Now

Now (pronounced nou)

(1) At the present time or moment (literally a point in time).

(2) Without further delay; immediately; at once; at this time or juncture in some period under consideration or in some course of proceedings described.

(3) As “just now”, a time or moment in the immediate past (historically it existed as the now obsolete “but now” (very recently; not long ago; up to the present).

(4) Under the present or existing circumstances; as matters stand.

(5) Up-to-the-minute; fashionable, encompassing the latest ideas, fads or fashions (the “now look”, the “now generation” etc).

(6) In law, as “now wife”, the wife at the time a will is written (used to prevent any inheritance from being transferred to a person of a future marriage) (archaic).

(7) In phenomenology, a particular instant in time, as perceived at that instant.

Pre 900: From the Middle English now, nou & nu from the Old English nū (at the present time, at this moment, immediately), from the Proto-West Germanic nū, from the Proto-Germanic nu, from the primitive Indo-European nū (now) and cognate with the Old Norse nu, the Dutch nu, the German nun, the Old Frisian nu and the Gothic nū.  It was the source also of the Sanskrit and Avestan nu, the Old Persian nuram, the Hittite nuwa, the Greek nu & nun, the Latin nunc, the Old Church Slavonic nyne, the Lithuanian nū and the Old Irish nu-.  The original senses may have been akin to “newly, recently” and it was related to the root of new.  Since Old English it has been often merely emphatic, without any temporal sense (as in the emphatic use of “now then”, though that phrase originally meant “at the present time”, and also (by the early thirteenth century) “at once” (in the early Middle English it often was written as one word).  The familiar use as a noun (the present time) emerged in the late fourteenth century while the adjective meaning “up to date” is listed by etymologists as a “mid 1960s revival” on the basis the word was used as an adjective with the sense of “current” between the late fourteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  The phrase “now and then” (occasionally; at one time and another) was in use by the mid 1400s, “now or never” having been in use since the early thirteenth century.  “Now” is widely used in idiomatic forms and as a conjunction & interjection.  Acronym Finder lists 26 NOW acronyms including National Organization for Women, Night of Worship, No Other Way, Nightmares on Wax, Never Open Wide, National Orchestra of Wales, Negotiable Order of Withdrawal, New Opportunities for Women, No Opportunity Wasted, Non-hazardous Oilfield Waste, Northamptonshire Orchestral Winds, and Network-grade Optical Wireless.  Now is a noun, adjective & adverb, nowism, nowness & nowist are nouns; the noun plural is nows.

Right here, right now: Acid House remix of Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) How dare you? speech by Theo Rio.

“Now” is one of the more widely used words in English and is understood to mean “at the present time or moment (literally a point in time)”.  However, it’s often used in a way which means something else: Were one to say “I’ll do it now”, in the narrow technical sense that really means “I’ll do it in the near future”.  Even common occurrences treated as happening “now” (such as seeing or hearing something) are really experiences of past events.  Because light travels at a finite speed, it takes time for it to bounce from something to one’s eye so visual perception is an exercise in looking back to the past; even when reading something on a screen or page one’s brain is processing something from a nanosecond (about one billionth of a second) earlier.  For most purposes an essential convenience, “now” is but a convincing illusion and even though, in a special sense, everything in the universe is happening at the same time (now), while that can be imagined, it's not something easily experienced because of the implications of relativity.  None of this causes many problems in life but among certain physicists and philosophers, there is a dispute about “now” and there are essentially three factions: (1) that “now” happened only once in the history of the known universe and cannot again exist until the universe ends, (2) that only “now” can exist and (3) that “now” cannot ever exist.  These positions do appear irreconcilable.

Does now exist? (2013), oil & acrylic on canvas by Fiona Rae (b 1963) on MutualArt.

The notion that “now” can have happened only once in the history of our universe is nuanced because even the concept of "universe" is contested.   According to some cosmological theorists, variously there may be many universes, some which used to exist, some exact duplicates of our own (for students of the implications of "infinity", at least one of then even containing an identical Lindsay Lohan), some extant and some yet to be created (or "emerge"; the speculations differ).  An alternative view is "our universe" may now be in one of its many phases, each which will start and end with a unique “now” and that's tied up with the nature of time, the mechanism upon which “now” depends not merely for definition but also for existence.  That faction deals with what is essentially an intellectual exercise whereas the others operate where physics and linguistics intersect.  Within the community holding "now can never exist" there's a sub-faction arguing that to say “now” cannot exist is a bit of a fudge in that it’s not that “now” never happens but only that it can only every be described as a particular form of “imaginary time”; an address in space-time in the past or future.  The purists however are absolutists and their proposition is part of the nature of infinity, something which renders it impossible ever exactly to define “now” because endlessly the decimal point can shift so “now” can only ever be tended towards and never attained.  If pushed, all they will concede is that “now” can be approximated for purposes of description but that’s not good enough: there is no now because there can't be.

nower than now!: Lindsay Lohan on the cover of i-D magazine No.269, September, 2006.  If initial capitals are eschewed, it's a hint the publication is positioned as "edgy".

