Pitcher

Pitcher (pronounced pich-er)

(1) A jug-like container, usually with a handle and narrow-necked spout or lip, for holding and pouring liquids; historically of earthenware, they now can be made of many materials (glass, plastic, metal etc).

(2) In botany, a pitcher-like or flask-shaped organ or appendage of a plant or its leaves; any of the urn-shaped leaves of the pitcher plant.

(3) In zoology, one of the former genus Ascidium of simple ascidians (sea squirts).

(4) In the sport of golf, a club with an iron head the face of which has more slope than a mashie but less slope than a pitching niblick (known also as a seven iron). 

(5) In stone-masonry, a granite stone or sett used in paving (known also as a sett).

(6) An adaptation of a crowbar, used for digging (obsolete).

(7) In slang, a drug dealer (usually one at the lowest (street level) level of the supply chain).

(8) In slang (UK criminal class), one who is the final link in the chain (ie the one handing the notes) to the retailer etc) putting counterfeit currency into circulation (obsolete).

(9) In slang, a street vendor, a “fly-pitcher” being an illicit street trader (one operating without permission or a license).

(10) In publishing, film or music production etc, an individual who delivers the pitch (the proposal) to secure funding, publishing contract etc; by extension a person who advocates an idea, concept or plan).

(11) A person who throws, tosses, casts etc something.

(12) In the sports of baseball, softball & pesäpallo, the player who throws (ie pitches) the ball to the opposition’s batters.

(13) In the slang (originally US) of the (male) gay community, the “top” (the “dominant” (in the penetrator)) partner in a homosexual encounter between two men, the other being the “catcher” (ie the “bottom”) (the “pitcher-catcher” comparison from the sport of baseball).

1250–1300: From the Middle English picher, from the Old French bichier, pichier & pechier (small jug) (which endures in modern French as pichet), from the Late Latin &  Medieval Latin picārium, a variant of bicārium (beaker), possibly from bacarium & bacar or from the Ancient Greek βῖκος (bîkos).  The use in the sense of “throwing something emerged between 1700-1710, the construct being pitch + -er.  The noun pitch (in the sense of throw, toss, cast etc) was from the Middle English picchen & pycchen (to thrust in, fasten, settle), from the Old English piċċan, from the Proto-West Germanic pikkijan, a variant of the Proto-West Germanic pikkōn (to pick, peck), from which Middle English gained pikken & picken (to pick, pierce) and modern English, pick.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  In botany, user have the pleasure of the adjective urceolate (comparative more urceolate, superlative most urceolate) meaning “having an urceolus (shaped like an urn), the word from the Latin urceolus (a little pitcher, more familiar as urceolatus), diminutive of urceus (any urn-shaped organ of a plant.).  Pitcher & pitcherful are nouns and pitcherlike & picchered are adjectives; the noun plural is pitchers.

Nepenthes holdenii, a tropical, meat-eating pitcher plant endemic in western Cambodia.  For carnivorous plants, the "pitcher" structure confers advantages in harvesting so the process of natural selection is ideal, the advantages conferred by the shape thus favored by natural selection.  

In idiomatic use a “little pitcher” was “a small child” and the phrase “little pitchers have big (sometimes “long”) ears” meant adults should exercise caution when talking in the presence of children because what is said may over overheard and understood or misunderstood (both, for different reasons, potentially leading to bad outcomes).  The “ears” in the phrase was an allusion to the ear-shaped handles common on pitchers used for serving liquids.  “Pitcher-bawd” was old sailor’s slang for an old or at least semi-retired prostitute (ie “past her best”) who worked in a tavern fetching pitchers of beer for patrons.  A “rinse-pitcher” was a notorious drunkard while the proverb “the pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at last” (expressed also as “the jug goes to the well until it breaks” meant “if even the best article is used often enough, eventually it will wear out or break down.

Even for those not convinced by the “language of Shakespeare and Milton” shtick, there are persuasive reasons to learn English.  That may not extend to the playwrights or lyric poets and in truth, most native English-speakers are probably acquainted with the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and John Milton (1608–1674) only through filmed adaptations or the odd (sometimes misquoted or wrongly attributed) phrase but both remain a still influential part of the language’s lineage.  Students new to the tongue probably appreciate some of English’s structural simplicity and come to value the flexibility and wide vocabulary but what must mystify them is the way certain words (with the same pronunciation or spelling (or both)) can enjoy a multiplicity of meanings; indeed some words can appear in the same sentence with one instance meaning one thing and one another.  Apparently this does happen in other languages but in English the phenomenon is thought to be more frequent and the paradox is that despite the huge word count, there are many of these dualities (and beyond) of meaning.

Lindsay Lohan has of late proved a prolific pitcher of products including Pure Leaf Tea.

When being taught the word “pitch”, students surely must think the scope of meanings bizarre.  As a noun “pitch” can be (1) a surface (such as that upon which cricket or other games are played), (2) a relative point, position, or degree (such a “high pitch of excitement”), (3) the highest point or greatest height, (4) in music, speech, etc, “the degree of height or depth of a tone or of sound, depending upon the relative rapidity of the vibrations by which it is produced, (5) in acoustics, the apparent predominant frequency sounded by an acoustical source, (6) the act of throwing, tossing etc or the manner of so doing, (7) in nautical use the movement or forward plunge of a vessel, (8) the extent of the upward or downward inclination of a slope or the slope itself, (9) the advocacy of something for some purpose (often as “sales pitch”), (10) the specific location allotted to or assigned for some person, object or purpose, (11) in aeronautics, the nosing of an airplane or spacecraft up or down about a transverse axis or the distance a given propeller would advance in one revolution (hence there being “variable pitch” and “fixed pitch” propellers, (12) in the flight of rockets or missiles, either the motion due to pitching or the extent of the rotation of the longitudinal axis involved in pitching, (13) in geology, the inclination (from the horizontal) of a linear feature (as the axis of a fold or an ore-shoot) (also called “the plunge”, (14), in mechanical engineering, (14a) the distance between the corresponding surfaces of two adjacent gear teeth measured either along the pitch circle circular pitch or between perpendiculars to the root surfaces normal pitch; (14b) the ratio of the number of teeth in a gear or splined shaft to the pitch circle diameter (expressed in inches or fractions of an inch) or (14c) the distance between any two adjacent things in a series (as screw threads, rivets, holes drilled etc), (15) in carpet weaving) the weft-wise number of warp ends, usually determined in relation to 27 inches (686 mm), (16) in stone masonry, a true or even surface on a stone, (17) in typography, a unit of measurement indicating the number of characters to a horizontal inch, (18) in cards, an alternative name for “all fours” (known also as “high-low-jack”, “old sledge” & “seven-up”), (19) in golf (as a clipping of “pitch shot”), an approach (to the green) shot in which the ball is struck in a high arc, (20) any of various heavy dark viscious substances obtained as a residue from the distillation of tars (often as coal-tar pitch); any of various similar substances, such as asphalt, occurring as natural deposits; any of various similar substances obtained by distilling certain organic substances so that they are incompletely carbonized and (21) crude turpentine obtained as sap from pine trees.

