[10] The Disciplinarian Head Of The Martin Faith Fellowship

Because Martin's doctrine is riddled with the theoretical misunderstandings and self-contradictions identified here and here and here, Martin also has to rely on members of his faith community not understanding the scientific status of SFL Theory, and approving of the 'socially democratic' anti-intellectualism identified by Asimov.

But Martin also exploits two further cultural motifs in the SFL community: the valuing of social activism and the valuing of social cohesion. This focus is consistent with Martin's socio-political orientation as a disciplinarian, rather than a libertarian. As Bertrand Russell, explains in his History Of Western Philosophy (pp 21-2):

Throughout this long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them.  With this difference, others have been associated.

The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in greater or lesser degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically.  They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that ‘nobility’ or ‘heroism’ is to be preferred.  They have had a sympathy with irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.

The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion.

Martin advocates his theorising as dogma in the sense that his students are compelled to produce work that is consistent with his model of SFL Theory. Martin expresses his hostility to science as an hostility to scientists, by whom he actually means linguists who expect him to support his assertions with argument. Martin expresses his preference for heroism by focusing on the work of people like Nelson Mandela in his publications. And Martin expresses his preference for strong social cohesion through work on affiliation and 'bondicons'.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, it is likely that Martin's faithful would regard him as a libertarian — their own preferred affiliation — rather than a disciplinarian.

Nevertheless, Martin (1992: 577, 581, 584, 585, 587) explicitly denounces 'liberal humanism', and instead advocates (p588) what he claims to be 'neo-marxism':

Answering questions such as these takes linguists far from the liberal humanist paradigm that has informed their work throughout most of the development of their theories in this century. The answers form the basis for a neo-marxist theory of language and culture in which language functions as base and connotative semiotics as sociosemantic superstructure.