site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3506 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Question because I legitimately don't know- is the AFD likely to have access to the human capital to start doing any of this stuff? That's been a problem for controversial right wing governments in very established, procedurally suffocating countries. Germany's cordon sanitaire has seemed unusually effective until now.

The AfD, by necessity, selects for people who burn social bridges and their future prospects in order to pursue their political visions. That, contrarians and attention whores. In other words, not the smartest, and not the most numerous. It's one thing to vote for the AfD anonymously, and another entirely to wear their colors in public and signal to everyone that you are a detestable nazi and actively working to bring about the second coming of the third Reich.

To be exact, that is my impression as a southwesterner. But we are an intensely anti-AfD corner of the country, and the current debates revolve around Sachsen-Anhalt, which is a very different place.

So, in short: I expect them to have serious human capital shortages based on what I know, but what I know has blind spots.

I am asking you because I know you're German:

How do people typically explain why East Germany today is seen as the most supportive of right wing politics in Germany? My imagination is that East Germans, having been communist in the past, would remain more left wing after integration with the rest of Germany, but that seems not to be the case. Is it because the East Germans have experienced communism and reject it, in a similar way to how Cubans in Florida often reject communism? If so, does the rest of Germany not have any instinct to trust the East German experience with their recent past of communism? Or is it because German politics are too different from American/anglo politics and left/right and communist/capitalist are too tenuously linked in the context of Germany today that I may be projecting dynamics onto the situation that are not correct?

The usual narratives are:

  • Western denazification was more effective.
  • The GDR discredited leftism.
  • They're just voting that way out of protest against their worse material conditions.
  • Capitalism has eroded the Western social fabric and the East Germans retain a more pragmatic worldview.

IMO all are correct to some extent. The East German socialist project really has done more to discredit leftism than to promote antifascism, whereas leftism in the West never had to take responsibility for real-world outcomes while also becoming ever better at propaganda. Westerners really do have it cushier, and East Germans do have more to complain about, and it's up to taste whether their protest voting is legitimate. And finally, Westerners really are "oversocialized", and East Germans remain better able to point out that the emperor is naked - even though they in turn buy into completely different weird conspiracy theories.

Ok very interesting, thank you for your informative reply

No, not really. Think Trump 2: they have loyal people, but they don't have competent people.

Trump 1 was like a theoretical AfD/CxU coalition: most positions are filled with blacks willing to work with blues in theory, but failing to meet their expectations in practice.

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