ABSTRACT
George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four was meant as a warning to avoid passively accepting the misuse of a culture's political language, as he understood how changing the meaning of words is a strategy for controlling people's thought and thus political allegiance. As discussions of the Orwellian language that now dominates the political discourse in America are seldom the focus of sustained discussions in STEM classes, it is important that future scientists acquire a historical perspective on the traditions of thinking, including taken for granted deep cultural assumptions that originally framed the meaning of our political vocabulary. As liberalism is not a monolithic way of thinking, the various traditions should be identified as fully as possible. Individuals and social groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other neo-fascist groups should be called Extremists or Reactionary.
