A worthy post. Good luck fighting with Wikipedia. No sarcasm intended---there's sometimes a certain drift there that frustrates.

Thanks, NM. The Wikipedia post includes contrary views, as it should. What it does now - but didn't do before - is allow those who use the term to describe it in their own words. Arguments for and against the concept are then lined up at the end for those who wish to pursue the matter. Elsewhere.

I've got a watch set on the topic, and while I'll be delighted to see innovations that add clarity, I'm going to be pretty ruthless about removing material that seeks to use what should be an explanatory post with links to arguments pro-and-con into a counter-argument against the term.

Just as I would wish the Wikipedia entry on Marxism to contain links to critical views, but expect it first and foremost to explain to me what Marxism is all about - rather than what someone else thinks of Marxism.

I did find that useful, thank you.

I dislike pejorative terms such as "Islamofascism" and "idiotarian." They seem rude and like moves to close the debate before it begins.

But as you say, sometimes there's no alternative term with currency, and you just have to say, as clearly as possible, what the term that is in use means to those who use it, and how it came to be that way.

Good job.

Nothing wrong with pejorative terms when appropriate, as it is in this case. I have used 'idiotarian' for the leaders of collective extremist idiocy, and 'useful idiots' for followers too clueless to think things through for themselves.

Your valuable contribution to the discussion highlights a problem with the term. "Idiotarianism" is what one is AGAINST. But even Jackson and Falwell are reliably united (and aligned with South Park Republicans) against particular individual idiotarian notions like NAMBLA.

So, what are the self-defined ANTI - idiotarians FOR? For one thing, it appears that the Anti-I's believe in "fighting for..." whatever. Pacificism is off the table entirely, and diplomacy is low on the agenda.

Could anti-idiotarians be for:

Civility in discourse.

Appreciation, rather than denigration, for those who "flip flop" in their opinions upon discovery of new information?

A little more appreciation for those who roll their opinions "a la carte" -- your opinion on marijuana should provide little clue to your opinion on capital punishment, the war in the Sudan, McCain-Feingold, school vouchers, or relations with Cuba. Positions over affiliations.

What else?

As a Michael Moore/ Howard Dean liberal, I take offense at the term idiotarian. Why not simply say what you mean, instead of demonizing people who disagree with you? Everytime you use that term you are insulting many of us. Besides, you show yourself as redneck neocon wingnut fascist koolaid drinkers everytime you use the term. Enough demonizing already! How would you like it if someone called you names?

"Enough demonizing already! How would you like it if someone called you names?"

And Michael Moore / Howard Dean have provided direction in eliminating demonizing comments how? I'm sure you don't want a list of links and statements that has come from their mouths.

I suspect #6 was being funny and trying a parody.

At least, that's the best we can hope for.

It seems that generally an idiotarian is anyone who has a fantasy-based politics (as Lee Harris described al-Qaeda).

So, Utopians basically, or people who believe that the whole world would be perfect if only people believed XYZ.

They seem to be mostly libertarian and secular-humanist, though many of them are Christian and Jewish, though not the type of Christians and Jews who want to enact public policy to enforce their religious views. (Though this doesn't extend to moral views on topics like abortion.)

What are anti-idiotarians for? Policy that can be proven empirically to "work".

BUT, that sorta leaves a goose-egg at the heart of anti-idiotarianism, because "work" is based on how you view the world, which is basically one's religion.

(By the way, ESR's anti-idiotarian manifesto is idiotarian, equivocating as he does the Christian right and the jihadis. What an idiot.)

Wanabe #6:

Whether you meant your words literally or parodically, thanks for posting! You do bring up a serious point. "Idiotarian" is a value judgement, after all, and to use the word is to judge others' political or cultural perspectives harshly.

If you jumped in a time machine and landed up in the late 1930s, would your moral code require even-handedness when considering the speeches and political programs of Al Smith, FDR, Neville C., Winston, Stalin, Adolf, and Benito? Did all spring from common moral precepts? Of the Good Guys (if you will permit that term), did all correctly appreciate that era's greatest dangers?

Do you suppose that Howard and Michael are milquetoasts, unwilling to condemn those who see the world differently from them? What if their ideas would do great damage to the West, if applied? Am I obliged to agree with their prescriptions for the sake of niceness?

Would you think better of me if I did?

Anyway, hope you look around the website. Lots of food for thought, if you are so inclined.

"Could anti-idiotarians be for:
Civility in discourse."

This is (unintentionally, I suppose) funny.
So, you propose starting your civil discourse by labelling those that you disagree with as "idiots". Civility must have a new definition in ConservativeWorld.

Tom Volckhausen #11,

While I can't speak for all conservatives, I certainly believe that there are liberals who are non-idiotarian but with whom I would disagree. For example, I would consider the folks at The New Republic or the Atlantic Monthly (less James Fallows) to be non- or even anti-idiotarian, even if I disagree with them about some things. It's more the process of reasoning that makes one anti-idiotarian, rather than the process of feeling, which typically makes one idiotarian.

Actually, I generally respect and even like James Fallows.

