There are no facts in this worldview. Claims cannot be evaluated - merely accepted or rejected based on who says. There aren’t right or wrong arguments, only right or wrong people. There aren’t good or bad actions, just good or bad people. Things are good if (and only if) a good person does it. A wrong person accurately quoting a right person is still wrong. People’s claims cannot be judged. Only people, themselves, can be judged. So if someone is an authority, for whatever reason, they get to decide what is true.
But we expect everyone’s trying to be reasonable, so we pick apart what they say, desperately searching for consistency. We hold them to things they never meant in the first place. Their slogans are not arguments. Their pretense is not explanation. That’s not what they’re doing when they say words. They are not telling you why they think something… or else when you proved that wrong, they would think something else.
This baffling nonsense is not an accident or a strategy. It’s a terrifying glimpse of worlds without truth. We keep asking each other to make it make sense - refusing to consider the obvious alternative. It simply doesn’t. You will never piece together which things they really believe.
Conservatives do not believe things. Conservatives believe people.
Reality is a team sport, to some people.
There are no facts in this worldview. Claims cannot be evaluated - merely accepted or rejected based on who says. There aren’t right or wrong arguments, only right or wrong people. There aren’t good or bad actions, just good or bad people. Things are good if (and only if) a good person does it. A wrong person accurately quoting a right person is still wrong. People’s claims cannot be judged. Only people, themselves, can be judged. So if someone is an authority, for whatever reason, they get to decide what is true.
But we expect everyone’s trying to be reasonable, so we pick apart what they say, desperately searching for consistency. We hold them to things they never meant in the first place. Their slogans are not arguments. Their pretense is not explanation. That’s not what they’re doing when they say words. They are not telling you why they think something… or else when you proved that wrong, they would think something else.
This baffling nonsense is not an accident or a strategy. It’s a terrifying glimpse of worlds without truth. We keep asking each other to make it make sense - refusing to consider the obvious alternative. It simply doesn’t. You will never piece together which things they really believe.
Conservatives do not believe things. Conservatives believe people.