MRDA

MRDA (pronounced emm-ahr-dee-ey)

The abbreviation of “Mandy Rice-Davies Applies”, an aphorism used in law and politics to refer to any denial which is transparently self-interested.

1963: An allusion to the statement “Well he would, wouldn't he?”, said by Welsh model Mandy Rice-Davies (1944-2004) during cross-examination in a trial at the Old Bailey (the central criminal court for England & Wales) associated with the Profumo affair.

Lord Astor, Mandy Rice-Davies and the Profumo Affair

The context of Ms Rice-Davies’s answer was the question: “Are you aware that Lord Astor denies any impropriety in his relationship with you?” and the answer “Well he would, wouldn't he?” elicited from those in the court “some amusement”.  MDRA (Mandy Rice-Davies Applies) thus became in law and politics an aphorism used as “verbal shorthand” to refer to any denial which is transparently self-interested although it doesn’t of necessity imply a denial is untrue.  In general use, the fragment from the trial is often misquoted as “Well he would say that, wouldn't he?” because that better encapsulates the meaning without being misleading.

Mandy Rice-Davis (left) and Christine Keeler (right), London, 1963.

The Profumo affair was one of those fits of morality which from time-to-time would afflict English society in the twentieth century and was a marvellous mix of class, sex, spying & money, all things which make a good scandal especially juicy.  John Profumo (1915-2006) was the UK’s Minister for War (the UK cabinet retained the position until 1964 although it was disestablished in the US in 1947) who, then 46, was found to be conducting an adulterous affair with 19 year old topless model Christine Keeler (1942-2017) at the same time she was also enjoying trysts with a Russian spy, attached to the Soviet embassy with the cover of naval attaché.  Although there are to this day differing interpretations of the scandal, there have never been any doubts this potential Cold-War conduit between a KGB spy and Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for War represented at least a potential conflict of interest.

Dr Evatt (left), comrade Molotov (centre) and Soviet translator Alexei Pavlov, exchanging MRDAs in Russian & English, London, 1942.

MRDAs are common in courtrooms and among politicians but some became legends.  In 1954, Dr HV Evatt (1894–1965; Australian attorney-general & foreign minister 1941-1949, and leader of opposition 1951-1960), in the midst of a particularly febrile period during the Cold War, wrote a letter to comrade Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986; Soviet foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956) asking if allegations of Soviet espionage in Australia were true.  Comrade Molotov of course wrote back, politely denying the USSR engaged in spying anywhere.  Assured, Evatt read the letter to the parliament and the members sat for a moment stunned until, on both sides, loudly laughing.  It was a MRDA before there were MRDAs.

The Profumo affair is noted also for being at least an influence in the end of the “age of deference” in England and while that’s often probably overstated, the immediate reaction and the aftermath proved it wasn’t only across colonial Africa that a “wind of change” was blowing.  The second Lord Astor (1907–1966) was emblematic of the upper classes of England who once would have expected deference from someone like Ms Rice-Davis, someone “not of the better classes” as his lordship might have put it.  Although what came to be known as the “swinging sixties” didn’t really begin until a couple of years after the Profumo affair when the baby-boomers began to come of age, the generational shift had by then become apparent and it was something surprisingly sudden as the interest of the young switched from pop music to politics.  As recently as the 1959 election campaign, the patrician Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) had told the working classes “most of you have never had it so good” and for the last time they would express their gratitude to their betters, delivering the Tories an increased majority, an impressive achievement for "the last of the old Edwardians" who, upon assuming the premiership in 1957 in the wake of the Suez debacle, had told the Queen he doubted his administration would last six weeks.

In the matter of Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited [2024] FCA 369

Mr Justice Lee.

Justice Michael Lee (b 1965) in April 2024 handed down one of the more anticipated judgments of recent years, finding Bruce Lehrmann (b 1995), on the civil law test of the balance of probabilities, had raped Brittany Higgins (b 1993) on the sofa in a ministerial suite in Parliament House while the victim was affected by strong drink.  Apart from the heightened public interest in the verdict, lawyers were watching closely to see if there would be encouragement for those defending themselves in defamation cases, something which had been lent unexpected strength by an earlier judgment; although the matter of rape was central to the facts, Lehrmann v Network Ten was a defamation case.  However, for those who appreciate judicial findings for their use of language, Justice Lee didn’t disappoint and although neither Ms Rice-Davies nor MRDA were mentioned in his text, as he assessed the conduct and evidence of Mr Lehrmann, they may have come to mind.

Janet Albrechtsen in her study.

In his opening remarks, the judge acknowledged the case had become a cause celebre for many and that it was best described as “an omnishambles”, the construct being the Latin omni(s) (all) + shambles, from the Middle English schamels (plural of schamel), from the Old English sċeamol & sċamul (bench, stool), from the Proto-West Germanic skamul & skamil (stool, bench), from the Vulgar Latin scamellum, from the Classical Latin scamillum (little bench, ridge), from scamnum (bench, ridge, breadth of a field).  In English, shambles enjoyed a number of meanings including “a scene of great disorder or ruin”, “a cluttered or disorganized mess”, “a scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation” or (most evocatively), “a slaughterhouse”.  As one read the judgement one could see why the judge was drawn to the word although, in the quiet of his chambers, “clusterfuck” may have been in his thoughts as he pondered the best euphemism.  Helpfully, one of the Murdoch press’s legal commentators, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) who had been one of the journalists most interested in the case, informed the word nerds omnishambles (1) dated from 2009 when it was coined for the BBC political satire The Thick Of It and (2) had endured well enough to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2021 Word of the Year.  The judge's linguistic flourish was a hint of things to come in what was one of the more readable recent judgments.