A picture of Lindsay Lohan with pitcher of milk making a “dirty soda” during her pitch for PepsiCo's Pilk promotion.  It was recommended a pilk be enjoyed with a cookie (“biscuit” to those in certain places) but opinion remains divided on the combo.

Once students have begun to master how many forks and layers of meaning can co-exist in “pitch” & “pitcher”, they can then ponder the latter’s homophone: “picture”.  Although it also enjoys other meaning, the core understanding of “picture” is as a representation of anything or anyone and one can exist as a painting, a print, a photograph, a drawing etc with the only definitional constraint probably that it should be on a flat surface; anything beyond that a it becomes an “installation” or something else.  A “three-dimensional picture” remains a picture if the effect is achieved with multi-layer technology but if it becomes topographic beyond the thickness of the paint, it’s probably an installation, model or something else.  Picture was from the Middle English pycture, from the Old French picture, from the Latin pictūra (the art of painting, a painting), from pingō (I paint).  The pitcher vs picture thing is an example (like sealing vs ceiling”) of how words with different spellings and meanings yet the same pronunciation independently can evolve and there are also words with the same spelling and pronunciation meaning different (sometimes even opposite) things (consider “sanction”).

American Gothic (1930), oil on beaverboard by Grant Wood (1891-1942), Art Institute of Chicago.

One of the most discussed, analysed and parodied paintings in twentieth century US art, every aspect of element in American Gothic has likely appeared in at least one earnest thesis and the pitchfork has been held to be as highly symbolic as well an interesting compositional feature.  Structurally, the pitchfork’s vertical shaft functions as a formal echo of other vertical and pointed elements (the architecture and the upright rigidity of the subjects) with the tool’s three tines parallel with both the elongated Gothic window behind and the seams and patterns of the clothing.  The technique lends the work a geometric coherence.  Symbolically, the visual austerity hints at the qualities stereotypically associated with rural Protestant rectitude and obviously, a pitchfork is emblematic of the manual agricultural labor which fulfilled such a vital role in the pre-industrial US.  Tellingly, Wood painted the work just as the effects of the Great Depression were beginning to be felt, threatening rural self-sufficiency and traditional American farming life.  That’s why critics think it significant the farmer’s grip on the handle seems so assertively tight, holding, as it were, onto a way of life which suddenly felt vulnerable, the message one of defiance, the pitchfork a barrier between subjects and viewers.

The picture has always been regarded as a snapshot (however inaccurately) of world-view of those of the Midwestern agrarian population, conveying sternness, frugality, guardedness, moral vigilance, thrift and an abiding suspicion of outsiders, thus the imagining of the pitchfork as a symbolic weapon rather than an emblem of pastoral warmth.  This is not a sentimental piece as so many depictions of rural scenes have been and whether the artist intended American Gothic to be ironic, satirical or a homage has never been certain because Wood at times gave interviewers different hints so it’s there for viewers to make of it what they will but it’s not hard to interpret the pitchfork as the visual spine, both compositionally and symbolically.

Portrait of the Irish playwright and Nobel laureate in literature, George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950), oil on canvas by the Welsh artist Augustus John (1878–1961), Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire.  In a long life, GBS pitched many things including Esperanto and, as one of the “useful idiots” (the crew contemptuously acknowledged by comrade Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; head of government of Russia or Soviet Union 1917-1924)), the Soviet Union of comrade Joseph Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953).

In Modern English, as many as 175,000 words are thought to be “the core” (those in general, common use) while the count may be over 600,00 if historic, archaic forms are included and it’d go over a million if scientific and technical coinings were added.  There are of course reasons for this, the obvious one being English was a product of a long evolution with roots in Ancient Greek, Latin, French, various Germanic dialects and more and even when it (sort of) forked into something recognizably “English”, evolution was still often regional with spelling and meanings existing in parallel, centuries before mass-produced dictionaries emerged to begin the path towards standardization.  That messiness was avoided by the Esperantoists of the late nineteenth century who were able to craft their “international auxiliary language” freed from the constraints of existing use and thus achieve a lexicon characterized by words with exclusivity of meaning.  That sounds like it’d make it an attractive alternative to untidy English but English has the unique advantage of a global critical mass, something achieved by (1) the cultural imperialism first of the British Empire and later the United States and (2) being the “native” language of computing, the internet and all that.  Apart from the Greek, Latin and other sources, English proved linguistically a slut, because as explorers, soldiers, traders and colonialists spread globally (variously to explore, battle, trade, exploit, occupy etc), not only did they steal people, resources and land, shamelessly they also absorbed words from Africa, the Middle East and, most numerously, the Indian sub-continent during the British Raj.

This is a representation of “pitch black”.  Although used loosely to mean something like “very dark”, strictly speaking, “pitch black” should be used only to covey the idea of an “absence of light”, the allusion to tar, a black, oily, sticky, viscous substance, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons derived from organic materials such as wood, peat, or coal.

The terms “pitch black”, “pitch darkness” etc are a reference to the blackness of pitch in the sense of “tar” and in mineralogy, pitchblende is a naturally-occurring uranium oxide, a variety of the mineral uraninite.  As a verb, pitch can be used variously as “to pitch a tent” (ie erect one’s tent, that use based on an obsolete use of pitch to mean “firmly to fix (embed) in the ground”), “make a pitch for something” (suggest some course of action or try to sell something”), pitch (throw) a ball (most associated with baseball), cut a stone with a chisel.  In (now obsolete) historic military jargon, “to pitch” was “to arrange the field of battle” and although the term has fallen from use, the practice persists although few field commanders would now suggest the object is (as once did Field Marshal Lord Bernard Montgomery, 1887–1976) to make things “clean and tidy”.  Also now obsolete is the use of “to pitch” meaning “to settle down (in one place); to become established”; that had been based on the old use meaning “firmly to fix (embed) in the ground”.

Comrade Fidel Castro (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008, left) and Jimmy Carter (b 1924; POTUS 1977-1981), Estadio Latinoamericano (Latin American Stadium), Havana, Cuba, May 2002.  In Mr Carter's right hand is the baseball he's about to pitch.

