The reality-based community

Have you noticed the growing ranks of the reality-based Community? Two of my favorite bloggers, Mark Kleiman and Matthew Yglesias are members. I wondered where the term came from.

A bit of Googling revealed that last October Ron Suskind wrote an article in the The New York Times Magazine about Bush. Suskind wrote about a discussion he had with a Bush aide. Suskind wrote that the aide dismissively defined

"the reality-based community [as people who] believe that solutions emerge from [the] judicious study of discernible reality."

I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism.

He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

A comment to Matthew Yglesias post on The Widening Reality-Based Community listed a number of blogs that have joined.

Of course, none of it worked. Bush was re-elected — or if you believe what some people say about Ohio, he stole the election again. Bush created his own reality in spite of the efforts of the reality-based community.

Nonetheless, I like the sound of it. Matthew Yglesias and Mark Kleiman have kept their affiliation in their blog heading. I think I'll join too.