Fecundity | Independent, evidence-based inquiry

Political Rhetoric as Shibboleths

July 4, 2020
1,813 words (~9 minutes) Tags: opinion third-person

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.

About

My name is Joshua Born. I am an M.S.-level statistician and amateur social scientist. I would have liked to have been a professional scientist, but for many years I worked a previous career as a software developer, tried out different things, etc. etc., and life passed me by.

This blog is an outlet for me to explore my own interests in my personal time, including research interests. Most of my research interests pertain to contraception, alloparenting, and abortion. I also write about fallacies in how people think about social issues.