Glossary
AUTHORITARIAN UTOPIANISM, n. the belief that Heaven may be established in a place by steadily expanding what is illegal
CHESTERTON'S FENCE, n. the principle that one must not dismantle a tradition, law, or institution without understanding the reason for its existence; a cautionary rule against ignorant reform
CHRONOLOGICAL SNOBBERY, n. the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to one's own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is thereby discredited
ETHNIC GNOSTICISM, n. the belief that access to moral truth is granted chiefly by one's ethnicity, rendering argument unnecessary and immoral
OMEGA PROJECT, n. a project so ambitious it's unlikely to succeed, but ends up driving progress on other, more achievable projects along the way
RUSSELL CONJUGATION, n. a rhetorical device in which word choice smuggles emotion or bias into a statement by changing connotation without changing denotation (e.g., "I am firm, you are stubborn, he is pigheaded.")
SEHNSUCHT (sen·suhkt), n. a deep, inconsolable longing; homesickness for a place you've never been; autumn as an idea
VERBICIDE, n. the murder of meaning by misuse; the urge to praise or condemn rather to to describe; what happens when descriptive language is reduced to vague expressions of sentiment