(n.) The system or the principles of the obscurants.
Example Sentences:
(1) The notions of holism and ecology seem to suffer from obscurantism and esoteric elitism, though commendable in their scope.
(2) "They have forgotten that it is the people who grant the powers and not the emirs of obscurantism and sand," the paper said, referring to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
(3) Magico-religious rituals of healing are still around, but some have been replaced by pseudo-scientific systems, thinly disguising old superstitions in new obscurantism, more appealing to the half-educated.
(4) The night of medieval obscurantism had descended on Afghanistan.
(5) This lack of definition makes it no easy place to write about, and the challenge has reduced many an otherwise intelligent observer to the comforts of obscurantism and polemic.
(6) The government was knocked for six initially and then responded with characteristic bureaucratic obscurantism.
Sophistry
Definition:
(n.) The art or process of reasoning; logic.
(n.) The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only.
Example Sentences:
(1) But too often, those who deploy the argument, are borrowing from the Bill Clinton school of sophistry: "I did not have racist relations with that religion".
(2) Whatever the mechanisms of the drug-induced carcinogenesis, it is clear that there is a toxicologic hazard, which must be assessed rationally and not by means of sophistry.
(3) It has been their policy for the last 10 years and the commitment could not have been clearer in the Queen's speech that followed the general election (even if the wording of the coalition agreement allowed for some sophistry by opponents of reform).
(4) This sort of sophistry neatly inverts the actual benefactor-beneficiary relationship: for-profit companies are attempting to save money on entry level positions by extracting unpaid labour from a population of vulnerable young people, many of whom are unaware that these arrangements are often illegal.
(5) The Union now host their affiliate team Harrisburg in the quarter finals - prompting a little bit of sophistry from US Soccer as to why the two teams aren't technically affiliated .
(6) Though this is not explicit, it will help slice through the banalities and sophistry that party and campaign spin doctors on both sides seem unable to shake off with the referendum campaign.
(7) What Wisconsin does offer is a transparent illustration of the ideological sophistry and political mendacity driving these attacks.
(8) At best, these arrangements are advantageous legal sophistry.
(9) How can they approve this through the normal processes?” The chair of the London assembly’s budget and performance committee accused Johnson of “sophistry”.
(10) The possibility of exposing the mendacious speeches, populism and sophistry of politics, economics and culture is thrilling.
(11) "For all the sophistry and rhetoric about avoiding violence, how can they reconcile that with being ok with evictions?
(12) People think we just chuck it out there, but there's a huge amount of data sophistry into how we design the campaigns."
(13) This fiasco over PIP eligibility ultimately reveals the sophistry behind the government's disability agenda.
(14) The remainers in the audience saw the sophistry, but no matter.
(15) But it’s precisely this veil of classiness, this veneer of BBC2 sophistication, that brings on the sophistry.
(16) At best this is sophistry and at worst this is misleading, because the NAO report says the Department for Work and Pensions is actively considering a delay to this too.
(17) But he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them … Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.” When these contradictions are rooted in history this sophistry can be neatly buried under time.