Fasces

Fasces (pronounced fas-eez)

(1) In ancient Rome, one or more bundles of rods (historically wooden sticks) containing an axe with its blade protruding, borne before Roman magistrates as an emblem of official power.

(2) In modern Italy, a bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting, used as the symbol of Fascism (sometimes used imitatively in other places).

1590–1600: From the Latin fasces (bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting), the plural of fascis (bundle or pack of wood), from the Proto-Italic faski- (bundle) possibly from the primitive Indo-European bhasko- (band, bundle), (the source also of the Middle Irish basc (neckband), the Welsh baich (load, burden) and possibly the Old English bæst (inner bark of the linden tree)).  In Ancient Rome, the bundle (the “fascio littorio”) was carried by a functionary before a lictor (a senior Roman magistrate) as a symbol of the judiciary’s power over life and limb (the sticks symbolized the use of corporal punishment (by whipping or thrashing with sticks) while the axe-head represented capital jurisdiction (execution by beheading)).  From this specific symbolism, in Latin the word came to be used figuratively of “high office, supreme power”.  Fasces is a noun (usually used with a singular verb); the noun plural is fascis but fasces is used as both a singular & plural.  For this reason, some in the field of structural linguistics suggest fascis remains Latin while (and thus a foreign word) fasces has been borrowed by English (and is thus assimilated).

The Italian term fascismo (a fascist dictatorship; fascism) was from fascio (bundle of sticks) and ultimately from the Latin fasces.  The name was picked up by the political organizations in Italy known as fasci (originally created along the lines of guilds or syndicates, the structures surviving for some time even as some evolved into “conventional” political parties).  Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) recollections of events were not wholly reliable but there are contemporary documents which support his account that he co-founded Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria (Fasces of Revolutionary Action), the organisation publishing the Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista (the Revolutionary Internationalist Action League) in October 1914.  As far as is known, the future Duce’s embryonic movement was the first use of the terminology the world would come to know as “fascism”, the organizational structure of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party) first discussed in 1919 and codified in 1919 when the party was registered.

Surviving art from Ancient Rome confirms the fascio littorio was represented both  with the head of the axe protruding from the centre of the bundled rods of the fasces and through a gape in the sides (left) but in Fascist Italy (1922-1943), the official images issued by the state used almost exclusively the latter arrangement (right).   

The Fascists choose the ancient Roman fascio littorio (a bundle of rods tied around an axe) because (1) the literal suggestion of strength through unity; while a single rod (an individual) is easily broken, a bundle (the collective) is more resilient and resistant to force and (2) the symbolic value which dated from Antiquity of the strong state with the power of life & death over its inhabitants.  The evocation of the memories of the glories of Rome was important to Mussolini who wished to re-fashion Italian national consciousness along the lines of his own self-image: virile, martial and superior.  When he first formed his political movement, Italy had been a unified nation less little more than fifty years and Mussolini, his envious eye long cast at Empire builders like the British and Prussians, despaired that Italians seemed more impressed by the culture of the decadent French for whom “dress-making and cooking have been elevated to the level of art”.  The use by the Nazis of the swastika symbol was a similar attempt at linkage although less convincing; at least the history of the fasces was well documented.  The Nazis claimed the swastika as a symbol of the “Aryan People” which they quite erroneously claimed was a definable racial identity rather than a technical term used by linguistic anthropologists studying the evolution of European languages.  Although there was much overlap in style, racist ideology, fascist movements in different countries tended to localize their symbols and Falange in Spain was one of the few to integrate the fasces although the yoke & arrows of the Falange flags were actually an adoption of a design which had long appeared on the standards of the Spanish royal house.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945 was at least honest in private conversation when he admitted that of human beings that “scientifically, there is only one race” but the propaganda supporting his (ultimately genocidal) racist philosophy was concerned with effect, not facts.  Hitler too, had no wish to too deeply to dig into an inconvenient past.  It annoyed him that Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) went about commissioning archaeological excavations of prehistoric sites which could only “…call the whole world’s attention to the fact we have no past?  It isn’t enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up those villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds.  All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture”.  Perhaps with the Duce in mind, he added “The present-day Romans must be having a laugh at these revelations”.

The fascist salute has become so associated with Hitler and Nazism that in recent years some jurisdictions have banned its use, emulating the prohibition which has existed in Germany (the sanction pre-dating unification in 1990) for decades.  Because the salute is the same gesture as that used for purposes ranging from waving to one's mother to hailing a taxi, prosecutions are expected to be initiated only in cases of blatant anti-Semitism or other offensive acts.  The "salute" is so widely used that photographs exist of just about every politician in the act and they're often published; usually it's just a cheap journalistic trick but if carefully juxtaposed with something, it can be effective.