Noting Mr Lehrmann’s original criminal trial on the rape charge had been aborted (after having already been delayed for reasons related to the defamation matter) because of jury misconduct with a subsequent retrial not pursued because of the prosecution’s concern about the fragile mental state of the complainant, the judge observed “Having escaped the lion’s den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of coming back for his hat.”  In other words, Mr Lehrmann who could have walked away with no findings against him, lured by the millions of dollars to be gained, rolled the legal dice and was found to have committed rape.  He is of course not the first to fall victim to suffer self-inflicted legal injury in not dissimilar circumstances; the writers (from different literary traditions) Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and Jeffrey Archer (b 1940) both were convicted and imprisoned as a consequence of them having initiated libel actions.  Whether Mr Lehrmann will now face a retrial in the matter of rape is in the hands of the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).  In such a case, it would be necessary to prove the event happened under the usual test in criminal law: beyond reasonable doubt.  Even if that isn’t pursued by the DPP, his time in courtrooms may not be over because it’s possible he may face action because of his conduct in this trial with the handling of certain documents and another unrelated matter is pending in Queensland.

In considering the evidence offered by Mr Lehrmann, the judge appears to have found some great moments in the history of MRDAs:

Commenting on his claim to having returned (after midnight following Friday evening’s hours of convivial drinking) to his Parliament House office to write papers about the French submarines and related government matters, he observed Mr Lehrmann “…hitherto had demonstrated no outward signs of being a workaholic.”  “To remark that Mr Lehrmann was a poor witness is an exercise in understatement.”

Regarding the claim Mr Lehrmann had made to someone to whom he’d just been introduced that he was “…waiting on a clearance to come through so that he could go and work at Asis.” (the Australian Security Intelligence Service; the external intelligence service al la the UK SIS (MI6) or the US CIA (although without the assassinations… as far as is known)), the judge observed she “…kept her well-founded incredulity to herself.”, such “Walter Mitty-like imaginings” demonstrating he “…had no compunction about departing from the truth if he thought it expedient.”

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

The reading of the judgement was live-streamed and the passage which got the loudest chuckle was in the discussion of Mr Lehrmann’s deciding whether he found Ms Higgins attractive.  In an interview on commercial television broadcast in 2023, he’d denied finding the young lady attractive, despite the existence of comments dating from 2019 indicating the opposite.  Pausing only briefly, Justice Lee delivered this news with an arched eyebrow:  “When confronted by this inconsistency, his attempt to explain it away by suggesting the attraction he felt for Ms Higgins was ‘just like [the attraction] I can find [in] anybody else in this [court]room, irrespective of gender’ was as disconcerting as it was unconvincing.”  The judge ordered to audience to suppress their laughter.

Even regarding submarines as a likely topic over drinks, his honour was sceptical: “With the exception of Mr Lehrmann, no one who gave evidence as to their time at The Dock could recall discussing Australia’s submarine contracts with France at either table. The lack of recollection of any discussion of this topic is intuitively unsurprising.  Declaiming on the topics of who was building submarines and where they were being built was not quite the repartee one would usually expect to hear over a convivial drink on a Friday night between 20 [something]-year-olds out for a good time – even if (with respect) one would not expect the badinage of the Algonquin Round Table.” (an early twentieth century, shifting aggregation of men & women of letters who met over lunch in New York’s Algonquin Hotel, their barbs and thoughts often appearing in their newspaper & magazine columns; they dubbed themselves “The Vicious Circle” and were a sort of Cliveden set without the politics.  Cliveden was a stately home in Buckinghamshire, the country seat of Lord Astor and the scene of many of the events central to the Profumo affair).

The judge was forensic in his deconstruction of Mt Lehrmann’s MRDA he returned to Parliament House after being out drinking with Ms Higgins and others in order to retrieve his keys: “If the reason Mr Lehrmann needed to return to Parliament House was to collect his keys, he could have texted his girlfriend to have her meet him at the door or called her.  Mr Lehrmann asks me to accept the proposition that it was ‘a process to get in’ to his shared flat and that to avoid this complication, he preferred to: (a) go out of his way to go back to work in the early hours; (b) lie to Parliament House security; (c) sign the necessary register; (d) be issued with a pass; (e) go through a metal detector; (f) be escorted by a security guard to his office; (g) obtain his keys from his office; (h) book another Uber; (i) go back through a Parliamentary exit; (j) meet the ride-share car; and then (k) ride home.”

Bruce Lehrmann leaving the court after the verdict was delivered.

In psychiatry, distinction is made between the “habitual” and “compulsive” liar and while this wasn’t something Justice Lee explored, he did in one passage sum up his assessment of the likely relationship to truth in anything Mr Lehrmann might say: “I do not think Mr Lehrmann is a compulsive liar, and some of the untruths he told during his evidence may sometimes have been due to carelessness and confusion, but I am satisfied that in important respects he told deliberate lies. I would not accept anything he said except where it amounted to an admission, accorded with the inherent probabilities, or was corroborated by a contemporaneous document or a witness whose evidence I accept.”

One fun footnote from the case was a non-substantive matter, Ms Lisa Wilkinson (b 1959), the Network 10 journalist at the centre of the defamation claim, objecting to being characterized as a “tabloid journalist”.  It transpired her employment history included stints with Dolly, the Australian Women’s Weekly and commercial television including the Beauty & the Beast show.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t asked to define what she thought “tabloid journalism” meant; perhaps Justice Lee decided he’d heard enough MRDAs that day.

On the basis that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann did rape Ms Higgins, his claim for damages against Network Ten for defamatory material earlier broadcast was dismissed.  The judge found the material indeed had the capacity to defame but because the imputations substantially were true, their defense was sustained.  So, the only millions of dollars now to be discussed concern the legal costs: who is to pay whom, the judge asking the party’s submission be handed to the court by 22 April.  Mr Lehrmann’s legal team has not indicated if they’re contemplating an appeal.

MADD

MADD, Madd & MaDD (pronounced mad)

(1) The acronym (as MADD) for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a non-profit education and lobbying operation founded in California in 1982 with a remit to campaign against driving while drink or drug-affected.

