In politics, a litmus test is a question asked of a potential candidate for high office, the answer to which would determine whether the nominating official would proceed with the appointment or nomination. The expression is a metaphor based on the litmus test in chemistry, in which one is able to test the general acidity of a substance, but not its exact pH. Those who must approve a nominee may also be said to apply a litmus test to determine whether the nominee will receive their vote. In these contexts, the phrase comes up most often with respect to nominations to the judiciary.
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👉 Litmus test (politics) in the context of Touchstone (metaphor)
As a metaphor, a touchstone is any physical or intellectual measure by which the validity or merit of a concept can be tested. It is similar in use to an acid test, or a litmus test in politics.
The word was introduced into literary criticism by Matthew Arnold in "Preface to the volume of 1853 poems" (1853) to denote short but distinctive passages, selected from the writings of the greatest poets, which he used to determine the relative value of passages or poems which are compared to them. Arnold proposed this method of evaluation as a corrective for what he called the "fallacious" estimates of poems according to their "historic" importance in the development of literature, or else according to their "personal" appeal to an individual critic.