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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2575 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 2, 2022

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 picking up Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited. Don't know anything about it besides that it was an influence on MLK.

Persian Fire, about Darius and Xerxes' attempts to conquer Greece. Very fun read, reminds me a bit of Carthage Must Be Destroyed (which I also enjoyed). I must admit, I don't retain a lot of the back-and-forth minutia, but nonetheless the texture of these ancient civilizations is engrossing. Our civilizational forebears lived in a much more brutal, visceral world than we do, coping with much starker material limitations. Yet at the same time, the more things change, the more they stay the same — humans gonna human!

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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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