Recently I posted about the internet-based dialect I call "hyper-modern English", a new form of the language developing in tandem with a new culture and characterized mostly by distinctive words for all the new concepts that have developed within that culture.
Other cultures also have their own dialects which express concepts that seem meaningful to them. The enemy's dialect repays study, because it can tell us much about how the enemy's mind perceives and frames the world.
Here is a good example of what I mean. Read it thoughtfully and you'll see how the terminology and expressions frame ordinary events and people in terms of an entirely alien world-view, concepts meaningless outside that context. "The world", for example, means something very different here than what it means in everyday English. "Sin", of course, doesn't mean the same thing as "crime" or "action that harms someone else" or any other concept relevant to the real world -- it means transgression of the arbitrary taboo system of a particular religion, and the word is meaningless outside the context of a subculture which takes such a taboo system as absolute.
Read the piece and you'll see plenty of other examples. This is a mentality as alien as that of any primitive tribe, yet it is widespread in our own country, even occupying a powerful position in one of our two political parties.
And it's a mentality that feels driven to dominate, and ultimately replace, any world-view different from itself. That's the meaning of "the Great Commission", another key term in this dialect. Everyone must be "drawn to Jesus", every brain must be occupied and reconfigured to think like these people do -- including yours. The only question is how.
I'm glad you're pointing this out. Right-wing Christian fundamentalists really do speak their own language, and the different branches of the Religious Right all have distinctive lingo. It's both a dialect and a form of "language loading", in which words are used to warp constrict thought. Fundamentalists' love of thought-terminating cliches is one example of this language-loading.
ReplyDeleteThe use of "the world" you brought up is a good example. To a non-fundamentalist, "the world" refers to planet Earth and its inhabitants. To a fundamentalist, "the world" is a sinful, oppressive, monolithic force vis-a-vis the Christian community. It illustrates their black-and-white, us-versus-them thinking.
From the link:
ReplyDelete"The world is not on its way to Christ. The world hates Christ. The world will not allow a compromise between Christians and the world."
Well, Europe is not on its way to Christ, that's for sure, but the Americas are. That's where the greatest concentration of Christians reside: The U.S. Mexico, and South America. Sub-Sahara AFrica is another area where Christianity is increasing. But overall, it's still only one of several religions with a great number of followers. It is the largest, followed by Islam, "Nones," and Hinduism.
Interesting that "Nones" is No. 3 in the world.
Ahab: Exactly. It's a language which promotes a siege mentality and also a conviction of inevitable victory at the same time. It's a great formula for both paranoia and arrogance.
ReplyDeleteShaw: It's true the Christianity is prevalent in the Americas, but it's not growing -- our continents are going the way of Europe, if not as far along that path. Fundamentalists are a shrinking percentage of the US population while "nones" are exploding in number. Who would have thought even a decade ago that Brazil, Argentina, and many states in Mexico would have gay marriage now? I think Sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region where Christianity is actually growing -- probably because it's also the least-educated and least-developed large region of the world.
Bumper sticker seen yesterday which aimed, among other things, to discourage tailgating: "Do you follow Jesus this close?" All I wanted to do was spray paint "ly" at the end of it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, their grasp of standard grammar tends to be a bit shaky too.
ReplyDelete