In baseball, the “ceremonial first pitch” is a “symbolic pitch” (ie one with no consequence in the game) staged as a prelude to the game proper.  POTUESes and others have been among the celebrities engaged as “ceremonial pitchers” and some have proved more adept than others.  Jimmy Carter in 2002 made a private visit to Havana with the hope of improving relations between Cuba and the US, strained since the Cuban revolution in 1959.  In the short term, little that could be called substantive would be achieved but what would now be called “the optics” were good, comrade Castro inviting the former president to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Cuban League All-Star Game in Havana's Estadio Latinoamericano.  Apparently, baseball fan comrade Castro personally provided training in “making the perfect pitch” but, just to be sure, Mr Carter also had a few sessions with his Secret Service detail, reportedly on the roof of his hotel.  On the night, he threw what was described as “a good pitch” and it was well received by the capacity crowd, the event in the history books as a rare example of diplomacia del beisbol (baseball diplomacy) and the sport does appear in the odd footnote in presidential histories.  On the opening day (13 April) of the 1964 MLB (Major League Baseball) season at Washington DC’s District of Columbia Stadium (now the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium), Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) set the record for the most hot dogs eaten by a president on Opening Day, all four scoffed down in the approved manner (ie without resort to knife & fork).  The record still stands, something which must not have been brought to the attention of Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) because, if he knew, there would have been a post on Truth Social correcting the record by revealing he'd once eaten five.

Baseball has variants of the position of pitcher (the player who throws the ball to the opposition batter) including “non-pitcher” (team member who does not pitch and is thus obliged to bat, “relief pitcher” (a pitcher who takes the place of the “starting pitcher” (or another relief pitcher) in cases of injury, ineffectiveness, ejection from the game or fatigue, “switch pitcher” (a pitcher who play ambidextrously (pitches both right & left-handed), “setup pitcher” (a relief pitcher who pitches usually in the 8^th inning to maintain a lead, serving as the bridge to the closer in the 9^th, “middle relief pitcher” (MRP) (a relief pitcher who pitches usually the 5^th, 6^th or 7^th innings to bridge the gap between the starting pitcher and late-inning relievers (setup or closer pitchers) and “closer pitcher” (A specialist relief pitcher skilled in securing the final outs, typically in the 9^th inning, to protect a narrow lead or ear a “save”.

Pylon

Pylon (pronounced pahy-lon)

(1) A marking post or tower for guiding aviators, much used in air-racing to mark turning points in a a prescribed course of flight.

(2) A relatively tall structure at the side of a gate, bridge, or avenue, marking an entrance or approach.

(3) A monumental tower forming the entrance to an ancient Egyptian temple, consisting either of a pair of tall quadrilateral masonry masses with sloping sides and a doorway between them or of one such mass pierced with a doorway.

(4) In electricity transmission, a steel tower or mast carrying high-tension lines, telephone wires, or other cables and lines (usually as power-pylon, electricity pylon or transmission tower).

(5) In architecture (1) a tall, tower-like structure (usually of steel or concrete) from which cables are strung to support other structures and (2) a lighting mast; a freestanding support for floodlights.

(6) In aeronautics, a streamlined, finlike structure used to attach engines, auxiliary fuel tanks, bombs, etc to an aircraft wing or fuselage.

(7) In modeling, as “pylon shot”, a pose in which a model stands with arms raised or extended outwards, resembling an electricity pylon.

(8) An alternative name for an obelisk.

(9) In aviation, a starting derrick for an aircraft (obsolete) and a tethering point for an dirigible (airship).

(10) In American football (gridiron), an orange marker designating one of the four corners of the field’s end zones.

(11) In the slang of artificial limb makers (1) a temporary artificial leg and (2) a rigid prosthesis for the lower leg.

(12) In literature, as "Pylon Poet" (usually in the plural as “the Pylons”), a group of British poets who during the 1930s included in their work many references to new & newish mechanical devices and other technological developments.

(13) In slang, a traffic cone.

1823: A learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) (gateway; gate tower), from pylē (gate, wing of a pair of double gates; an entrance, entrance into a country; mountain pass; narrow strait of water) of unknown origin but etymologists suspect it may be a technical term (from architecture or construction) from another language.  The first use was in archaeology to describe a “gateway to an Egyptian temple”, a direct adaptation of the original Greek.  In Western architecture, it’s believed the first “modern” pylons were the tall, upright structures installed at aerodromes to guide aviators and it was the appearance of these things which inspired the later use as “power pylon” (steel tower for high-tension wires over distance, use noted since 1923) and the word spread to any number of similar looking devices (even those on a small scale such as traffic cones).  Until then, in engineering and architecture, tall structures used to carry cables or in some way provide support (or even be mere decorative) were described as a “tower” or “obelisk” (such use continuing).  Pylon is a noun and pylonless, pylonlike, pylonesque & pylonish are adjectives; the noun plural is pylons.  Despite the fondness in engineering for such forms to emerge, the verbs pyloned & pyloning seem never to have been coined.

The Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) was used of the grand architecture seen in the entrances to temples and the usual word for doors (and gates) rather more modest was θύρα (thýra).  It was a feminine noun and appears in various forms depending on the grammatical case (θύρα (nominative singular; a door), θύρας (genitive singular; of a door) & θύραι (nominative plural; doors).  Etymologists believe θύρα may have undergone phonological changes, adapting to Greek morphology and pronunciation patterns, while retaining its fundamental meaning tied to entryways or openings.  The word was from the primitive Indo-European dhur or dhwer (door; gateway) which was the source also of the Latin foris (door, entrance), the Sanskrit dvā́r (door, gate), the Old English duru (door) and the Old Norse dyrr (door).  Because of their functional role and symbolism as thresholds (ie transition, entry, protection), the door played a prominent part in linguistic as well as architectural evolution.

Temple of Isis, first pylon, north-eastern view.

The Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) was the classical term for an Egyptian ceremonial gateway (bekhenet) used in temples from at least the Middle Kingdom to the Roman period (circa 2040 BC–AD 395) and anthropologists have concluded the intent was to symbolize the horizon.  The basic structure of a pylon consisted of two massive towers of rubble-filled masonry tapering upwards, surmounted by a cornice and linked in the centre by an elaborate doorway.  Ancient depictions of pylons show that the deep vertical recesses visible along the facades of surviving examples were intended for the mounting of flag staffs.

An “anchor pylon” is the one which forms the endpoint of a high-voltage and differs from other pylons in that it uses horizontal insulators, necessary when interfacing with other modes of power transmission and (owing to the inflexibility of the conductors), when significantly altering the direction of the pylon chain.  In large-scale display advertizing, a “pylon sign” is a tall sign supported by one or more poles and in the original industry jargon was something in what would now be called “portrait mode”; a sign in “landscape mode” being a “billboard”.  Not surprisingly, there are a number of mountains known as “Pylon Peak”.  The task of naming such geological features is part of the field of toponymy (in semantics the lexicological study of place names(a branch of onomastics)) and a specialist in such things is known as a toponymist.  The term toponomy was later borrowed by medicine where it was used of the nomenclature of anatomical regions. In aviation, the “pylon turn” is a flight maneuver in which an aircraft banks into a circular turn around a fixed point on the ground.

