# Polemic > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Polemic > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Polemic.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic > Source revision: 1345292744 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Contentious rhetoric}} {{About|the word|the magazine|Polemic (magazine){{!}}''Polemic'' (magazine)}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2024}} {{use dmy dates|date=May 2023}} {{Rhetoric}} '''Polemic''' ({{IPAc-en|p|ə|ˈ|l|ɛ|m|ɪ|k}} {{respell|pə|LEHM|ick}}, {{IPAc-en|USalso|-|ˈ|l|i|m|ɪ|k}} {{respell|-LEEM|ick}}) is contentious [rhetoric](/source/rhetoric) intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called '''polemics''', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics. A person who writes polemics, or speaks polemically, is called a '''polemicist'''.{{cite web|website=Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary|publisher=Merriam-Webster|location=[Springfield, MA](/source/Springfield%2C_MA)|date=2005|format=s.v.|url=http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/polemic|title=polemic}} The word derives {{ety|grc|πολεμικός ({{Transliteration|grc|polemikos}})|warlike, hostile}},{{cite book|title=American College Dictionary|publisher=Random House|location=New York}} {{ety||πόλεμος ({{Transliteration|grc|polemos}})|war}}.{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpo%2Flemos|title=πόλεμος|author1=Henry George Liddell|author-link=Henry George Liddell|author2=Robert Scott|author2-link=Robert Scott (philologist)|website=[A Greek-English Lexicon](/source/A_Greek-English_Lexicon)|publisher=on Perseus}} Polemics often concern questions in religion or politics. A polemical style of writing was common in [Ancient Greece](/source/Ancient_Greece), as in the writings of the historian [Polybius](/source/Polybius). Polemics again became common in [medieval](/source/medieval) and [early modern](/source/early_modern) times. Since then, famous polemicists have included satirist [Jonathan Swift](/source/Jonathan_Swift), Italian physicist and mathematician [Galileo](/source/Galileo), French theologian [Jean Calvin](/source/Jean_Calvin), French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher [Voltaire](/source/Voltaire), Russian author [Leo Tolstoy](/source/Leo_Tolstoy), socialist philosophers [Karl Marx](/source/Karl_Marx) and [Friedrich Engels](/source/Friedrich_Engels), novelist [George Orwell](/source/George_Orwell), playwright [George Bernard Shaw](/source/George_Bernard_Shaw), communist revolutionary [Vladimir Lenin](/source/Vladimir_Lenin), [linguist](/source/linguist) [Noam Chomsky](/source/Noam_Chomsky), social critics [H. L. Mencken](/source/H._L._Mencken), [Christopher Hitchens](/source/Christopher_Hitchens) and [Peter Hitchens](/source/Peter_Hitchens), feminists, such as [Andrea Dworkin](/source/Andrea_Dworkin) and existential philosophers [Søren Kierkegaard](/source/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard) and [Friedrich Nietzsche](/source/Friedrich_Nietzsche). Polemical journalism was common in [continental Europe](/source/continental_Europe) when [libel](/source/libel) laws were not as stringent as they are now.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-467241/polemic |title=polemic, or polemical literature, or polemics (rhetoric) |publisher=britannica.com |access-date=21 February 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080411123116/http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-467241/polemic |archive-date=11 April 2008 }} To support study of 17th to 19th century controversies, a British research project has placed online thousands of polemical pamphlets from that period.{{cite web| url=https://libguides.st-andrews.ac.uk/specialcollections/rarebooks/hayfleming | title=Rare books collections: Hay Fleming Collection |publisher= St Andrews University Library| access-date=16 March 2022}} Discussions of atheism, humanism, and Christianity have remained open to polemic into the 21st century. ==History== In [Ancient Greece](/source/Ancient_Greece), writing was characterised by what Geoffrey Lloyd and [Nathan Sivin](/source/Nathan_Sivin) called "strident adversariality" and "rationalistic aggressiveness", summed up by McClinton as polemic.