The “only now can exist” faction find tiresome the proposition that “the moment we identify something as happening now, already it has passed”, making the point that “now” is the constant state of existence and that a mechanism like time exists only a thing of administrative convenience.  The “only now can exist” faction are most associated with the schools of presentism or phenomenology and argue only the present moment (now) is “real” and that any other fragment of time can only be described, the past existing only in memory and the future only as anticipation or imagination; “now” is the sole verifiable reality.  They are interested especially in what they call “change & becoming”, making the point the very notion of change demands a “now”: events happen and things become in the present; without a “now”, change and causality are unintelligible.  The debate between the factions hinges often on differing interpretations of time: whether fundamentally it is subjective or objective, continuous or discrete, dynamic or static.  Linguistically and practically, “now” remains central to the human experience but whether it corresponds to an independent metaphysical reality remains a dispute that, pleasingly for those involved, can go on endlessly because there's unlikely ever to be a "right" answer.  Pleasingly, most people "now" alive (and most now dead) have dealt with the concept "now" and its companions (past & future) without being much troubled by the squabbles among philosophers or cosmologists.  

Cosmologists, if so minded, can dwell less on the nature of “now” because they have the “Andromeda paradox”, one of the consequences of Albert Einstein’s (1879-1955) theory of special relativity.  What the paradox does is illustrate the way “now” is relative and differs for observers moving at different speeds, the effect increasing as distances increase, such as when the point of reference is the Andromeda galaxy, some 2½ million light years distant from Earth.  Under special relativity, what one observer sees and perceives as “now” on Andromeda will, by another, moving at a different relative speed, be perceived as occurring in the past or future.   This can happen at any distance but, outside of computer simulations or laboratories, the effects of relative simultaneity are noticeable (even at relatively low speeds) only at distance.  The way to conceptualize special relatively is to imagine everything in the universe happening "at the same time" and "work backwards" as distances between objects increase.

Two views of both "now" and "then": Declaration of Independence (1819), oil on canvas by John Trumbull (1756–1843) (left) and US astrophysicist Fred Espenak's (1952–2025) image of the Spica binary system (right).  Forty-odd years on, Trumbull took a little artistic licence in his depiction of that night in Philadelphia on 4 July, 1776.  The painting on the left was of what was once "now" but is now "then" while on the right, the photograph simultaneously captured "now" (here) and "then" (there).  Technically, every photograph of an object has that characteristic but the greater the distance (time), the more obvious the difference.  

One way to illustrate the curious nature of “now” is to conduct a thought experiment.  Imagine, on 4 July, 2026, being in a remote part of Wyoming on a clear night and looking up to a sky full of stars, one of which would be Spica (Alpha Virginis), the brightest star in the Virgo constellation and the 16^th brightest visible on Earth.  Because Spica lies 250 light-years distant, the light seen in Wyoming would have been travelling through space since 4 July 1776 when the delegates to the Second Continental Congress, meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (later renamed Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, adopted unanimously the text of the US Declaration of Independence.  In other words, those on Earth viewing Spica on 4 July, 2026 would see the interacting binary system as it was on 4 July, 1776.  So that’s “now” watching something that is both 250 years old and yet still “now”.  Of course Spica is approximately 250 light years away so the "two fourths of July" might not exactly align but for though experiment purposes they do and that's fine.  Spica (two massive, hot blue stars orbiting each other every four days) presumably still (in its local sense) looks much the same but if anything has changed, not for a quarter-millennium will we notice.    

Seated vis-a-vis (literally "face to face"), Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) and her sister Aliana (b 1993, left), enjoying a tête-à-tête (literally, "head to head"), La Conversation bakery & café, West Hollywood, California, April 2012.  Sadly, La Conversation is now closed.  

Among the implications of the Andromeda paradox is that although the sisters would experience their discussion as something in the "here and now", to a cosmologist they are looking at each other as they used to be and hearing what each said some time in the past, every slight movement affecting the extent of this.  Because, in a sense, everything in the universe is happening "at the same time", the pair could have been sitting light years apart and spoke what they spoke "at the same time" but because of the speed at which light and sound travel, it's only at a certain distance a "practical" shared "now" becomes possible (even quantum entanglement not able to overcome such an instance of a "distance" problem).  One wholly speculative notion is to connect "now" with at least one of the mysterious pair "dark energy" & "dark matter", two possibly misleading terms used to describe the "missing stuff" the cosmologists' models indicate must (in great quantity) exist in the universe but haven't been yet been identified or even described.  That idea is that "dark energy" may be time itself, the implication being not only can time be used as a measure in the currently accelerating expansion of space but may be the very force responsible for the phenomenon.  Professional cosmologists are unlikely much to be drawn to that speculation, not least because it's not obvious how an experimental test could be be designed but, as the Austrian–British philosopher Sir Karl Popper (1902–1994) explained, the essence of the scientific method is "disproof" and "time may be dark energy" has yet to be disproved.

The notion of time as a form of energy is intoxicating and linked to the idea time either (1) may have been "started" by the unleashing of energy at the moment of the universe's creation or (2) time was that energy and the ongoing (and accelerating) expansion of the universe is just "time being time" (or "time marching on" as it were).  Certainly, time is a useful because without it everything literally "would happen at the same time" and that, in some theories, was what was happening (or "not happening" for those tied to linguistic conventions) prior to what's now usually (if misleadingly) called the "Big Bang".  So, the absence of time may have happened before and may happen again; in that state, the nature of "now" would for many reasons be uncontested.  The idea of time being the "dark energy" is in a sense implied in some of the theories speculating about the "end of the universe" in that some models are based on the universe "going dark" when its last source of energy is exhausted and it may be "running out of energy" and "running out of time" are two ways of expressing the same consequence, the difference being in the mechanics of "cause and effect".         