(2) The acronym (as MADD) for Myoadenylate deaminase deficiency or Adenosine monophosphate deaminase.

(3) The acronym (as MADD) for multiple acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (known also as the genetic disorder Glutaric acidemia type 2).

(4) In computing (as MADD), the acronym for Multiple-Antenna Differential Decoding (a technique used in wireless comms using multiple antennas for both transmit & receive which improves performance by exploiting spatial diversity & multipath propagation of the wireless channel).

(5) As the gene MADD (or MAP kinase), an activating death domain protein.

(6) As Madd, the fruit of Saba senegalensis (a fruit-producing plant of the Apocynaceae family, native to the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa).

(7) As madd, a clipping of maddah (from the From Arabic مَدَّة (madda)), the English form of the Arabic diacritic (a distinguishing mark applied to a letter or character) used in both the Arabic & Persian.

(8) The acronym (as MaDD), Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder.

(9) The acronym (as MADD), for mutually assured digital destruction: a theory of cyber-warfare whereby each participant demonstrates to the other their capacity to inflict equal or more severe damage in retaliation, thereby deterring a cyber-attack (based on the earlier MAD (mutually assured destruction), a description of nuclear warfare deterrence).

From AD to MAD, 1962-1965

The period between the addition of nuclear weapons to the US arsenal in 1945 and 1949 when the USSR detonated their first atomic bomb was unique, a brief anomaly in the history of great-power conflict.  It's possible to find periods in history when one power has possessed an overwhelming preponderance of military strength that would have enabled them easily to defeat any enemy or possible coalition but never was the imbalance of force so asymmetric as it was between 1945-1949.   Once both the US and USSR possessed strategic nuclear arsenals, the underlying metric of Cold War became the two sides sitting in their bunkers counting warheads and the centrality of that lasted as long as the bombs were gravity devices delivered by aircraft which needed to get to a point above the target.  At this point, the military’s view was that nuclear war was possible and the only deterrent was to maintain a creditable threat of retaliation and, still in the age of the “bomber will always get through” doctrine, both sides literally kept squadrons of nuclear-armed bombers in the air 24/7.  Once ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and (especially) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBMs) were deployed, the calculation of nuclear war changed from damage assessment to an acknowledgement that, in the worse case scenarios made possible by the preservation of large-scale second-strike retaliatory capacity, although the "total mutual annihilation" of the popular imagination was never likely, the damage inflicted would have been many times worse and more extensive than in any previous conflict and, although the climatarian implications weren't at the time well-understood, the consequences would have been global and lasted to one degree or another for centuries.

It was thus politically and technologically deterministic that the idea of mutually assured destruction (MAD) would evolve and it was a modification of a deterrence doctrine known as AD (assured destruction) which appeared in Pentagon documents as early as 1962.  AD was intended as a way to deter the USSR from staging a first-strike against the US, the notion being that the engineering and geographical deployment of the US's retaliatory capacity was such that whatever was achieved by a Soviet attack, their territory would suffer something much worse.  To the Pentagon planners in their bunker, the internal logic of AD was compelling and was coined as a description of the prevailing situation rather than a theoretical doctrine.  To the general population, it obviously meant MAD (mutually assured destruction) and while as a doctrine of deterrence, the metrics remained the same, after 1966 when the term gained currency, it began to be used as an argument against the mere possession of nuclear arsenals, the paradox being the same acronym was also used to underpin the standard explanation of the structural reason nuclear warfare was avoided.  Just as paradoxically, while serving to prevent their use, MAD also fueled the arms race because the stalemate created its own inertia and it would be almost a decade before the cost and absurdity of maintaining the huge number of useless warheads was addressed.  MAD probably also contributed to both sides indulging in conflict by proxy, supporting wars and political movements which served as surrogate battles made too dangerous by the implications of MAD to be contested between the two big protagonists.

Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder

There are those who criticize the existence of MADD (Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder) as an example of the trend to “medicalize” aspects of human behaviour which have for millennia been regarded as “normal”, the implication being the sudden creation of a cohort of customers for psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical industry, the suspicion being MADD is of such interest to the medical-industrial complex because the catchment is of the “worried well”, those with sufficient disposable income to make the condition worthwhile, the poor too busy working to ensure food and shelter for their families for there to be much time to daydream.

Still, the consequences of MADD are known to be real and while daydreaming is a common and untroubling experience for many, in cases where it’s intrusive and frequent, it can cause real problems with everyday activities such as study or employment as well as being genuinely dangerous if associated with tasks such as driving or the use of heavy machinery.  The condition was first defined by Professor Eli Somer (b 1951; a former President of both the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) and the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD)) who described one manifestation as possibly an “escape or coping mechanism from trauma or abuse”, noting it may “involve long periods of structured fantasy”.  Specific research into MADD has been limited but small-scale studies have found some similarities to behavioral addictions, the commonality being a compulsion to engage in activities despite negative impacts on a person’s mental or physical health or ability to function various aspects of life. 

Despite the suggestion of similarities to diagnosable conditions, latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR, 2022) did not add an entry for MADD and the debate among those in the profession interested in the matter is between those arguing it represents an unidentified clinical syndrome which demands a specific diagnosis and those who think either it fits within the rubric of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or is a dissociative condition.  Accordingly, in the absence of formal recognition of MADD, while a psychiatrist may decline to acknowledge the condition as a specific syndrome, some may assess the described symptoms and choose to prescribe the drugs used to treat anxiety or OCD or refer the patient to sessions of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or the mysterious mindfulness meditation.

