Contradiction

People are arguing over whether harsh terms (like gaslighting, cult, violence, etc.) should be used widely or strictly. I’ll use @balioc​ here because he won’t mind it, but there’s plenty of discussion going on after the VP debate that has become a meta-debate. So see https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/thoughts-on-cults/#comment-20863

Here’s what is important to remember:

Ideology relies on contradiction.

Everyone is familiar with the “motte and bailey” formulation for how often politically hot-button words have two meanings, one that is defensible in extremis, and one that can be used for a wide variety of situations. (see http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/ if you haven’t.) The cynical explanation is that groups using these terms are just trying to get rhetorical advantage, by tricking you into agreeing to the strict definitionthen slipping a lot of baggage in with the wide definition of a term like gaslighting.

This is not what is happening. The cynical explanation is (as usual) wrong. People are not that calculating, especially on a wide scale.

So. What is happening?

Ideology is an attempt to explain why bad things happen. Our world is terrible, we are miserable, people are oppressed, and we can’t  fathom why (I certainly can’t.)

One explanation is “bad people.” Are there bad people in the world? Well there certainly are some truly terrible people that do things beyond the pale of comprehension. These would be the rare people who violate even the strict definitions of these words. The “true” cults mentioned in the linked post. No matter how moral relativist you are, there are some actions you can agree “okay, that was really bad.”

But these extreme actors are rare. How can, say, the escaped convict who murdered a whole family, explain all that is wrong with the world and my daily misery? Especially if everyone agrees that said convict should be in jail and kept away from everyone else.

So we also need an explanation that uses very common phenomenon. There are misunderstandings, petty power politics, personal arguments going on all the time. Most of these, however, we should deal with as compassionate human beings, helping people learn from their mistakes and show more tolerance and kindness to each other. Which is also unsatisfying for our attempt to explain a broken world.

Ideology gives us a bridge between these two categories. Cults become a phenomenon of extreme evil and also something we need to watch out for every day. As such, they have the capability of infecting the entire world with their evil.

Which also means that ideology relies on us never investigating either of the endpoints too closely: if you focus only on the strict examples of a phenomenon, you will conclude that we need high evidentiary standards and extreme (even capital) punishment for violators. If you focus on the wide definition of a phenomenon, then you don’t need strict evidence, but the answer often looks like counseling and education and a commitment to bring them into the fold of a nurturing community where they can heal. Either of which breaks down the ideological solution of “zealously search for any violation of norms, and ruthlessly purge the community of anyone who shows a sign of it.”

So there’s nothing wrong with saying “this term only meets these strict requirements” or “this term should be seen in any one of these ‘normal’ every day situations”. What’s dangerous is the seamless conflation of the two that wants to bridge them with slogans and vagueness, but hides from any direct examination.