Psychiatric Puritanism

A purity culture within communities that elevate psychiatric diagnosis as the primary framework for understanding human difference and distress, where proper diagnostic thinking becomes a test of virtue and belonging. Psychiatric puritanism demands that true members understand all human variation through diagnostic categories, treat non-psychiatric frameworks as naive or unscientific, and maintain the purity of diagnostic boundaries against contamination by alternative approaches. Members compete to demonstrate their diagnostic sophistication, their ability to spot pathology everywhere, their commitment to the medical model against all challenges. The result is a community that claims to help the suffering while pathologizing all human variation and dismissing any approach that doesn't fit diagnostic categories.

Example: "They diagnosed everyone who disagreed with them—not clinically, just as a way of dismissing difference. Psychiatric Puritanism: using the language of diagnosis to police the boundaries of acceptable humanity."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 14, 2026

Cognitive Puritanism

A purity culture within communities that elevate cognitive science as the master framework for understanding mind and behavior, where proper cognitive thinking becomes a test of virtue and belonging. Cognitive puritanism demands that true members explain all mental phenomena in terms of cognitive processes, treat appeals to emotion, culture, or experience as insufficiently rigorous, and maintain the purity of cognitive explanations against contamination by alternative frameworks. Members compete to demonstrate their cognitive sophistication, their freedom from bias, their commitment to the cognitive model against all challenges. The result is a community that claims to understand thinking while being blind to everything about thought that isn't computation.

Example: "The group dismissed her embodied, situated account of knowledge as 'unscientific'—Cognitive Puritanism, where only information-processing models count as real explanations of mind."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 14, 2026

Objectivity Puritanism

A purity culture within communities that treat objectivity as not just a goal but an identity marker and test of belonging. Objectivity puritanism demands that true members demonstrate their freedom from bias, their commitment to neutral truth, their transcendence of mere perspective—while systematically exempting their own community from such scrutiny. Members compete to demonstrate their objectivity by condemning the bias of others, perform neutrality while taking sides, claim the view from nowhere while being thoroughly situated. The result is a community that claims to be uniquely free from the distortions that affect everyone else, using "objectivity" as a weapon of exclusion rather than a tool for clearer seeing. The irony is that objectivity puritanism is itself a form of bias—the bias of believing oneself unbiased.

Example: "They claimed to be 'just presenting the facts' while systematically excluding any perspective that challenged their own—Objectivity Puritanism, using the language of neutrality to protect orthodoxy from examination."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 14, 2026

Legal Purity

An ideological stance within legal theory and practice that demands strict adherence to formal legal rules, procedures, and boundaries, treating any deviation—even for justice or equity—as contamination. Legal purity holds that law must be applied as written, without consideration of social context, consequences, or moral nuance. It mirrors political purity in its insistence on ideological consistency and its suspicion of compromise. While often presented as respect for the rule of law, legal purity can produce absurd or unjust outcomes because it treats law as an end in itself rather than a tool for human flourishing.

Example: “The judge insisted on enforcing the strict letter of the eviction law, despite the tenant having paid rent and the landlord being out of compliance—legal purity over substantive justice.”

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 24, 2026

Law Purity

A related but broader concept than legal purity: the demand that law itself be kept “pure” from contamination by politics, morality, economics, or social context. Law purity treats law as an autonomous system that must be governed by its own internal logic, insulated from external values that would “corrupt” it. This mirrors political purity in its insistence on boundary maintenance and its fear of hybrid forms. While often associated with legal formalism, law purity also appears in radical critiques that treat engagement with existing legal institutions as inherently compromising. The result is often a retreat from using law as a tool for social change.

Example: “His law purity led him to refuse participating in any legal reform effort—he saw engagement with the existing system as legitimizing it, even when reforms would have reduced harm.”

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 24, 2026

These New Puritans

Really dull arty alternative band from England. Their second album Hidden is beyond boring with almost no melody or decent tunes in sight. Yet, this album was critically acclaimed by delusional critics, dreadful stuff.

Friend 1: "Hey man, you heard that new These New Puritans album?"

Friend 2: "Yeah, its awful shite isn't it?"

Friend 1: "Absolutely, let us never talk about it again"

by freeflow July 20, 2012

Elitist of Purity

Somebody that is considered elite for withholding from any form of sexual relations past the age of 18, even while expressing extreme desire.

"Hey Andrew! Did you and the chick smash?"
"Nah man, I'm an Elitist of Purity. That shit is weak."

by Pleenb44 November 8, 2019