Mutually Assured Digital Destruction

Authors in 2021 suggested MADD (mutually assured digital destruction) as the term to describe the strategic stalemate achieved by the major powers infecting each other’s critical (civilian & military) digital infrastructure with crippleware, logic-bombs and other latent tools of control or destruction.  The core the idea was based on old notion of “the bomber always gets through”, a recognition it’s neither possible to protect these systems from infiltration nor clean up what’s likely there and still undiscovered.  So, rather than being entirely covert, MADD instead makes clear to the other side its systems are also infected and there will be retaliation in kind to any cyber attack with consequences perhaps even worse than any suffered in the first strike.  Like the nuclear submarines with their multiple SLBMs silently which cruise the world's oceans, the strategic charm of the latent penetration of digital environments is that detection of all such devices is currently impossible; one knows they (and their SLMBs) are somewhere in firing range but not exactly where.  Oceans are big places but so is analogously is the digital environment and a threat may be in the hardware, software or the mysterious middleware and sometimes a treat can actually be observed yet not understood as such.

For individuals, groups and corporations, there's also the lure of unilateral destruction, something quite common in the social media age.  For a variety of reasons, an individual may choose to "delete" their history of postings and while it's true this means what once was viewable no longer is, it does not mean one's thoughts and images are "forever gone" in the sense one can use the phrase as one watches one's diary burn.  That was possible (with the right techniques or a power drill) when a PC sat on one's desk and was connected to nothing beyond but as soon as a connection with a network (most obviously the internet) is made and data is transferred, whatever is sent is in some sense "in the wild".  That was always true but in the modern age it's now effectively impossible to know where one's data may exist, such are the number of "pass-through" devices which may exist between sender and receiver.  On the internet, even if the path of the data packets can be traced and each device identified, there is no way to know where things have been copied (backup tapes, replica servers et al) and that's even before one wonders what copies one's followers have taken.  There may often be good reasons to curate one's social media presence to the point of deletion but that shouldn't be thought of as destruction.

Dragoon

Dragoon (pronounced druh-goon)

(1) In historic weaponry, a synonym of dragon (a type of musket with a short, large-calibre barrel and a flared muzzle), the name based on the way the mythical dragons belched fire.

(2) A European cavalryman of a heavily armed troop (mostly obsolete although some historic associations remain in military formations); historically an infantryman armed with a dragoon musket who fought both on horseback and on foot.

(3) A member of a military unit with such traditions (now mostly restricted to the British Army).

(4) A domestic fancy pigeon (originally a cross between a horseman and a tumbler and sometimes with initial capital).

(5) In the history of France, to subject a Huguenot to the dragonnades (a late seventeenth century policy instituted by Louis XIV of France to intimidate Protestant Huguenots to convert to Roman Catholicism by billeting dragoons in their homes to abuse them and destroy or steal their possessions).

(6) By extension, a man with a fierce or unrefined manner (historically thought “dragoon-like”) (now rare).

(7) By extension, (usually as “dragoon into”) to force (someone) into doing something through harassment and intimidation; to coerce; to force by oppressive measures.

(8) Following the use in France, the practice of forcing civilians into military service (applied particularly to Royal Navy press-gangs until 1815 although it was not an unknown form of “recruitment” by the army).

1615-1625 (some sources noting it appeared in military firearms manuals as early as 1804 but general use was at least a decade hence): From the French dragon (dragon (mythological creature); type of cavalry soldier, dragoon), the latter referring to a soldier armed with the firearm of the same name although in the context of ballistics the word dragoon was originally applied to the pistol hammer (the use based on the shape).  The ultimate source was the Latin dracō (dragon; kind of serpent or snake), from the Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων (drákōn) which may have been from δέρκομαι (dérkomai) (to see, clearly to see (in the sense of something staring)), from the primitive Indo-European derḱ- (to see).  The verb use was derived from the noun, from the French dragooner, originally in the sense of “to force someone into doing something; to coerce; to torment (also “to torment one’s self)), the construct being dragon + -er (the suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).  Dragoon is a noun & verb, dragooner dragoonage, dragoonable & dragonnade are nouns and dragooned & dragooning are verbs; the noun plural is dragoons.  The adjectives dragonish & dragoonesque are non-standard.

Louis XIV, the Huguenots and dragoonnades

The noun use of “dragoon” describing both musket and the soldiers who carried them had been in use for some six decades before becoming a verb.  In 1685, Louis XIV (1638–1715; le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), King of France 1643-1715) issued the Edict of Nantes which revoked his grandfathers decree of toleration which had granted social and economic rights to the minority Huguenot population, something which had far-reaching adverse consequences for France but which was at the time widely popular and still so judging the fawning obituaries which appeared thirty years later at the king’s funeral.  More realistic was Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778), a fair judge of the rule of the Bourbons who called the edict: “…one of the greatest calamities of France…” with consequences “…wholly contrary to the purpose in view.”

British Army Dragoons always had famously good hats, sometimes in designer colors.

The enmity towards the Huguenots (then some 10% of the French population) was based on factors familiar in pogroms over the centuries: a hard-working minority whose success manifested in their wealth and domination of some business sectors.  Religious intolerance was of course also an element and with pro-Catholic winds blowing in England, Louis decided it was time for him to assert himself in his tiresome squabble with Innocent XI (1611-1689; pope 1676-1689) and “...show himself the champion of orthodoxy, reaffirming the ancient French title of ‘Most Christian King’”.  The renewed persecution had actually begun a few years earlier with church services banned, denominational schools closed and the increasing exclusion from economic activity enforced but just as similar moves by the Nazis against the Jews of Germany would assume their own social inertia and lead to Kristallnacht (literally "crystal night" but better remembered as the "Night of Broken Glass" on 9–10 November 1938) the crackdown in seventeenth century France engendered its own increasing violent brutality.

British Army Corporal of the 2nd Dragoons in full-dress uniform with bearskin hat, circa 1900.

