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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3744 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 20, 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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So, what are you reading?

I'm rereading Watts' The Way of Zen. It's one of the most profound books I've read, though it is an idiosyncratic view of Zen, which he admits. This time I'm taking notes.

Paper I'm reading: Riskin's The Naturalist and the Emperor, a Tragedy in Three Acts; or, How History Fell Out of Favor as a Way of Knowing Nature.

I just ordered four books from EBay: Beloved, The Count of Monte Cristo, Nixonland, and Snow Crash, the latter two of which I believe I received recommendations for on this forum. I spun the roulette wheel and started with Beloved, got three pages in and said, nope this one can wait. I pivoted to Snow Crash and also found the first 50 or so pages painfully dull. But I’m now about a quarter of the way through and am slightly more intrigued. Looking forward to all of them.

Count of Monte Cristo is in my top 5. Hopefully you got the translation by Robin Buss from Penguin Classics. The older public domain translations are very antiquated.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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