Orthodoxy
Development

The concept of orthodoxy pre-supposes some degree of agreed cultural standardisation - a system of social norms - whereby opinion can distinguish "correct" belief or doctrine from their "incorrect" equivalents. Where world-views or religious sentiment have not developed standardised, generally accepted systems of thought, orthodoxy cannot take root.

The development of writing facilitated the gradual canonisation of written scriptures and supra-national philosophies in the increasingly monotheistic Abrahamic Near East, but literacy traditions in South Asia and in East Asia did not prevent the growth of religious and political pluralism. Medieval Europe and the post-colonial West saw a turn - subsequently spreading elsewhere - to coercive interest in the belief -systems of the individual (McCarthyism exemplifies a peak in this trend) and in their regulation or "correction" via social control - in the interests of ideological purity and state homogeneity.
change_case:english_lowercase, detectable_content:number_placeholders[8], oulipo:avoid_letter[o]