The Ancient Greek πυλών (pulṓn; pylṓn) was used of the grand architecture seen in the entrances to temples and the usual word for doors (and gates) rather more modest was θύρα (thýra).  It was a feminine noun and appears in various forms depending on the grammatical case (θύρα (nominative singular; a door), θύρας (genitive singular; of a door) & θύραι (nominative plural; doors).  Etymologists believe θύρα may have undergone phonological changes, adapting to Greek morphology and pronunciation patterns, while retaining its fundamental meaning tied to entryways or openings.  The word was from the primitive Indo-European dhur or dhwer (door; gateway) which was the source also of the Latin foris (door, entrance), the Sanskrit dvā́r (door, gate), the Old English duru (door) and the Old Norse dyrr (door).  Because of their functional role and symbolism as thresholds (ie transition, entry, protection), the door played a prominent part in linguistic as well as architectural evolution.

The plyon pose: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates some variations.

In modeling, the “pylon shot” is used to describe the pose in which a model stands with arms raised or extended outwards, resembling (at least vaguely) an electricity pylon, the appearance of which is anthropomorphic.  There are practical benefits for designers in that raising the arms permits a photographer to include more of a garment in the frame and this can be significant if there’s detailing which are at least partially concealed with the arms in their usual position.  Topless models also adopt variations of the pose because the anatomical affect of raising the arms also lifts and to some extent re-shapes the breasts, lending them temporarily a higher, a more pleasing aspect.

The Pylons

The so-called “pylon poets” (referred to usually as “the Pylons”) were a group who dominated British poetry during the 1930s, a time when the form assumed a greater cultural and intellectual significance than today.  The best known (and certainly among the most prolific) of the Pylons were Louis MacNeice (1907–1963), Stephen Spender (1909–1995), WH Auden (1907-1973) and Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972), their names sometimes conflated as “MacSpaunday”.  It was Spender’s poem The Pylons which inspired the nickname and it referenced the frequent references to the images of “industrial modernity”, drawn from new(ish) technology and the machinery of factories.  The intrusion of novel machinery and technology into a variety of fields is not unusual; in the age of steam the devices were used as similes when speculating about the operation of the human brain, just as the terminology of computers came to be used when the lexicon entered the public imagination.  Their method underlying the output of the pylons was influenced by the metaphysical poetry of John Donne (circa 1571-1631) whose use of “scientific” imagery was much admired by TS Eliot (1888–1965), the work of whom was acknowledged as influential by both Auden and Spender.  However, the 1930s were the years of the Great Depression and probably their most fertile source was Marxist materialism although, of the Pylons, historians tend to regard only Day-Lewis as one of the “useful idiots”.

The Pylons (1933) by Stephen Spender.

The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages
Of that stone made,
And crumbling roads
That turned on sudden hidden villages
 
Now over these small hills, they have built the concrete
That trails black wire
Pylons, those pillars
Bare like nude giant girls that have no secret.
 
The valley with its gilt and evening look
And the green chestnut
Of customary root,
Are mocked dry like the parched bed of a brook.
 
But far above and far as sight endures
Like whips of anger
With lightning's danger
There runs the quick perspective of the future.
 
This dwarfs our emerald country by its trek
So tall with prophecy
Dreaming of cities
Where often clouds shall lean their swan-white neck.

The term “useful idiot” is from political science and so associated with Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924; first leader of Soviet Russia 1917-1922 & USSR 1922-1924) that it's attributed to him but there's no evidence he ever spoke or wrote the words.  It became popular during the Cold War to describe pro-communist intellectuals and apologists in the West, the (probably retrospective) association with Lenin probably because had the useful idiots actually assisted achieving a communist revolution there, their usefulness outlived, he'd likely have had at least some of them shot as "trouble-makers".  Although it took many Western intellectuals decades to recant (some never quite managed) their support for the Soviet Union, the watershed was probably Comrade Khrushchev's (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964)  so called "Secret Speech" (On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences) to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956 in which he provided a detailed critique of the rule of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), especially the bloody purges of the late 1930s.

Some had however already refused to deny what had become obvious to all but avid denialists, and in 1949 a contribution by Spender appeared in The God that Failed, a collection of six essays in which the writers lay bare their sense of betrayal and disillusionment with communism because of the totalitarian state forged by comrade Stalin which was in so many ways just another form of fascism.  Spender was associated with the intellectual wing of left-wing politics during the 1930s and was briefly a member of the Communist Party but his attraction seems to have been motivated mostly by the Soviet Union’s promises of equality and its anti-fascist stance.  He quickly became disillusioned with the Soviet state, unable to reconcile its authoritarianism with his personal beliefs in freedom and individual rights, a critical stance differentiated him from figures like George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950) and Sidney (1859–1947) & Beatrice Webb (1858–1943), the latter couple for some time definitely useful idiots.

The sort of sights which would have inspired Spender’s line “Bare like nude giant girls that have no secret”.

Louis MacNeice, was politically engaged during the 1930s but that was hardly something unusual among writers & intellectuals during that troubled decade.  Among the pylons he seems to have been the most sceptical about the tenets of communism and the nature of comrade Stalin’s state and no historians seem every to have listed him among the useful idiots, his views of the left as critical and nuanced as they were of the right.  What he most objected to was the tendency among idealistic & politically committed intellectuals to engage in a kind of reductionism which allowed them to present simplistic solutions to complex problems in a form which was little more than propaganda, a critique he explored in his poem Autumn Journal (1939) captures his doubts about political certainty and his disillusionment with simplistic solutions to complex problems.  Auden certainly wasn’t a “useful idiot” and while politically engaged and associated with several leftist intellectual circles during the 1930s, his sympathy for Marxism and anti-fascist causes were really not far removed from those share by even some mainstream figures and a capacity for self-reflection never deserted him.  Much was made of the time he spent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1940) but he went as an observer and a propagandist rather than a combatant and what he saw made his disillusioned with the ideological rigidity and in-fighting among leftist factions and he made no secret of his distaste for Stalinist communists.  By the early 1940s, he was distancing himself from Marxism, the process much accelerated by his re-embrace of Christianity where, at least debatably, he discharged another form of useful idiocy, his disapproval of collectivist ideologies apparently not extending to the Church of England.

Profiles of some electricity pylons.  There a literally dozens of variations, the designs dictated by factors such as the ground environment, proximity to people, voltage requirements, weight to be carried, economics, expected climatic conditions and a myriad of other specifics.

Of the Pylons, Cecil Day-Lewis (who served as Poet Laureate of the UK 1968-1972) had the most active period engagement with communism and Marxist ideals and he was for a time politically aligned with the Soviet Union; it was a genuine ideological commitment.  During the 1930s, the true nature of the Soviet Union wasn’t generally known (or accepted) in the West and Day-Lewis admired the Soviet Union as an experiment in social and economic equality which he championed and it wasn’t until late in the decade he realized the ideals he had embraced had been betrayed; it was Great Purge and the Moscow Show-Trials which triggered his final disillusionment.  Day-Lewis later acknowledged the naivety and moral compromises of his earlier stance and came to argue poetry and art should not be subordinated to political ideology, a view formed by his understanding of the implications of propagandistic pieces of his younger years being exactly that.

