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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3559 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 4, 2023

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.

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The word leftist itself is right-coded. You don't hear a lot of left-leaning people use the word (or, I myself don't hear them).

I think left leaning people usually would say "The left believes X" where as right leaning people would say "Leftists believe X".

I seem to remember a lot of "I'm not a liberal, I'm a leftist" during the ascendence of Breadtube.

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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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