site banner
PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   2942 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 23, 2026

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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Who are some people that you strongly suspect to be fabulists that the general populace has not identified?

I made a comment in the context of Jason Arday about fabulists and I used Jordan Belfort, Marcus Luttrell, Chris Kyle, Greg Mortenson, Frank Abagnale, Jr. as examples. I called out or was suspicious of all of them other than Abagnale and I chalk that up to me hearing his story as a child and then not thinking about it. Took 0 convincing.

"Fabulist" is too strong a term, but for people working in the entertainment industries in Ireland and the UK, attempting to pass yourself off as coming from a more socioeconomically deprived background than you really did (class-Dolezalism) is the rule rather than the exception. If an actor, writer or (especially) musician claims (or implies) to have had a tough working-class upbringing, it's safe to assume they're lying unless they can provide receipts. (Prime example. You can just tell how fed up Beckham is with his wife's pretensions.)

Spoilers for the movie Saltburn

Saltburn points this out. Oliver get's far more cultural cache by portraying himself to the elites as coming from the underclass rather than what he actually was - upper middle class

Comment from reddit

Especially after we found out Oliver lied about being, it completely flushed any little narrative they had going on down the toilet.

That reveal was actually pivotal to the narrative. I think this isn't translating well across the Atlantic because most wealthy American families tend to be "new money," but people like Felix are descended from people like Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. They're called the owning class because they own vast swathes of land that have been handed down for generations and they can just live off the rent and never have to work. It's a very different kind of wealth from, say, Donald Trump or Jeffrey Bezos.

There's a big contrast between the owning class and middle class people like Oliver (who come from comfortable, privileged backgrounds but ultimately are still expected to work for a living), and there's another big contrast between the middle class and the working class. Especially at universities where students are a long way from home, you get a lot of middle class people pretending to be working class and exaggerating about how "poor" they are, because being working class carries some social capital whereas being middle class is just boring.

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