Epoch

Epoch (pronounced ep-uhk or ee-pok)

(1) A particular period of time marked by distinctive features, events etc.

(2) The beginning of a distinctive period in the history of anything.

(3) A point in time distinguished by a particular event or state of affairs; a memorable date.

(4) In geology, any of several divisions of a geologic period during which a geologic series is formed (much associated with rock formation).  An epoch (the shortest division of geologic time) is a sub-division of a period.  As a geochronologic unit, an epoch can range between hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

(5) In astronomy, an arbitrarily fixed instant of time or date, usually the beginning of a century or half century, used as a reference in giving the elements (such as coordinates of a planetary orbit) relating to a celestial body.

(6) In astronomy, the mean longitude of a planet as seen from the sun at such an instant or date.

(7) In chronology, astronomy & computing, a specific instant in time, chosen as the point of reference or zero value of a system that involves identifying instants of time.

(8) In physics, the displacement from zero at zero time of a body undergoing simple harmonic motion (the displacement of an oscillating or vibrating body at zero time).

(9) In AI (artificial intelligence), one complete presentation of the training data set to an iterative machine learning algorithm.

1605-1615: From the Medieval Latin epocha, from the Ancient Greek ἐποχή (epokhḗ) (epochē) (a check, cessation, stop, pause, fixed time, epoch of a star (ie the point at which it seems to halt after reaching the highest, and more generally the place of a star (thus the extension of use to “a historical epoch”))), from ἐπέχω (epékhō, (to hold in, check), the construct being ἐπι- (epi-) (upon) + ἔχω (ékhō) (to have, hold), from the primitive Indo-European root segh- (to hold).  The early seventeenth century adoption in English of epocha was in the sense of “point marking the start of a new period in time” and it was used by scholars and theologians of momentous events in history (the crucifixion of Christ; the Visigoths gathering at the gates of Rome etc).  Less than a decade after epocha had entered the language, the transferred meaning “a period of time” was in use and it entered the jargon of geology in 1802 although the technology then did not permit precise measurements and exploration was then embryonic (what are now understood as dinosaur fossils not so classified until 1824) so most of the early estimates of geological epochs were inaccurate.

Confusingly, “epoch” can be used either to refer to a distinct and defined historic period (ie with an agreed beginning & end) or the event associated with the beginning of that period.  The latter concept is best understood in the adjectival forms “epoch-making” and “epochful”.  Subepoch is a technical term from geology, used as a geochronologic unit comprising one or more ages, being a period of generally agreed significance within an epoch.  The companion superepoch (two or more sequential epochs references as one for illustrative or didactic purposes is non-standard.  In statistical analysis, sub_epoch, base-epoch, super_epoch & primary_epoch exist as commands in aspects of database handling and manipulation, the link being the use of “datum” as epoch’s coordinate term in cartography and engineering.  The alternative form epocha was in use between the seventeenth & nineteenth centuries.  Epoch is a noun & verb, epochful, epocjless & epochal are adjectives and epochally is an adverb; the noun plural is epochs.

Bal du moulin de la Galette (Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876), oil on canvas by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The Belle Époque (appearing in texts often as La Belle Époque with capitalization not always used) was a period in European history characterized by peace, progress, cultural refinement and artistic innovation; the term was an adoption of the French La Belle Époque (literally “the beautiful era” and best understood as “the golden age”).  Historians date the start of the Belle Époque from the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1970-1871) although, “on the ground” it likely wasn’t so clear-cut because the impositions of war reparations made the first few post-war years “difficult” in France so “mid-1870s” may be a better point of origin.  The Belle Époque lasted until the blast of World War I (1914-1918) destroyed the continent’s sense of optimism and ended an era characterized by what might now be call an “end of history” feeling that held things like wars, famines and plagues were in the past and the future would be one of progress and improvement.

Art Nouveau.

An advertisement (1899) for Moët & Chandon's champagnes, designed by Czech painter & graphic artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939):  “White Star” champagne (left) & “Grand Crémant Imperial” (right).  The product is very much a period piece, Art Nouveau characterized by swirling shapes, stylized representations of women and intricate floral motifs.  For those with enough disposable income, La Belle Époque must have been an amusing time to live.  The “modern industrial” sense later summoned by the straight, sharp and geometric lines of Art Deco was a deliberate rejection of Art Nouveau's intricate, hand-crafted aesthetic yet in Art Deco the influence of the earlier style often is apparent.  Although by the 1920s unfashionable and in the inter-war years casually dismissed by many critics and historians, Art Nouveau's popular appeal never went away.  While there was never really a “revival”, the style's motifs remained a staple of commercial graphic art and the various “nostalgia movements” before being “cherry picked” by pop art, psychedelia and postmodernists.   

Those 40-odd years of what came to be called La Belle Époque were not without conflict or economic disruptions and it must be remembered Europe’s “golden age” was one of untroubled pleasure only for a select few, most of the population living lives of hard labor and drudgery, many on a variation of the Hobbesian (the very clever and deliciously wicked English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)) path: “nasty, crowded, brutish and short”.  La Belle Époque is a selective construct of the era’s intellectual and aesthetic landmarks in art, literature and architecture, characterized by opulence, eclecticism and an undeniable dynamism from which emerged movements such as Futurism, Cubism and Art Nouveau.  Viewed from our troubled times, the Belle Époque exists in a warm nostalgic glow and it’s telling the term first gained popularity in France during the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression.  Even then, La Belle Époque was still in living memory but because it became mythologised as a “golden age”, it was as myth it passed into history.