And see the definition/explanation above. The feeling/thinking divide is part of the flavour of the term because of how common it is in the style of those labelled idiotarian, and how much this group is defined by its underlying common hatreds. But there are thinkers who are idiotarian, and there are emotional folks who are not.

Let me reach back to Wanabe for a second, and borrow a quote: "...instead of demonizing people who disagree with you"

To which I would add:

"...and seem, consistently, to agree with and justify our murderous enemies, and/or acts of violence against those with whom they disagree."

I have no problem with "demonizing" the Lyndon LaRouches of the world. Or the Noam Chomskys. The McKinneys, and the Boniors. The Hussein "Jabba" Ibish types. Or the Moseleys, to use an example from anearlier era. They mean my destruction. They collude with our enemies. They are an existential threat to all I hold dear. And like Eric, I am happy to stand up and offer them a just requite.

Not shy about taking long swipes at the Jimmy Swaggart types, either, when they earn it. Or the Pat Buchanans.

Belmont Club notes that sooner of later, Everyone Comes to Rick's. Maybe. This much I do know, however - unlike the Cold War fellow travelers, those who don't come won't be wriggling off the hook this time and dropping their complicity down the memory hole.

I can confirm one element of this narrative. I wrote the A.I.M. in direct response to someone's comment that all the world's most malignant political idiocies seemed to be coming together into one grand harmonic convergence of stupidity. I don't think it was the exact quote from Tim Blair that you cite, but it might well have been something else he wrote or a derivative quote -- I remember that the phrase "harmonic convergence" was actually used.

That comment started me thinking. I asked myself what, operationally, all the converging idiocies have in common. The answer seemed clear; they all believe that their Western opponents are so bad, so corrupt, that out-and-out tyrants or terrorists are actually preferable. The rest of the Manifesto unfolded from there.

I will further confirm that, yes, the Manifesto was a conscious exercise in political category-busting.

As some folks know, I have another life as a famous Internet geek. But the A.I.M. fits a pattern; all my best work has been about eliciting the unconscious knowledge of communities.

So, as with the Jargon File or "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" -- in a sense, I only channeled the A.I.M. It gets its power not from being an edifice of theory sprung out of my individual head, but from the extent to which it makes explicit themes that were previously only half-realized in a conversation taking place all around me.

As a note of possible interest, if I were writing the A.I.M. today I might focus more on self-hatred as a driving emotion in idiotarianism -- what Iowahawk might call the "East Village Rage Against My Allowance" syndrome.

Joe Katzmann #13,

Actually, I generally respect and even like James Fallows.

I liked some of his work. In the 2004 election, he claimed that Bush/Cheney were demonstrations of how the Republicans were parties of the rich. This ignored that Kerry/Edwards were the richest candidates in the history of the US. The lack of foundation in data is one of the signs I would point to for idiotarianism.

In the latest Atlantic, James Fallows presents the notion that the US might suffer an economic collapse after China stops buying our bonds. They would do this as part of a conspiracy with Venezuela. This defies all logic - to whom would the Chinese sell their goods if the US had an economic tailspin? If you read the article closely - including all of the footnotes - many of his assertions about the origins of problems in the economy read like a litany of criticism, much of it unfounded. He is relentlessly critical of the tax cuts and does not seem to understand the linkage between tax cuts and economic growth. He also blames tax cuts for reduced revenues in the face of the fact that despite the huge capital gain and dividend tax cuts led to an increase in capital gains and dividend revenues. Likewise, despite Congress' profligacy, the deficit is expected to come in well over the old expectation - I believe the number may have been ~$120B higher. I don't recall, but I believe that revenues are still lower - but that should change shortly, thanks to economic growth caused by the tax cuts.

Ariel,

Just as there's a big difference between lying and being mistaken, there's a big difference between being an idiotarian and being misinformed on an issue or falling for a common but erroneous stereotype.

Read the above post carefully. Fallows is NOT who we're talking about here. You may think he's wrong- heck, you may even think he's an idiot. But he's no idiotarian.

Very nice work...

Interestingly enough, the term “harmonic convergence” is itself an idiotarian term. It referred to an astronomical non-event that inspired a lot of people who had only little familiarity with logic to do all sorts of strange things. Much chanting and dancing and pious hopes for instant world peace ensued. It didn't happen.

Besides, everybody knows that the harmonic series doesn't converge.

>>"Could anti-idiotarians be for:
>>Civility in discourse.?"

>This is (unintentionally, I suppose) funny.
>So, you propose starting your civil discourse
>by labelling those that you disagree with
>as "idiots". Civility must have a new >definition in ConservativeWorld.

First of all, why would only the aliens from ConservativeWorld worry about idiots storming the bridge and attempting to fly the saucer? Seems to me anybody serious about making progress in any direction, left or right, benefits from excluding self-demonstrated idiots from the process.

In some times and places there were tests or conditions for whom could help rule or vote or steer the saucer. Prove your daddy was a knight. Scrape together the capital to buy land. Read a paragraph from the law or the holy text. Drop your drawers and prove your manhood. In general the more challenging the test the less successful the society. And yet some kind of noise filters are still necessary.

