Long, Pointy Shoes in Medieval Fashion
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winklepicker
[1] https://gucinari.co.uk/shoes/boots/the-history-of-winklepick...
A classic example of "what you know that just ain't so."
There are oodles of such shibboleths in modern times, particularly in politics. Just think of any political proposition that is absurd on its face and more absurd on reflection. If it's still widely supported by a particular group that may well be because of its group-identifying absurdity rather than despite it.
But it is often not a scam of any kind, but sincerely accepted by adherents. This kind of cognitive flexibility goes a long way toward explaining modern politics and not so modern religions. I suspect pointy shoes may have been the same, with their wearer's convinced of their inherent value.
But yeah, Poe's law n all -- tough to tell sometimes.
Totally not a parody.
I encourage you to go to a flat earth meeting or conference. Ask questions with the intent to listen and without judgment.
Your mind will be blown.
I used to think that data-driven scientific and analytic thinking was something that anyone could do if they wanted to. I no longer think that.
Selection bias. Of course the trolls wouldn't bother going to such a meeting. The proportion of true believers at a conference says nothing about the proportion of true believers in the general public.
The primary common aspect is distrust of the word government.
There are very inquisitive and scientific people in the Flat Earth community that simply distrust particular sources, but simultaneously jump to conclusions that are opposite of that source. So they are interested in proving or disproving the same thing, but they are handicapped because they can't simply reproduce existing scientific research, they have to categorically reject that too simply because the state was involved in funding or agreeing with the research.
Eventually they do run interesting experiments that undermine their flat earth theories, but they are still trying to prove the earth is flat, instead of trying to prove the shape of the earth and accepting where-ever that leads them. This is distinct of how science is supposed to be done, but some of their experiments are clever.
This isn't part of the definition of a shibboleth, as I understand it. A shibboleth is simply a marker of group identity (the original case was the speaker's accent when pronouncing the word 'shibboleth').
You seem to be referring to something more analogous to peacock feathers, where hewing to some practice in spite of its impracticality signals the depth of one's commitment.
Also, apparently the trend of the pointy shoe came back [1]. Most recently in Mexico.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/feed/a41653-1999d...
"Elegant dress serves its purpose of elegance not only in that it is expensive, but also because it is the insignia of leisure," Thorsten Veblen wrote in his classic "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899). "It not only shows that the wearer is able to consume a relatively large value, but it argues at the same time that he consumes without producing."
My first thought looking at the examples in the article was that the soles of the shoes don't look much thicker than the uppers.
I read an article not too long ago about how the medieval walking style was different than today. The author believed it was more "toe-centered" [0] primarily because of thin-soled shoes.
[0] http://mentalfloss.com/article/505105/why-people-walked-diff...