Velleity

Velleity (pronounced vuh-lee-i-tee)

(1) Volition or desire in its weakest form.

(2) A mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.

1610-1620: From the Medieval Latin stem velleitās, from the Latin velle (wish, will), the construct being velle + ity.  (It Italian, velle is a learned borrowing from Latin velle, present active infinitive of volō (I want)).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's descriptions.  Velleity is a noun and velleitary is an adjective (velleitistic doesn't exist but probably should);the noun plural is velleities.

Velleities are volition in their weakest form; an indolent or inactive wish, in private life associated with good intensions like intending to give up smoking, something not infrequently said while lighting-up another.  It’s memorably illustrated by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) who, in the second edition of his autobiographical Confessiones in which he documented his seedy life in Carthage, recalled praying to God to “give me chastity and temperance, but not yet!”  Written between 397-400, Confessiones was an autobiographical work in thirteen volumes which traces Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity by Saint Ambrose.  A mix of emotional sharing, a deconstruction of an intellectual journey and serious theology, it’s seems now a very modern approach to text and has been influential for a thousand years.  The lesson mean modern readers seem to take from it is that velleities between sinners in their cell and God in his Heaven are matters of private morality and consequences are limited.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Velleities however also are uttered by those administering public policy where consequences can be severe and global.  Alain Prost (b 1955; four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion) once observed of the driving style of Ayrton Senna (1960–1994; three time Formula One World Drivers' Champion) that “Ayrton has a small problem, he thinks he can’t kill himself, because he believes in God and I think that’s pretty dangerous for other drivers.”  When prime-minister of Australia Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022), a Pentecostal Christian who certainly believes in God, actually boasted of believing in miracles although, on election night 2019 when famously he repeated statement, he was being perhaps too modest, his victory very much a personal achievement against the odds although an opposition which seemed to have misplaced the script helped.  Still, maybe God helped and Scott Morrison, being closer to the Lord than most, may have been thought a deserved recipient.

Unfortunately, a cursory reading of his government’s climate-change policy suggested he expected God to deliver another miracle; there seemed no other way to account for the gaps in his government’s policy (The Plan to Deliver Net Zero: The Australian Way), the suggestion being that some 15% of the reduction was to be achieved through technology which didn't then exist and hadn’t yet been speculated upon, even conceptually; miracles clearly might be needed.  The breakdown of the sources of abatement in the plan was:

(1) Reductions already made up to 2020:    20%.
(2) The technology investment roadmap:    40%.
(3) Global technology trends:                     15%
(4) International & domestic offsets:           10-20%.
(5) Further technology breakthroughs:        15%.

Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021; US Secretary of Defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006).

So, as constructed, the plan conformed to the government’s “Technology not Taxes” slogan although there was no discussion of the details relating to how much tax revenue was expected to be allocated to technology known or otherwise.  The 15% said to be solved by the invention of “further technology breakthroughs” was understood as part of the framework of knowledge made famous by the late Donald Rumsfeld who drew an often derided but actually useful framework of knowledge:

(1) Known unknowns.
(2) Known knowns.
(3) Unknown unknowns.
(4) (most intriguingly) Unknown knowns.

While the new technology could come from everywhere, the government was at least hinting miracles from (3) & (4) may be delivered.  Rumsfeld may or may not have been evil but his mind could sparkle and his marvellously reductionist principles can be helpful.  He reminded us there are only three possible answers to any question:

(1) I know and I’m going to tell you.
(2) I know and I’m not going to tell you.
(3) Don’t know.

There is a cultural reluctance to saying “don’t know” but really, sometimes it is best.  There was an argument it was wholly unreasonable to expect governments to offer a detailed plan to reach net zero carbon emissions in thirty-odd years and that for anything beyond a certain point it would be preferable to say “don’t know” because it has the priceless virtue of truth, although, as Mr Morrison (and, at least at some point in his life, Saint Augustine too) knew, if God really cared about folk telling lies, he'd have issued an eleventh commandant.