With the personal approval of the king himself, the policy of dragoonnades (the force billeting of Dragoons with Huguenot families) was adopted which would have been bad enough but the Dragoons, an anyway rough and undisciplined crew, were encouraged to behave as viciously as they wished.  Needing little encouragement, assault, rape and vandalism was soon widespread, the point of the policy being (1) to force the Huguenots to leave the country or (1) accept the offer of exemption from billeting on condition of a family converting to Catholicism.  Under the circumstances, few Catholics regarded such conversions as sincere and on doctrinal grounds resented the approach because it implicated the Church in what could be called only sacrilege and perjury.  In 1685, in a masterpiece of Bourbon logic, after hearing of the conversion of some 65,000 over three days in one province alone, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes on the grounds it was superfluous because there were “no more Huguenots”.

Keeping alive the traditions of the Dragoons’ hats: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022).

Quite how many Huguenot souls emigrated to Protestant or other more tolerant lands isn’t known but no estimate places the number at less than 100,000.  Those who departed took with them their skills as engineers, artisans, builders, glass makers, shipwrights and a host of other trades, all of which would be now be classified as “dual use” in the sense that they could be applied to civilian or military purposes.  Additionally, some of those leaving were merchants, bookkeepers, lawyers, doctors and other with internationally sought-after skills, the multiplier effect being that the loss to the French economy was to the gain of her enemies including England, Holland and the German states.  In England particularly, the Royal Navy gained much in metallurgy and ship-building skills and as an aside, the arrival of the Huguenots there lead directly to the country switching from wood to coal as a source of thermal energy because, as the new arrivals set up their forges, furnaces and kilns, the depletion of the forests was soon recognized as a threat.  The coal powered economy would provide a platform on which the industrial revolution was built and was the basis of the energy supply for three centuries.

Historians have differed on the extent of the damage all this caused the French economy and military although there does seem to be a consensus most of the early estimates were exaggerated (especially those published in English) but losses to both there were and, as earlier mentioned, this was suffered in conjunction with those of her enemies being afforced.  Of the political damage however there is no doubt, the persecution of the Huguenots assisting the formation of a Protestant coalition between several German states & principalities, Holland and those Huguenots who remained in France, mostly in isolated or mountainous regions, something which some historians maintain was an important component in the forces which over a century would accumulate until unleashed in the violence of the French Revolution (1789).

Inculcate

Inculcate (pronounced in-kuhl-keyt)

(1) To implant ideas, opinions or concepts in others, usually by forceful or insistent repetition or admonition; persistently to teach.

(2) To cause or influence others to accept an idea or feeling; to induce understanding or a particular sentiment in a person or persons.

1540s: From the Latin inculcātus past participle of inculcāre (to trample, impress, stuff in, force upon) and perfect passive participle of inculcō (impress upon, force upon).  The construct of inculcāre was in- + calcāre (to trample), from calcō (to tread upon), from calx (heel).  The Latin prefix in- was from the Proto-Italic en-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥- (not), the zero-grade form of the negative particle ne (not) and was akin to ne-, nē & nī.  In Modern English it is from the Middle English in-, from Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in, from the primitive Indo-European en.  The meanings in English upon adoption in the mid-sixteenth century (act of impressing upon the mind by repeated admonitions; forcible or persistent teaching) are agreed but some etymologists note the source of the noun inculcation might have been different, coming directly from the Late Latin inculcationem (nominative inculcatio), the noun of action from past-participle stem of inculcāre.  Inculcate is a verb, inculcation & inculcator are nouns, inculcates, inculcating, & inculcated are verbs and inculcative & inculcatory are adjectives; the most common noun plural is inculcations.

Inculcation and inculcators

The word inculcate sits on the spectrum of descriptors of the process by which an individual or institution can attempt impose a doctrine, belief or construct of reality on others, the range extending from suggestion & persuasion to instill, ingrain, propaganda, inculcation & brainwashing.  It thus belongs in the class called loaded words (those which, usually for historic or associative reasons, have come to possess implications “loading” the meaning beyond the technical definition.  For most purposes, those who wish to apply the process of inculcation for some purpose usually cloak their intent with other words; "inspire" often appears in vapid corporate mission-statements but is tainted by its association with advertising and a better choice is the less obviously manipulative "instil".

Professor Noam Chomsky.

The classic examples of inculcation are the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century which existed as political entities during the brief few decades when states could (1) control the mass distribution of ideas and information while (2) simultaneously restricting and dissemination of alternatives.  Such states still exist but technological changes have rendered their attempts less effective.  Political and linguistic theorists have developed constructs describing the way by which, even in nominally non-totalitarian states, corporate and political interests can inculcate collective values and opinions.  One celebrated discussion of the process is in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) by Noam Chomsky (b 1928; Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona & Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)) and US economist Edward S Herman (1925-2017).

The phrase "the manufacture of consent" had appeared in the book Public Opinion, published in 1922 by US journalist Walter Lippmann (1889–1974), a work which explored the interaction between the mass of the public and the techniques of inculcation used by government (and others) to shape collective opinion and expectation.  Public Opinion remains text useful for its analysis and the structural models presented although now few would (at least publicly) agree with his elitist solutions to the problems identified.  Like Chomsky & Herman’s Manufacturing Consent, it is a helpful reminder that inculcation is a set of techniques not restricted to the totalitarian regimes with which it tends most to be associated.  The message may differ but a hegemony will always attempt to ensure the world view essential to their survival is the one which prevails, the notion of “consent” so important because as British colonial official Thomas Pownall (1722-1805; Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay 1757-1760) repeatedly warned his uncomprehending government during the rumblings which would lead to the American Declaration of Independence: “You may exert power over, but you can never govern an unwilling people.”.  That is something understood, whether by a president in the Oval Office, an ayatollah in his chamber or the führer in his bunker although some accept that if they can’t be governed, they can be suppressed and, as long as the resource allocation remains possible, that can for decades work.

Inculcation begins at school.

