Thought-terminating clichés

I’ve written a guest post for Samantha over at Defeating the Dragons, and I think it’s one of my better ones, so please check it out. Also, Samantha’s blog is fantastic – nearly as good as mine.

As part of a series on the blog about reclaiming words from fundamentalism, I’m talking about how ACE redefines words in a way reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984. By changing the meanings of words, ACE makes it difficult to question its ideology:

Lifton describes how totalist ways of thinking use “thought-terminating clichés… brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases.”  Simple labels are attached to something you like or dislike, and they are the start and finish of all thought on the subject.

Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), like a lot of Christian fundamentalism, redefines terms in black-and-white, so things are either absolutely good or absolutely bad. Then you can just stick a label on something, and end the discussion. Want someone to accept that a politician is bad? Just call them a liberal, and the argument is over.

So go and read it, and check out some of Samantha’s writing while you’re there.