Important announcement

Dear visitor,

Please note that this OpenCourseWare platform will be replaced at the end of 2026 by a new platform (under the same url ocw.tudelft.nl).

Courses and their contents that are currently available the platform will partly be migrated. URL’s for this content will change and content might be unavailable for some time. In addition, some courses will not be available anymore.

If you are linking to specific courses on this platform (for instance for your students), please take timely measures to avoid problems with access. Possible actions are:

  • Download the materials to your local platform (laptop, server)
  • For educators only (including TU Delft lecturers): Contact us at ocw@tudelft.nl and inform us what course you are using in what context (institute, program, period of use, number of students). We will research (in collaboration with the authors of the course) and decide if we will migrate the course, and if yes, can supply you with a new url.

Thank you.

Home Courses Communicating Effectively: How to Inspire and Convince Course materials Readings 4.2.1 Political oxymorons

4.2.1 Political oxymorons

Course subject(s) Module 4. Creating a dilemma: convincing stakeholders

At the end of the clip, there are examples of politicians presenting themselves as someone who transcends a dilemma.

Someone who transcends a dilemma often creates an oxymoron. An oxymoron is a concept in which two opposing ideas are brought together. Examples:

  • ‘organised chaos’
  • ‘serious joke’
  • ‘leading from behind’

These are some examples of political oxymorons:

Who?
Oxymoron
George W Bush, US president Compassionate Conservative
Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister of Russia Hawk of Peace
Bavaria, German state Laptop and Lederhose
David Cameron, UK prime minister Muscular liberalism
Rand Paul, US Senator Libertarian conservative
Your suggestion Your suggestion

Add some more! Name a politician from your country and give an oxymoron used by him/her or others to characterise him/her. Post your example below.

Also bear in mind that whether something is an oxymoron also depends on your political stance. Take the term ‘government intelligence’ – for many, it is simply a neutral term, but for someone who is strongly anti-government, it may be an oxymoron: government and intelligence are contradictory – governments cannot be intelligent.

Creative Commons License
Communicating Effectively: How to Inspire and Convince by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://online-learning.tudelft.nl/courses/communicating-effectively-how-to-inspire-and-convince/.
Back to top
[sg_popup id=6]