disputatiousness

1)--or "disputatiousness," as she puts it--that shaped society on the islands during the Stuart monarchies as an accidental byproduct of the period before British imperial ambitions were fully realized, she views these traits as foundational elements of early modern colonialism.

The lawyer who refrains from arrogance, pomposity, and unnecessary squabbling and disputatiousness is well on his or her way.

(14.) "I feel like playing the sophist for a while before you not the kind that nowadays inculcates narrow trifles in children and teaches a more than feminine disputatiousness, but rather I will imitate those ancients who, the better to avoid the infamous name of wise men, preferred to be called sophists."

She claimed: "There is no truer means than wise toleration, permitted by our Orthodox faith and polity, through which one can lead all these lost sheep into the true flock." (108) Hence Catherine treated religious toleration as a politically expedient measure necessary to pacify the empire's religiously diverse peoples until such time as the Orthodox faithful had succeeded in converting the "lost sheep" to the "true flock." Implicit in her views was the willingness to abolish measures of toleration if they did not mitigate her subjects' "cruelty of heart," "inveterate obstinacy," or disputatiousness.

Central to all these stories is dispute--a deep mistrust lodged in the very throat of belief--from which Jews derive that passion for disputatiousness that distinguishes their art.