Lindsay Lohan: Sometimes, a wave is just a wave.     

The Duce’s reverence for the Ancient Rome of popular imagination accounts at least in part also for the Fascists' adoption of the Roman salute although Mussolini did also object to the shaking of hands on the basis it was “effete, un-Italian and un-hygienic” and as the reduced infection rates of just about everything during the “elbow-bumping” era of the COVID-19 social isolation illustrated, on that last point, he had a point.  Other fascist regimes and movements also adopted the salute, most infamously the Nazis although none were as devoted as Hitler who, quite plausibly, claimed to have spent hours a day for weeks using a spring-loaded “chest expander” he’d obtained by mail-order so he’d strengthen his shoulder muscles sufficiently to enable him to stand, sometimes for a hour or more with his right arm extended as parades of soldiers passed before him.

A much-published image of the Duce, raising his arm in the fascist salute next to the bronze statue of Nerva (Marcus Cocceius Nerva) (30–98; Roman emperor 96-98) in the Roman Forum.

However, historians maintain there’s simply no evidence anything like the fascist salute of the twentieth century was a part of the culture of Ancient Rome, either among the ruling class or any other part of the population.  Whether the adoption as a alleged emulation of Roman ways was an act of cynicism of self-delusion on the part of the Duce isn’t known although he may have been impressed by the presence of the gesture in neo-classical painting, something interesting because it wasn’t a motif in use prior to the eighteenth century.  This “manufacturing” of Antiquity wasn’t even then something new; the revival of interest in Greece and Rome during the Renaissance resulted in much of the material which in the last few hundred years has informed and defined in the popular imagination how the period looked and what life was like.  By the twentieth century, it was this art which was reflected in the props and sets used in the newly accessible medium of film and the salute, like the architecture, was part of the verisimilitude.  Mussolini enjoyed films and to be fair, there were in Italy a number of statutes from the epoch in which generals, emperors, senators and other worthies had a arm raised although historians can find no evidence which suggests the works were a representation of a cultural practice anything like a salute.  Indeed, an analysis of many statues revealed that rather than salutes, many of the raised arms were actually holding things and one of the best known was revealed to have been repaired after the spear once in the hand had been damaged.

Adolf Hitler showing the "long arm" & "short arm" variants of the fascist salute (left) and examples of the long arm & short arm penalty being awarded in rugby union (right).

In fascist use, what evolved was the “long-arm” salute used on formal occasions or for photo opportunities and a “short-arm” variation which was a gesture which referenced the formal salute which was little more than a bending of the elbow and involved the hand rising at a 45^o angle only to the level of the shoulder; in that the relationship of the short to the long can be thought symbiotic.  Amusingly and wholly unrelated to fascism, the concept was re-appropriated in the refereeing of rugby union where a “short-arm” penalty (officially a “free-kick”) is a penalty awarded for a minor infringement of the games many rules.  Whereas a “full-arm” penalty offers the team the choice of kicking for goal, kicking for touch or taking a tap to resume play, a “short-arm” penalty allows a kick at goal, a kick for touch or the option of setting a scrum instead of a lineout.  The referee signals a “short-arm” penalty by raising their arm at an angle of 45^o.

A most unfortunate conjunction of imagery: Adolf Hitler on Berlin's newly opened East-West Axis in his Mercedes-Benz 770 K Grosser Cabriolet F open tourer (W150; 1938-1943) in a parade marking his 50^th birthday, opposite the Technical High School, 20 April 1939 (left) and David Bowie in his Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) Pullman Landaulet, Victoria Station, London, 2 May 1976 (right).

Sometimes a wave is just an excuse.  The pop star David Bowie (1947-2016) understood he was an influential figure in music but on more than one occasion explained to interviewers: “I am not an original thinker”.  Trawling pop-culture for inspiration nevertheless served him well but he later came to regret dabbling with history slightly less recent.  Not impressed with the state of British society and its economy in the troubled mid-1970s, he was quoted variously as suggesting the country would benefit for “an ultra right-wing government” or “a fascist leader”.  Although he would later claim he was captivated more by the fashions (the long leather coats said to be a favorite) than the policies of the Third Reich, the most celebrated event of this period came in 1976 in what remains known as the "Victoria Station incident".  Mr Bowie staged a media event, arriving standing in an open Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet, recalling for many the way in which Hitler so often appeared in his 770 K.  Unfortunately, a photographer captured a shot in what the singer later claimed was “mid wave” and it certainly resembled a Nazi salute.  He later attributed all that happened during this stage of his career to too many hard drugs which had caused his interest in the aesthetics of inter-war Berlin to turn into an obsession with politics of the period.  All was however quickly forgiven and his audience awaited the next album which is an interesting contrast to the cancel culture created by the shark-feeding dynamic of the social media era.

