New Words

As those who know me will attest, I love words, especially words that are new to me and that are new words to all--neologisms, in other words. I enjoy wordplay as a form of humor among the many forms of humor that I cherish. And so, despite the fact that I am one very pent up blogger, having stayed away from this blog for a few weeks while very busy with a range of projects and obligations, I have decided to limit myself today to celebrating three new words--or at least words that are new to me.

Just one other preliminary remark, if I may: Loyal readers (all three of you) will know that this is not an entirely new subject for this blog. Some months ago I discussed the evolution of the wonderful term bullshistory, and gave credit for the final refinement of the term to Benjamin Margolis. Readers may enjoy learning that I tried to introduce this term via a certain author's work in The American Interest, in an essay having to do with the bizarre contemporary Palestinian interpretation of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem. But this author was a humorless and rather Germanic type, albeit it also an Israeli, who resisted the suggestion. I'm sure I will find some other way to introduce it into our literature, even if I have to do it under my own name--egads.

The first of the three terms I want to celebrate is the word sheeple. I don't know where this word comes from, but I think it's the best I've ever heard to describe the herd instinct of human beings. Beyond that I don't think there is any need whatsoever to define it, because its meaning is as obvious as can be to all but the most obtuse. I can think of all sorts of uses for it; I can barely wait to find an opportunity.

On reflection, I suppose it's possible that some readers might suppose that sheeple refers only or mainly to female human beings doing herdlike things. Going out to buy wedding dresses in a crowd, for example. I can see that interpretation. But that's not the context in which I heard it, nor the way I meant it. Words are to be used, however; proceed at your own risk.

The second cause for celebration is the word presstitute. In a way, it bears some relationship to sheeple. A presstitute is a journalist who sucks up to his or her sources, and in so doing twists the truth to accord with the desire for future access and favor from those sources.

Living here in Washington, and having been in the government for a time, I have seen many presstitutes at work. In my experience, some of them know exactly what they're doing while they're doing it--variety one, let's call it. Others, however, do it because it seems like an obviously convenient way to get one's job done, or because the journalist is otherwise clueless about the subject matter and so believes whatever a source says. Variety two. Either way, they are obligingly oblivious to the impact of their method on the quality and veracity of what they write. Insofar as there are a lot of people who fall into this latter group, they form a special subcategory of sheeple. Those who read what they write uncritically are, I guess, a larger category of sheeple.

The originator of presstitute appears to be some guy who writes for something called Trends magazine, which I have never seen. I think his last name is Celente or Celeste or something like that. Whoever he is and whatever exactly his name is, he is doubtless at least an episodically clever guy. Let's see what else he can come up with.

Speaking of public relations professionals, I just have to insert a brief note about my e-mail in-box having been pounded in recent weeks by the rough PR equivalent of presstitutes working on behalf of the execrable government of Bahrain. It seems that the government in Manama has hired some public relations firm to improve its image here in the United States, and perhaps elsewhere as well. No one can possibly deny that its image needs improving. But the content of these messages is beyond risible. Some of them just quote speeches from the King or other members of the Al-Khalifa elite, most of which comes to outright lying. Taken at face value, the reader is given to know that the royal family has always been completely democratic, benevolent, and dedicated to the welfare of all citizens regardless of their sectarian affiliation. You don't even have to be a Shi'a to choke on this stuff.

The fact that Arabs (and not only Arabs, of course) often say things in public that they would like to be true or that they feel obliged to state as true, even though they usually know better in private, has to do with the workings of what some social anthropologists call a shame culture. We don't have time to go into it now. Except to say, shame on the Al-Khalifa and the PR presstitutes (first variety) hacks who are taking their money.

I tried to get the sender of these e-mails to take me off the list, noting that no amount of public relations effort could hide the fact that this is a regime so arrogant, clueless, cowardly and un-Islamic in the true sense of the word that it turns my stomach. As nasty regimes go, very few stoop to the depth of arresting doctors and nurses for treating protesters who have been beaten and bludgeoned by the goons of the regime. But the Bahraini government has done precisely that, and the Saudi government has applauded the government for it. I used to have a boss who told me that you could predict any country's external behavior by looking at how it treated its own people. That was and remains basically correct. Good thing, then, that Bahrain is a small and not very powerful country. Not a good thing that our Fifth Fleet is based there, at least for the time being. It need not be there, and I have advocated, long before the so-called Arab Spring, that we move it. (Want to know who that boss was? Just asked me.)

Unfortunately, the e-mails come ensconced in one of those no-reply modes, just like the ones you get from the people trying to sell you Viagra and Cialis and various schemes to make certain parts of your body look like something other than what they are--if you get my meaning. So I cannot get off the list; all I can do is delete. As it happens, all these messages end up in my spam-filter trash, which is, appropriately, exactly where they belong. It makes it easy to delete them en masse, and there are a filthy lot of them.

And now, finally, to the third term I want to bring to your attention. The word is telinvasion. Of course, the word is a cross between "television" and "invasion". It refers to that period in American social history, roughly between the early 1950s and the 1970s, when television thoroughly invaded the American cultural consciousness, both for good and, I fear, mostly for ill.

As those who know me also are aware, I'm not exactly a big fan of television and what it has done to our society over the years. It has, I believe, homogenized us in unhealthy ways, helped make us indolent and obese, dumbed down our national vocabulary and served as a vehicle for the advertising that has turned us into hyperconsumers, helping to destroy our environment and our morals at the same time. I'm not exactly comfortable either with some of the implications of the information technology gadgets which we are festooning ourselves lately, but one of the benefits of some of this technology––not least the Internet––is that it seems to be displacing television to some extent. According to the facts and figures of those who are supposed to know about facts and figures of this sort, Americans are watching less TV than they used to. One can at least hope that it is true, that the telinvasion is being pushed back and defeated little by little. If it is, then maybe the ratio of people to sheeple will rise as well. Or not.