Naiad

Naiad (pronounced ney-ad, ney-uhd or nahy-ad)

(1) In Classical Mythology, a nymph (a female deity) dwelling in (in some stories “presiding over”) a lake, river, spring or fountain.

(2) In entomology, aquatic larva or juvenile form of the dragonfly, damselfly, mayfly and related insects.

(3) In botany, any monocotyledonous submerged aquatic plant of the genus Naias (or Najas), having narrow leaves and small flowers (of the family Naiadaceae (or Najadaceae) and also called the water nymph.

(4) In malacology, any of certain freshwater mussels of the genus Unio.

(5) In informal use, a female swimmer, especially a young, expert one.

Circa 1600: From the Latin Nais, Naias & Nāïad- (stem of Nāïas, genitive naiadis), from the Ancient Greek Nāïás (plural Naiades) (a water nymph) and related to νάω (náō or náein) (to flow), from the primitive Indo-European naw-yo-, a suffixed form of snau & nau- (to swim, flow, let flow (from the primitive Indo-European root sna- (to swim).  The English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright John Dryden (1631–1700) used the Latin singular form Nais; In English, the plural form Naiades was in use as early as the late fourteenth century and the use of the initial capital was inconsistent, something not unusual in Middle and early Modern English .  Naiad is a noun; the noun plural is naiads or naiades.

The companion term (in the sense they were often riparian (growing on the bank of a river or stream)) was dryad (a female tree spirit), from the Old French driade (wood nymph), from the Latin Dryas & Dryadis, from the Ancient Greek Δρυάς (Druás) (dryad), from δρῦς (drûs) (oak), from the primitive Indo-European derew & derewo- (tree, wood) and related to the primitive Indo-European dóru (tree).  The niads should not be confused with the Nereids (plural Nereids or Nereides).  In Greek Mythology, Nerids were one of 50 sea nymphs who were attendants upon Poseidon (Neptune); they were represented riding on sea horses, sometimes in human form and sometimes with the tail of a fish.  In zoology, nerid is an alternative form of nereidid (any polychaete worm of the Nereididae).  Nereid was from the stem of the Latin Nērēis (sea-nymph), from the Ancient Greek Νηρηΐς (Nērēḯs), from Νηρεύς (Nēreús) (the sea-god Nereus).

Fuchsia Water Nymph.

The Naiads were water nymphs who, although very long-lived, were mortal, a physiology not unique among the deities of Classical Mythology and although the Naiads incarnate the divinity of the spring or stream which they inhabited, a waterway could be the home to more than one of the nymphs; presence did not confer an exclusivity of dominion.  As is typical of the myths, the stories often are inconsistent for although Homer said the Naiads were the daughters of Zeus, elsewhere they’re described as daughters of the waters in which they dwell.  The daughters of Ασωπός (Asopus) were Naiads.  Asopus (Ασωπός) was the god of the river Asopus and (the family tree is typically murky and varies with the source) was either son of Poseidon & Pero, of Zeus & Eurynome or of Oceanus & Tethys.  He married Metope, the daughter of Ladon, fathered two sons (Ismenus and Pelagon) and an impressive 20 daughters although The Greek historian of the first century BC, Διόδωρος (Diodorus of Sicily) listed the names only of a dozen (Corcyra, Salamis, Aegina, Pirene, Cleone, Thebe, Tanagra, Thespia, Asopis, Sinope, Oenia (or Ornia) and Chalcis.  Confusingly Asopus is in other places mentioned as the said to be the father of Antiope and Plataea (that genealogy contested by other authors), after whom the city Plataea is named.  Plataea was a city-state in Boeotia at the foot of Mount Cithaeron, between the mountain and the river Asopus (which divided its territory from that of Thebes).  The modern Greek town of Plataies is adjacent to its ruins.

Led astray by freshwater sirens: Hylas and the Nymphs (1896), oil on canvas by the aptly named John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), Manchester Art Gallery, England.  Ύλας (Hylas) would not long live to enjoy his flirtation with a pack of Naiads.  Much taken by his beauty, the naiads lured the youth to the water for their pleasure, after which, according to the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD), they drowned him; at the least, that suggests ingratitude.  Hylas may have died content but that's not something on which Ovid dwelt.

In theory, there shouldn't be a river or spring without at least one naiad but the storied ones were those associated with famous waterways and many of the nymphs had adventures (not always welcome) with the good, great and ghastly.  At Syracuse dwelt the beautiful Αρέθουσα (Arethusa; all nymphs were beauties but Arethusa was a supermodel among the breed), a companion of Αρτεμις (Artemis) who was identified by the Romans with Diana.  Some said she was the daughter of Demeter, but in most stories she was the twin sister of Apollo, their parents being Zeus and Leto.  One day, while swimming in the river (something which, unsurprisingly, the Naiads often did), Arethusa realized she wasn’t alone when she heard the voice of Alpheus, the god of the river, whose crush on her had developed into a passion which included stalking her.  Pursued by the lustful god, the nymph fled, crying out for Artemis to save her from what she knew would be an awful fate.  Artemis surrounded her in a concealing fog but Alpheus refused to leave the place where the mist swirled and in fright, Arethusa turned into a fountain.  In the way the myths handle the physics of such circumstances, the earth opened up to prevent Alpheus mingling his own waters with those of the spring which Arethusa had become, and, guided by Artemis, Arethusa went through underground channels to Syracuse, on the Island of Ortygia (which is dedicated to Artemis).  This Hellenistic myth is preferred by most but another version of the attempted sexual assault involves Αλφειός (Alpheus, (another river god)) which differs only in detail.

Lindsay Lohan, as a Naiad, surfacing from her spring.

The Naiads were often claimed to possess powers of healing and the notion of “curing waters” persists into the twenty-first century; although some of this is quackery there is a scientific basis in some cases and the origin of the use of lithium as an early anti-depressant was physicians in Ancient Greek noting the drinking of waters from a certain place “cured men of melancholy”.  Those waters turned out to have a pharmacologically significant lithium content.  However, not all naiads could be used so efficaciously because bathing in certain springs or rivers could be considered sacrilegious, even if it was someone exulted taking a dip.  Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (37-68; Roman emperor (and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty) 54-68)) was attacked by fever and some sort of partial paralysis and after bathing in the source of the Aqua Marcia and the Roman scuttlebutt was he’s incurred the displeasure of the Naiads, something which brought Nero’s subjects some delight.  Clearly, one upset a Naiad a one’s own risk because it was said also they could visit madness upon those who laid eyes on them, the nymphs possessing the mortal spirit of a transgressor and driving them to insanity.  For this reasons, travelers were warned (the Trip Advisor concept is not new) Naiads were particularly numerous in the Péloponnèse, a place of many waterways.

Palinode

Palinode (pronounced pal-uh-nohd)

(1) A poem in which the poet retracts something said in an earlier poem.

(2) A recantation (used loosely and now rare).