I think it fair to let people filter themselves. If one can remain "civil" -- take turns in listening to others' arguments before rebuttals; avoiding libels; maintaining at least the forms and norms of respect -- then one may take up a station on the bridge and help steer. But failing even that easy test earns one the badge of incompetent, ignorant, unwilling to learn, violent, dangerous, and inciteful of discord among others.

Anti-idiotarians are not hetero-phobic, believing that "the other" is intrinsically evil, or stupid, or unkind. They are, I would suggest, inclined to default to just the opposite positions. Indeed, experience dictates that humans are more disposed to tolerate idiocy, while such idoicy is is tolerable, than to risk physical strife by ejecting the individual idiots to whom we have become accustomed. But when a long train of insult and aggravations, driven by the same misperceptions of consensus reality, envinces an intension to crash the saucer rather than direct it, it's the right and duty of the passengers and crew to fight back.

"In the 2004 election, he claimed that Bush/Cheney were demonstrations of how the Republicans were parties of the rich. This ignored that Kerry/Edwards were the richest candidates in the history of the US. The lack of foundation in data is one of the signs I would point to for idiotarianism."

Now Ariel, you know that Cheney-Bush's wealth being less than their challengers doesn't in any way argue against the idea that the GOP is the party of the rich. Wealth may suggest political viewpoints, but it doesn't define them.

"If one can remain "civil" -- take turns in listening to others' arguments before rebuttals; avoiding libels; maintaining at least the forms and norms of respect -- then one may take up a station on the bridge and help steer."

Pouncer, you have just removed the voting rights of many bloggers. The echo chamber of personal attacks and vindictiveness has no higher form than blogs. Check out "Junkyardblog" for a particularly sad example.

As a Michael Moore lover and chicken rapist, I take issue with everything you say. If I didn't have such a disabling case of clucks, I'd be kicking some ass!

I'm sure the chicken was asking for it.

...Dressed the way it was.

Well, somebody ws going to say it. :)

Hey, thanks for working at Wikipedia. If you need any help with editing, dealing with abusive users, and so forth, just ask on my Talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slowking_Man). I'm an administrator on the English edition, so I have the power to block disruptive users and do other fun things. ;) I've added the article to my watchlist, so I'll monitor it.

SWEET!

I originally put that George Orwell part in their!

HOO yeah!!! Im important!

(Does a little dance....hopes for nickels)

I think an important part of this term, and what is signifies, is to eliminate the chaff from the actual discussion. I notice on the web, in the blogs, in the comments, there always those that are going to do everything to NOT foster serious debate on any issues.
What I find tiring about being in a battle of ideas is not someone who can well argue a point with which I disagree, but someone who disagrees with me but has no basis for it. And worse yet, they often feel no need for one. Trying to engage such people, or even defending yourself against their mindless assaults, is an enormous drain and it helps kill debate by making it too stressful and annoying to engage in one.

I think Pouncer is on to something important. By creating an idiotarian catagory, complete with definition, one can file certain people and groups into the trash bin without having to waste time sorting through it. If they are intent on crashing from the start, don't let them near the bridge.

Some will say that this is a dangerous or anti-intellectual exercise, because it automatically invalidates or dismisses some viewpoints. Well, don't some viewpoints need to be dismissed right out of hand? Whether it be Holocaust denial, or the 9/11 was a Bush plot/did not happen bile, or some races are inferior and deserve to be treated less, can't we slap a "REJECT" label on them and send them, and their purveyors, out of the room?

Certainly, some of these people need to be directly challenged from time to time, but I find that what happens is that re-fighting or re-arguing a no-brainer is ultimately pointless and wasteful. Sometimes the only way to end a conversation with someone is to call them an idiot and leave it at that.

I read somewhere, and I cannot remember who the quote is from, that it takes two paragraphs minimum to refute a lie in 1 sentence. I think the idiotarian tactic is one of attrition using that principle. They, nomatter their side of the political spectrum, believe that if they throw out enough garbage fast enough (and they have no problem recycling the same crap and tossing back out) they will win in the end. After all, they are not bothered with logistical concerns like facts, logic or common sense, or with moral ones like honesty or decency or shame.

In a sense, idiotarians are the asymmetrical warriors of the blogosphere; intellectual terrorists if you like. That might seem over the top, but look at what various people have been willing to do to those who challenge their thinking; threats of retaliation through exposure/outing, allegience or words of support for thugs, terrorists and tyrants or even outright violence against those who disagree with them.

They believe their cause is completely right, believe anything is in bounds to promote and do not accept any dissension or discussion on the matter.

Just a note for the sake of history: The "idiotarian" article Joe is referring to here no longer exists on Wikipedia. The word itself is currently enshrined on the Wiki only in the form of condescending references to the kind of 'divisive' language used by Eric Raymond and Charles Johnson.

You're wrong.

It was a simple typo when writing the words "idiot arians" (e.g. Those damned idiotarians really piss me off).

Sorry to have to be the one to burst this huge bubble.

So you'd better go make the necessary changes to the appropriate spots. ;)