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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25295 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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the net upvotes tell the story of which way TheMotte leans ideologically.

It is a little sad, for The Motte, that it can be assumed people upvote arguments whose conclusions they agree with (as opposed to meritorious arguments on all sides).

It is sad, but that's how most people vote, even here.

People also tend to upvote a nice, spicy polemic, even if they don't necessarily agree with all of it, because it's so deliciously heterodox, pisses off the right people, or tells off one's hated enemies.

People also tend to upvote a nice, spicy polemic

Incidentally, I don't care for the term "spicy" as a euphemism for things that are uncomfortable, or potentially expensive, or potentially dangerous to say. If someone declines to make an objectively reasonable post because it is spicy", then maybe they just don't like spicy stuff; different strokes! On the other hand, if someone declines to make a post because it is uncomfortable (or expensive or dangerous), they are keeping their head down, or perhaps cowering, instead of speaking the truth. There are times to keep your head down, but there is never a time to deceive yourself about the fact that you are keeping your head down.

I use spicy to mean "inflammatory, or meant to be inflammatory." That doesn't mean there isn't a place for such, but most of the time they are high heat, low value.

By "inflammatory" do you mean (a) inflammatory in the eyes of a reasonable person, or (b) something that will, if widely seen, get a lot of people riled up, reasonably or unreasonably?

I have not spent nearly as much time thinking about how I define "spicy" as you have. I suppose trying to explain one's meaning to someone who was just venting about a term he doesn't like was a mistake.

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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."

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