July 4, 2020
1,813 words (~9 minutes)
Tags:
opinion
Political rhetoric comprises some of the worst excuses for dialogue known to human civilization. In this article, the concept of a shibboleth, which comes from an example of sectarian conflict in the Hebrew Bible, is used to explain a function of slogans in the context of political rhetoric, and the characteristics of shibboleths that make them inimical to independent, critical thinking – namely conformity, superficiality, and exclusion of non-binary viewpoints – are examined.
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