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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2737 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 10, 2024

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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Are far-right pagans a thing IRL, or is it literally just varg?

Are they a thing? Yes.

Are they as common as kids on reddit like to pretend? Not even remotely. It's a tiny scene gets brought up only because it's so juicy and so easy to rile up the leftist online troops.

The reason it's always Varg who keeps being brought up is that he's pretty much the only one in the tiny scene who actually did something. Even that something had nothing to do with being far right but was "just" killing his ex-bandmate and burning some churches.

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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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