If A Rationalist Was To Falter

The necessary truths of logic are true no matter how people behave, think, perceive, or believe.  Moreover, no one can even have experiences that contradict reason, nor can they truly escape logical axioms and their ramifications.  At most, they can believe things to the contrary as everything else about reality is unaffected.  If something if impossible, it is not impossible because of anything other than the fact that it contradicts logical axioms.  If something is true, it is either inherently true, like logical axioms, or rooted in something else that is true.  Only logic proves things; if something does not logically follows from another thing, it is either untrue or unknowable, though even truths that are unknowable because of human limitations are not beyond the necessary truths of reason and people can still nonetheless choose to believe the impossible or unprovable.

People who look to reason and not misconceptions about reason or some inferior substitute like emotionalism, social consensus, or subjective perceptions are the genuine rationalists, and everyone else is either an anti-rationalist or a non-rationalist --the only non-rationalists who are not fools are the extremely young and those with special psychological conditions that interfere with abstract realizations.  For all other non-rationalists, a failure to abstain from assumptions, recognize the self-evident nature of axioms, live for truth above all else, and live without disregarding what they do know of reality for the sake of convenience is a failure to be intelligent and worthy of being treated as anything more than an intellectual insect.  What if a rationalist was to have a legitimate failing, though?  It will almost certainly be more of a failure to live out what they already know and believe than a failure to avoid contradictions and assumptions, recognize the basic intrinsic, universal truth of logical axioms, desire to understand the truth, and honor whatever moral obligations they have.

If a rationalist suddenly lapses into assumptions, contradictory beliefs, or hypocritical actions, he or she is doing so out of a failure to be consistent with the rationality that characterizes the rest of their worldview and behaviors.  It is not that their irrationality or injustice is justified, for such a thing is impossible, nor is it trivial, for such a thing is also impossible, but it is likely trivial compared to the errors of non-rationalists because it is a potentially small lapse in a general lifestyle of consistency in the truth, alignment with reason, and desire to do that which is just.  The rationalist understands reason, their intellect, and the demands of consistency, or at least he or she can perfectly understand them.  Perhaps they had a moment where they yielded to weakness or for some reason struggled more than usual to not deviate from reason in belief or deed (which is just living in light of logical, metaphysical, and epistemological truths).

Unlike a rationalist, a non-rationalist is characterized by stupidity, hypocrisy, emotionalism, apathy, and/or enough terror, self-imposed ignorance, or disinterest in the logically necessary and deep aspects of reality that he or she will either avoid rationalism altogether or only selectively or haphazardly avoid assumptions, all without having even rightly grasped the logical axioms at the heart of all things.  Whereas a rationalist might, if they choose to, fail to be rational in some specific way or another as they always or almost always otherwise avoid this, a non-rationalist might randomly be more rational than usual in one instance without having the correct foundation for this or without even realizing it, as they believe and live without aligning with the necessary truths of reason that are true regardless of their beliefs.

A non-rationalist might think of this as hypocrisy, but it is actually the non-rationalist who believes anything whatsoever on a basis without logical proof--not scientific perceptions, hearsay, assumptions, emotional persuasion, or preferences, but truths that necessarily follows from either self-verifying logical axioms or some other necessary truth--without recognizing the inherent irrationality of assumptions and impossibility of contradictions that is the hypocrite.  From error, errors spring; from hypocrisy, more hypocrisy might follow; from one default worldview or habit of emotionalism, more are almost bound to follow unless someone is rationalistic and briefly failed to perfectly align with reason.  Non-rationalists cannot even understand things like necessity, proof, absolute certainty, and fairness to begin with since they are in the grip of assumptions, leaving them in no position to believe that regarding rationalists more highly even in their failings than non-rationalists are regarded even in their occasional bouts of greater rationality.  Even if they were right, and it is is impossible for irrationalism to be valid and irrationalists to be equal to rationalists, they would not and could not even know!