Meaning of purity spiral | Babel Free

Definitions

The situation in which members of an ideological group become increasingly zealous and intolerant, eventually turning on other members.

Examples

“[T]he American right has been caught in a purity spiral — a form of vicious circle in which successive elites compete among each other over who is the “true conservative.””

“This institutional slant has become most pronounced in universities, which have for several years gone through a 'purity spiral' as conservatives left the field, culminating in a sort of collective meltdown in the mid-2010s.”

“Many of TST's critics did frame the issue in terms of purity and contamination. In a debate on Facebook, one critic responded to Greaves's essay on purity spirals, "There's an old saying I like 'If there's a Nazi sitting at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 nazis.'"”

CEFR level