# Dismissing an Idea as Absurd Lets It Establish Unopposed ## Claim Dismissing an idea as ridiculous is what allows it to establish, because absurdity and consequence are independent judgments. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds where the dismissing party has standing to counter the idea and declines to use it — an in-group mainstream ignoring its own fringe. - The mechanism: dismissal removes the idea from contestable discourse while leaving it available to those inclined to adopt it. - Breaks where engagement itself confers legitimacy and amplification (the classic deplatforming tradeoff) — this is a judgment call, not a rule with one right answer. ## Evidence Matthew D. Taylor argues that mainstream charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who found strategic-level spiritual warfare "heretical or marginal or goofy or silly" never engaged it seriously enough to counter it, which let fringe ideas fester unchallenged for years before January 6. > [!quote] > A lot of Christians think of this as heretical or as marginal or as goofy or silly. And so they don't reckon with it. They don't deal with it. And that has allowed a lot of these ideas to fester. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Criticism That Concedes Everything It Does Not Need Is Hardest to Dismiss]] — because applies-in; from the same source, the constructive counterpart — how the in-group can engage instead of dismissing - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Prophetic Authority Without Accountability Becomes Unfalsifiable]] — because extends; a companion account of how a fringe belief system persists once nobody with standing contests it - [[3. Resources/MOCs/NAR and Charismatic Authority Critique MOC]] — because evidence-for; ties directly to the 2011 source's own coverage choices, which lingered on ridicule-inviting details rather than substance ## Tests / falsifiers - Look for a case where an in-group mainstream did engage its own fringe substantively and the fringe idea still spread at comparable rates — a genuine counterexample would show dismissal isn't the operative variable. - Track whether ideas dismissed as absurd by insiders but taken seriously by outsiders spread faster or slower than ideas neither group engages — isolates dismissal from mere neglect. ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/New Book Examines a Group of Charismatic Christian Leaders and Their Ties to Jan. 6 Attack]] — Ayesha Rascoe interviews Matthew D. Taylor, NPR Weekend Edition, 2024-09-22.