How it was done: Mussolini, Hitler and Victor Emmanuel III show their interpretations of the fascist salute, the technique varying according to their commitment to the cause.  The trio are reviewing an Italian military parade, Rome, May, 1938. 

Front row: Benito Mussolini (left), Adolf Hitler (centre) and Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) (right).

Second row: Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945, far left), Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1943, centre left), Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945, centre right) and Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy Führer 1933-1941, far right).

Back row: The WAGs.

Of the seven men in this image, only Victor Emmanuel would die from natural causes, in exile succumbing to pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs) some 18 months after being compelled to abdicate.  While on the run, the deposed Mussolini would be executed by Italian partisans, Hitler & his new wife would commit suicide in the Berlin Führerbunker with Soviet troops only blocks away, von Ribbentrop would be hanged at Nuremberg after being found guilty of planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity, Ciano would be executed on the orders of Mussolini (his father-in-law!), Goebbels & his wife would commit suicide (after murdering six of their seven children (aged 5-14)) shortly after the death of Hitler and Hess, sentenced to life imprisonment at Nuremberg for planning & waging aggressive war, committed suicide aged 93, after 46 years in captivity.

Now, were a pop star to tell interviewers: “Britain could benefit from a fascist leader” and “I believe very strongly in fascism … Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars”, their future career prospects might be "nasty, solitary, brutish and short".  Despite that orthodoxy however, the multi-media personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) has expressed what seem to be pro-Hitler sentiments and been photographed wearing a "swastika T-shirt", even (briefly) offering them for sale on the (now apparently in abeyance) Yeezy website.  Rather than having him cancelled, Mr Ye's comments and products seem to have had at least a financial upside because in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) he stated: "...AND I MADE 40 MILLION THE NEXT DAY BETWEEN MY DIFFERENT BUSINESS. THERE'S I LOT OF JEWISH PEOPLE I KNOW AND LOVE AND STILL WORK WITH. THE POINT I MADE AND SHOWED IS THAT I AM NOT UNDER JEWISH CONTROL ANYMORE IN WAR YOU TAKE A COUPLE LOSES..."  That would seem to suggest that in the right circumstances, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and Dr Joseph Goebbels were right: "It doesn't matter what people are saying about you as long as they're saying something."        

Farce

Farce (pronounced fahrs)

(1) To stuff; to cram (obsolete).

(2) To make fat; to swell out (obsolete).

(3) To render pompous (obsolete).

(4) In the Roman Catholic Church, an alternative form of farse (to insert vernacular paraphrases into a Latin liturgy).

(5) A light, humorous production (plays, television film etc) play in which the plot depends upon the exploitation of improbable (or even impossible) situations rather than upon the development of character.

(6) The genre of comedy represented by works of this kind

(7) Humor of the type displayed in such works.

(8) Something foolish; a mockery; a ridiculous sham, a ludicrous situation or action.

(9) In cooking, forcemeat (a mixture of finely chopped and seasoned foods, usually containing egg white, meat or fish, etc., used as a stuffing or served alone).

(10) To add witty material to a speech or composition.

1300–1350: From the Middle English noun fars (stuffing), from the Middle French farce, from the Vulgar Latin farsa, noun use of feminine of Latin farsus, from the earlier fartus (stuffed), past participle of the verb farcīre (to stuff) which Middle English picked up as farsen, from the Old French farsir & farcir, from Latin farciō (to cram, stuff).  It was a doublet of farse.  The origin of the Latin farcire (to stuff, cram) is of uncertain origin but some etymologists suggest it may be connected with the primitive Indo-European bhrekw- (to cram together).  Farce in the fourteenth century first meant the chopped-meat stuffing used in cooking and farced into dishes.  The idea of a scene or plotline of “ludicrous satire or low comedy” being interpolated into a play was first described as “a farcing and thus soon ‘a farce’”) in the 1520s, while the dramatic sense of a “ludicrous satire; low comedy” was from the French use of farce (comic interlude in a mystery play) was a sixteenth century development while in English, the generalized sense of “a ridiculous sham” came into use in the 1690s.  In literary use, the companion term is tragicofarcical (having elements of both tragedy and farce).  Farce is a noun & verb, farced & farcing are verbs and and farcical is an adjective; the noun plural is plural farces.  The adjective unfarced (also as un-farced) is used in cooking to distinguished a dish not farced from one farced; it is not used of plays or literature.

The now rare noun infarction first appeared in the medical literature in the 1680s as a noun of action from the Latin infarcire (to stuff into), the construct being in- )in the sense of “into” (from the primitive Indo-European root en- (in) + farcīre (to stuff).  In pathology it was widely used of various morbid local conditions but as technology and techniques improved and more specific descriptions evolved used declined and the early twentieth century it tended to be restricted to certain conditions caused by localized faults in the circulatory system.  The construct of the noun forcemeat (also as force-meat) was force (“to stuff (as a variant of farce)) + meat.  The term first appeared in cookbooks in the late 1670s (although the technique (as “farcing”) dated back centuries; it described “mincemeat, meat chopped fine & seasoned, then used as a stuffing”.

Karl Marx (left) who turned G.W.F. Hegel (right) "upside down on his head".

Nowhere did Karl Marx (1818-1883) ever write “history repeats itself” but the phrase “history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” is often attributed to him and has long been an undergraduate favourite.  The origin of that was in the first chapter of his essay Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon (18th Brumaire of Louis Bonapatre (1852)) in which, writing of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) he wrote: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice.  He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”  The “second time as farce” notion seems to have been something picked up from his benefactor & collaborator German philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) who a few months earlier, in one of his letters to Marx, had observed: “it really seems as though old Hegel, in the guise of the World Spirit, were directing history from the grave and, with the greatest conscientiousness, causing everything to be re-enacted twice over, once as grand tragedy and the second time as rotten farce, Caussidière for Danton, L. Blanc for Robespierre, Barthélemy for Saint-Just, Flocon for Carnot, and the moon-calf together with the first available dozen debt-encumbered lieutenants for the little corporal and his band of marshals. Thus the 18th Brumaire would already be upon us.”

In Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843), Marx had made a similar point:  “A coup d’état is sanctioned as it were in the opinion of the people if it is repeated.  Thus, Napoleon was defeated twice and twice the Bourbons were driven out.  Through repetition, what at the beginning seemed to be merely accidental and possible, becomes real and established.”  Marx did take a few interpretative liberties with Hegel.  When in Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (Lectures on the Philosophy of History (a compilation of lectures delivered at University of Berlin in 1822, 1828 & 1830)), Hegel compared nature where “there is nothing new under the Sun,” with history where there is always development he was describing historical progression in terms of the Hegelian philosophy which holds that history follows the dictates of reason and that the natural progress of history is due to the outworking of absolute spirit.  Still, Marx did boast that to make use of Hegel's dialectic he had to “turn him upside down on his head” so perhaps he felt entitled to kick the dead man’s ideas around a bit.

The farce on stage and in literature

In literary use, the farce is a form of comedy where the purpose is to “provoke mirth of the simplest and most basic kind: roars of laughter rather than smiles; humour rather than wit.  It is associated with, but must be distinguished from, burlesque; it is with clowning, buffoonery and knockabout slapstick, a form of ‘low’ comedy in which the basic elements are: exaggerated physical action (often repeated), exaggeration of character and situation in which absurd, improbable (even impossible ones and therefore fantastical) events and surprises in the form of unexpected appearances and disclosures”.  In farce, character and dialogue are nearly always subservient to plot and situation with plots often complex, events succeeding with a sometimes bewildering rapidity.

Quite when the first farces were performed is not known but historians seem to agree it would certainly have predated anything in the literary tradition.  Elements recognizably “farces” exist in some surviving plays from Antiquity in which “low comedy” in the shape of ridiculous situations and ludicrous results, ribaldry and junketings are interpolated into works of satire and studies of the farce have identified the device in Greek satyr play and the Roman fabak.  Technically though, the first plays actually described as “farces” were French works from the late Middle Ages where there were “stuffings” described as “between scenes”: comic interludes between the “serious” parts in religious or liturgical drama.  Usually, such “stuffings” were written in octosyllabic (containing eight syllables) couplets with an average length of some 500 lines.  These interpolations poked fun at the foibles and vices of everyday life (particularly at commercial knavery and conjugal infidelity, two subjects with enduring audience appeal).

The Taming of the Shrew, Barbican Theatre, June 2019.  For the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), Justin Audibert (b 1981) re-imagined the England of the 1590s as a matriarchy in which Baptista Minola is seeking to sell off her son Katherine to the highest bidder.

