gordonzola | Wingnuts are go!

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Wingnuts are go!

OK folks, it’s definition time. Who would like to posit a definition for "wingnut" as it applies to a certain type of politico?

Here’s mine:

Wingnut: A person who has their mental health issues so intertwined with their "politics" that to them there is no difference. Paranoia, conspiracy theory, and poor social skills are necessary traits. In addition, ineffectiveness and failure are usually treated as signs that the Revolution is somehow coming closer to happening. The term originated in People’s Park, Berkeley, California and is usually used by slightly embarrassed anarchists and anti-authoritarians to distance themselves from "wingnut’ politics and activists who may also identify with those terms.

Sample sentence: Did you see the wingnuts protesting the "execution" of Rosebud Denovo when the cops shot her for breaking into the chancellor’s home with a machete?

Please feel free to add your own definitions or ask if someone you know fits the definition.

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I dare you to check out www.urbandictionary.com. Wingnut, without the space is not there but there sure are some interesting definitions for wing nut.

That's it.
I'm going to post a personal highlight reel of my activist days.
Stay tuned.

I did see that!

Hmm, I think the Berkeley reference dates/locates you.

But honestly, I think the definition is anyone four steps further to the left (or, I suppose, right if one is firmly right-wing) of oneself. Alas, it is that relative.

Part of the meaning is derived from the idea that these are not just nuts, they are nuts who exist in extreme political wings. wing + nut, in the sense that wing is the modifier of nut. I don't doubt that it was used in People's Park, but I'm sure it was used well before then.

I'm not sure I could narrow down what really counts as wingnut behavior, but gordon's definition is accurate enough. In my experience, it's not just an anarchist term, nor are wingnuts necessarily anarchists or not. There are wingnuts representing just about every political idea you've never heard of, and some that you have.

Just shpritzing here... Susan Leigh Star does sociology of science and related stuff at UC San Diego. She wrote in a paper some years back that "There is no such thing, or place, as Underneath It All." This seems to me a very wise observation.

Could we then say that a wingnut is someone who stubbornly believes that there is such a place, and moreover that he or she (is it more usually a he?) knows exactly where it can be found?

How about "some guy who crashes a workshop to tell a bunch of strangers about the connection between Jesus, Gandhi, my shirt, and the eschewing of animal flesh, unions, and the DMV?"

Most definitely illuminating: a cross-reference to

amarama's recent post with extensive comments about how poly, BDSM and other alternasex people are so dorky, with particular reference to the intersection with geeks, RenFair, Celtic music, D&D, gamers, hackers, etc -- all defined by a shared personality type. See especially

ericaceous's comments.

I firmly believe that most people's politics are defined by milieu and psychology. The farther from the mainstream/milieu, the larger the contribution of personality type or psychological profile. That is, if you grow up in the Bible Belt and you have a mainstream personality type, you will be a Christian Republican. If you grow up in Berkeley with the same personality type, you'll be a granola liberal. If you have a contrarian, particularly rational-inquiry-based, or paranoid personality (or have disaffecting personal experiences), you are more likely to diverge from your milieu of origin in your political views. If you're an extrovert or like group security, you're more likely to get involved with political movements that have a cultural component. If you get involved with any sort of movement-based activism, you are definitely psychologically motivated. (Note, I did not say psychologically flawed, because I think often the best response to a fucked-up world is to organize and mobilize. Most activists are pretty mentally sound, just not mainstream.)

That's why you almost never see wingnuts in, say, local Democratic Party meetings. It's too mainstream for them. And their craziness will be detected much sooner and ejected much quicker.

Gord, I think your definition is spot on, though I also take issue with the etymology.

My favorite wingnut was a guy who highjacked the Green Party in Chicago to run for mayor in the mid-80's. He was so culturally off -- wore button-down oxfords and worked in retail in a computer store. He was pretty charismatic, but deceptive. He invited reps from all the enviro groups in town to what purported to be a green party organizing meeting, and got a crowd of about 40 to show up. Then the press arrived and he got up on the podium and announced his candidacy. Someone from the anarchist collective pied him in the face while the cameras were running, and it made the evening news. (The pie consisted of rancid mayonnaise and rotten eggs.) Then one of the Earth Firsters pulled a gun and ran after the fleeing anarchist. She turned out to be a cop.

Wait, sorry, he wasn't a wingnut. He was an agent provocateur. But it's a good story, and great political theater. Wingnuttism is all about the mental health issues, and some Unified Field Theory always plays a role.

I got into a lot of trouble for using the word "nutter" on a particular Yahoo group.

Let's not forget:
1. Christian fundamentalists of the "End Times" variety.
2. Anarcho-millenarians
3. Primitivists (eg., the followers of John Zerzan)
4. Lyndon LaRouche
5. Ward Churchill
6. Members of various American "liberation armies" that broke-off from the New Left in the late Sixties/early Seventies.

I first heard the term in Berkeley, so I'm no help at all.

Are you planning to submit a Wikipedia entry?

Q: Why doesn't Berkeley fly off into outer space?
A: Because there's a Wingnut on every corner.

You've been reading Slingshot again haven't you?

Rosebud is probably about as good of an example as one could give. A close second would be those people who say James Rector died for Peoples Park, but really it's the same wingnuts. Heh, I live with enough of them. The only problem I have with your definition is that many of the wingnuts have very subtle mental health issues and some are even highly functional and/or active (my housemates being good examples).

I think we also have a certain level of ironic wingnutism over here as well, which probably does the hardcore wingnuts no good, since a sure sign of wingnutism is an absolute inability to recognize sarcasm or irony in others.

i'm from florida. and that's how we used the term wingnut when i lived there.

The Minnehaha Free State attracted a fair number of wingnuts (of both the homeless-by-choice and white punks flirting with Native spirituality variety). Most famous among these were "Agent Pecan" aka Bob Greenberg (the pie throwing man who almost singlehandedly managed to kill public support for the movement) and Kenneth Carl Crawford III, a carnie wanted for double murder.

Classic example of wingnut behavior: The Free State's ban on menstruating women walking among the "sacred trees."

anarqueso wrote: How about "some guy who crashes a workshop to tell a bunch of strangers about the connection between Jesus, Gandhi, my shirt, and the eschewing of animal flesh, unions, and the DMV?"

Oh shit, I forgot about the DMV!! *That's* what finally set off my Wingnut Bell. The fucking DMV! I mean, animal flesh blah blah, Gandhi, fire, blah blah, usurers, blah blah....DMV! Ding! ding! wingnut! (as opposed to Religio-spiritual Nut or Anti-Semitic Nut or Vegetarian Nut). I'm not sure why this did it, I mean we all hate the DMV. But you're suffering a serious misperception of scale, not to mention causality, when you're lumping the DMV in there.

And that, to me, is the hallmark of wingnuts. Not just the misplaced blame or inflamed passions, but the problem of scale. Conflation of the unearthly with the inconsequentially mundane, confusion of symptom with cause. Gandhi and the DMV. Hamburgers and usurers.

- Melissa

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the DMV!!