Epistemology Watch
Don’t Be a Sucker
Or trick, as the case may be
Sucker is a timeless old word. One who gets sucked in. Conned. Fooled. Tricked. These days, I prefer the rough urban synonym ‘Trick’. Single syllable. More alliterative: “Trump Trick” trips euphoniously off the tongue, doesn’t it.
Or, to provide some purple balance: “Woke Trick”, a neat iamb.
I always thought Hillary made a basic vocabulary error calling the MAGA core deplorable. A better adjective would have been … still is … gullible. The new Archie Bunkers aren’t going to be the least bit troubled by sinful libtards thinking poorly of their morals. They’re secure in the faith of their sanctity. Gullibility, though, speaks to their discernment, which is a deeply Biblical concern. It will at least put a little grain of doubt into their certainty.
Right from the beginning, the threat of the False Teacher or Prophet was obvious in any epistemology grounded on faith. Wrapping yourself in the flag is less the last refuge of scoundrels these days than claiming the mantle of TRUTH.
To flesh that out a bit, thinking people can absolutely split their issue ballot (would that there were one) on complex matters like migration, trade, energy policy, taxes, the role of public education with respect to morality, jurisprudence, what constitutes justice, social safety nets, definition of ‘person’, and on and on. You have to be really gullible, though, to buy that Spanko Donald is a messiah sent by Jesus to save America and make us great again.
Equally but differently gullible to think that biological sex is socially constructed, or that Hamas is the innocent party in the present Mid-East mess. Spreading it around the horseshoe: to think that the Magisterium of Rome is infallible; that the Exodus was a historical event; that every black child in California has earned $5M in reparations; or, that burning hydrocarbons at planetary scale is not impacting climate.
The 1945 short film put out by the Information & Education Division of the US War Department at the top of this column is sadly apt to 2024. Worth a watch in the spirit of everything old is new again¹.
Don’t be a trick.
Notes:
[1] That wall of hypocritical “Aryans” brings nothing to mind so much as the rogues gallery of the convicted MAGA inner circle: https://www.newsweek.com/guide-trump-allies-whove-pleaded-guilty-been-convicted-crimes-1735298