Lindsay Lohan entering her fifth decade.  Her five eras thus far may loosely be labelled: (1) child star, (2) troubled Hollywood starlet, (3) nemesis, (4) reinvention and (5) redemption.

Signed to the Ford agency, Lindsay Lohan secured her first modelling gig aged three but what’s understood as the “Lindsay Lohan era” ran for the decade after the release of Mean Girls (2004).  It was characterized by her low-speed car crashes, court appearances and becoming a staple of the tabloid press and lower reaches of the glossy magazine industry, a reasonable contribution to GDP (gross domestic product), providing predictable cash flow for paparazzi on both sides of the Atlantic.  Improbable as it once seemed, she proved a survivor in the churn of the industry's destructive “child star” machine and on 2 July, 2026 celebrated her 40^th birthday.  That happened during the 23^rd FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (the International Federation of Association Football which, for historic reasons, recognizes more countries than the UN (United Nations)) World Cup and, on the day, playing at the Bay Area Stadium in Santa Clara, San Francisco, USA beat Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 so that was a good birthday present.  

Geologyin's illustration of the concept of geological epochs.

In scientific usage there is precision, the ICS (International Commission on Stratigraphy) codifying a strict hierarchy on the discipline of geology, the structure being Eon → Era → Period → Epoch → Age.  However, in ordinary English discourse (and even in the work of professional scholars and historians) there is no fixed hierarchy in that an age may be longer than an era and an era may be longer than an epoch; unless following established conventions, writers can opt for whichever word best conveys the intended nuance, a choice that can be influenced by the search for rhetorical effect or the rhythm of the narrative.  So, in the way of English, there are no “rules” but, as a general principle, (1) Age = “known for...”, (2) Era = “lasting period of...” and (3) Epoch = “a period with a turning point that defined its nature.”  The overlaps in use don’t usually cause confusion but among the fastidious there are acknowledged nuances and accepted conventions of use:

(1) An epoch is a distinct period marked by particular characteristics or events, thus the use in geology where defining changes or sets of conditions can be established by scientific techniques such as chemical analysis or radiocarbon dating.  In non-scientific use, because of the etymological lineage, an epoch typically begins with some sort of event thought a turning point or watershed and this can be an organic development with no exact fixed date (the Industrial Revolution) or something decidedly exact (the epoch of the computer operating system Unix is defined as 00:00:00 UTC, 1 January 1970 although this was not first set precisely then).

(2) An age is a period with a specific, dominant association.  That might be a technology (bronze age; oil age; jet age etc), a characteristic (age of empires; age of European colonialism etc) or an individual (Napoleonic age; Elizabethan Age etc).  Unlike the epochs of geologists and astronomers, “ages” can run in parallel or overlap.  While some are sequential such as the “Three Age System” (Stone Age; Bronze Age; Iron Age) tracking the evolution of humanity's tools and metalworking capabilities between prehistory and Antiquity, others can co-exist such as the Age of Sail & Age of Enlightenment.  Because of the nature of the word and historic pattern of use, of the three, “age” is the most flexible and adaptable because it’s merely associative, not exclusive and often with no precise chronology.

(3) An era is a period (by human standards usually but not necessarily long) with origins at a certain point (usually an event) and characterized by an enduring pattern; eras tend to be major historical phases or systems (the Nazi era; the analogue era etc).  Generally “era” is used to denote something coherent (though it need not be long); a stretch of history with a recognizable character, a beginning and an end.  That can reference the life of an individual (Queen Victoria lent her name to the “Victorian era” 1837-1901), several individuals (there were four Kings of England named George whose collective reign defined the “Georgian era” 1714-1830) or a specific closed-time set (the “inter war era”: 1918-1939).

Eras tour merchandise.  Canvas tapestry featuring photographs from Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, cotton canvas, 800 mm (31½ inches) x 1220 mm (48 inches).

Taylor Swift’s “Eras” project tends to be thought of as a concert tour but it’s better imagined as pop culture’s greatest ever exercise in vertical integration, a merging of music (audio streaming, packaged (in multiples in the case of the vinyl releases) & live performance), video content, merchandise ranging from framed posters, a “limited edition” book, a film with concert footage, outfits emulating those worn on stage, jewellery, hoodies, pillows, stainless steel tumblers and more.  Although there has in recent years been a bit of mission creep, the idea of a canvas tapestry as a piece of tour merchandise in the pop music business would, until recently, likely have occurred to few.  Commerce has moved on from a half-century earlier when, at a Led Zeppelin concert, one might be able to buy a Tee-shirt (in S, M, L & XL), maybe with a choice of black or white (black quickly selling out).

Ms Swift is good with words and for the “Eras” project may have pondered using “Ages” or “Epochs”.  Given the accepted conventions (Age = “known for...”, Era = “lasting period of...” and Epoch = “a period with a turning point that defined its nature.”) and the concept of the “Eras” project, a convincing case could have been made for “Ages” because each subset was thematically distinct while the use of “Epochs” would have worked because the word is understood as a “period of time with a beginning and end” but linking each with a single “triggering event” might have descended to abstractions so “Eras” seems the best choice.  Certainly it’s unlikely she long considered using “Periods”; although etymologically defensible, it would have been decarded on much the same basis as that of the publishers of the magazine Australian Women’s Weekly who, upon in 1983 switching to issuing monthly editions, opted not to change the title to “Women’s Monthly”.

