Polemic

Polemic is contentious <a href="/facts/Rhetoric/mB9np26l">rhetoric</a> 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. The word derives from <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greek_language/LIK7NlUh">Ancient Greek</a> πολεμικός (polemikos) 'warlike, hostile', from πόλεμος (polemos) 'war'.
Polemics often concern questions in religion or politics. A polemical style of writing was common in <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greece/PTVBrWXq">Ancient Greece</a>, as in the writings of the historian <a href="/facts/Polybius/nojwHyvn">Polybius</a>. Polemic again became common in <a href="/facts/Medieval/RqzEKB9v">medieval</a> and <a href="/facts/Early_modern/hhpHM721">early modern</a> times. Since then, famous polemicists have included satirist <a href="/facts/Jonathan_Swift/000AjJvj">Jonathan Swift</a>, Italian physicist and mathematician <a href="/facts/Galileo_Galilei/98VT2z3v">Galileo</a>, French theologian <a href="/facts/Jean_Calvin/CrUIG3p3">Jean Calvin</a>, French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher <a href="/facts/Voltaire/h2pyULrC">Voltaire</a>, Russian author <a href="/facts/Leo_Tolstoy/lm1GwrL7">Leo Tolstoy</a>, socialist philosophers <a href="/facts/Karl_Marx/CXYTK95X">Karl Marx</a> and <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Engels/bYNwAon1">Friedrich Engels</a>, novelist <a href="/facts/George_Orwell/aIQhGvNh">George Orwell</a>, playwright <a href="/facts/George_Bernard_Shaw/roL4nzwc">George Bernard Shaw</a>, communist revolutionary <a href="/facts/Vladimir_Lenin/Mrwq2Xs4">Vladimir Lenin</a>, <a href="/facts/Linguist/oQuamvf2">linguist</a> <a href="/facts/Noam_Chomsky/3rtpzlER">Noam Chomsky</a>, social critics <a href="/facts/H._L._Mencken/lqVefBMF">H.L. Mencken</a>, <a href="/facts/Christopher_Hitchens/6pafsKgF">Christopher Hitchens</a> and <a href="/facts/Peter_Hitchens/p9ALn4et">Peter Hitchens</a>, and existential philosophers <a href="/facts/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard/PXHdh7dt">Søren Kierkegaard</a> and <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>. 
Polemical journalism was common in <a href="/facts/Continental_Europe/EXR4F23f">continental Europe</a> when <a href="/facts/Libel/uEe9LxeQ">libel</a> laws were not as stringent as they are now. To support study of 17th to 19th century controversies, a British research project has placed online thousands of polemical pamphlets from that period. Discussions of atheism, humanism, and Christianity have remained open to polemic into the 21st century.

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Polemic