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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28268 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

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Since we're on the topic of peer pressure against small rules violations

Do you know how wild that sounds to someone not in the thrall of your particular sect?

Do you know how wild that sounds to someone not in the thrall of your particular sect?

There is not one shred of evidence for your feelings and had you been born in ancient greece your credulous butt would have just believed in the greek pantheon instead.

There is not one shred of evidence for your feelings and had you been born in ancient greece your credulous butt you would have just believed in the greek pantheon instead.

The only difference between these two sentence pairs is the insertion of scorn. Would it be so bad to tone this down please? If you're modded you might feel vindicated for proving The Motte is too soft for ingroup criticism, well done, but if so this will be the reason. While your instinct now is probably to go hunting for examples of scornful language elsewhere on the Motte, you're delivering scorn here in distilled juice concentrate.

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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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