There is of course a vagueness associated with the definitions because not all “eras” and “ages” have as convenient bookends the end of one war and the start of another; that’s why context can matter.  In speaking of the time after World War II (1939-1945), “post-war era” is a common term but the meaning can vary depending on what’s being discussed.  It’d be absurd to speak of 2026 as being in the “post-war” era (although in a sense that’s true) so meaning must be gleaned from context.  The two decade period 1918-1939 came to be called both the “inter-war” and “pre-war” era (although many tend to restrict the latter to a start-point in the mid-1930s) and in much historiography there's sometimes the suggestion the “post-war” era can usefully be said to have ended some 20 years hence; that’s about 1965 so conveniently (1) in the new era of the High Cold War, (2) about the length of a then typical “generation” and (3) in the 1960s, a very different era.  So it can be inexact and some with a focus on political economy fix the end date on exactly 17 October 1973, the day OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) proclaimed an oil embargo targeting the US and other states providing military aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  At that point, the West’s long post-war boom, although already stuttering, ended.  In a similar vein, although also very much a Western-centric view, some historians have argued the nineteenth century is best imagined as a construct running from the close of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) to the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918).  There’s much support for that although there are different views about the conceptual view of the twentieth century. While 1914 seems a logical starting-point, candidates for the end date include 1989 (fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989)), 1991 (dissolution of the Soviet Union (1922-1911)) and the 9/11 terrorist strikes in 2001.

Taylor Swift Style: Fashion through the eras.

Between March 2023 and December 2024, Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour took in 149 shows in 51 cities over five continents; each performance ran for a remarkable 3½ hours and there was a mid-tour revision of the song set to interpolate material The Tortured Poets Department (2024), her eleventh studio album.  The “Eras” title was an allusion to the show’s format, a retrospective in which each of her albums was designated as a “musical era”, the many outfits worn tied to those themes and just as each song and each performance was a product, so could be each outfit, some available on-line for purchase by devoted Swifties.  So, as set piece events go, Ms Swift set a high bar and, on revenues in excess of US$2 billion, profits were high and continue to grow.

Even when there are precise start and end dates, things can at the margin become blurred.  Pedants enjoy pointing out the 1960s began on 1 January 1961 so an expression like “the 1960s” ends on 31 December 1969 but the decade in which most of those years existed actually includes 1970, a quirk which extends also to centuries and millennia, something ultimately a product of there being no year zero in the calendar now defining BCE (before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) (the pair the secular version of BC (Before Christ) and AD (from the Latin Anno Domini (in the year of the Lord)), all based on the (nominal) birth date of Jesus Christ.  “Ages” and “eras” can at once be “exact” and “indicative”.  Many of the civilizations of antiquity all had their so-called “golden ages” and these tended to be associated with particular dynasties or reigns.  The examples are many and are cross-cultural, including the Gupta Empire in India (mid-third to mid-sixth century AD) founded by Mahārāja Śrī-Gupta, the Tang dynasty (626-684) & the reign of Tae-tsong (618-626) in China and, in Egypt, the reigns of Sethos I and Ram'eses II (1336-1224 BC).  In the West, the use of “golden ages” is legion including in Russia during the rule of Czar Peter the Great (1672-1725) (memorable because the Russian people have not enjoyed many “golden ages”) and, of course, in England, the “Elizabethan age”, referencing the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).  However, at the granular level, the idea of the term “Elizabethan age” denoting a “golden age” in literature was contested by the English writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) who, in his Introduction to English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (1654), distinguished the “estimable” literature of the later Elizabethan period from what he called that of the earlier “drab age”.  Lewis found drabness in the poetry and prose of the later medieval period up to the early Renaissance, distinguishing it from the “golden era style” between circa 1580-1603.  Lewis was an uncompromising critic but while most in the profession may well agree much that was written in the fifteenth century and early Tudor period was “drab”, among those published in the period were Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and John Skelton (circa 1460-1529); their writing was not beyond criticism but the works were hardly drab.

Sarah Chapelle's (b 1992) Swiftie site documenting looks from The Eras tour: Fearless v6 (worn 18 October, 2024, far left), Midnights v5 (worn 16 August, 2024, centre left), 1989 v2 (worn 19 March, 2023, centre right) and Reputation v1 (worn 18 March, 2023, far right).  Some outfits can be purchased on-line but buyers should note they should not expect their appearance exactly to emulate what's “on the tin”.  

Simulacrum describes an image that while not purely realistic, maintains enough of a likeness for the subject to be recognizable.  In some jurisdictions it can be deemed “deceptive and misleading” if a product is represented in manner judged to be a “deliberate misrepresentation” intended to induce a purchase.  Legal recourse is available but is practical only if enough money is involved (such as real estate); although in theory someone purchasing a McDonalds Big Mac after being tempted by the image in the advertising might have grounds for an action, a claim of under $US10 would not impress a judge and even a class action would, on several grounds, be thrown out.  Presumably a disgruntled consumer could lodge a claim for the “pain & suffering” caused by one's Big Mac not looking as attractive as the one in the advertising but that'd likely anger the judge still more.  The classic simulacrums were the stylish images rendered in the 1960s by Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015) & Van Kaufman (1918-1995) for GM’s (General Motors) PMD (Pontiac Motor Division) and those of Ms Swift in the Eras Tour outfits are in the same “mannerist but not quite surrealist” tradition.  Although obviously “unrealistic”, these depictions are not “deceptive and misleading” because they’re so obviously simulacral and exist only as devices, the extent of the licence taken illustrated by them appearing next to a flesh & blood Ms Swift in the same outfit.  They are “impossible” rather than “idealized”.