{{cite book |last1=Lloyd |first1= Geoffrey |last2=Sivin |first2=Nathan |title= The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece |date= 2002 |publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-10160-7}} For example, the ancient historian [Polybius](/source/Polybius) practiced "quite bitter self-righteous polemic" against some twenty philosophers, orators, and historians.{{cite journal |last1= Walbank |first1=F. W. |title=Polemic in Polybius |journal=The Journal of Roman Studies |date=1962 |volume=52 |issue= Parts 1 and 2 |pages=1–12 |doi= 10.2307/297872 |jstor=297872|s2cid= 153936734 }} Polemical writings were common in [medieval](/source/medieval) and [early modern](/source/early_modern) times.{{cite book |last1=Suerbaum |first1=Almut |last2= Southcombe |first2=George |title=Polemic: Language as Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Discourse |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fFWrCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT39 |year=2016 |publisher= Taylor & Francis|isbn= 978-1-317-07929-3}} During the Middle Ages, polemic had a religious dimension, as in [Jewish texts written to protect and dissuade Jewish communities from converting to other religions](/source/Jewish_polemics_and_apologetics_in_the_Middle_Ages).{{cite book |author=Chazan, Robert |title=Fashioning Jewish identity in medieval western Christendom |page=7 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |date=2004}} [Medieval Christian writings](/source/Christian_polemics_and_apologetics_in_the_Middle_Ages) were also often polemical; for example in their disagreements on Islam{{cite book |author=Tolan, John Victor |title=Medieval Christian perceptions of Islam |page=420 |publisher=Routledge |date=2000}} or in the vast corpus aimed at converting the Jews.{{cite journal | first = Philippe | last= Bobichon| url= https://www.academia.edu/35266876 | title= Littérature de controverse entre judaïsme et christianisme: Description du corpus et réflexions méthodologiques (IIe-XVIe siècle ») (textes grecs, latins et hébreux)]| journal= Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique| volume = 107| number= 1 | year= 2012| pages= 5–48| doi= 10.1484/J.RHE.1.102664}}{{cite journal | first = Philippe | last= Bobichon| url= https://www.academia.edu/37551705 | title= Is Violence intrinsic to religious confrontation? The case of Judeo-Christian controversy, second to seventeenth century| editor= S. Chandra | journal= Violence and Non-violence Across Times. History, Religion and Culture| publisher = Routledge| year= 2018| pages= 33–52| doi= 10.4324/9780429466205-3}} [Martin Luther](/source/Martin_Luther)'s ''[95 Theses](/source/Ninety-five_Theses)'' was a polemic launched against the Catholic Church.{{refn|group=note|The story of Luther nailing his Theses to the church door has been doubted. See references in [Martin Luther#Start of the Reformation](/source/Martin_Luther) – "the story of the posting on the door ... has little foundation in truth."}} [Robert Carliell](/source/Robert_Carliell)'s 1619 defence of the new [Church of England](/source/Church_of_England) and diatribe against the [Roman Catholic Church](/source/Roman_Catholic_Church) – {{lang|enm|Britaine's glorie, or An allegoricall dreame with the exposition thereof: containing The Heathens infidelitie in religion ...}} – took the form of a 250-line poem.{{cite ODNB | first = Sidney | last= Lee| title= Carleill, Robert (fl. 1619)|editor= Reavley Gair | place= Oxford| year= 2004| doi= 10.1093/ref:odnb/4680| url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4680| accessdate = 27 May 2017| url-access= subscription}} Major political polemicists of the 18th century include [Jonathan Swift](/source/Jonathan_Swift), with pamphlets such as his ''[A Modest Proposal](/source/A_Modest_Proposal)'', [Alexander Hamilton](/source/Alexander_Hamilton), with pieces such as ''[A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress](/source/A_Full_Vindication_of_the_Measures_of_Congress)'' and ''[A Farmer Refuted](/source/The_Farmer_Refuted)'', and [Edmund Burke](/source/Edmund_Burke), with his attack on the [Duke of Bedford](/source/John_Russell%2C_6th_Duke_of_Bedford).