(3) In Scots law, a recantation of a defamatory statement.

1590–1600: From the sixteenth century French palinode (poetical recantation, poem in which the poet retracts invective contained in a former satire), from the Middle French palinode, from the Late Latin palinōdia (palinode, recantation), from the Ancient Greek παλινῳδία (palinōidía) (poetic retraction), the construct being πάλιν (pálin) (again, back) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ) (ode, song) + -ia (from the Latin -ia and the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia), which form abstract nouns of feminine gender.  It was used when names of countries, diseases, species etc and occasionally collections of stuff).  The alternative form palinody is obsolete.  Palinode & palinodist are nouns, palinodial, palinodical & palinodic are adjectives and palinodically is a (non-standard) adverb; the noun plural is palinodes).

Although the palinode is now usually defined as meaning “a poem in which the palinodist (ie the poet) retracts something said in an earlier poem”, the French in the sixteenth century seem mostly to have use the word of works in which the writer “retracts invective contained in a former satire”.  It thus had an obviously political slant and it seems likely at least some palinodes were penned to stave of threats of legal action (or something worse).  Although it endures in literary use (and among political scientists with a feeling for classical forms), the word has long been obscure and the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) lists the adjective palinodical as obsolete with its only known instance of use dating from 1602 when it appeared in a work by the English poet, playwright and pamphleteer Thomas Dekker (circa 1572-1632).  The “other” species of palinode was the “ode to Sarah Palin” (b 1964; Republican nominee for VPOTUS 2008) of which there were several including some set to music.

The palinode became associated with poetry because verse (in one form or another) was once a more common form of written expression.  It has however been applied to any retraction or recantation (formal or otherwise), especially one that publicly withdraws an earlier statement, belief or work.  For reasons of ecclesiastical practice, theological palinodes tended to be in verse but there were exceptions including by John Milton (1608–1674) who in The Reason of Church-Government (1642) retracted his earlier advocacy of episcopacy (the bishops and their role), acknowledging his views had changed; for years it remained a rare example of its type.  Beyond poetry proper, use has been quite loose and memorable palinodes have been political, scientific and literary, some especially of the latter described variously as “insincere”, “back-handed” or “bitchy”.  Much of their charm lies in some retractions becoming famous while the original text doubtlessly would have been forgotten were it not for the palinode.

The Death of Socrates (1787), oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.  Had Socrates just dashed off a palinode, maybe he'd never have had to take his dish of hemlock.

The archetypal palinode dates from the sixth century BC and it set the template.  According to legend, the Greek lyric poet Stesichorus (Στησίχορος, circa 630–555 BC) blamed Helen of Troy for the Trojan War and almost at once was struck blind.  He then composed a (“it was not true…”) palinode absolving Helen of guilt, the words of the encomium (praise, eulogy) said to have come to him in a dream.  His sight was restored, thus the understanding the use of the device as a means of undoing moral or divine offense.  The texts from Antiquity have of course survived only in fragmentary form but clearly there were palinodes, Plato (circa 427-348 BC) in his Phaedrus (a dialogue between Socrates (circa 470–399 BC) and Phaedrus (circa 444–393 BC)) he recounted how Socrates first delivers a speech condemning love, then explicitly retracts it with a second passage praising divine madness and erotic love.  Plato explicitly called the second speech “a palinode”, making it one of philosophy’s earliest known self-conscious retractions and, it has to be admitted, only those for whom martyrdom is a calling would think it not preferable to taking hemlock.

Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400), right at the end of The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), as a formal retraction, disowned those earlier passages he had come to think sinful or frivolous and begged forgiveness for having written them.  It's considered one of Medieval literature’s most explicit and sincere palinodes and presumably he also asked God and at least one priest for absolution for those unworthy thoughts, this likely the course of action taken also by the English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) who wrote long pieces disavowing earlier having welcomed communism and opposed censorship.  One long-established tradition (transgress with enthusiasm in youth; reform with piety as one contemplates mortality) is a movement owing much to Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) who in Confessiones (Confessions, 397-400) wrote: Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet), an exemplar of that school of the palinodic being George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009) who abandoned whiskey and much else.  As he might have put it in a “Bushism”: “I spent my youth misunfortunatistically”.  The whole “born-again” movement in Christianity seems often something of a life lived palinodically.

Galileo before the Holy Office (1847), oil on canvas by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury (1797-1890).

The element “Holy Office” was first applied to the official designation for the Inquisition during the thirteenth century and after that there were a number of variant constructions before in 1965, it was renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the most famous of the latter-day inquisitors being Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) who, with some relish, discharged the role between 1981-2005.  Since 2022, the Inquisition has been styled the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).  Coincidentally, DDF is also the acronym for “drug & disease free” and (in gaming) “Doom definition file” while there’s also the DDF Network which is an aggregator of pornography content.  The Holy See may be aware of these uses but probably takes the view the target markets are different and, given the DDF Network appears not to offer any “gay male” content, if one author’s conclusions are accepted, the site is unlikely often to be accessed by priests, bishops, cardinals and such.

Some palinodes have become among the more famous statements made by an accused before a court.  Under courts run by the Nazis and the Soviet Union they were of course legion (the scripts often written by the prosecutors) but the most famous was probably the retraction the Roman Inquisition in 1633 extracted from the Italian physicist and pioneering astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642); under threat of torture (words to be taken seriously if from the lips of an inquisitor), he abjured his support for heliocentrism; the defendant's legendary mutter: “Eppur si muove” (although it does move) almost certainly apocryphal.  After that, palinodes came thick and fast, the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in Les Confessions (Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1770, published 1782)) not only his retracted many of his earlier stances (especially in matters of religion and education) but did so repeatedly, sometimes in the same chapter.  More than a decade in the writing, Les Confessions functions as something of a “rolling palinode”, his intellectual past constantly revised.  More nuanced in this approach was the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who, in later editions of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), toned down or even withdrew some claims regarding human evolution and teleology.  These revisions can be considered “partial palinodes” but they were really merely a reflection of the modern scientific method which updates theories as new evidence emerges; a matter of correct intellectual caution.

Agitprop poster of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953, left) greeting comrade Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976, right).  The Russian slogan (РАБОТАТЬ ТАК, ЧТОБЫ ТОВАРИЩ СТАЛИН СПАСИБО СКАЗАЛ!) translates best as “Work in such a way that comrade Stalin will say ‘thank you.’”  In comrade Stalin’s Soviet Union, wise comrades followed this sound advice.  For students of the techniques used in the propaganda of personality cults, it should be noted comrade Stalin stood around 1.65 metres (5 foot, 5 inches) tall.