Super simulacrum: The Colossus of Rhodes (circa 1560), hand-colored by Dutch portrait and religious painter Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) on an engraving by Dutch publisher & designer Philip Galle (1537–1612).

The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and although it stood for barely half a century before being felled by an earthquake, it's ruins lying for almost a millennium as a kind of tourist attraction before the metal was carted of as scrap to be melted-down an re-cycled.  The notion the statue's legs straddled the entrance to Rhodes Harbor with tall-masted ships passing between them was wholly fanciful; even with modern materials and techniques, such a construction would be impossible.  The engineers and architects of the sixteenth century would of course have known it couldn't be done but such was the allure of the era of Classical Antiquity that brilliant myths seduced the public imagination better than tiresome facts.

Other “era-related” terminology also often used interchangeably relates to that long span of history between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD) and the dawn of the Renaissance in the late fourteenth century: (1) Middle Ages, (2) Dark Ages and (3) Medieval.  “Middle Ages” is the most obviously descriptive because it refers to the period between the dying gasps of Classical Antiquity and the cultural & artistic revival of the Renaissance while Medieval simply means “relating to the Middle Ages” (although by virtue of association and use, it came to be used also as a slur).  As general principle, historians tend to divide the Middle Ages into (1) Early (476-circa 1000), (2) High (circa 1000-circa 1300) and (3) Late (circa 1300-circa 1500).  “Dark Ages” reflected the prejudices of fifteenth century writers who regarded the earlier Middle Ages (476-circa 1000) as a period of stagnation, lack of progress and “intellectual darkness”, a stark contrast to the idealized vision of Classical Antiquity they constructed from what evidence there was, “filling in the gaps” with imaginations as famously vivid as any of the Medieval scribes and artists responsible for some fabulous beasts.  The Seven Wonders of of the Ancient World” they found especially compelling, some of their speculative depictions of the Colossus of Rhodes and the Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon such examples of architectural gigantism even Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) might have been embarrassed.  Maybe they looked in awe at the scale of Great Pyramid of Giza and assumed all the ancients operated in “think big” mode.

Tony Abbott (b 1957; Prime Minister of Australia 2013-2015) agitprop.

Mr Abbott's combination of relentless negativity and repetition of 3WSs (three word slogans) contributed to his resounding victory in the 2013 general election although, in office, the results were mixed and it ended badly.  Recently revived as the Liberal Party's federal president (the institution's third “Lazerus with a triple bypass” after Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; Prime Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) and John Howard (b 1939; Prime Minister of Australia 1996-2007)), Mr Abbott unquestionably was one of history's most effective leaders of the opposition but as Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) remarked of Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895):  “He was essentially a opposition politician and behaved as such even when in government”.  Of such matters, Jenkins was a fair judge.  Although medieval may literally mean “relating to the Middle Ages” and can be used as a neutral adjective (medieval architecture, medieval manuscripts etc), it is also used as a term of derision: “Mr Abbott’s views on certain topics seem distinctly medieval although, to be fair, the thirteenth century probably never produced a finer mind”.  Used in that way, it implies “outdated, harsh or unenlightened”, a throwback to the stereotypes of the Dark Ages but more recent scholarship has cast doubt on whether the “Dark Ages” was a time as culturally sterile and technologically stagnant and was for centuries an orthodoxy among historians.  A view now more popular is the earlier conceptions of the period were formed because of the relative scarcity of written records and although it’s now clear there was progress in agriculture, law, architecture, theology, literature, engineering and state formation, it is true that compared with what came before and what followed, progress often was fitful.  Of note also is there were in the Renaissance and beyond not a few who didn’t count “advances in theology” as progress worth mentioning.

Feminism

Feminism (pronounced fem-uh-niz-uhm)

(1) A doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

(2) In both its structured and ad hoc forms, a movement for the attainment of such rights for women (sometimes used with initial capital letter).

(3) Feminine character (obsolete except for historic references).

1851: From the French féminisme, ultimately from the Classical Latin fēminīnus, the construct being the Latin fēmina (woman) + ism.  The first known use in French dates from 1837.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up -ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  It seems first to have been used in in English in 1851, originally as a neutral term meaning "the state of being feminine".  The sense of "advocacy of women's rights" began in 1895 ("political feminism" often traced from here although given the history that is misleading) and the word came soon to be used as a "loaded" descriptor of the female character, a kind of informal measure of the patriarchal view of femininity, often in criticism of artistic performance or literature.  So productive has the word feminism proved that there are literally more than a hundred derived forms including the:  geographical (Afro-feminism; Euro-feminism), political (anarcho-feministic, radical feminism), humorous (femocrat; femnazi), structural (post-feminism; lipstick feminism; postmodern feminism) and contested (male-feminism; trans-feminism).  Feminism & feminist are nouns, feministic is an adjective and feministically is an adverb; the most common noun plural is feminists but given the proliferation of terms created with modifiers, feminisms are often referenced even if the word is not used.