{{cite news|last1=Paulin|first1=Tom|title=The Art of Criticism: 12 Polemic|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-art-of-criticism-12-polemic-1612930.html|work=The Independent|access-date=6 November 2016|date=26 March 1995}} In the 19th century, [Karl Marx](/source/Karl_Marx) and [Friedrich Engels](/source/Friedrich_Engels)'s 1848 ''[Communist Manifesto](/source/Communist_Manifesto)'' was extremely polemical. Both Marx and Engels would publish further polemical works, with Engels's work ''[Anti-Dühring](/source/Anti-D%C3%BChring)'' serving as a polemic against [Eugen Dühring](/source/Eugen_D%C3%BChring), and Marx's ''[Critique of the Gotha Programme](/source/Critique_of_the_Gotha_Programme)'' against [Ferdinand Lasalle](/source/Ferdinand_Lassalle).{{Citation needed|date=March 2026}} [Vladimir Lenin](/source/Vladimir_Lenin) published polemics against political opponents. ''[The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky](/source/The_Proletarian_Revolution_and_the_Renegade_Kautsky)'' was notably directed against [Karl Kautsky](/source/Karl_Kautsky), and other works such as ''[The State and Revolution](/source/The_State_and_Revolution)'' attacked figures including [Eduard Bernstein](/source/Eduard_Bernstein).{{Citation needed|date=March 2026}} In the 20th century, [George Orwell](/source/George_Orwell)'s ''[Animal Farm](/source/Animal_Farm)'' was a polemic against [totalitarianism](/source/totalitarianism), in particular of [Stalinism](/source/Stalinism) in the [Soviet Union](/source/Soviet_Union). According to McClinton, other prominent polemicists of the same century include such diverse figures as [Herbert Marcuse](/source/Herbert_Marcuse), [Noam Chomsky](/source/Noam_Chomsky), [John Pilger](/source/John_Pilger), and [Michael Moore](/source/Michael_Moore). Conservative Jewish Austrian writer and journalist Karl Kraus (1890–1935) considers the topic of moral collapse in his polemic writings. Karl Kraus produced and published 922 issues of the fifteen-daily magazine called Die Fackel (The Torch) until his death. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Mach write in a similar manner and style to Kraus.{{Citation needed|date=March 2026}} In 2007 Brian McClinton argued in ''[Humani](/source/Humani_(organisation))'' that anti-religious books such as [Richard Dawkins](/source/Richard_Dawkins)'s ''[The God Delusion](/source/The_God_Delusion)'' are part of the polemic tradition.{{cite journal|last1=McClinton|first1=Brian|title=A Defence of Polemics|journal=Humani|date=July 2007|issue= 105|pages=12–13|url=http://humanistni.org/filestore/image/polemics.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322225304/http://humanistni.org/filestore/image/polemics.pdf |archive-date=22 March 2016}} In 2008 the humanist philosopher [A. C. Grayling](/source/A._C._Grayling) published a book, ''Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness''.{{cite book|last1=Grayling|first1=A. C.|title=Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness|date=2008|publisher=Oberon Books|isbn=978-1-840-02728-0}} ==See also== {{div col|colwidth=30em}} * [Critic](/source/Critic) * [Devil's advocate](/source/Devil's_advocate) * [Dialectic](/source/Dialectic) * [Disputation](/source/Disputation) * [Internet troll](/source/Internet_troll) * [Irenicism](/source/Irenicism) * [Philippic](/source/Philippic) * [Rhetoric](/source/Rhetoric) * [Social gadfly](/source/Social_gadfly) * [Trash-talk](/source/Trash-talk) {{div col end}} ==Notes== {{Reflist|group="note"}} ==References== {{Reflist|30em}} ==Bibliography== * {{Cite book| edition = 1| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 0-415-97228-0| last = Gallop| first = Jane| title = Polemic: Critical or Uncritical| location = New York| year = 2004}} * {{Cite book| publisher = Hodder Arnold| isbn = 0-7131-6497-2| last = Hawthorn| first = Jeremy| title = Propaganda, Persuasion and Polemic| year = 1987}} * {{Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 0-521-83854-1| last = Lander| first = Jesse M.| title = Inventing Polemic: Religion, Print, and Literary Culture in Early Modern England| year = 2006}} * {{Cite book| publisher = Lisans yayıncılık| isbn = 975-6597-28-5| last = Öztürk| first = Nurettin| title = Türk Edebiyatında Polemik ve "Kavgalarım"| year = 2005}} ==External links== {{Wiktionary}} * {{wikiquote-inline}} {{Authority control}} Category:Polemic --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Polemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.