as in philistinism
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Recent Examples of barbarism
The space between simple awareness and true understanding is narrow but chasmic — small enough to walk around but deep enough to contain so much of the worst barbarism this world has ever produced.
—
David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 27 Jan. 2026
Similar analyses, whether from Simone Weil or Aimé Césaire, ought to have discouraged a relaxed conscience among the victors of the Second World War and opened up a broader inquiry into the barbarism inherent in political and economic modernity.
—Victor J. Blue, Harpers Magazine, 23 Nov. 2025
The storied choice between socialism and barbarism was made exquisitely clear a good many years ago in the United States, and both major parties chose barbarism.
—Literary Hub, 7 Nov. 2025
The horror and the barbarism here is hard to even comprehend.
—Jordan King, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for barbarism
David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 27 Jan. 2026
Similar analyses, whether from Simone Weil or Aimé Césaire, ought to have discouraged a relaxed conscience among the victors of the Second World War and opened up a broader inquiry into the barbarism inherent in political and economic modernity.
—Victor J. Blue, Harpers Magazine, 23 Nov. 2025
The storied choice between socialism and barbarism was made exquisitely clear a good many years ago in the United States, and both major parties chose barbarism.
—Literary Hub, 7 Nov. 2025
The horror and the barbarism here is hard to even comprehend.
—Jordan King, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for barbarism
Recent Examples of Synonyms for barbarism
Noun
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Despite such official philistinism, Proust had already left an enduring mark on Irish letters and would remain a source of literary inspiration for the nation’s writers into the twenty-first century.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
2 Feb. 2026
Noun
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The pattern is so consistent across the centuries that ignoring this requires a willful act of historical illiteracy.—
Anthony Scaramucci,
Fortune,
19 Mar. 2026
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Their parents sign their names with trembling hands that carry the invisible weight of illiteracy.—
Joyeeta Banerjee,
NPR,
1 Mar. 2026
Noun
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And both reckon with the extent to which historical ignorance and the calculated distortion of the past threaten the foundation on which our country was built.—
Francine Prose,
The New York Review of Books,
4 Apr. 2026
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That denial of reality — rooted in ignorance and contempt for science — is now official policy, as evidenced by the EPA’s rescinding of its landmark finding that greenhouse gases harm public health.—
James Speyer,
New York Daily News,
4 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Barbarism.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/barbarism. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.
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