sophiaserpentia | (no subject)

I'm going to resolve not to make references anymore to "radical Islam" or "fundamentalist Christianity." Radical Islam is not 'radical' in that it doesn't represent the root of Islamic belief; Fundamentalist Christianity is not 'fundamental' in that it doesn't represent the core of Christian belief.

Both movements want people to believe that fundamentalism is what it looks like when you are more fervently religious. That is, they want the rest of us to buy into their position that theirs is the only way to be fervently, devoutly, deeply religious. The mass media, of course, eats this up and serves it back to us as a tasty second harvest.

These movements are at war with me and i refuse to dignify them any longer by utilizing their terminology, along with the implications they carry. Instead i am going to, from now on, refer to both as "reactionary Islam" or "reactionary Christianity."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think that "values voter" is another interesting term. I'd define it as any person who votes primarily based on principles rather than on a theory of self-interest, but it seems to carry connotations beyond that in general usage, and I'm not sure why really.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I do know why, sort of, now that I think about it. The connotation of a word or phrase is determined by the people who use it. So, if a phrase is used almost exclusively by a group of people who have a specific meaning in mind, then people will associate the phrase with that meaning.