In the matter of scientific and intellectual palinodes, others can do the retractions which can be thought of as palinodes by proxy or (more flippantly) Munchausen palinodes by proxy.  To avoid damage to his reputation, Sir Isaac Newton’s (1642–1727) executors and later editors suppressed and implicitly retracted his alchemical writings and similar judicious editing has excised from the records of some their embrace of the once intellectually respectable field of astrology.  Actually, Newton wasn’t wholly wrong on the science; at the molecular level there is little difference between lead and gold and although traditional chemical alchemy seems impossible, recent experiments have, atom-by-atom, transformed lead into gold, the problem being that to transform a few atoms (and even these often short-lived radioactive isotopes rather than stable Au-197) demanded the use of a huge and expensive particle accelerator; unless there’s some unanticipated breakthrough, the process cannot be scaled up so gold must continue to be dug up.  Communism systems too belatedly made something of an art of the palinode.

In the Soviet Union, after the death of comrade Stalin, a number of “scientific orthodoxies” supported by the late leader abruptly were cancelled, notably the dotty, pseudoscientific “theories” of agronomist Trofim Lysenko whose doctrine of Lysenkoism set back Soviet agriculture by decades.  The evidence suggests comrade Stalin was well aware comrade Lysenko was likely a comrade charlatan but, uniquely among the many Soviet apparatchiks, the dodgy agronomist achieved a great rapport with the peasants who were being most tiresome.  It was Lysenko’s remarkable success in convincing peasants to accept the Kremlin’s imposition of collectivized farming that make him Stalin’s invaluable asset.  In China, when comrade Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the CCP, 1949-1976) instituted many of Lysenko’s “agricultural reforms” (which included applying Karl Marx's (1818-1883) theories of class consciousness to the thought processes of seeds), in the great famine which followed, it's believed between 40-45 million may have starved to death.  The Kremlin was at least precise in who or what got cancelled whereas the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) were a little vague although the Chinese people understood their language.  Long skilled at “reading between the Central Committee’s lines”, when they heard it admitted comrade Chairman Mao’s legacy was “70% good and 30% bad”, the meaning was clear.  As a judgment it may have been generous but if applied to some leaders in the West, would the numbers be any more favorable?

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Vogue Czechoslovakia, May 2025.

So palinody has a long tradition but while figures like Rousseau, Darwin and Muggeridge had years or even decades “agonizingly to reappraise” their position, in the social media age, it can within the hour be necessary to recant.  In 2006, Lindsay Lohan granted an interview to Vanity Fair in which she acknowledged: “I knew I had a problem and I couldn't admit it.  “I was making myself sick.  I was sick and I had people sit me down and say: 'You're going to die if you don't take care of yourself'”, adding she used drugs: “a little”.  On reflection, and possibly after seeking advice, he publicist the next day contacted the magazine in an attempt to get the “drug confession” retracted.  Later, she would also recant her claims her earlier (and by some much-admired) weight-loss had been achieved by D&E (diet & exercise), admitting it was the consequence of an eating disorder.  Ms Lohan has issued a few palinodes (but although also a song-writer, none have been in poetic verse) and as well as drug use, the correctives have covered topics such as the MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein (b 1952), Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) and her attitudes to motherhood.

Ye (b 1977, the artist formerly known as Kanye West).

The first notable palinode of 2026 was interesting for a number of reasons, the first of which was structural.  Although the once vibrant industry of print journalism has in the West been hollowed out by successive strikes from the internet, social media and AI (artificial intelligence), in a tactic guaranteed to ensure maximum cross-platform coverage, the multi-media personality, rap singer and apparel designer Ye chose as the host for his latest announcement not Instagram or X (formerly known as Twitter) but a full-page advertisement in Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ (Wall Street Journal).  As a “commercial, in confidence” arrangement, it’s not certain how much the WSJ would have invoiced to run the copy but advertising in the paper remains at “premium level” because of its national circulation and readership with a high proportion in the still much-prized “A”, “B1” & “B2” demographics.  Industry sources suggest that, depending on the day of the week and other variables, a full-page advertisement (black & white) placement in the WSJ’s national edition typically would cost between US$160,000–$220,000 for a “one-off” (ie no re-runs or ongoing contract).

That’s obviously rather more than a post on Instagram or X but what a still “prestigious” legacy title like the WSJ confers is a certain “authority” because, as Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) explained in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964): “The medium is the message”.  If one conveys one’s message through a whole page of the WSJ, regardless of the text’s content, the message is different compared with the same words appearing on a social media platform: anyone can post a palinode on Instagram but only a few can pay Rupert Murdoch US$200,000-odd to print it in the WSJ.  The point about Mr Ye using the WSJ was the message was aimed not only at his usual audience but those in finance and industry who interact with the music and apparel businesses.  While some consumers of rap music or his other “projects” may be WSJ readers or even subscribers, the publication’s base has a very different profile and it will be a certain few of those Mr Ye wishes his message to reach.

Marigold Counseling's Bipolar Disorder chart.

Headed “To those I’ve hurt”, his palinode was more than a simple retraction and was an apology for his previous “reckless” anti-Semitism; whether “reckless” carefully was chosen from the spectrum (careless; reckless; intentional) used by disciplinary bodies in sporting competitions wasn’t discussed.  By way of explanation, Mr Ye revealed that some 25 years earlier, he’d suffered an injury to the “right frontal lobe” of his brain and, because the medical focus at the time was on the “immediate physical trauma”, “comprehensive scans were not done” meaning “the deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed.”  It seems that not until 2023 was his condition correctly assessed, the injury linked to his diagnosis with Bipolar Disorder type-1 (the old “manic depressive disorder”).  Clinicians distinguish between type 1 and type 2 Bipolar thus: (1) In Bipolar I disorder there must be at least one manic episode that may come before or after hypomanic or major depressive episodes (in some cases, mania may cause a dissociation from reality (psychosis)) and (2) In Bipolar II disorder there must be at least one depressive episode and at least one hypomanic episode but never any psychosis.  (Cyclothymic Disorder involves periods of hypomania and depression not sufficiently severe to be classified as full episodes).  As Mr Ye explained: “Bipolar disorder comes with its own defense system. Denial.  When you’re manic, you don’t think you’re sick. You think everyone else is overreacting.  You feel like you’re seeing the world more clearly than ever, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely.  Once people label you as ‘crazy’ you feel as if you cannot contribute anything meaningful to the world.  It’s easy for people to joke and laugh it off when in fact this is a very serious debilitating disease you can die from.”

As he further noted: “The scariest thing about this disorder is how persuasive it is when it tells you:  You don’t need help. It makes you blind, but convinced you have insight. You feel powerful, certain, unstoppable.  I lost touch with reality. Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem.  I said and did things I deeply regret.  Some of the people I love the most, I treated the worst. You endured fear, confusion, humiliation, and the exhaustion of trying to have someone who was, at times, unrecognizable. Looking back, I became detached from my true self.  In that fractured state, I gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T-shirts bearing it. One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type-1 are the disconnected moments - many of which I still cannot recall - that led to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body-experience.  I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.”  He also included remarks intended explicitly for the black community, which he acknowledged “held [him] down through all of the highs and lows and the darkest of times.  The black community is, unquestionably, the foundation of who I am. I am so sorry to have let you down. I love us.  My words as a leader in my community have global impact and influence.  In my mania, I lost complete sight of that.”

