Motte and Bailey
I’ll assume everyone has read and digested Scott Alexander’s description of Motte and Bailey arguments. It’s extremely useful. (So much so, it’s probably fated to undergo compression to ‘M&B positions’ at some stage.)
The NRx versions of these are extremely trying. Most grating, from the perspective of this blog, are the Feudalism (Monarchism) examples. These have a strong motte, roughly of the form “by ‘feudalism’ we mean structures of decentralized hierarchical tradition, antedating state bureaucratization (and by ‘monarchism’ we mean a CEO with undivided powers)”. In predictable M&B style, these then dilate into a ramshackle set of formless nostalgias, bizarre dreams for a universal return to rural life, with ‘the Olde Kinges will return’ fantasies substituted for a realistic engagement with modernity, plus much arm-wrestling and ale. My strong temptation is to burn out the motte and forget the whole thing. There’s certainly far more to be lost from the latter associations, than to be gained from the former.
Listen to this interview with Marc Andreessen if you get a chance. There’s a lot of fascinating material there. Perhaps most crucial to this ‘point’ — he understands that the combination of peripheral economic development, advanced mobile telephony, and precipitously falling prices, is basically putting the equivalent of a 1970s supercomputer into everyone‘s hands in the very near future. You can already buy a smartphone for $35, and denizens of developing countries express a preference for these gizmos over indoor plumbing. It’s not so much a prediction then, more an acknowledgement of final-phase installed fact. This is the world that realistic socio-political analysis has to address.
However NRx gets sub-divided, can I please not be in the part that foregrounds the return of jousting as a pressing cultural issue. The challenges and opportunities of planetary-saturation Cyberspace is the topic that matters.
You really need to read Nature of Order, if you haven’t already. He outlines what underlies much of this somewhat unformed yearning of the romantic and otherwise sort. Fundamentally, he argues that on the Quantum level arrangement trumps causality; thus the ‘field of effect of arrangements’ is an empirical phenomenon of some degree.
What follows is the theory of centers, of wholes as a field of centers (and their fields) – providing a third theory which allows one to move between the empirical and metaphysical (empirical being continuous, metaphysical being discrete.)
The curious experiment at the heart of the mystery is the ‘two slit’ electron experiment. The books are rather expensive, but quite worth it (so far, anyway – we’ve not read the whole opus yet.)
Is it not the case that first-order political considerations such as the catharsis/preservation of controlled male aggression’s particular form are not really the point of Nrx discussions anyway?
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admin Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 4:02 pm
I could probably have brought you on board more easily with the race version (which would in fact have been at least as easy to illustrate).
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E. Antony Gray (@RiverC) Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 4:59 pm
Yes, although it should be noted that for Trad Christians, Christian is a race.. it all centers around drinking the blood of God, you know? White Nationalists can never be orthodox Christians if they can’t put the Christian race first, which is a spiritual and psychological race (in Evola’s sense.)
My thought on such anachronisms is as follows: When they came into being, they had a purpose. 1. Were they effective at that purpose? 2. Have we precluded the development of such things, appropriate to our time, (in multi-variable trap fashion?) 3. What broader truths can be learned from studying or engaging in the old activities?
NoO is about trying to understand the underlying principles that make architecture ‘work’ by studying works from nearly all cultures, and people’s responses to them.
(PS – my conclusion is that ‘whiteness’ is a trans-racial, trans-ethnic phenomenon.)
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Jousting is the official sport of Maryland, so its return can’t exactly avoid becoming a pressing cultural issue over here.
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admin Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Thank you for reminding me why I don’t live in Maryland.
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E. Antony Gray (@RiverC) Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 4:48 pm
J Arthur Bloom just tweeted “There’s just no defending Maryland” re: our Renn Fest. (Jousting again!)
Jousting with sawed-off shotguns, in power armor, on jet skis seems like a good compromise.
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Thales Reply:
August 7th, 2014 at 12:48 pm
Aim higher.
For some reason my posts never make it through, but I’ll give it another shot….
“”””””
In predictable M&B style, these then dilate into a ramshackle set of formless nostalgias, bizarre dreams for a universal return to rural life, with ‘the Olde Kinges will return’ fantasies substituted for a realistic engagement with modernity, plus much arm-wrestling and ale.
“”””””
This is no different than Victorian medievalism which had much positive influence in England and the anglosphere IMO. That nastalgia and movements that came out of it(muscular christianity, boy scouts, and much much more) helped provide order in an ever changing world. That is exactly what’s needed.
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admin Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 4:18 pm
On the technical point — if you have problems making it through, shoot me an email (address under ‘Contact’). People have got lost in the automatic spam grinder before. I’m negligent at checking what goes on there.
On the substantial point — I’ve got no problem with this stuff existing, until it becomes obnoxious by shouting. It’s certainly not needed by me (but then I’ve got Chinese schools to do the equivalent — memorizing Tang poetry and such — for my kids).
