The Alt-Universe Epistemology of Wingnuts
For anyone who has forgotten, epistemology is (from www.merriam-webster.com) "the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity." In other words, it's about how you "know" something; i.e., how do you know that something is true?
In hopes that these principles of wingnut epistemology will help you better understand and communicate with wingnuts, here is a guide to how alt-universe wingnuts understand truth. A few of these principles include examples to get you started in understanding and recognizing.
Principle 1: If they made it up, then it's true.
Example: A wingnut, who doesn't know anyone who went to the women's march and has no evidence at all except from his own imagination, writes a letter to the editor stating as fact that everyone who went to the march was a fat, ugly (gotta get the high priority things first on the list), uninformed, duped, confused, terrorist, baby-killing, stupid demon. In normal times, they would also include a Red-baiting term such as CommieSymp, but they skip that now that their hero is Red Donald, Comrade Drumpf, Puti-put's Golden Boy.
Principle 2. Whatever a wingnut wants to believe is true is true.
Example: Those awesomely huger than huge biggest ever spectacularly gigantic inauguration crowds of billions of invisible people.
Principle 3: If a wingnut made it up and it says something horrible about someone they hate, then it's true.
Example: Hillary is running a sex slavery operation from a pizzeria.
Principle 4: If a wingnut made it up and Faux News repeated it, then it's established as a fundamental truth of the universe.
Principle 5: If a wingnut made it up and put it on a wingnut website, then it's true, especially if it's a white supremacist website.
Principle 6: If something a wingnut says contradicts something else a wingnut (the same wingnut or a different wingnut) says, then there's no contradiction. Wingnuts readily believe fifteen mutually contradictory things before breakfast. See principle 2.
Principle 7: If evidence contradicts a wingnut's alternative facts, the "evidence" is liberal lies.
Principle 8: Math, logic, and science are liberal lies.
Principle 9. If a wingnut and a liberal do exactly the same thing, then it's holy and noble when the wingnut does it and totally evil when the liberal does it. There's no contradiction or hypocrisy here--see principle 2.
Principle 10. The best sources of truth in the universe are these: Faux News, white supremacist websites, the wingnut's own imagination, the wingnut's id (refer to Psychology 101), selected Bible verses that they can construe to support their hate. (Note: Any Bible verses that contradict their hate don't say what they say. See principle 2.)
Principle 11. You don't have to tell a wingnut a Big Lie twice. The wingnut recognizes the style and source and accepts it immediately.
Well, okay. On second thought I failed in my intention to help you communicate with them--it takes expensive specialized equipment to communicate with alternative universes.
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