The best documented case study in inculcation on a population-wide scale remains that undertaken by the Nazi State (1933-1945) in Germany and many memoirs of era record the way Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) would acknowledge what he’d learned of this from the Roman Catholic Church, even at times admitting it was inevitable the two-thousand year old institution (and their many schools) would still be flourishing in Germany long after he had departed the Earth.  He also understood how critical it was the process began young because it was in school he had been inculcated with the framework on which later he would build his awful intellectual structures.  Social Historian Richard Grunberger (1924-2005) in A Social History of the Third Reich (1971) reported that although Hitler had scant regard for most of his school teachers, he had high regard for his history master, Leopold Pötsch (or Poetsch) (1853–1942), a rabid German Nationalist (like many who lived in Upper Austria).  From Dr Poetsch the future Führer imbibed the heady cocktail of a romanticized tale of Germany from Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814) to Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890).

In Mein Kampf (My Struggle, 1925), Hitler would write that his favorite teacher: “...used our budding nationalistic fanaticism as a means of educating us, frequently appealing to our sense of national honor. By this alone he was able to discipline us little ruffians more easily than would have been possible by any other means. This teacher made history my favorite subject. And indeed, though he had no such intention, it was then that I became a little revolutionary. For who could have studied German history under such a teacher without becoming an enemy of the state which, through its ruling house, exerted so disastrous an influence on the destinies of the nation? And who could retain his loyalty to a dynasty which in past and present betrayed the needs of the German people again and again for shameless private advantage?”  Upon assuming power in 1933, Hitler almost immediately deployed the education system for the purpose of inculcating the youth with Nazi ideology, the institution ideal for the purpose because it was hierarchical and didactic.  Education in “racial awareness” (the core Nazi tenant) was based on the notion of “racial duty to the national community”, that there were “worthy & unworthy" races” and while it’s misleading to suggest there’s a lineal (and certainly not a planned) path to the Holocaust, the connection must be noted.  If the entire Nazi project of inculcation can be reduced to just two themes, it’s (1) the sense of race struggle and (2) the readiness for the coming war.

Virtual

Virtual (pronounced vur-choo-uhl)

(1) Being as specified in power, force, or effect, though not actually or expressly such; having the essence or effect but not the appearance or form.

(2) In optics, of an image (such as one in a looking glass), formed by the apparent convergence of rays that are prolonged geometrically, but not actually (as opposed to a real image).

(3) Being a focus of a system forming such images.

(4) In mechanics, pertaining to a theoretical infinitesimal velocity in a mechanical system that does not violate the system's constraints (applied also to other physical quantities); resulting from such a velocity.

(5) In physics, pertaining to a theoretical quality of something which would produce an observable effect if counteracting factors such as friction are disregarded (used often of the behavior of water if a factor such as friction were to be disregarded.

(6) In physics, designating or relating to a particle exchanged between other particles that are interacting by a field of force (such as a “virtual photon” and used also in the context of an “exchange force”).

(7) In digital technology, real, but existing, seen, or happening online or on a digital screen, rather than in person or in the physical world (actually an adaptation of an earlier use referring to political representation).

(8) In particle physics, pertaining to particles in temporary existence due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

(9) In quantum mechanics, of a quantum state: having an intermediate, short-lived, and unobservable nature.

(10) In computing (of data storage media, operating systems, et al) simulated or extended by software, sometimes temporarily, in such a way as to function and appear to the user as a physical entity.

(11) In computing, of a class member (in object-oriented programming), capable of being overridden with a different implementation in a subclass.

(12) Relating or belonging to virtual reality (once often used as “the virtual environment” and now sometimes clipped to “the virtual”) in which with the use of headsets or masks, experiences to some degree emulating perceptions of reality can be produced with users sometimes able to interact with and change the environment.

(13) Capable of producing an effect through inherent power or virtue (archaic and now rare, even as a poetic device).

(14) Virtuous (obsolete).

(15) In botany, (literally, also figuratively), of a plant or other thing: having strong healing powers; a plant with virtuous qualities (obsolete).

(16) Having efficacy or power due to some natural qualities; having the power of acting without the agency of some material or measurable thing; possessing invisible efficacy; producing, or able to produce, some result; effective, efficacious.

1350–1400: From the Middle English virtual & virtual (there were other spellings, many seemingly ad hoc, something far from unusual), from the Old French virtual & vertüelle (persisting in Modern French as virtuel), from their etymon Medieval Latin virtuālis, the construct being the Classical Latin virtū(s) (of or pertaining to potency or power; having power to produce an effect, potent; morally virtuous (and ultimately the source of the modern English “virtue” from the Latin virtūs (virtue)) + -ālis.  The Latin virtūs was from vir (adult male, man), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European wihrós (man) (the construct of which may have been weyh- (to chase, hunt, pursue) + -tūs (the suffix forming collective or abstract nouns)).  The –alis suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –āris and there may be some relationship with hel- (to grow); -ālis (neuter -āle) was the third-declension two-termination suffix and was suffixed to (1) nouns or numerals creating adjectives of relationship and (2) adjectives creating adjectives with an intensified meaning.  The suffix -ālis was added (usually, but not exclusively) to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship to that noun. When suffixed to an existing adjective, the effect was to intensify the adjectival meaning, and often to narrow the semantic field.  If the root word ends in -l or -lis, -āris is generally used instead although because of parallel or subsequent evolutions, both have sometimes been applied (eg līneālis & līneāris).  The alternative spellings vertual, virtuall and vertuall are all obsolete.  Virtual is a noun & adjective, virtualism, virtualist, virtualism, virtualness, virtualization (also as virtualisation) & virtuality are nouns, virtualize (also as virtualise) is a verb and virtually is an adverb; the noun plural is virtuals.  The non virtualosity is non-standard.

The special use in physics (pertaining to a theoretical infinitesimal velocity in a mechanical system that does not violate the system’s constraints) came into English directly from the French.  The noun use is derived from the original adjective.  Virtual is commonly used in the sense of being synonymous with “de facto”, something which can now be misleading because “virtue” has become so associated with the modern use related to computing.  In the military matters it has been used as “a virtual victory” to refer to what would by conventional analysis be thought a defeat, the rationale being the political or economic costs imposed on the “winner” were such that the victory was effectively pyrrhic.  It was an alternative to the concept of “tactical defeat; strategic victory” which probably was a little too abstract for some.

