I first heard the word heterodox today. I was today years old.
At first, I thought it was a fresh concept that might actually make me think. But after a minute, I realized it’s douchey.
We don’t need more words.
Unorthodox works just fine. So what’s the motivation here? Are you just trying to sound smart?
Of course you are. But wait, there’s more.
Heterodox feels like a safe way to rebel. It says, “I’ll borrow ideas from *all* sides, mix and match, and look brave doing it.” But the trick is, it never questions the sides themselves. It plays along with the boundaries.
It enforces that the existing narratives are real and valid. It’s basically dissent that still bows to the referee.
Unorthodox is different. That word doesn’t care about your rules.
It helps to have a deep understanding of the narratives and the frames that hold up mainstream ideas - that’s how you learn to transcend them. But unorthodox says, “Yeah, I know the rules, but I don’t accept them as the limits of what I can say or think.”
It doesn’t toggle between poles, it goes outside the whole setup.
That’s the difference between sounding radical and actually being radical.
Beyond being douchey and performative, the problem with heterodox is that despite granting you the ability to pull ideas "from both sides", it shuts down any conversation that's outside of the box. If you agree to stay inside the lines, certain questions never get asked.
And silence always helps the people in power. That’s the beauty of heterodox: it looks like diversity of thought while quietly keeping the system intact.
And that’s no accident. Since around 2010 or 2015, the word has been all over mainstream politics and economics. Those are domains where power structures rely heavily on what people think.
The word heterodoxy is visible enough to signal edgy independence while also reassuring everyone you’re not going to rock the boat.
Unorthodox thinkers, meanwhile, get pushed to the margins. They’re harder to accept, sometimes ridiculed, often ignored.
That's by design.
In the end, heterodox is the word you use when you want to look edgy but you don't really have any interest in making change.
Say unorthodox instead. If that doesn't feel comfortable to do, then you probably shouldn't pretend that you are pushing any boundaries.
And you're not special.
Once you really think about it, in a deeply polarized realm, heterodox doesn’t mean brave, it just means bipolar.
Okay, you are special. But that's despite your use of that word.