štěchovice dam reservoir . An initially nameless group of former Prague scouts renamed the place where they went on weekends to "Roaring Camp" after the short story by Bret Hart . Later (according to the settlement chronicle in 1919) the tramp settlement " Ztracená naděje " or "Ztracenka" was founded here - on the forest land of the Strahov Premonstratensians. [1] The settlers chose the name of the settlement after the silent movie cowboy The Valey of Lost Hope (1915, Valley of Lost Hope). The settlers also included the Tramp lyricist and composer Jarka Mottl .

The first tramps were usually people from poorer social strata, or the unemployed for whom this way of life was socially acceptable. Later, when the movement became popular in the wider strata of Czech society, young people from the middle classes, fashionably even from the upper social classes, the so-called Astrakhans, joined the tramps.

City trippers with cars and fancy equipment were derisively called " thugs " or "greasers" - sometimes leaving behind greasy papers and other messes. In contrast, true trampers had respect for nature, there was no trace of their camping, they cleaned up after themselves.

All regimes in history hated this movement - pre war Czechoslovakia as obscene and communist, Nazis as American and Jewish, Communists as American and capitalist. If "childless liberal academics" object to it, they are not alone.

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