Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Today's new word:

nagelist (n) - a person who deeply believes something in the face of demonstrated fact to the contrary; a person who vociferously insists on the truth of what they assert, despite (or often because) what they assert is based on a belief deeply held in the face of the facts; a person who, when faced with facts demonstrating the falseness of the belief which they so vigorously assert, becomes more firm in their belief (ie: more facts to the contrary equals stronger belief, and/or stronger assertion of the discredited belief).

I steal the term from the name of Gen. Nagel, Oberkommando des Heeres, economics branch, who wrote the following in a September, 1941 Wirtschaftsaufzeichnung:
“What matters is not what is true or false, but exclusively what is believed.”

No comments: