Sin-eater

Sin-eater (pronounced sin-ee-ter or sin-ee-tah)

(1) An individual (in the historic texts usually a man) who, by the act of eating a piece of bread laid upon the breast of the corpse (although in many depictions the goods are place on the lid of the coffin (casket)) , absorbs the sins of a deceased, enabling them to “enter the kingdom of heaven”.

(2) Figuratively, as a thematic device in literature, a way to represent themes of guilt, atonement, sacrifice, and societal exclusion (used variously to explore the moral complexities inherent in assuming the sins (or guilt) of another, the act of mercy and the implications of personal damnation.

Late 1600s (although the culture practice long pre-dates evidence of the first use of the term):  The construct was sin + eat +-er.  Sin (in the theological sense of “a violation of divine will or religious law; sinfulness, depravity, iniquity; misdeeds”) was from the Middle English sinne, synne, sunne & zen, from the Old English synn (sin), from the Proto-West Germanic sunnju, from the Proto-Germanic sunjō (truth, excuse) and sundī, & sundijō (sin), from the primitive Indo-European hs-ónt-ih, from hsónts (being, true), implying a verdict of “truly guilty” against an accusation or charge), from hes- (to be) (which may be compared with the Old English sōþ (true).  Eat (in the sense of “to ingest; to be ingested”) was from the Middle English eten, from the Old English etan (to eat), from the Proto-West Germanic etan, from the Proto-Germanic etaną (to eat), from the primitive Indo-European hédti, from hed- (to eat).  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.  Sin-eater is a noun and sin-eating is a verb; the noun plural is sin eaters.  The term often appears as “sin eater” but (untypically for English), seemingly not as “sineater”.

The first documented evidence of the term “sin-eater” appears in texts dating from the late seventeenth century but cultural anthropologists believe the actual practice to be ancient and variations of the idea are seen in many societies so the ritual predates the term, the roots apparently in European and British folk traditions, particularly rural England and Wales.  The earliest (authenticated) known documented mention of a sin-eater occurs Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (1686) by English antiquary John Aubrey (1626–1697), in which is described the custom of a person eating “bread and drinking ale” placed on the chest of a deceased person in order that their “many sins” could be eaten, thus allowing the untainted soul to pass to the afterlife, cleansed of “earthly wrongdoings”.   Aubrey would write of a "sin-eater living along the Rosse road" who regularly would be hired to perform the service, describing him as a “gaunt, ghastly, lean, miserable, poor rascal”.  He mentioned also there was a popular belief that sin-eating would prevent the ghost of the deceased from walking the earth, a useful benefit at a time when it was understood ghosts of tormented souls, unable to find rest, haunted the living.  Whether this aspect of the tradition was widespread or a localism (a noted phenomenon in folklore) isn't know.  Interestingly, in rural England and Wales the practice survived the Enlightenment and became more common (or at least better documented) in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries.  In the turbulent, troubled Middle East, a macabre variation of the sin-eater has been documented.  There, it's reported that a prisoner sentenced to death can bribe the jailors and secure their freedom, another executed in their place, the paperwork appropriately altered.   

Paris Hilton (b 1981, left) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) discussing their “manifold sins and wickedness” while shopping, Los Angeles, 2004.

The ritual was of interest not only to social anthropologists but also to economic historians because while it was clear sin-eaters did receive payment (either in cash or in-kind (typically food)), there’s much to suggest those so employed were society’s “outcasts”, part of the “underclass” sub-set (beggars, vagrants, vagabonds etc) which is the West was a less formalized thing than something like the Dalits in Hinduism.  The Dalits (better known as the “untouchables”) in the West are often regarded as the “lowest rung” in the caste system but in Hindu theology the point was they were so excluded they were “outside” the system (a tiresome technical distinction often either lost on or ignored by the colonial administrators of the Raj) and relegated to the least desirable occupations.  Being a sin-eater sounds not desirable and theologically that’s right because in absolving the dead of their sins, the sin-eater becomes eternally burdened with the wickedness absorbed.  Presumably, a sin-eater could also (eventually) have their sins “eaten” but because they were from the impoverished strata of society, it was probably unlikely many would be connected to those with the economic resources required to secure such a service.  As a literary device, a sin-eater (often not explicitly named as such) is a character who in some way “takes on” the sins of others and they can be used to represent themes of guilt, atonement, sacrifice, and societal exclusion.  In popular culture, the dark concept is quite popular and there, rather than in symbolism, the role usually is explored with the character being explicating depicted as a “sin-eater”, an example being The Sin Eater (2020) by Megan Campisi (b 1976), a dystopian novel in which a young woman is forced into the role as a punishment.

Nice work if you can get it: The Sin-Eater, Misty Annual 1986.  Misty was a weekly British comic magazine for girls which, unusually, was found also to enjoy a significant male readership.  Published by UK house Fleetway, it existed only between 1978-1980 although Misty Annual appeared until 1986.  The cover always featured the eponymous, raven haired beauty.

There’s the obvious connection with Christianity although aspects of the practice have been identified in cultures where they arose prior to contact with the West.  The novel The Last Sin Eater by born-again US author Francine Rivers (b 1947) was set in a nineteenth century Appalachian community and dealt with sin, guilt & forgiveness, tied to the “atonement of the sins of man” by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and thematically that was typical of the modern use.  However, the relationship between sin-eating and the Christian ritual of communion is theologically tenuous.  The communion, in which bread symbolizes the body of Christ and wine symbolizes His blood is actually literal in the Roman Catholic Church under the doctrine of transubstantiation which holds that during the sacrament of the Eucharist (or Holy Communion), the bread and wine offered by the priest to the communicants transforms into the body and blood of Christ.  That obviously requires faith to accept because while the appearances of the bread (usually a form of wafer) and wine (ie their taste, texture, and outward properties) remain unchanged, their substance (what truly they are at the metaphysical level) is said to transform into the body and blood of Christ.  Once unquestioned by most (at least publicly), the modern theological fudge from the Vatican is the general statement: “You need not believe it but you must accept it”.

Sin-eating and communion both involve the consumption of food and drink in a symbolic manner.  In sin-eating, a sin-eater consumes food placed near or on the corpse symbolically to “absorb” their sins so the soul of the deceased may pass to the afterlife free from guilt while in the Christian Eucharist, the taking of bread and wine is a ritual to commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus who, on the cross at Golgotha, died to atone for the sins of all mankind.  So the central difference is the matter of who bears the sins.  In sin-eating, that’s the sin-eater who personally takes on the spiritual burden in exchange for a small payment, thus becoming spiritually tainted in order that another may spiritually be cleansed.  In other words, the dead may “out-source” the cost of their redemption in exchange for a few pieces of silver.  In the Christian communion, it’s acknowledged Jesus has already borne the sins of humanity through His crucifixion, the ritual an acknowledgment of His sacrificial act which offered salvation and forgiveness of sin to all who believe and take him into his heart.  One can see why priests were told to discourage sin-eating by their congregants but historically the church, where necessary, adapted to local customs and its likely the practice was in places tolerated.

Panda

Panda (pronounced pan-duh)

(1) A black & white, herbivorous, bearlike mammal (in popular use sometimes as “giant panda”), Ailuropoda melanoleuca (family Procyonidae), now rare with a habitat limited to relatively small forested areas of central China where ample growth exists of the stands of bamboo which constitutes the bulk of the creature’s diet.

(2) A reddish-brown (with ringed-tail), raccoon-like mammal (in the literature often referred to as the “lesser panda”), Ailurus fulgens which inhabits mountain forests in the Himalayas and adjacent eastern Asia, subsisting mainly on bamboo and other vegetation, fruits, and insects.

(3) In Hinduism, a brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who acts as the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual.

(4) In colloquial use (picked up as UK police slang) as “panda car” (often clipped to “panda”), a UK police vehicle painted in a two-tone color scheme (originally black & white but later more typically powder-blue & white) (historic use only).

(5) Used attributively, something (or someone) with all (or some combination of) the elements (1) black & white coloration, (2) perceptions of “cuteness” and (3) the perceived quality of being “soft & cuddly”.

1835: From the French (Cuvier), a name for the lesser panda, assumed to be from a Tibeto-Burman language or some other native Nepalese word.  Cuvier is a trans-lingual term which references the French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) and his younger brother the zoologist and paleontologist Frédéric Cuvier (1773–1838).  The term was use of any of the Latinesque or pseudo-Latin formations created as taxonomic names for organisms following the style & conventions used by the brothers.  Most etymologists suggest the most likely source was the second element of nigálya-pónya (a local name for the red panda recorded in Nepal and Sikkim), which was perhaps from the Nepali निँगाले (nĩgāle) (relating to a certain species of bamboo), the adjectival form of निँगालो (nĩgālo), a variant of निङालो (niṅālo) (Drepanostachyum intermedium (a species of bamboo)).  The second element was a regional Tibetan name for the animal, related in some way to ཕོ་ཉ (pho nya) (messenger).  The use in Hinduism describing “a learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher (and specifically of the Brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who was the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual, especially one who had memorized a substantial proportion of the Vedas)” was from the Hindi पंडा (paṇḍā) and the Punjabi ਪਾਂਡਾ (pāṇḍā), both from the Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita) (learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher).  The English word pundit (expert in a particular field, especially as called upon to provide comment or opinion in the media; a commentator or critic) entered the language during the British Raj in India, the use originally to describe native surveyor, trained to carry out clandestine surveillance the colonial borders.  The English form is now commonly used in many languages but the descendants included the Japanese パンダ (panda), the Korean 판다 (panda) and the Thai: แพนด้า.  Panda is a noun and pandalike (also as panda-like) is an adjective (pandaesque & panderish still listed as non-standard; the noun plural is pandas.

A charismatic creature: Giant Panda with cub.

As a word, panda has been productive.  The portmanteau noun pandamonium (the blend being panda +‎ (pande)monium was a humorous construct describing the reaction which often occurs in zoos when pandas appear and was on the model of fandemonium (the reaction of groupies and other fans to the presence of their idol).  The "trash panda" (also as "dumpster panda" or "garbage panda") was of US & Canadian origin and an alternative to "dumpster bandit", "garbage bandit" or "trash bandit" and described the habit of raccoons foraging for food in trash receptacles.  The use was adopted because the black patches around the creature's eyes are marking similar to those of the giant panda.  The Australian equivalent is the "bin chicken", an allusion to the way the Ibis has adapted to habitat loss by entering the urban environment, living on food scraps discarded in rubbish bins.

Lindsay Lohan with “reverse panda” eye makeup.

The “panda crossing” was a pedestrian safety measure, an elaborate form of the “zebra crossing”.  It was introduced in the UK in 1962, the name derived from the two-tone color scheme used for the road marking and the warning beacons on either side of the road.  The design worked well in theory but not in practice and all sites had been decommissioned by late 1967.  The giant panda’s twotonalism led to the adoption of “panda dolphin” as one of the casual tags (the others being “jacobita, skunk dolphin, piebald dolphin & tonina overa for the black & white Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii).  “Reverse panda” is an alternative version of “raccoon eyes” and describes an effect achieved (sometimes “over-achieved”) with eye-shadow or other makeup, producing a pronounced darkening around the eyes, an inversion of the panda’s combination.  It’s something which is sometimes seen also in photography as a product of lighting or the use of a camera’s flash.

In English, the first known reference to the panda as a “carnivorous raccoon-like mammal (the lesser panda) of the Himalayas” while the Giant Panda was first described in 1901 although it had been “discovered” in 1869 by French missionary Armand David and it was known as parti-colored until the name was changed which evidence of the zoological relationship to the red panda was accepted.  The giant panda was thus once included as part of the raccoon family but is now classified as a bear subfamily, Ailuropodinae, or as the sole member of a separate family, Ailuropodidae (which diverged from an ancestral bear lineage).  The lesser panda (the population of which has greatly been reduced by collectors & hunters) is now regarded as unrelated to the giant panda and usually classified as the sole member of an Old World raccoon subfamily, Ailurinae, which diverged from an ancestral lineage that also gave rise to the New World raccoons, most familiar in North America.  As late as the early twentieth century, the synonyms for the lesser panda included bear cat, cat bear & wah, all now obsolete.

Panda diplomacy

Lindsay Lohan collecting Chinese takeaway from a Panda Express outlet, New York City, November 2008.

Although the first pandas were gifted by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) Chinese government in 1941, “panda diplomacy” began as a Cold War term, the practice of sending pandas to overseas zoos becoming a tool increasingly used by Peking (Beijing after 1979) following the Sino-Soviet split in 1957.  Quite when the phrase was first used isn’t certain but it was certainly heard in government and academic circles during the 1960s although it didn’t enter popular use until 1972, when a pair of giant pandas (Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing) were sent to the US after Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) historic visit to China, an event motivated by Washington’s (1) interest in seeking Peking’s assistance in handling certain aspects of the conflict in Indochina and (2) desire to “move Moscow into check on the diplomatic chessboard”.  Ever since, pandas have been a unique part of the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CCP) diplomatic toolbox although since 1984 they’ve been almost always leased rather than gifted, the annual fee apparently as high as US$1 million per beast, the revenue generated said to be devoted to conservation of habitat and a selective breeding program designed to improve the line’s genetic diversity.  Hong Kong in 2007 were gifted a pair but that’s obviously a special case ("one country, two pandas") and while an expression of diplomatic favour, they can be also an indication of disapprobation, those housed in the UK in 2023 returned home at the end of the lease and not replaced.

It’s one of a set of such terms in geopolitics including  “shuttle diplomacy” (the notion of a negotiator taking repeated "shuttle flights" between countries involved in conflict in an attempt to manage or resolve things (something with a long history but gaining the name from the travels here & there of Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) in the 1960s & 1970s)), “ping-pong diplomacy” (the use of visiting table-tennis teams in the 1960s & 1970s as a means of reducing Sino-US tensions and maintaining low-level cultural contacts as a prelude to political & economic engagement), “commodity diplomacy” (the use of tariffs, quotas and other trade barriers as “bargaining chips” in political negotiations), “gunboat diplomacy” (the threat (real or implied) of the use of military force as means of coercion), “hostage diplomacy” (holding the nationals of a country in prison or on (sometimes spurious) charges with a view to exchanging them for someone or something) and “megaphone diplomacy” (an official or organ of government discussing in public what is usually handled through “usual diplomatic channels”; the antonym is “quiet diplomacy”).

Panda diplomacy in action.

A case study in the mechanics of panda diplomacy was provided by PRC (People’s Republic of China) Premier Li Qiang (b 1959; premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2023) during his official visit to Australia in June 2024.  Mr Li’s presence was an indication the previous state of “diplomatic deep freeze” between the PRC & Australia had been warmed to something around “correct but cool”, the earlier state of unarmed conflict having been entered when Beijing reacted to public demands (delivered via “megaphone diplomacy”) by previous Australian prime minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) for an international enquiry into the origin of the SARS-Covid-2 virus which triggered the COVID-19 pandemic.  Such a thing might have been a good idea but underlying Mr Morrison’s strident call was that he was (1) blaming China and (2) accusing the CCP of a cover-up.  Mr Morrison is an evangelical Christian and doubtlessly it was satisfying for him to attend his church (one of those where there’s much singing, clapping, praising the Lord and discussing the real-estate market) to tell his fellow congregants how he’d stood up to the un-Christian, Godless communists but as a contribution to international relations (IR), it wasn’t a great deal of help.  His background was in advertising and coining slogans (he so excelled at both it was clearly his calling) but he lacked the background for the intricacies of IR.  The CCP’s retributions (trade sanctions and refusing to pick up the phone) might have been an over-reaction but to a more sophisticated prime-minister they would have been reasonably foreseeable.

Two years on from the diplomatic blunder, Mr Li arrived at Adelaide Zoo for a photo-opportunity to announce the impending arrival of two new giant pandas, the incumbent pair, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, soon to return to China after their 15 year stint.  Wang Wang and Fu Ni, despite over those years having been provided “every encouragement” (including both natural mating and artificial insemination) to procreate, proved either unable or unwilling so, after thanking the zoo’s staff for looking after them so well, the premier announced: “We will provide a new pair of equally beautiful, lovely and adorable pandas to the Adelaide Zoo.”, he said through an interpreter, adding: “I'm sure they will be loved and taken good care of by the people of Adelaide, South Australia, and Australia.”  The duo, the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere, had been scheduled to return in 2019 at the conclusion of the original ten year lease but sometime before the first news of COVID-19, this was extended to 2024.  Although their lack of fecundity was disappointing, there’s nothing to suggest the CCP regard this as a loss of face (for them or the apparently unromantic couple) and Wang Wang and Fu Ni will enjoy a comfortable retirement munching on abundant supplies of bamboo.  Unlike some who have proved a “disappointment” to the CCP, they’ll be spared time in a “re-education centre”.

A classic UK police Wolseley 6/80 (1948-1954) in black, a staple of 1950s UK film & television (top left), Adaux era Hillman Minx (1956–1967) (top centre) & Jaguar Mark 2 (1959-1969) (top right), the first of the true "black & white" panda cars, Ford Anglia 105E (1958-1968) on postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2013 (bottom left), in one of the pastel blues which replaced the gloss black, Rover 3500 (SD1, 1976-1984) (bottom centre) in one of the deliberately lurid schemes used in the 1970s & 1980s (UK police forces stockpiled Rover 3500s when it was announced production was ending; they knew what would follow would be awful) and BMW 320d (bottom right) in the "Battenburg markings" designed by the Police Scientific Development Branch (SDB).

Until 1960, the fleets of cars run by most of the UK’s police forces tended to be a glossy black.  That began to change when, apparently influenced by US practice, the front doors and often part or all of the roof were painted white, the change said to be an attempt to make them “more distinctive”.  The new scheme saw then soon dubbed “panda cars”, the slang picked up by police officers (though often, in their economical way, clipped to “panda”) and use persisted for years even after the dominant color switched from black to pastels, usually a duck-egg blue.  Things got brighter over the years until the police developed the high-visibility “Battenburg markings” a combination of white, blue and fluorescent yellow, a system widely adopted internationally.  Interestingly, although the black & white combination was used between the 1960s-1990s by the New Zealand’s highway patrol cars (“traffic officers” then separate from the police), the “panda car” slang never caught on.

The Fiat Panda

Basic motoring, the 1980 Fiat Panda.

Developed during the second half of the troubled and uncertain 1970s, the Fiat Panda debuted at the now defunct Geneva Motor Show in 1980.  Angular, though not a statement of high rectilinearism in the manner of the memorable Fiat 130 coupé (1971-1977), it was a starkly functional machine, very much in the utilitarian tradition of the Citroën 2CV (1948-1990) but visually reflecting more recent trends although, concessions to style were few.  Fiat wanted a car with the cross-cultural appeal of its earlier Cinquecento (500, 1957-1975) which, like the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) Mini (1959-2000) was “classless” and valued for its practicality.  It was designed from “the inside out”, the passenger compartment’s dimensions created atop the mechanical components with the body built around those parameters, the focus always on minimizing the number of components used, simplifying the manufacturing and assembly processes and designing the whole to make maintenance as infrequently required and as inexpensive as possible.  One innovation which seemed a good, money saving device was that all glass was flat, something which had fallen from fashion for windscreens in the 1950s and for side windows a decade later.  In theory, reverting to the pre-war practice should have meant lower unit costs and greater left-right interchangeability but there were no manufacturers in Italy which had maintained the machinery to produce such things and the cost per m² proved eventually a little higher than would have been the case for curved glass.  Over three generations until 2024, the Panda was a great success although one which did stray from its basic origins as European prosperity increased.  There was in the 1990s even an electric version which was very expensive and, its capabilities limited by the technology of the time, not a success.

The name of the Fiat Panda came from mythology, Empanda, a Roman goddess who was patroness of travelers and controversial among historians, some regarding her identity as but the family name of Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hera, the greatest of all the Olympian goddesses.  Whatever the lineage, she was a better choice for Fiat than Pandarus (Πάνδαρος) who came from the city of Zeleia, Apollo himself teaching him the art of archery.  Defying his father’s advice, Pandarus marched to Troy as a foot soldier, refusing to take a chariot & horses; there he saw Paris & Menelaus engaged in single combat and the goddess Athena incited Pandarus to fire an arrow at Menelaus.  In this way the truce was broken and the war resumed.  Pandarus then fought Diomedes but was killed, his death thought punishment for his treachery in breaking the truce.

Press-kit images for the 2024 Fiat Grande Panda issued by Stellantis, June 2024.

In June 2024, Fiat announced the fourth generation Panda and advances in technology mean the hybrid and all-electric power-trains are now mainstream and competitive on all specific measures.  The Grande Panda is built on the new Stellantis “Smart Car platform”, shared with Citroën ë-C3, offering seating capacity for five.  Unlike the original, the 2024 Panda features a few stylistic gimmicks including headlights and taillights with a “pixel theme”, a look extended to the diamond-cut aluminium wheels, in homage to geometric motifs of the 1980s and the earlier Panda 4x4.

Obscurantism

Obscurantism (pronounced uhb-skyoor-uh n-tiz-uhm or ob-skyoo-ran-tiz-uhm)

(1) A state of opposition to human progress or enlightenment.

(2) Deliberate obscurity or vagueness.

(3) Opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge.

(4) Deliberate obscurity or evasion of clarity.

1825-1835:  From the French obscurantisme in the sense of "opposition to enlightenment", from the German obscurantismus.  The source was the Latin obscűrans, present participle of obscűro (cover, darken, hide), derived from obscūrus (shadowy, obscure), thus the construct obscűrans + ism.  The English obscure was from the Middle English obscure, from the Old French obscur, from the Latin obscūrus (dark, dusky, indistinct), the construct being ob- (towards; against) +‎ scūrus (a form of scuru (dark), from the Proto-Italic skoiros, from the primitive Indo-European skeh.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).   Obscurantism, obscuration & obscurantist are nouns and obscurantic is an adjective; the most common noun plural is obscurantists.

Protecting us from ourselves

Plato & Socrates at the academy, a mosaic from Pompeii.

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) was a German-American political philosopher and classicist.  Although the western tradition has produced not a few philosophers whose writings have been difficult and beyond immediate understanding, Strauss was rare in that he not only admitted being an obscurantist but wrote also of the history of the style and reasons for adapting it to his work.  In writings from antiquity, Strauss found hidden meanings, difficult, almost encoded knowledge which would be unnoticed by all but the most widely-read and highly educated few.  He pondered that while some philosophers might write esoterically to avert persecution by political or religious authorities, he was more taken with the idea the style is uniquely proper to philosophy, which can of course prove as dangerous for reader as writer.   What he argued was that what to most seemed obscurantism, was a means of enticing the select few capable of such things to abstract their thoughts from the text, thus to derive the meaning.  He noted too the importance of dangerous ideas being things the young might too quickly be able to grasp because they’d not pause to consider the implications, recalling the trial of Socrates, condemned to death for corrupting the mind of youth.  Beyond poisoning the minds of students, he warned there had been philosophers who had visited their dangerous ideas upon entire nations because their work was both accessible and seductive.  Strauss didn’t think Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) a Nazi but he understood how compelling his words had been for them.

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

So there is obscurantism good and obscurantism bad.  As a caste, regardless of denomination, priests were long notorious for deliberately keeping information, knowledge, or understanding hidden or difficult to access, often insisting foundational documents of the faith must never be translated into the vernacular languages used by most people, it being better that they rely on the clergy for what was written as well as what was meant.  Even when translations became readily available and literacy levels improved, it was not uncommon for people to be told not to read the texts because they would become confused.  In the case of the Christian Bible, that's probably true for most folk although the priests had their own motivations which centred on the retention of power.

Sarah Palin.

In democratic politics, obscurantism has evolved to discourage questioning.  As late as the 1980s, it was to a degree still possible for authoritarian regimes to repress the flow of information from external sources but even in systems described as “hermetically sealed” (such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea, the DPRK)) this has become difficult, especially when external forces are deliberately trying to subvert the government line.  The internet has made it impossible for Western governments wholly to suppress inconvenient truths so the process have been refined to what is essentially a process of (1) manufacturing fear and (2) instilling doubt.  That’s well understood and it’s done because it works, fear and doubt probably the most successful electoral strategy pursued in the modern era and one given renewed validation because on the rare occasions anyone offers hope and optimism (such as Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017)), they have always disappointed.  Obscurantism should not be confused with incoherence or sheer insensibility.  The tortured and sometimes mangled syntax of figures such as Sarah Palin (b 1964; Republican vice presidential nominee 2008) and George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) was a gift to humorists and meme-makers and the consensus among the political science community seemed to be that neither often attempted to be deceptive or misleading; it was simply that the longer they spoke the less what they were trying to say could be understood.

Caste

Caste (pronounced kahst)

(1) In sociology, an endogamous and hereditary social group limited to persons of the same rank, occupation, economic position, etc, and having mores distinguishing it from other such groups.

(2) Any rigid system of social distinctions.

(3) In Hinduism, any of the social divisions into which Hindu society is traditionally divided, each caste having its own privileges and limitations, transferred by inheritance from one generation to the next.

(4) In entomology, one of the distinct forms among polymorphous social insects, performing a specialized function in the colony, as queen, worker or soldier.

1545-1555: From the Portuguese & Spanish casta (race, breed, ancestry), noun use of casta, feminine of casto, from the Classical Latin castus (pure, chaste), from castus (cut off, separated; pure) the notion being "cut off" from faults and was the past participle of carere (to be cut off from (and related to castration)).  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European kes (to cut) from which Latin later picked-up cassus (empty, void).  It was originally spelled cast in English and later often merged with the noun cast in its secondary sense "sort, kind, style."  Many of the derived forms (half-caste, quarter-caste, castless, outcaste (actually modeled on the English outcast) et al) were coined under the Raj and reflect the concerns and prejudices of the colonialists.  Caste & casteism are nouns; the noun plural is castes.

