The Shibboleth of Fëanor is the eleventh chapter of The Peoples of Middle-earth. It primarily concerns the titular essay by J.R.R. Tolkien, which discusses the shift from þ (as in English 'thing') to s in the spoken 'Exilic' dialect of Quenya, and how this phonological change was intimately connected to historical and political circumstances. Also included however are lengthy 'excursuses' from this essay regarding Elven 'mother-names', the parentage of Gil-galad, the westward migration of the Edain, and the names of various prominent Noldor. Tolkien Gateway
I came across the word Shibboleth in a sociological context. Apparently it has a robust variety of meanings, from the use of code language or words to mark insiders from outsiders, to a connotation of an outdated but obstinately held convention or belief. There is even an infotech meaning, where you have a community password that lets people log in automatically. Or something like that.
Here I want to bring it up in the first meaning and connect it to a former post: Rings of Discourse. I wrote then:
I think it's safe to say that many people adopt the discourse style that seems most likely to be successful in the group they want to belong to. I think it's perfectly natural, almost to the extent of having biological roots. But like other biologically rooted inclinations, in humans it can be problematic if taken to extremes.
Here, I want to bring it up in the context of difficulties with blogging, or indeed, any type of internet writing. The use of shibboleths of various types -- either putting them in, or trying to pick them out when reading something, is pretty endemic nowadays. And it is understandable in times when most people have strong opinions but only a virtual presence. Does this make sense? You mark where you stand partly by where you seek publication, but also by your use of language and concepts. It's very difficult not to. I suppose in the old days, when immigrants from different cultures settled alongside each other, they kept spatially and culturally separate. You could probably pick out an Irish immigrant from an Italian or Polish one at 20 paces. Online, nowadays, you end up using language to show your identification.
The only way, I think, to avoid it, is not to talk about things where identity is marked out.
I used to avoid shibboleth territory by not talking about politics. And I'm still not that interested in politics. But politics has invaded modern Christianity to a very large extent. Obviously it was always there implicitly. Specifically, it has come to Catholicism, in an increasingly explicit form. You find yourself reading things with eyes open for quotes, language and premises that will reveal the writer's preconceptions and alliances. In other words, you are looking for shibboleths. I think perhaps this has been true at least since the Vatican II Council and perhaps before that -- perhaps since apostolic days, in certain respects.
But it has a different feeling now. Just a theory, but perhaps it has to do with the amount of information one encounters in a day, compared to earlier times where text was rare and difficult to transmit. Because there is so much, we have a shorthand way to evaluate and interpret it. At least, we have access to this shorthand, and it can be useful, but if we get dependent on it, our thinking becomes studded with code words and truisms that are used in place of reflection and reasoning.
I don't have any kind of solution for this. As I mentioned the clustering into groups seems like the natural human response to situations where very different types of people are living closely together and competing for the same space. Natural, but not particularly optimal. And the speed-evaluating seems useful, but easy to overuse.
My personal solution will probably be to walk straight through as much as possible. I am afraid that is quite vague, but that is because my thoughts on this topic are not complete. I may revisit it once in a while.
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