Apologetics

Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. Someone who engages in apologetics is called an apologist or an "apologete".

Colloquial usage

Today the term "apologist" is colloquially applied to groups and individuals systematically promoting causes, justifying orthodoxies or denying certain events, even of crimes. Apologists are often characterized as being deceptive, or "whitewashing" their cause, primarily through omission of negative facts (selective perception) and exaggeration of positive ones, techniques of classical rhetoric. When used in this context, the term often has a pejorative meaning. The neutralized substitution of "spokesperson" for "apologist" in conversation conveys much the same sense of "partisan presenter with a weighted agenda," with less rhetorical freight.

Related Topics:
Deceptive - Whitewash - Selective perception - Rhetoric - Spokesperson

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