Noting that words like "alienation,""ideology," and "hegemony" are cropping up in academic journals (particularly those journals that concern themselves with rhetoric) with more and more frequency, this paper explains some of the basic terms used by the political left. The paper notes that such terms tend to come up even in everyday speech, but the meanings in everyday speech are at some remove from their specialized web of meanings. The second part of the paper discusses how Paulo Freire uses several of the terms. Terms defined in the paper include: alienation, "conscientizacao," dialectic, existentialism, hegemony, idealism, ideology, materialism, metaphysics, praxis, problematic, reification, structuralism, thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and war of positions. As far as classroom application of these terms, the paper suggests that when teachers claim they are going to show students how to think, it can too easily mean what to think. The paper points out that Freire would have teachers show students that they can think. A glossary of the terms is attached. (RS)