Application to Hindu social groups was picked up by English in India in the early 1600s and the English used the Portuguese casta (the earlier casta raça (unmixed race) comes from the same Latin root)) but the spelling soon became caste.  Interestingly, the phrase "caste system" seems not to have been in use (at least in surviving documents) until the 1840s.  Caste differs from class in that caste has come to mean a group of persons set apart by economic, social, religious, legal, or political criteria, such as occupation, status, religious denomination, legal privilege, skin colour, or some other physical characteristic.  In the west, over time, wealth or other desirable characteristics can permit upward movement between classes whereas in societies with defined (even if informally) caste systems, the distinctions tended to be static and inter-generational.

The Raj and after

Although it exists in many regions and religions, the best-known caste system is that of the Hindus, probably because, under the Raj, it was well suited to the purposes of British colonial administration, run as it mostly was by the class-conscious English.  The pre-Raj historical development of caste is contested but its origins are certainly in ancient India although modified to suit the needs of the various elites, the two most recent being the Raj and the government in New Delhi.  Historically, the Hindu castes, as a codified structure, existed only as divisions within the political elite, priests, intellectuals and generals and it was only later, as the means of of communications and methods of centralized control improved, that it was extended to previously casteless social groups which became differentiated caste communities.  Under the Raj, the colonial administrators rendered rigidity to the caste organization and until 1920, permitted only those of the upper castes to be appointed to senior civil service positions.  This changed in the 1920s, not because of any sympathy by the British towards notions of social justice but because of social unrest and agitation for independence so the Raj applied the classic colonial fix which for centuries the British did better than anyone: take the side of the oppressed minority.  From then on, the Raj enacted a policy of affirmative action by reserving a certain percentage of civil service positions for the lower castes.

Despite the impression in the west, the new constitution of independent India didn’t actually abolish caste but it did outlaw discrimination against lower castes by essentially (and unsuccessfully) proscribing untouchability and central and state governments continue to use caste as a mechanism to promote positive discrimination in education and employment.  The implications of this, particularly the unintended consequences, are not without controversy.  Although there exists a bewildering number of sub-castes, the four major hereditary castes are:

Brahmins: priests, scholars and teachers.
Kshatriyas: rulers, warriors and administrators.
Vaishyas: agriculturalists and merchants.
Shudras: workers and service providers.

In the narrow technical sense, the untouchables (popularly still known as Dalits, although the government has mandated Scheduled Castes) are not part of the caste system but, by outsiders, are regarded as the caste system's lowest rung.  Dalit was from the Hindi दलित (dalit) (downtrodden, oppressed), from the Sanskrit दलित (dalita) (broken, scattered)).  Few institutions have proved as suitable for adaptation to the structured databases of the internet than the Indian marriage market which works by determining compatibility, based on matching the values in the fields; collectively, what a candidate enters into these fields constitutes their "biodata" and on the basis of this they will hope to be judged a suitable boy or girl.  In India, it's widely acknowledged that while the algorithms which underpin the sites are helpful as an exclusionary tool (and thus a great time-saver), the actual selection process of from what remains lie still with the families & individual prospective brides & grooms, the relative influence varying between households.  In contemporary India, while as a system of social stratification caste remains one of the most powerful cultural dynamics, there is now more reluctance to discuss its operation and there is some evidence of changing attitudes among younger generations, especially the urbanized.  However, in the rural areas where most of the population lives, caste seems still to be as crucial a determinate of structure as ever.

The informal social stratifications which emerge organically in an institution like a high school are interesting because they are determined by both outside influences and their interaction with the formal stratifications inherent in the educational system (age, academic & sporting achievement, the geographical catchment from which the cohort is drawn etc).  The term clique is often used and in the microcosm of a school, that's probably the best word because unlike a caste, movement between cliques is possible, depending only on group acceptance.  Clique was borrowed from the French, from the Old French cliquer which was imitative (on the idea of "click") and thought to have been influenced by claque (a group of people hired to applaud or boo (literally “a slap; a clap")).

Any review of the work of anthropologists, sociologists and behavioral zoologists would probably confirm that on planet Earth, among all groups of humans or non-humans which have been organized into any sort of collective arrangement, some form of a system of social stratification can be identified.  In human cultures, some have for centuries operated in the manner of castes in that they were unchanging and based entirely on descent with social movement either culturally or legally proscribed while some came to acknowledge wealth could permit "upward mobility".  In rare cases this could be almost instant but more commonly was something which unfolded over several generations, each becoming more refined than the last, the combination of gentility and financial largess towards their erstwhile "betters" (effectively bribes or "cash for honors") being rewarded with titles and appointments to offices within the establishment.  In the West, this lent societies an economic and cultural dynamic often lacking in places where hierarchies tended to be static.

Biodata

Biodata (pronounced by-oh-dar-tah)

(1) A type of resume or curriculum vitae, regarding an individual's education and work history, especially in the context of a selection process.

(2) An semi-standardized document created to list the salient features of those in the Hindu marriage market.

1950s: A compound word, the construct being bio(graphical) + data.  Bio is from the Ancient Greek βίο (bío), combining form and stem of βίος (bios) (life).  Data is borrowed from the Latin data, nominative plural of datum (that is given), neuter past participle of dō (I give) and the doublet of date.  In English use, data is frequently used as both a singular & plural, datum now restricted almost entirely to technical writing by those for whom the distinction (or who fear being shamed by fastidious colleagues) matters although pedants do delight is pointing out what they insist remains an error.  This looseness isn't anything new; by the 1640s data meant "a fact given or granted" an organic evolution from the original use in Latin when it conveyed the sense of "a fact given as the basis for calculation in mathematical problems" and the connection with numbers has in the twentieth century become stronger.  In the early 1900s the predominant meaning was "numerical facts collected for future reference" and the meaning "transmittable and storable information by which computer operations are performed" seems first to have been documented in 1946.  Probably few words have been so associated as data & computers: Data-processing is from 1954 (although for years the industry seemed unable to decide if it was electronic data processing (EDP) or just data processing (DP) and the database (also as data-base) (a "structured collection of data stored in a manner it can be retrieved, analysed & and manipulated using a computer" was first described in 1958.  The data-entry operator (a person who transcribes data from physical sources (usually paper) into a computer, usually via keyboard entry) was distinct segment of the labor market by 1969 but was effectively extinct within less than two generations, a victim of technological advances.  Biodata is a noun; there is no accepted word biodatum and the plural of biodata is biodatas.

From HR to the marriage market

Biodata began life as part of the jargon of US industrial and organizational psychology.  To the HR professionals, it was a way of standardising the biographical data submitted in CVs but, being standardised, the information was inherently structured and thus suitable for storage and analysis, something which became increasingly interesting as big-machine databases became ubiquitous in corporations.  As early as the 1960s, corporate HR operations began applying the analytical techniques of psychology and criminology to their structured biodata sets, the predictive ability of the methods based on the axiom that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.  While crunching biodata does not predict all future behaviors, it does produce an indicative number, a measure of that to which future behaviors should tend.  Although claimed to be value-free, based as it is on the factual, not introspection and subjective judgements, biodata analysis has attracted criticism because of the bias inherent in the data chosen.

Extract from Lindsay Lohan's biodata.

Sample biodata for young lady from the Rajput caste.

In the twenty-first century, as the internet reached critical-mass in South Asian countries where the arranged marriage remains culturally embedded, biodata quickly became the preferred term to describe the résumé parents submit to other parents to permit unsuitable boys and girls to be culled from the list of prospective suitors.  Now often done through marriage sites (a specialised type of social media), the biodata typically includes such information as caste, education, work history, financial status, family background, height, weight, skin-tone and a photo.  However, although many sites offer structured templates, there's much variation although it's not clear whether there's any tendency towards a consistency of layout or content based on caste, geographical origin or anything else.  One thing that hasn't changed is that biodata documents are still formatted in a way inherently suited to the printed A4 page, though to reflect the cultural preference of parents.  Despite the mobile device use being high even among the older demographic in South Asia, when culling potential suitors, the big space of the A4 page seems still preferable to the small screen.

A cultural phenomenon which would be understood by structural functionalists is that despite the caste discrimination being outlawed in India for over seventy years, caste status and preferences remain frequently included in the biodata on Indian marriage sites.  Caste discrimination and untouchability were officially abolished in India with the adoption of the Constitution of India Act (26 January 1950), article 15 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.  Building on this, the (Congress) government of India passed the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) (1989), which provided additional protections for Dalits (formerly known as untouchables) and other marginalized groups. Despite this seventy-odd year tradition of structural equality, caste discrimination persists in India (as it does to some degree in probably every culture) and remains a significant element in biodata .   

Acephalous

Acephalous (pronounced ey-sef-uh-luhs)

(1) In zoology, a creature without a head or lacking a distinct head (applied to bivalve mollusks).

(2) In the social sciences, political science & sociology, a system of organisation in a society with no centralized authority (without a leader or ruler), where power is in some way distributed among all or some of the members of the community.

(3) In medicine, as (1) acephalia, a birth defect in which the head is wholly or substantially missing & (2), the congenital lack of a head (especially in a parasitic twin).

(4) In engineering, an internal combustion piston engine without a cylinder head.

(5) In botany, a plant having the style spring from the base, instead of from the apex (as is the case in certain ovaries).

(6) In information & communications technology (ICT), a class of hardware and software (variously headless browser, headless computer, headless server etc) assembled lacking some feature or object analogous with a “head” or “high-level” component.

(7) In prosody, deficient in the beginning, as a line of poetry that is missing its expected opening syllable.

(8) In literature, a manuscript lacking the first portion of the text.

1725-1735: From French acéphale (the construct being acéphal(e) + -ous), from the Medieval Latin acephalous, from the Ancient Greek ἀκέφαλος (aképhalos) (headless), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (not) + κεφαλή (kephalḗ) (head), thus synchronically: a- +‎ -cephalous.  The translingual prefix a- was from the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (not, without) and in English was used to form taxonomic names indicating a lack of some feature that might be expected.  The a- prefix (with differing etymologies) was also used to form words imparting various senses.  Acephalous & acephalic are adjectives, acephalousness, acephalia & acephaly are nouns and acephalously is an adverb; the noun plural is acephali.