He made a comment also about what is a sometimes misunderstood aspect of Bipolar Disorder: “Having bipolar disorder is notable state of constant mental illness.  When you go into a manic episode, you are ill at that point. When you are not in an episode, you are completely ‘normal’.  And that’s when the wreckage from the illness hits the hardest.  Hitting rock bottom a few months ago, my wife encouraged me to finally get help.  My words as a leader in my community have global impact and influence. In my mania, I lost complete sight of that.  As I find my new baseline and new center through an effective regime of medication, therapy, exercise and clean living, I have newfound, much-needed clarity. I am pouring my energy into positive, meaningful art: music, clothing, design and other new ideas to help the world.”  He concluded by saying: “I’m not asking for sympathy, or a free pass, though I aspire to earn your forgiveness.  I write today simply to ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”  The message was signed “With love, Ye.”

Mr Ye with his wife, Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995) in “WET” themed top (which she wears well), Huacai Intercontinental Hotel, Beijing, China, September 2024.  Ms Censori works for Yeezy as an Architectural Designer.

What Mr Ye placed in the WSJ was a certain type of palinode, one in which there’s a retraction and definitely an apology but also an explanation.  Although, commendably, he included the words “…It does not excuse what I did…”, documenting the long-undiagnosed traumatic brain injury does provide an explanation for his conduct so, the piece is not a true mea culpa (from the Latin meā culpā (through my fault) and taken from the Confiteor, a traditional penitential prayer in Western Christianity; it’s best translated as “I am to blame”.  Mr Ye’s point was that what he did was wrong but “he” was not to blame in the sense that what he did was the result of the Bipolar Disorder induced by his injury.  What that means is that there was no mens rea (a construct from the Latin mēns + reus (literally “guilty mind”), the phrase a clipping of the precept in English common law: Actus non facit reum nisi mens rea sit (The act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty).  In other words: “I didn’t do it, the Bipolar Disorder did it”.  As a defence the approach is well-known but what Mr Ye is suggesting is supported in the medical literature, there being a number of documented cases of individuals whose behavior suddenly and radically changed for the worse as a result of a condition affecting the brain (either traumatic injury or an illness such as a tumor).  Despite his caveat, his diagnosed Bipolar Disorder, as well as explaining things, may well “excuse what I did”.

However, as an exercise in “reputational recovery” (one of the forks of “crisis management”), Mr Ye does have “a bit of previous” for which to atone including donning a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt which was controversial because there is no political or moral equivalence between that and the implications of “Black Lives Matter”.  In isolation, such a thing might have been thought just a publicity device and, in another time, the dark irony may have caught on in sections of the black community but in the atmosphere of 2022 it was the wrong item at the wrong time.  Worse was to come because later that year Mr Ye tweeted he was going “death con 3” on the Jews, the play on words assumed an adaptation of the DEFCON (Defense Readiness Condition) status levels used by the US military:

DEFCON 5: Normal peacetime readiness (lowest level).

DEFCON 4: Increased intelligence gathering and strengthened security.

DEFCON 3: Heightened readiness; forces ready for increased alert.

DEFCON 2: One step from nuclear war; forces ready to deploy at six hours notice.

DEFCON 1: Maximum readiness; imminent nuclear war or attack underway.

Fashion statement: Mr Ye in black capirote.

So it could have been worse, assuming his “death con 3” implied only “heightened readiness; forces ready for increased alert”.  The Pentagon invoked DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis (16-28 October 1962) and has never (as far as is known) triggered DEFCON 1.  However, “death con 3” was thought bad enough and a number of corporations sundered their contractual arrangements with Mr Ye, the loss of the agreement with Adidas believed financially the most damaging.  The next year, to his “Vultures album (re-titled Vultures 1 for the packaged release in 2024) listening party” Mr Ye wore a black Ku Klux Klan hood.  The use of black rather the while of the KKK in popular imagination attracted some comment from those who seek meaning in such things but it was historically authentic, the original, Reconstruction-era Klan (1865-1871) not having a standardized or even defined garb.  In the 1860s, members used whatever fabric was available, bed-sheets, blankets, sackcloth, and women’s dresses all re-purposed with no apparent interest in patterns or color co-ordination and animal hides or even face paint were used if no fabric was to hand.  The choices were pragmatic, the purposes concealment and intimidation, not visual uniformity.  The now familiar capirote (pointed hood) atop a white robe didn’t become emblematic of the KKK until the heyday of the so-called “Second Klan” between 1915 and the 1940s and although white deliberately was chosen as a symbol of “purity” and white supremacy, there’s nothing to suggest Mr Ye was seeking to vest his garment with similar denotations.

Fashion statement: Mr Ye in the now deleted “Swastika T-shirt” (the Yeezy part-number was HH01). 

Most provocative however was doubtlessly his adoption of the swastika for various purposes and his effuse praise for Hitler and Nazism.  In humanity’s long and depressing roll-call of evil and depravity, there is Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and there is “everybody else” so selling “swastika T-shirts” at US$20 (promoted in an advertisement at the 2025 Super Bowl) and “dropping a tune” titled Heil Hitler was never likely to be a good career move.  The product code for the T-shirts was “HH01” and those who recalled his comment: “There’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler" in a December 2022 podcast with the since bankrupted host Alex Jones (b 1974) probably deconstructed that to mean “Heil Hitler” although to remove any doubt he also tweeted: “I love Hitler” and “I'm a Nazi”.  Swastika T-shirts were just too much for Shopify which took down the page, issuing a statement saying Mr Ye had “violated” the company's T&Cs (terms & conditions).  It was an example of the dangers inherent in having a site administered by AI with humans checking the content only in reaction to complaints.

Forbes magazine, 31 August 2019.  Forbes had just anointed Mr Ye a “billionaire”.

Those with some generosity of spirit will attribute honorable motives to Mr Ye’s palinode while cynics will note the financial hit suffered as a consequence of his recent conduct.  In 2020, he complained to Forbes magazine it had neglected to include him on their much-anticipated “Billionaires List” (he may have been peeved his then wife (the estimable Kim Kardashian (b 1980)) had made the cut) and duly the publication re-crunched its numbers, including him in a revised edition.  In the wake of his troubles, Forbes “wrote down” the value of his brand and after the “Adidas fallout”, he didn’t appear on the 2023 list.  As he said in the WSJ advertisement, he is “pouring my energy into positive, meaningful art: music, clothing, design and other new ideas to help the world” and all these products, appropriately branded, need to be sold at a profit but having a brand tainted by an association with Nazism and anti-Semitism makes things a “harder sell”.  Hopefully, all will be forgiven and Yeezy-branded hoodies, running shoes and such will again ship in volume; Rupert Murdoch can be proud of the WSJ’s latest contribution to American commerce.