So Much Stuff

In his review of Michael Krasny’s new book, “Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest”, Reza Aslan joins the chorus of those who draw a parallel between religious fundamentalism and “the new Atheism”. Let’s get this straight: Atheism cannot be fundamentalist. Fundamentalism is the belief that sacred texts (e.g. the Bible or Quran) contain divine truth and must be followed literally. Atheism has no sacred texts and no set of established laws or dogma. In fact it has only one central tenet, that there is no God as defined by any religion.

Somehow atheists have earned the label of fundamentalist through vehement rejection of religion’s fundamental texts and beliefs. This makes no sense whatsoever. The recent crop of writers against religion may be rude, arrogant and certain in their convictions but they are not, cannot be, fundamentalists.

Stephen Fry is certainly right in attacking the pedantry of the grammar police and usage purists but he’s touching on a different phenomenon when talking about the verbing of nouns. For the most part this verbing takes place in the corporate world and is done for the purpose of creating jargon. Corporate jargon is a major source of new coinages and seems to be in an arms race to stay ahead of common usage. As soon as jargon becomes common (e.g. leverage as a verb) new coinages are created (e.g. synergise).

The purpose of this jargon (and any jargon) is to position the speaker as the member of an “in-group” that is not accessible to the “out-group”. In this way corporations become out of touch with the lives of those outside the organization.