The Bed of Procrustes

It’s time for another “Favorite Words” – something I haven’t done in quite a while. And I’ll combine it with “Useful Aphorisms”

This is more of a phrase than a word per se, although the adjective Procrustean will do just fine in a pinch.

Wikipedia actually has a good article on the phrase’s mythological origins and some of its uses here. Long story short: it signifies enforced conformity by referring to a famous host/bandit who invited travelers to stay the night and then trapped them on an iron bed; if they were too short for the bed, they were stretched until they fit, and if too long the excess was chopped off.

To be “normal” is a splendid ideal for the unsuccessful, for all those who have not yet found an adaption. But for people who have far more ability than the average, for whom it was never hard to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world’s work–for them restriction to the normal signifies the bed of Procrustes, unbearable boredom, infernal sterility and hopelessness. As a consequence there are many people who become neurotic because they are only normal, as there are people who are neurotic because they cannot become normal. For the former, the very thought that you want to educate them to normality is a nightmare; their deepest need is really to be able to lead “abnormal” lives.

- Carl Jung, “Modern Man in Search of a Soul”

What’s the Problem with Cynicism?

Seriously, what?

I frequently come across people accusing others of being ‘cynical’ or ‘cynics’ as though it were some moral failing, a weakness of character.

What exactly is the problem? As far as I see, cynicism is both fairly accurate and an entirely reasonable position to take in the world in which we live.

Thoughts? I’d love an explanation. It doesn’t necessarily have to come from someone who believes with that common opinion – just as long as they know why it happens.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

Today’s word is neurosis. What does it mean? It’s defined as “a term used to refer to any mental imbalance that causes distress, but, unlike a psychosis or some personality disorders, does not prevent or affect rational thought”.

Got that?

Okay, so: why is it used interchangeably with the behaviors and responses that are supposedly the result of a neurosis?

Note that there is no point where the supposed neurological problem is defined operationally. It is instead presumed to exist because of the symptoms, because the neurosis is what the thing supposedly responsible for those symptoms is called. Where’s the demonstration that there is a glitch in the neurology that constitutes an illness? There isn’t one.

Favorite Words: Bootstrapping

I love this word. Not just because it refers to something very important (which it does) which I’m greatly in favor of (which I am), but because of the subtleties of its usage.

When applied in a technical context, most especially that of computer science, ‘bootstrapping’ is the name given to the concept because “pulling [the system] up by its bootstraps” is precisely what the process isn’t, metaphorically or otherwise.

I’m fascinated by human communicative strategies which impart meaning through the transmission of its opposite; see also sarcasm and irony.

Note: not literary irony, that concept is too limited to be applied to the events and situations that we commonly call ‘ironic’. I’ve heard people claim that the everyday usage is incorrect, but the basic concept is a useful and deserves to have a name; the literary usage excludes that concept while being sufficiently similar to it to bring it to mind. Thus, I am inclined to consider the correct usage to be incorrect.

Credentials and Qualifications

Credentials are symbols that it is presumed indicate the presence of qualifications.

Qualifications are the properties that render someone or something capable and competent of handling a specific task or problem.

In this world, there are countless people who possess credentials but not qualifications, and countless people who think the presence of credentials indicates the presence of qualifications — more disturbingly, they also usually believe that absence of credentials indicates the absence of qualifications.

One of the more common forms of the fallacy argumentum ad verecundiam involves demanding that the opposing side present credentials before their arguments will be evaluated.

Chaos

In modern times, this word has become associated with disorder and destruction.

In the original Greek, though, chaos meant “the unformed and undefined state preceding all things”, in direct word-tension with cosmos, referring to the specific ordered and structured world somehow brought forth out of chaos.

In that older sense, the Greeks were much closer to Chinese ideas about the Tao, which is also a formless and unshaped state that represents the totality of possibility and the source of all defined things. Far from being a degenerate state, chaos is unlimited potential. It’s only when things are ordered in a particular way, thus losing their ability to be ordered in other ways, that potential is lost. It’s moving from chaos to cosmos that is, in many ways, a degeneration.

Dog Latin

Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.

Not just pretty words.

Antiestablishmentarianism

When people think of Shakespeare and his plays, in my experience, they usually think of stuffy English professors, being forced to read texts in an excruciatingly painful manner, and general incomprehensibility.

What they don’t realize is that Shakespeare became a darling of the establishment relatively recently. Far from being heralded as “the most human human ever”, as one overly-gushing fan describes, Shakespeare was viewed as common trash and was nearly forgotten.

At the time he worked, theater was seen as a disreputable and unwholesome amusement, one that was barely tolerated (and frequently wasn’t, with the government repeatedly cracking down on the practice). Even among playwrights, Shakespeare was considered relatively unimportant and common – his contemporary rivals were seen as better authors and dramatists.

So how did he become the icon of the English language and those who declare themselves to be its defenders?

In the 19th century, German philologists were trying to trace the origins of English words, English being a language especially rich in “borrowed” words and patterns. To their surprise, quite a few words were traced back to the works of a single obscure playwright. Once resurrected from the dustbin of history, the Romantic movement considered the plays to be excellent examples of the styles they advocated, and the rest is history.

(This recounting is both extremely over-simplistic and woefully incomplete. Interested parties should perform their own research to learn the complete story.)

Always popular among the masses, yet unwilling to rely merely on least common denominator approval triggers, Shakespeare wrote plays that drew inspiration from (read: stole) the plots ancient stories and common motifs, then clothed them in new and vigorous linguistic patterns. This combination of familiarity and novelty may have had a lot to do with his (initial) popularity, and is part of why he is revered now.

The world of high culture and academia, however, took little notice at first. It gave the plays their due only once it was shown that they were a rich source of academic thesis material; until then, they were seen as vulgar and trite entertainments for the lower classes.

(The astute reader of history will note how this parallels the later treatment of William Blake and his works.)

Buffalo

It means
a) a city in the state of New York,
b) a large herbivorous mammal, and
c) inducing desired behaviors by using mass and impassibility to direct others (as a metaphor referring to what happens when in front of a large, herbivorous mammal that wants to be where you are).

As a consequence, we can validly say that:

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.

Cleave

It means both “stick to or keep together” and “separate from or break apart”. Often the only way to determine which of the diametrically-opposed meanings is intended is by examining the context, and if the context is ambiguous, it can be impossible.

The root word derives from nail (the thing or action that causes one thing to be joined to another, and that in the process, tends to split things apart). Cloves are so-called because of the resemblance to nails. Garlic cloves are so-called because of their splitting and breaking.