Passwords into the clubhouse

After so many decades of not thinking carefully about what I believe and why I believe it, I want to think well. How to Think arrived yesterday which went straight to the top of my reading stack.

In the introduction, author Alan Jacobs cites an essay by Marilynne Robinson where she observed that if you associate "rigidity, narrowness of mind, judgmentalism" with the label "puritan", this is exactly what is demonstrated by some people when they criticize the Puritans. She writes "it is a great example of our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged, when the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved." So the actual historical meaning of a word like "Puritan" doesn't matter anymore. The point is to toss around the same pejoratives "like a password to get into the clubhouse."

Jacobs writes - "Robinson further comments that this kind of usage "demonstrates how effectively such consensus can close off a subject from inquiry" which may be the most important point of all. The more useful a term is for marking my inclusion in a group, the less interested I will be in testing the validity of my use of that term against - well, against any kind of standard. People who accuse others of Puritanism have a fairly serious investment in knowing as little as possible about actual Puritans. They are invested for the moment anyway in not thinking."

Ouch! Another word came to my mind after reading this section - one that is favorite in some sectors of Christianity and serves as an entree into those circles. Can you guess what that is?

How to Think, Alan Jacobs, Currency Books, 2017, pp. 20-21