Obscurantisme

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A philosophical belief that emphasizes ignorance and opacity over knowledge and clarity, particularly in education and information dissemination
2. A practice or ideology that seeks to obscure knowledge or understanding, often by limiting access to information or promoting complex language
3. The deliberate avoidance of clarity in communication and teaching, typically to maintain control or authority over knowledge and its interpretation

Etymology: The Latin "obscurare" meant "to darken," and the French "obscurantisme" took that sense into politics and learning. The word was coined in the early 19th century, and "obscurantist" was first a pointed label for those who opposed the spread of education and free inquiry. Its founding mockery came earlier. In 1515 and 1517, the "Letters of Obscure Men" ("Epistolae obscurorum virorum") satirized churchmen who had opposed the humanist scholar Johannes Reuchlist, portraying them as dim and backward. Their Latin title plays on the same idea of darkness, and the satire helped set the pattern for the later label. In English, the term is borrowed from French and likely arrived in the 1800s. It has stayed attached to rulers and movements that restricted books and teaching. In Russia under Nicholas I in the 1840s, a period of tight censorship was nicknamed the "Iron Years." Historians still use the word to describe policies that kept people uninformed on purpose.

Synonyms: obscurantism

Antonyms: enlightenment, clarity, transparency