"Virtual art galleries" range from portals which enable works to be viewed on any connected device to actual galleries where physical works are displayed on screens or in some 3D form, either as copies or with a real-time connection to the original.   

In computing, although “virtual reality” is the best known use, the word has for some time been used variously.  “Virtual memory” (which nerds insist should be called “virtual addressing” is a software implementation which enables an application to use more physical memory than actually exists.  The idea dates from the days of the early mainframes when the distinction between memory and storage space often wasn’t as explicit as it would later become and it became popular in smaller systems (most obviously PCs) where at a time when the unit cost of RAM (random access memory) hardware was significantly higher than the default storage media of the HDD (hard disk drive).  Behaving as static electricity does, RAM was many orders of magnitude faster than the I/O (input/output) possible on hard disks but allocating a portion of free disk space to emulate RAM (hence the idea “virtual memory”) did make possible many things which would not run were a system able to work only with the installed physical RAM and rapidly it became a mainstream technique.

There’s also the VPN (virtual private network), a technology which creates a secure and encrypted connection over a public network (typically the Internet) and use is common to provide remote access to a private network or to establish a secure tunnel between two networks using the internet for transport.  The advantage of VPNs is they should ensure data integrity and confidentiality, the two (or multi) node authentication requirement making security breaches not impossible but less likely.  Widely used by corporations, VPNs are best known as the way traditionally used to evade surveillance and censorship in certain jurisdictions as diverse as the PRC (People’s Republic of China), the Islamic Republic of Iran and the UK although this is something of an arms race, the authorities with varying degrees of enthusiasm working out way to defeat the work-arounds.  VPNs often use an IP tunnel which is a related concepts but the IP tunnel is a technique used to encapsulate one type of network packet within another type of network packet to transport it over a network that wouldn't normally support the type of packet being transported.  IP tunnels are particularly useful in connecting networks using different protocols and (despite the name), the utility lies in them being able to transport just about any type of network traffic (not just IP).  A modular technology, not all IP tunnels natively provide authentication & encryption but most support “bolt-ons” which can add either or both.  So, while all VPNs use some form of tunnelling (however abstracted), not all tunnels are VPNs.

Microsoft really wanted you to keep their Java Virtual Machine.

Then there are “virtual machines”.  In personal computing, the machine came quickly to be thought of as a box to which a monitor and keyboard was attached and originally it did one thing at a time; it might be able to do many things but not simultaneously.  That situation didn’t long last but the idea of the connection between one function and one machine was carried over to the notion of the “virtual machine” which was software existing on one machine but behaving functionally like another.  This could include even a full-blown installation of the operating systems of several servers running on specialized software (sometimes in conjunction with hardware components) on a singles server.  What made this approach practical was that it is not unusual for a server to be under-utilized for most of its life (critically components often recording 2-3% utilization for extended periods, thus the attraction of using one physical server rather than several.  Obviously, the economic case was also compelling, the cost savings of having one server rather than a number multiplied by reductions in electricity use, cooling needs, insurance premiums and the rent of space.  There was also trickery, Microsoft’s JVM (Java Virtual Machine) an attempt to avoid having to pay licensing fees to Sun Microsystems (later absorbed by Oracle) for the use of a Java implementation.  The users mostly indifferent but while the hardware was fooled, the judges were not and the JVM was eventually declared an outlaw.

Operating a computer remotely (there are few ways to do this) rather than physically being present is sometimes called “virtual” although “remote” seems to have been become more fashionable (the form “telecommuting” used as early as 1968 is as archaic as the copper-pair analogue telephone lines over which it was implemented although “telemedicine” seems to have survived, possibly because in many places voice using an actual telephone remains a part).  In modern use (and the idea of virtual as “not physically existing but made to appear by software” was used as early as 1959), there are all sorts of “virtuals” (virtual personal trainers, virtual assistants et al), the idea in each case is that the functionality offered by the “real version” of whatever is, in whole or in part, emulated but the “virtual version”, the latter at one time also referred to as a “cyberreal”, another word from the industry which never came into vogue.  “Virtual keyboards” are probably the most common virtual device used around the world, now the smartphone standard, the demise of the earlier physical devices apparently regretted only by those with warm memories of their Blackberries.  Virtual keyboards do appear elsewhere and they work, although obviously offer nothing like the tactile pleasure of an IBM Model M (available from ClickyKeyboards.com).  The idea of “a virtual presence” is probably thought something very modern and associated with the arrival of computing but it has history.  In 1766, in the midst of the fractious arguments about the UK’s reaction to the increasing objections heard from the American colonies about “taxation without representation” and related matters (such as the soon to be infamous Stamp Act), William Pitt (1708-1778 (Pitt the Elder and later Lord Chatham); UK prime-minister 1766-1768) delivered a speech in the House of Commons.  Aware his country’s government was conducting a policy as inept as that the US would 200 years on enact in Indochina, his words were prescient but ignored.  Included was his assertion the idea of “…virtual representation of America in this house is the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of man and it does not deserve serious refutation.”  However, refute quite seriously just about everything his government was doing he did.  Pitt’s use of the word in this adjectival sense was no outlier, the meaning “being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact” dating from the mid-fifteenth century, an evolution of the sense of a few decades earlier when it was used to mean “capable of producing a certain effect”.  The adverb virtually was also an early fifteenth century form in the sense of “as far as essential qualities or facts are concerned while the meaning “in effect, as good as” emerged by the early seventeenth.

Lindsay Lohan's 2021 predictions of the US$ value of Bitcoin (BTC) & Ethereum (ETH).  By April 2024 the trend was still upward so the US$100,000 BTC may happen.  

