A Truther is someone who advocates the hypothesis that significant aspects (not mere fine details) of the historical narrative of the events of 9/11 have been deliberately (not as a mere result of error or inevitable incompleteness of available information), systematically, and purposefully distorted.
Truthers differ widely on which aspects were distorted, how, by whom, and for what purpose. Therefore, alternative definitions of Truther based on any of those specific beliefs (e.g. believing that the Twin Towers were caused to collapse by explosives or planted incendiaries) are going to be incomplete or inaccurate.
They also differ widely in their behavior, so alternative definitions of Truther based on behaviors are also going to be incomplete or inaccurate.
There's nothing in the definition that requires Truthers to become gullible passive consumers of transparently invalid and self-serving arguments served up by a cottage industry of 9/11 fan sites. But most of them do.
There's nothing in the definition that requires Truthers to be intellectually dishonest in claiming to be guided to their conclusions by evidence and reasoning while exhibiting obvious double standards, bias, selective attention, and fallacious reasoning at every step. But most of them are.
There's nothing in the definition that requires Truthers to hold scientific, engineering, forensic, historical, financial, journalistic and for that matter all forms of expertise whatsoever in contempt. But most of them do.
There's nothing in the definition that requires Truthers' public personas to be smarmy anti-American seditionists. But many of them are.
There's nothing in the definition that requires Truthers to cozy up to avowed anti-Semites, or be anti-Semites themselves. But many of them do, and are.
There is nothing in the definition that requires Truthers to also advocate a whole host of other unproven and implausible alternate-history narratives, from Illuminati to moon landing hoax to the latest free energy scam. But most of them do.
These correlations are not coincidences and they have not gone unnoticed. If any Truther theory of 9/11 were actually true, then it could be appreciated and advocated by people who are not anti-intellectual, not gullible or fantasy-prone, not contemptuous of technical expertise, not intellectually dishonest, and not anti-Semitic or anti-American. This is not observed.
What is observed is entirely consistent with Truther theories being wrong. Because they are wrong, they are adopted disproportionately by people prone to the typically observed Truther behaviors, and/or they cause the people who hold them to be drawn to those behaviors as a result of attempting to defend a wrong theory against overwhelming contrary evidence.
Respectfully,
Myriad
