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"Wingnut"?
Yesterday evening, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beable and I were chatting with our friend D.- and described someone as a "wingnut". It was a term that D.- hadn't encountered before, and she asked us to explain. It wasn't as simple as I'd have thought.
I've been trying to come up with a way of clarifying the concept. Looking over some recent silliness on a mailing list, where one participant was reading a whole lot of her own Bad History into a discussion and seeing stuff that not only wasn't there, but which was the opposite of what really was there, I got a glimmer.
A wingnut is someone whose attitude and exposition are such that even people who fundamentally agree with his/her basic position wish that s/he would shut up, because s/he's making that position look bad.
beable and I were chatting with our friend D.- and described someone as a "wingnut". It was a term that D.- hadn't encountered before, and she asked us to explain. It wasn't as simple as I'd have thought.I've been trying to come up with a way of clarifying the concept. Looking over some recent silliness on a mailing list, where one participant was reading a whole lot of her own Bad History into a discussion and seeing stuff that not only wasn't there, but which was the opposite of what really was there, I got a glimmer.
A wingnut is someone whose attitude and exposition are such that even people who fundamentally agree with his/her basic position wish that s/he would shut up, because s/he's making that position look bad.