Kakistocracy

Kakistocracy (pronounced kak-uh-stok-ruh-see)

Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

1644: From the Ancient Greek κάκιστος (kákistos (worst)), superlative of κακός (kakós (bad) +‎ κρατία (kratía (power, rule, government).  The word may have long existed in casual use but the earliest known use dates from 1644 in Paul Gosnold's A sermon Preached at the Publique Fast which included the fragment:  "... transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord!".  Re-coined, it appeared in the 1829 novella The Misfortunes of Elphin by English author Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866).  The word spread, presumably because Spanish is kakistocracia, French kakistocratie, German Kakistokratie, and Russian kakistokratiya (какистократия).  The almost never used alternative spelling is cacistocracy.  Kakistocracy & kakistocrat are nouns and kakistocratical is an adjective; the noun plural is kakistocracies.

The possibility of a Lindsayocracy: In 2017 Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram the possibility of running for President of the United States (POTUS) in 2020.  Among political scientists, there was no consensus about whether a Lindsayocracy would be (1) better, (2) worse or (3) pretty much the same as a Crookedhillaryocracy.  Her announcement was noted by the state-owned Russian News Agency Sputnik News but there was no comment from the Kremlin.  

Despite a history of governments of varying quality, usage outside of political science circles was rare until a 1980s spike associated with attacks on Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989) and Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990).  Later, perhaps surprisingly, George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) appears not to have induced a twentieth-first century revival; that had to wait.  One Fox News commentator liked applying kakistocracy to the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) although the rest of the crew seemed better to understand Fox’s audience should be spoken to with short, simple, repetitive words and phrases and it was Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) election which brought the word a new popularity.

Variations on the Greek theme

Albocracy: government by white men or Europeans

Androcracy: the rule of man, male supremacy

Anemocracy: government by the wind

Angelocracy: government by angels

Argentocracy: the rule or paramount influence of money

Aristocracy: rule by the highest class

Barbarocracy: government or rule by barbarians

Bestiocracy: the rule of beasts

Chrysocracy: rule of the wealthy

Corporatocracy: rule or undue influence by commercial interests

Dulocracy: government by slaves

Ergatocracy: government by the workers

Gerontocracy: the system of government by old men

Graocracy: government by an old woman or old women

Gynaecrocracy (or gynocracy): government by a woman or women

Hagiocracy: government by persons esteemed holy

Hetaerocracy: (1) rule of college fellows or (2) rule of courtesans

Kakistocracy: the government of a state by the worst citizens

Khakistocracy: rule or undue influence by the military

Kleptocracy: government by thieves

Masonocracy: Government unduly influenced by the Freemasons

Mogocracy: a system of government in which words are the ruling powers

Mediocracy: government by the mediocre

Meritocracy: Government by the most able

Mesocracy: government by the middle classes

Ochlocracy: government by the populace, mob rule

Papyrocracy: government by excessive paperwork

Pedantocracy: the rule of pedants

Pornocracy: rule by prostitutes

Ptochocracy: a government elected by or consisting of the poor

Strumpetocracy: government by strumpets

The recent suspects.

In politics, the term kakistocracy has become, like "fascist", one of those words used to convey a general disapproval of administrations rather than anything too specific.  Still, given the standard of some of the governments seen in recent decades, there may be a case to consider it as a literal descriptor and whether there was any better word to use of the brief, troubled administration of Liz Truss (b 1975; UK prime-minister Sep-Oct 2022) remains at least debatable.  However, one curious consequence of recent advances in technology might mean Joe Biden's (b 1942; US president since 2021) administration attracts the label less than might be expected.  The "deep fakes" had been around for a while but with artificial intelligence (AI) systems now able to generate convincing audio-visual content, such has been the proliferation of clips purporting to demonstrate the president's senility that people now seem to give him the benefit of the doubt because it's difficult to tell the difference between the fake news produced by AI and actual footage of examples of his cognitive decline.

Agathokakological

Agathokakological (pronounced ag-uh-thuh-kak-loj-uh-kuhl)

Composed of both good and evil.