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Archeofuturism: neurothaumaturgic mindtrauma jousting
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Mind_Clash_%28Chronicle%29
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Posted on August 5th, 2014 at 4:12 pm | Quote“These have a strong bailey” — don’t you mean “These have a strong motte”? If I read Alexander correctly, the innocuous pseudo-definition would be the motte (the fortress-tower), while the weird things that the people who use the word really care about would be the bailey (the surrounding fertile zone). When others object to the weird things that one really cares about, one retreats to the innocuous pseudo-definition.
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admin Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 4:20 pm
Thanks — damn — I’d assumed ‘motte’ was ‘moat’. I’ll shift it around.
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Alrenous Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 11:07 pm
This is why I shifted to using ‘keep’ where possible. It’s just as confusing for the reader as the writer.
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Jaymo Reply:
August 6th, 2014 at 2:34 pm
Motte has the advantage of having semi-decent wordplay with the French “mot” meaning “word.”
That’s fine. You can be left behind if you choose. No one will force you to believe political things, because politics does not concern you.
What do people do with that supercomputer in their pocket? They route around the media gatekeeper Jews.
* Individual Jews display their scheming craven brutality laughing at dead children. Individual Negroes display their vicious childlike cruelty on WorldStar. Whites keep on being White.
* When the Pope wants to say something, he doesn’t have to go through some communist reporter who intentionally doesn’t take notes so he can pick the most pro-communist paraphrases to put in his article, or go on some communist’s TV show to get yelled at as if a reporter is his equal much less his superior. He says it through the Internet, and the lamestream media can pick it up if they want to, but it hardly matters what they do.
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E. Antony Gray (@RiverC) Reply:
August 5th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
Just a question, do you read /pol/ ?
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As long as the current keeps flowing.
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admin Reply:
August 6th, 2014 at 1:08 am
When the current stops flowing we won’t be moaning about it on the Internet.
That’s the Greer prediction — I’m deeply skeptical. Miniaturization and efficiency gains trump resource depletion IMHO. Collapse is socio-political, and not (or only derivatively) techno-economic.
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Lesser Bull Reply:
August 6th, 2014 at 2:36 am
True. The Diamond book on environmental collapse mainly showed how weak the case was, But we see great civilizations tumbling throughout recorded history, and there are ruins of peoples we don’t even know. Clearly the causes are internal, whether social or biological.
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Alex Reply:
August 6th, 2014 at 4:37 pm
Yes. Although modern civilisation is characterised by a peculiar and increasing hypertrophy of technical integration. If the current stops, everything stops.
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[…] Source: Outside In […]
Posted on August 5th, 2014 at 7:25 pm | Quote[…] just run across (hat-tip to Nick Land) an excellent, and apparently oft-cited, essay by Scott Alexander on the unique terminological […]
Posted on August 5th, 2014 at 7:33 pm | QuoteThanks for posting the link to Alexander’s Motte & Bailey article. I hadn’t seen it. It both cracked me up and scratched an itch. SJ people upset me, as does spending time explaining what’s wrong with SJ people. Mr. Alexander does a wonderful job here; I admire his patience and restraint.
However, maybe I just don’t run in the same circles as you, but I haven’t seen anything like this in the world of neoreaction. Could you provide an example of ale-swilling ruralismos? That could be amusing.
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admin Reply:
August 6th, 2014 at 1:11 am
My Twitter TL is full of that stuff. Absolute master of the genre is E.H. Looney (not NRx, but frequently retweeted by them).
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Imagine all the other people
living in their own countries far awayay
imagine all the money
spent on the white mans burden
invested in the singularity
its easy if you try
No affirmative action dragging down productivity
no lawsuits or welfare too
imagine shaming slackers like we used to doohooo
imagine cultural confidence a wonder what it could do
think of all the things that might work again
like they used to do
public restrooms and waiting rooms in stations
business handshakes public ttansportation
imagine hundreds of millions less people in our lands
how much cleaner it would be
think how freer and easier
imagine no criminal justice system no INS and DOE
imagine how little a robotic dept of defense would cost
if we only hadn’t spent the R and D on school lunches
imagine no national debt or any interest too
so many trillions every year to move our people forward
imagine all the the talent used on spinning lies
all those academics pundits and NGO and politicians
freed up to lend a hand
imagine leftism without all the free votes
imagine all the hunter gatherers and pastoral fauna too
returned to live the life they re adapted for
protected from cellphones and tee shirts and AK 47s
we can manage their populations and the rhinoceroses too
they’ll think the drones are gods
theyll forget all about us
in a generation or two
you can say im a dreamer but im not the only one
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Posted on August 6th, 2014 at 12:53 am | Quote“However NRx gets sub-divided, can I please not be in the part that foregrounds the return of jousting as a pressing cultural issue.”
Don’t knoct it until you try it. Who knows? You might be a passing good knight after all.
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Posted on August 6th, 2014 at 1:05 am | QuoteReading through the comments for Alexander’s article, I see the crazed howling of SJWs has led to Alexander perma-banning Jim. Pity that. I suppose Jim’s style is a little too sharp for their tender sensibilities. Perhaps he should consider trigger-warnings in the future.
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admin Reply:
August 6th, 2014 at 4:33 am
JIm’s not known as the greatest punch-puller on the Internet.
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