"Reality-based community" is a term that became popular among Internet bloggers in the fall of 2004, generally in the phrase "proud member of the reality-based community," used to suggest the blogger takes an objective and empirical view of events. The term has been defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from [their] judicious study of discernible reality." Some bloggers have gone as far as to suggest that there is an overarching conflict in society between the reality-based community and the "faith-based community " as a whole.

The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "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."

External links

• The New York Times Magazine: "Without a Doubt" by Ron Suskind