Skeptic Puritanism

A purity culture within skeptical communities where the demand for skeptical rigor becomes a weapon for exclusion and condemnation rather than a tool for inquiry. Skeptic puritanism insists that true skeptics doubt everything—except the approved targets, except the community's own assumptions, except the necessity of skepticism itself. Members are judged by the purity of their skepticism, their willingness to doubt the right things in the right way, their rejection of any claim that hasn't passed community muster. The result is not genuine inquiry but a performance of skepticism—a display of proper doubt that signals belonging while foreclosing the very questioning that skepticism supposedly values. Skeptic puritanism produces communities that are certain of their own freedom from certainty, dogmatic in their opposition to dogma, and closed in their celebration of openness.

Example: "He'd built his identity around being a skeptic, but he'd never once questioned his own community's assumptions—Skeptic Puritanism, using the language of doubt to protect orthodoxy from examination."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 14, 2026