In general use, the terms “cybercurrency”, “cryptocurrency” & “virtual currency” tend to be used interchangeably and probably that has no practical consequences, all describing electronic (digital) “currencies” which typically are decentralized, the main point of differentiation being that cryptocurrencies claim to be based on cryptographic principles and usually limited in the volume of their issue (although the decimal point makes this later point of little practical significance)  Whether they should be regarded as currencies is a sterile argument because simultaneously they are more and less, being essentially a form of gambling but for certain transactions (such as illicit drugs traded on various platforms), they are the preferred currency and in many jurisdictions they remain fully convertible and it’s telling the values are expressed almost always in US$, “cross-rates” (ie against other cryptocurrencies) rarely quoted.  However, to be pedantic, a “virtual currency” is really any not issued by a central government or authority (in the last one or two centuries-odd usually a national or central bank) and they can include in-game currencies, reward points and, of course, crybercurrencies.  The distinguishing feature of a cryptocurrency is the cryptotography.

Although the term is not widely used, in Christianity, "virtuality" was the view that contrary to the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the bread & wine central to Holy Communion do not literally transform into flesh and blood but are the medium or mechanism through which the spiritual or immaterial essence of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ are received.  Within the Church, those who espoused or adhered to the heresy of virtuality were condemned as "virtualists.  In philosophy, the concept of virtuality probably sounds something simple to students but of course academic philosophy has a “marginal propensity to confuse”, the important distinction being “virtual” is not opposed to “real” but instead to “actual”, “real” being opposed to “possible”.

Thug

Thug (pronounced thuhg)

(1) A cruel or vicious ruffian or robber; a violent, lawless person (applied almost always to men).

(2) One of a former group of professional robbers and murderers in India, known as the Thuggee, who strangled their victims; one of a band of assassins formerly active in northern India who worshipped Kali and offered their victims to her (sometimes initial capital letter).

(3) In domestic horticulture, an over-vigorous plant that spreads and dominates the flowerbed.

(4) A wooden bat used in the game of miniten, fitting around the player's hand. 

1810: From the Hindi ठग (thag) (used variously to mean swindler; fraud; rogue; cheat; thief), from the Ashokan Prakrit & Marathi ṭhagg & thak (cheat; swindler), from the Sanskrit स्थग (sthaga) (cunning, fraudulent, to cover, to conceal) hence स्थगति (sthagati) (he/she/it covers, he/she/it conceals) from the Proto-Indo-Aryan sthagáti from the primitive Indo-European (s)teg (to cover with a roof).  Thug is a noun & verb, thuggery, thuggism, thuggishness & thugness are nouns, thuggish & thuglike are adjectives and thuggishly is an adverb; the noun plural is thugs.

Thugs under the Raj

Like much colonialism, the Raj was a pretty thuggish business so the antics of the thuggees should at least have been recognizable to the British.  Although known since 1810 as the Thuggees (soon clipped by the colonial administrators to "thugs"), there had been marauding gangs of thieves and murderers who plied their trade along the transport corridors between Indian towns for centuries, the correct Indian name for which was phanseegur (from phansi (noose)), their nefarious activities described in English as early as circa 1665 (and in Hindi texts, from the thirteenth century).

Thuggees at work.

The Thuggees roamed the country in bands of a few to some dozens, often disguised as peddlers or pilgrims, gaining the confidence of other travelers who, opportunistically, they would strangle with a scarf, an unwound turban or a noosed cord; the shedding of blood was rare.  While the motive of many was mere plunder, some practiced a certain religious fanaticism, the victims hidden in graves dug with consecrated tools, a third of the spoils devoted to the goddess Kali, worshiped by the gangs.  Under the Raj, the Thuggees were regarded a threat to internal security and from the early 1830s were subject to crackdowns by civil and military authorities; by the century's end, they’d ceased to exist.  Thug’s meaning-shift to the generalized sense of "ruffian, cutthroat, violent lowbrow" began in 1839 and was in use throughout the English-speaking world by the early twentieth century.  In the US, thug became associated with racism, used as a racist epithet applied specifically to African American men to portray them as violent criminals and when used thus, substituted for other racist slurs even by the 1930s were (at least outside the South) becoming socially unacceptable.  However, in what’s became known as "linguistic reclamation" a sub-set of the African American community adopted the word as an identifier, especially in some forms of popular music.

Peter Dutton, who has never denied being a Freemason.

In politics, the label "political thuggery" is liberally applied and while it’s usually a figurative reference, it’s not impossible Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018) was thinking literally when he described Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) as “a thug”.  Such use isn’t new, the left-wing press in the UK fond of calling former cabinet minister Norman Tebbit (b 1931) a “Tory thug” which was a little unfair although his demeanour did little to discourage such an appellation.  It’s not always figurative and “political thuggery” can be used of the aggressive or violent tactics employed to secure some political end and this can extend to killings, in some places at scale.  One popular form is to “outsource” the dirty work by having mobs attack opposition rallies or meetings as well as the disruption effect this can provoke the impression one’s opponents are associated with violence, something especially easy to engender if there’s a compliant media anxious to support the campaign.  However, if some prominent figure is murdered, this tends to be called a “political assassination” and because of the potentially bad publicity, it’s a last resort; political thuggery is best when it stops short of murder.  Less bloody but still within the thuggish rubric are electoral dirty tricks including branch-stacking, ballot stuffing or tampering or any amount of deceptive advertising although it’s debatable if all forms of disinformation can truly be called political thuggery because propaganda can mislead while still being truthful.  Usually as clandestine as any operation is the practice of unlawful surveillance or espionage which can extend to wiretapping (including the modern digital equivalent) or infiltration of the organizational structures of one’s opponents and this can require some finesse so thuggery sometimes is a delicate business.  Delicate too is corruption and bribery which is practiced as widely as it is because few tactics are as effective.