obscurantism
/ˌɒbskjʊˈrantɪz(ə)m
/noun [mass noun]
The practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known: allegations in the Press about government obscurantism...
- It is hoped that in their absence, other scientists will come forward to champion science against religious obscurantism before masses of people.
- The ruling regime sustains itself through a combination of fear, prejudice and religious obscurantism.
- Instead of succumbing to the forces of religious obscurantism, incompetence and repression, the region's Muslims are set to provide a template for modernist believers across the globe.
Derivatives
obscurant
- ‘There is a long list of other projects, which only serve obscurants and divisive forces,’ the letter adds.
- To sit, stubborn and obscurant, and refuse to acknowledge the roots of politicised mass murder is inexcusable.
- We use them [white phosphorus munitions] primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases.
obscurantist
/ noun & adjective ...- Only recently have leftist obscurantists gone cool on the ‘blowback’ theory - largely because the murder of hapless innocents has crossed another line in their embarrassment threshold.
- Opposition to English is a futile cultural position, however, one most frequently adopted by cultural and religious obscurantists or blinkered advocates of communicative borders.
- It is the so-called secularists who, justifying themselves with specious sophistry, join hands with the most obscurantist religious leaders to insist on maintaining the present unequal system.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from earlier obscurant, denoting a person who obscures something, via German from Latin obscurant- 'making dark', from the verb obscurare.