In biology (although often literally synonymous with “headless”), it was also used to refer to organisms where the head(s) existed only partially, thus the special use of the comparative "more acephalous" and the superlative "most acephalous", the latter also potentially misleading because it referred to extreme malformation rather than absence (which would be something wholly acephalous).  In biology, the companion terms are anencephalous (without a brain), bicephalous (having two heads), monocephalous (used in botany to describe single-headed, un-branched composite plants) & polycephalous (many-headed).

Acephalous: Lindsay Lohan “headless woman” Halloween costume.

The word’s origins were in botany and zoology, the use in political discussion in the sense of “without a leader” dating from 1751.  The Acephali (plural of acephalus) were a people, said to live in Africa, which were the product of the imagination of the writers of Antiquity, said by both the Greek historian Herodotus (circa 487-circa 425 BC) and Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (circa 37–circa 100) to have no heads (sometimes removable heads) and Medieval historians picked up the notion in ecclesiastical histories, describing thus (1) the Eutychians (a Christian sect in the year 482 without a leader), (2) those bishops certain clergymen not under regular diocesan control and later a class of levelers in the time of Henry I (circa 1068–1135; King 1100-1135).  The word still sometimes appears when discussing religious orders, denominations (or even entire churches) which reject the notion of a separate priesthood or a hierarchical order including such as bishops, the ultimate evolution of which is popery.

Acephalousness in its age of mass production: Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) kneeling next to her confessor, contemplates the guillotine on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  Colorized version of a line engraving with etching, 1815.

In political science, acephalous refers to societies without a leader or ruler in the Western sense of the word but it does not of necessity imply an absence of leadership or structure, just that the arrangements don’t revolve around the one ruler.  Among the best documented examples were the desert-dwelling tribes of West Africa (notably those inhabiting the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (now Ghana)), the arrangements of which required the British colonial administrators (accustomed to the ways of India under the Raj with its Maharajas and institutionalized caste system) to adjust their methods somewhat to deal with notions such as distributed authority and collective decision making.  That said, acephalous has sometimes been used too freely.  It is inevitably misapplied when speaking of anarchist societies (except in idealized theoretical models) and often misleading if used of some notionally collectivist models which are often conventional leadership models in disguise or variations of the “dictatorship of the secretariat” typified by the early structure of Stalinism.

The Acephalous Commer TS3

A curious cul-de-sac in engineering, Commer’s acephalous TS3 Diesel engine (1954-1972) was a six-cylinder, two-stroke system, the three cylinders in a horizontal layout, each with two pistons with their crowns facing each other, the layout obviating any need for a cylinder head.  The base of each piston was attached to a connecting rod and a series of rockers which then attached to another connecting rod, joined to the single, centrally located crankshaft at the bottom of the block, a departure from other “opposed piston” designs, almost all of which used twin crankshafts.  The TS3 was compact, powerful and light, the power-to-weight ratio exceptional because without components such as a cylinder heads, camshafts or valve gear, internal friction was low and thermal efficiency commendably high, the low fuel consumption especially notable.  In other companies, engineers were attracted to the design but accountants were sceptical and there were doubts reliability could be maintained were capacity significantly increased (the TS3 was 3.3 litres (200 cubic inch) and when Chrysler purchased Commer in 1967, development ceased although an eight-piston prototype had performed faultlessly in extensive testing.  Production thus cease in 1972 but although used mostly in trucks, there was also a marine version, many examples of which are still running, the operators maintaining them in service because of the reliability, power and economy (although the exhaust emissions are at the shockingly toxic levels common in the 1960s).

Acephalous information & communications technology (ICT)

A headless computer (often a headless server) is a device designed to function without the usual “head” components (monitor, mouse, keyboard) being attached.  Headless systems are usually administered remotely, typically over a network connection although some still use serial links, especially those emulating legacy systems.  Deployed to save both space and money, numerous headless computers and servers still exist although the availability of KVM (and related) hardware which can permit even dozens of machines to be hard-wired to the one keyboard/mouse/monitor/ combination has curbed their proliferation.

A headless browser is a web browser without a graphical user interface (GUI) and can thus be controlled only be from a command-line interface or with a (usually) automated script, often deployed in a network environment.  Obviously not ideal for consumer use, they’re ideal for use in distributed test environments or automating tasks which rely on interaction between web pages.  Until methods of detection improved, headless browsers were a popular way of executing ploys such as credential stuffing, page-view building or automated clicking but there now little to suggest they’re now anymore frequently used as a vector for nefarious activity than conventional browsers with a GUI attached.

Browsing for nerds: Google’s acephalous Headless Chrome.

Headless software is analogous with but goes beyond the concept of a headless computer in that it’s designed specifically to function without not just a GUI or monitor but even the hardware necessary to support the things (notably the video card or port).  Whereas some software will fail to load if no video support is detected, headless software proceeds regardless, either because it’s written without such parameter checking or it includes responses which pass “false positives”, emulating the existence of absent software.  Headless software operated in a specialized (horizontal in terms of industries supplied but vertical in that the stuff exists usually in roles such as back-to-front-end comms on distributed servers) niche, the advantage being the two end can remain static (as some can be for years) while bridge between the two remains the more maintenance intensive application programming interface (API), the architecture affording great flexibility in the software stack.