1834: The construct was the Greek ἀγαθός (agathós) (good) + κακός (kakós) (bad) + logical.  Agathós was from the Proto-Hellenic əgathós, possibly from the primitive Indo-European m̥ǵhdhós (made great; whose deeds are great), the construct being méǵhs (great) + dheh- (do) + -ós (the Latin magnificus was from the same roots) although there are etymologists who discount and Indo-European connection and suggest it was a borrowing from some Pre-Greek source.  The source of kakka- & kaka- is unknown but there may be some connection with the primitive Indo-European root kakka- & kaka- (to defecate) and it may be compared with the Phrygian κακον (kakon) (harm) and Albanian keq (bad).  Again, there are etymologists who prefer a Pre-Greek origin.  In English slang, to be “cack handed” (cackhandedly & cackhandedness the related forms) describes someone clumsy, someone prone to dropping or breaking things.  The association was with the Old English cack (excrement; dung) and in Old English a cachus was a privy (toilet), both from the Latin cacare (to defecate).  Apparently, the ultimate origin or cack-handed was from the ancient practice (developed among people who were of course mostly right-handed), that the left hand should be reserved for cleaning oneself after defecation, the right used for all other purposes (something related to the significance of shaking hands with the right).  It’s from kakka- & kaka- that poppycock, kakistocracy, cacophony, cacology and cacography are derived.

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

The suffix -logical was used to form adjectival forms of nouns ending in –logy although few terms are directly derived using this suffix. Terms ending in logical are often derived from words formed in other languages or by suffixing -ical to a word ending in logy (biological = biology + -ical; genealogical = genealogy + -ical).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).

As far as is known, “agathokakological” was coined by the English Romantic poet Robert Southey (1774–1843), noted for his introduction into English of many novel forms, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listing him as the earliest known author of some 400 words.  Few have survived except as linguistic curiosities in the many lists of such things the internet has encouraged many to compile.  In The Doctor (1834), Southey included the passage: “For indeed upon the agathokakological globe there are opposite qualities always to be found.” but it suffers from being as unwieldy a way of saying “composed of both good and evil” as his epistolization was of “letter writing” and batrachophagous of frog-eating.  Although the latter usefully existed to distinguish between those who enjoyed the delicacy cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs) and those who digested the whole unfortunate amphibian, it never caught on.  He is though credited for being the first writer in English to use the word “zombie” (he use the Haitian French speeling zombi) when it appeared in his essay History of Brazil (1819) and one sadly neglected creation remains futilitarian (a person devoted to futility) which would seem to be crying out for wider use.

1974 Triumph Stag in magenta.

Agathokakological is an adjective, the comparative being “more agathokakological” and the superlative “most agathokakological”.  To be “most agathokakological” presumably implies something like “most polarized” in that one’s qualities of good and bad are especially exaggerated.  That presumably would be the understanding of psychiatrists who would regard agathokakological as a synopsis of the human condition and a spectrum condition, some individuals containing more good than others, others more bad.  Engineers would also be familiar with the concept, few machines being either perfect or so flawed as to be useless, most a mix of virtues and vices, the Triumph Stag a classic example and one which probably moved some owners to recall Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (1807–1882) poem There was a little girl:

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Cacoethes

Cacoethes (pronounced kak-oh-ee-theez)

(1) An uncontrollable urge or irresistible desire, especially something harmful or ill-advised.

(2) In medicine, a bad quality or disposition in a disease; a malignant tumor or ulcer (obsolete).