Feminism is a widely used word with an accepted definitional range but there’s no universal understanding pattern of use and, like words such as “academic” or “liberal”, the meaning conveyed widely can vary, the senses ranging from the chauvinistically aggressive to the contemptuous.  That of course transfers to “feminist” which while procedural as an adjective (relating to or in accordance with feminism), as a noun it really means what the user wants it to mean because it’s not like many other “–ist” creations (physicist, scientist etc) which are understood as simple descriptors.  Even “artist” is uncontroversial at the linguistic level (one who creates what they claim to be art) although whether what they produce can be considered “art” might be disputed.  The -ist suffix was from the Middle English -ist & -iste, from the Old French -iste and the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō) (the -ize & -ise verbal suffix) and -τής (-tḗs) (the agent-noun suffix).  It was added to nouns to denote various senses of association such as (1) a person who studies or practices a particular discipline, (2), one who uses a device of some kind, (3) one who engages in a particular type of activity, (4) one who suffers from a specific condition or syndrome, (5) one who subscribes to a particular theological doctrine or religious denomination, (6) one who has a certain ideology or set of beliefs, (7) one who owns or manages something and (8), a person who holds very particular views (often applied to those thought most offensive).  Feminists have noted the issue, the journalist & author Rebecca West (1892–1983) once remarking: “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or prostitute.”

Feminism & Language

Écriture féminine (feminine writing) was a concept proposed by the French feminist and literary critic Hélène Cixous (b 1937).  It denoted writing characteristically feminine in style, language, tone and feeling; it was wholly different from (and opposed to) male language and discourse although in The Laugh of the Medusa (1976) she acknowledged in this there was no biological determinism; women often writing in “male discourse” while men can write in a “feminine way”. She cited the “source” of écriture féminine in the mother-child relationship before the child acquires “conventional” language and suggested this potential language, when eventually used in writing, (whether by men or women) subverted logic, the rational and any element which may constrain the free play of meaning.  In certain feminist circles, this was intoxicating stuff.

Because of the overlap of terms and labels, it’s important to emphasize Cixous meant something different by “conventional language” than did linguistics theorist & public intellectual Noam Chomsky (b 1928), their intellectual traditions (mostly) separate.  According to Cixous, “convention is a social, cultural, and ideological phenomenon”, her concern being how language reproduces power, (especially that of the patriarchy) and her purpose an intention to disrupt existing constructs of “conventional language”.  By contrast, Chmosky was interested in mechanisms and structure (much of his analysis is gender-neutral).  In his model, “convention” was largely a surface property of particular languages, his interest the innate cognitive system underlying language and his goal an explanation of the way speakers unconsciously acquire the syntax and vocabulary of language.  This was less the “nuts & bolts” of language than how people learn to use them to assemble and convey meaning with “conventional language an outcome of process.

White Ink, Interviews on Sex, Text, and Politics (2008), Hélène Cixous, edited by Susan Sellers.

Cixous was thus a critic of “conventional language”, seeing it as a collection of constructs which made up the established forms of discourse inherited from Western culture (most of which was created or propagated by the infamous “dead white males”).  That construct was culturally hegemonic and included (1) accepted literary styles & canonical works, (2) accepted rules of syntax & logic, (3) a limited range of socially sanctioned meanings, (4) binary oppositions that tended to map onto masculine / feminine orthodoxy (reason / emotion,  activity / passivity,  strength / weakness etc) and (5) linguistic habits operating to maintain or reinforce patriarchal authority.  Obviously, none of that could be thought politically neutral and because language is a unique form of communication, being standardized after having been shaped by masculine structures of thought, “conventional language” tended to reproduce existing hierarchies.  Écriture féminine was thus writing exceeding or disrupting the conventional linguistic order, achieved through non-linear structures, ambiguity, excess & rhythm; while those devices and techniques have widely been adopted by many seeking to be disruptive of “something”, what Cixous emphasized was a particular content: bodily imagery & associative movement rather than the rigid logical progression long imposed by the patriarchy.  In other words, Cixous defined “conventional language” as something effectively synonymous with institutionalized discourse or the dominant symbolic order.

Syntactic Structures (1957) by Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky’s work in structural linguistics predated his “second career” as critic of socio-economic structures and US foreign policy and although highly controversial, was little known outside the relatively small community of academics working in the field of linguistics.  In producing his polemical work that was more accessible, he reached a much wider audience and managed to become a “celebrity academic”, a reasonable achievement given he was effectively black-balled by all of the mainstream US media (both “liberal” and “conservative” outlets).  Chomsky’s early work was highly technical (and frankly difficult fully to understand without the requisite training) but it’s clear he viewed “conventional language” as an external social system with the parameters of “convention” understood as the “surface properties” and what really mattered was the innate cognitive system underlying language (the means by which speakers unconsciously acquire conventional languages).  At that point his analysis got really dense and one of the few easily digestible concepts he offered to illustrate things was the distinction between I-language (internal language): the mental grammar possessed by an individual speaker and E-language (external language): English, French, Japanese, etc, viewed as public conventions.  For many of us, it was a rare moment of clarity.

So the use by Cixous and Chomsky of the term “conventional language” is just an example of the way language must in its context be deconstructed for meaning to be understood.  That’s not new and is something that’s been required as soon as words or phrases came to capable of carrying more than one meaning but what can’t be denied is that at some point in the twentieth century, deconstruction became fetishized and once postmodernism taught us even meaning must inherently be thought uncertain, it’s little wonder the factions girded their loins and feminist literature was part of the battle.  Cixous (in translation) and Chomsky of course shared vocabulary, linguistic conventions and sometimes even patterns of argument but their work on language was not even parallel streams but more lakes fed by the same tributaries.  Cixous was there to oppose and Chomsky to explain but he later would discover the joy of discontent.

Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1981) by Toril Moi.

There have of course been many forks of feminist thoughts and Belgian-born French feminist psycholinguist Luce Irigaray (b 1930) wrote of a “woman's language” that was multiple, fluid, diverse and heterogeneous, evading the male phallocentric monopoly (a theory with a morphological basis associated with the structure and shape of the genitalia).  A not unrelated view was proposed by Bulgarian-born French feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva (b 1941): a “language” that was pre-Oedipal, pre-linguistic and fundamentally semiotic (associated with the chora, from the Ancient Greek χώρα (khṓra) (location, place (but used here in the sense of “womb”))) as opposed to male-controlled language which she described as symbolic.  That one really disturbed some male critics.  Nearly a half-century on, the classic discussion of these matters (and other competing theories) remains Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1981) by the Norwegian Professor of Literature Toril Moi (b 1953).

A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (1977) by Elaine Showalter.

One landmark contribution to the development of feminist literary analysis was made by US literary critic Dr Elaine Showalter (b 1941) who in the 1970s coined gynocriticism, describing studies and interpretation focusing on women as writers, as distinct from feminist criticism and evaluation of the work of men.  Showalter explained gynocritics by saying it was a concept within which could be built “a female framework for the analysis of women's literature”.  By the 1970s literary theory had already evolved into separatist forks so the notion of siloing “women on women” as something distinct in the field suited the critical zeitgeist but what lent gynocritics its identity was a distinct sense of the author-centric.  Although a generation after the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s (1908–1986) The Second Sex (1949) that wasn’t exactly new and whether Showalter really had created “new” models of female literary creation could be debated, gynocriticism certainly drew attention to the history of the way literary critics had handled the work of women.  These days, structural analysis at the textual level is routine but in the 1970s it was illuminating to see tracked the way the critiques by men of the work of George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans, 1819–1880) shifted after the revelation of her identity.  At a time when literary theory was being consumed by postmodernism, not all were happy about the author being “fetishized” because it seemed archaic in the age of “text” and there was of course the objection what Showalter had done was create a “female canon”, an inherently exclusionary project that ignored those not of the white middle-class.  Still, gynocriticism was after all a framework and was there for lesbians, persons of color or others to construct their own canons and whether such “sub-siloing” was a help or hindrance to the cause of feminism really wasn’t relevant; the point being it was inevitable.  Although in the twenty-first century the term gynocriticism rarely is heard, that is an indication of its success because it's part of the fabric of feminist critical theory (on the model of the way the IT industry stopped talking about OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) after it became (for a while) an orthodoxy).  Like structural-functionalism, even though gynocriticism became unfashionable, its core assumptions and methods continue to underpin the field.

Feminism's Waves

Fourth wave feminist: Lindsay Lohan,  image from a photoshoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love magazine, 2012.

The notion of feminism being not a fixed manifesto but a process in incremental waves is from a 1968 piece in the New York Times Magazine by journalist Martha Lear (b 1932).  The context was to note the appearance a decade earlier of second-wave feminism, focusing now on unofficial inequalities, unlike the first wave which was essentially structuralist.  While lineal, there’s overlap between the waves and, in both popular culture and academia, some resistance to change.  Whatever its other implications, feminism needs to be considered a political construct and it operates, as does politics, through cross-cutting cleavages; in the same way the formation of the G8 (the Group of 8, an assembly of advanced industrial economies created when Russia was added to the G7) didn’t mean the G7 ceased to exist, the successive waves in feminism both absorbed and operated in parallel with earlier waves.

First-wave feminism (1895-1950s): In this “de jure” period, the focus was on legal issues such as women's suffrage, property rights and political candidacy.

Second-wave feminism (1960s-1980s): Even before equality in legal rights wholly was achieved, the movement broadened the debate to include sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights and other de facto inequalities. Attention to first-wave issues focused on child custody and divorce law.  In the West, it was the parameters of 2WF that established the popular perception of "feminism".  

Third-wave feminism (1990-2000s): Although there were cultural links, the intellectual origins of 3WF lie in a 1992 article by feminist Rebecca Walker (b 1969) and although never exactly defined, it was said to emphasize an interest in individualism and diversity (which hadn't yet become DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)).  Controversial even at the time, with strains of libertarianism now competing with the historic collectivist model, it sought to change the parameters of feminism and there were those who argued that with men effectively having surrendered, the opposition to the notion of 3WF came mostly from those feminists who had built sometimes lucrative careers on the framework of 2WF.  It was with the emergence of 3WF that feminism truly can be said to have become schismatic with 2WF an orthodoxy (and something of an ancien régime).    

Fourth-wave feminism (circa 2010-): Regarded as a least partially technologically deterministic, 4WF is thought to have emerged circa 2008-2012 as social media gained critical mass.  It focuses on intersectionality and examines the interconnected systems of power that maintain the marginalized of certain groups in society.  4WF advocates for greater representation of these groups in all places within the power-elite, arguing equality for women will become possible only if policies and practices incorporate all groups.  There were those who argued 4WF was really 3WF 1.1 while others suggested the need for a 5WF but no coherent work has yet been published.