1560s: From cacoēthes, a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek κακοήθης (kakoēthēs) (ill-habit, wickedness, itch for doing (something)), from κακός (kakós) (bad) from the primitive Indo-European root kakka- (to defecate) + ἦθος (ēthē- & êthos) (disposition; character, moral nature).  Related forms include the Modern English ethos & ethics.  The Ancient Greek kakóēthes was a neuter (used as noun) of kakoḗthēs (malignant), literally “of bad character; of evil disposition”.  Perhaps as a consequence of the operation of certain spell-check programs, the word is sometimes confused with cacoethics (bad ethics or morals; bad habits), the construct being caco- +‎ ethics.  Caco- (in the sense of "bad" or "defective" and well illustrated by words such as cacography (bad handwriting; poor penmanship, incorrect spelling), kakistocracy (a form of government in which the worst persons are in power), cacophony (a harsh discordance of sound; dissonance) or caconym (an incorrect name for something)) was from the Ancient Greek κακός (kakós) (bad) and ethics (used in the sense or "morality"; "right & wrong") was from the Middle English etik, from the Middle French ethique, from the Late Latin ethica, from the Ancient Greek ἠθική (ēthikḗ), from ἠθικός (ēthikós) (of or for morals, moral, expressing character), from ἦθος (êthos) (disposition; character, moral nature).  The preferred modern spelling is cacoethes but cacoëthesor is used by some classists.  Cacoethes (or cacoëthes) is a noun, cacoethical & cacoethic are adjectives and cacoethically is an adverb; the noun plural is cacoethe.

The consequences of cacoethetic conduct.  Lindsay Lohan under arrest, Los Angeles, October 2011.

The phrase insanabile scribendi cacoethes is the most quoted fragment from the passage “Tenet insanabile multos scribendi cacoethes et aegro in corde senescit” (literally “An inveterate and incurable itch for writing besets many, and grows old in their sick hearts many are afflicted by an incurable desire to write” although it’s more often cited as something more manageable like “many are afflicted by an incurable desire to write” which appears in the Seventh Satire by Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis, a Roman poet of the late first and early second century AD).  In political discourse, the phrase is used of those with “an urge to write dangerous words”, penning the texts which upset the rich and powerful.  It’s thus been said of figures such as Socrates (circa 470–399 BC (although he spoke rather than wrote), Machiavelli (1469–1527), Luther (1483–1546), Voltaire (1694–1778) and might be extended to any number of dissidents and ratbags of the modern age, not all of who suffered for their craft under totalitarian rule.  The example of Julian Assange (b 1971) lends a new layer of meaning to the idea.

Assange claims to be an editor (which is some sense he is), an activist (which none dispute) and a journalist (which is contested) and although the celebrated US case against him is on grounds which don’t hang on any of these descriptions being accepted, there is a long tradition of people being pursued by governments for words they didn’t necessarily write.  Printers and publishers have been jailed (or worse) for making possible the dissemination of the writing of others (one notorious case in Germany involving a printer’s assistant, the illiteracy of whom was conceded even by the prosecutor) and English biblical scholar William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536) was convicted of heresy, executed by strangulation and then burnt at the stake for the subversive act of publishing Bibles in vernacular English.  Well Tyndale knew the risks but he was afflicted by an incurable desire to translate the word of God.

What Assange does through the vehicle of Wikileaks is different from what has been done by political dissidents or religious dissenters (heretics usually the preferred term) and aligns more with the decision by former military analyst Dr Daniel Ellsberg (1931–2023) in 1971 to leak to the press what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers (officially titled Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force) a top-secret report of some 7,000 pages detailing the political & military aspects of the US involvement in Vietnam between 1945-1967 (eventually de-classified and made public in 2011).  Ellsberg obtained copies of the documents by spending late nights with the Pentagon’s Xerox machines (photocopiers), a long, boring, repetitive task; by the time in 2010 a low-level US Army analyst on deployment in Iraq could obtain the material Wikileaks published, all that was needed was the necessary access and a USB flash drive.  Conceptually, the two processes are about the same but whether the two men can be said to have similar motivations (their insanabile scribendi cacoethes) has become the subject of debate.  Ultimately, the US Supreme Court ruled publication of the Pentagon Papers was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution (freedom of speech) and Ellsberg, although guilty as sin under the espionage counts with which he was charged, walked free because of the many outrageous acts by the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) which saw the case collapse.  Julian Assange awaits an appeal hearing in London which will decide whether he can be extradited to face espionage charges in the US.  Should he face trial, the special circumstances which prevailed during the Ellsberg hearings won't exist to help and darkly his lawyers are hinting he may take hemlock with Socrates.