Later, in French theatre, these farcical interludes developed into a form of their own: the “one-act farce”, pieces which were in their time something like to short-form clips which TikTok made a business model.  The contemporary English Mystery Plays also often included one or more comic interludes and interestingly, demonic & grotesque figures behaving in a buffoonish manner (letting off fireworks something of a theme) appeared with much greater frequency than in France.  In the time of the Morality Plays, apart from aberrations like William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) The Taming of the Shrew (1592) & The Comedy of Errors (circa 1593), there was little written for the English stage which could truly be described as farce but by the time the genre of “Restoration comedy” (known sometimes as “Comedy of manners”) had become established in the late seventeenth century, farce was back to celebrate the re-opening of public stage performances, banned for the previous 18 years by the Puritan regime.  For better or worse, farce has been with us ever since.

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

It can be difficult to decided whether “farce”, “fiasco” or “debacle” best applies in particular circumstances.  Indeed, it seems difficult to formulate anything close to a “rule” and every situation will need to be judged on its merits.  However, as a general principle, the pattern of use seems to indicate: (1) Farce is used in a way which hints at the theatrical tradition: real-life situations that are ridiculously chaotic and ludicrous, almost comical in their dysfunction. (2) A fiasco is a total utter failure, usually in a public and humiliating way when things have gone very wrong, typically due to poor planning or execution. (3) A debacle is an ignominious failure and one which often implies a broader, more significant collapse, sometimes with serious consequences.

The farce of excommunication

Presumably the Spanish nuns of The Poor Clares of Belorado chose their words with care when in June 2024 they condemned the Holy See’s action against them as “the farce of excommunication” although whether they were still within the holy communion of the Church to be excommunicated may be a moot point because the sisters insisted they had already severed all connections with the Vatican and their departure from the “Conciliar Church” was “unanimous and irreversible”.  The exchange of views between Rome and Castile-Leon came after the sisters declined to attend the ecclesial tribunal of Burgos to which they had been summoned, their notice of no-attendance transmitted to the Archbishop of Burgos with a hint of rejection of modernity: they used the fax machine.  Informing the archbishop they had left the Conciliar Church “freely, voluntarily, unanimously and in a spirit of joy”, their fax message asserted the ecclesiastical tribunal had “no jurisdiction” over them since their separation the previous month which their said was prompted by the “larceny” of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965), adding that no pope after Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) was “legitimate”.

Being careful with words, it must be assumed the sisters were thus declaring Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) an “illegitimate pope” rather than an “anti-pope”, a distinction of some significance to canon lawyers.  “Illegitimate pope” is a general term for any pope whose election or claim to the papacy is deemed invalid or improper according to the canonical laws and practices of the Church; such a state can arise from procedural failures or the appointee lacking the requisite qualifications.  An “anti-pope” is one who makes a claim to the papacy in opposition to the pope recognized by the majority of the Catholic Church, a status which is of any consequence only if such a person has a significant following among Catholics.  Typically, anti-popes have existed during periods of schism.

Belorado Convento de Santa María de Bretonera.

Founded in 1358, in 1458 the monastery was damaged during one of the feudal battles which for more than two centuries would from time-to-time briefly flare, the structure repaired two years later.  Built in the Gothic style, there are Baroque style altar-pieces from the seventeenth century and a pipe organ dating from 1799.  The Monastery of Santa Clara is presided over by nuns of the order of the Poor Clares.

So, being critical mass theorists like any good Catholics, the sisters would understand that at the moment, Francis “has the numbers” but they certainly seem to be attempting something schismatic, their 70-page manifesto explaining that henceforth the nuns would follow the spiritual leadership of Pablo de Rojas Sánchez-Franco (b 1982), a self-styled “bishop” and professed admirer of the fascist dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975); De Rojas-Franco was excommunicated in 2019.  Like the sisters, Mr De Rojas-Franco is a sedisvacantist (one who regards all popes after Pius XII to be illegitimate heads of the Church; in this view, the Holy See in Rome is actually sede vacante (vacant throne) and Francis a heretic and usurper to be spoken of only as “Mr Bergoglio”.  One implication of this is that many post 1958 ordinations are also invalid so any penalty or canonical sanction “imposed by those who are not valid or legitimate bishops, and who have no power over souls” are thus null and void”.  In other words, “Mr Bergoglio, you can’t excommunicate us”, hence the description of Rome’s edict as a farce.

Chocolates and biscuits made by nuns of The Poor Clares of Belorado.  Presumably, chocolates made by heretics are more sinful than those made by the faithful.

So the ecclesiastical battle lines have been drawn and the Holy See has clearly decided the chirothecœ (liturgical gloves) are off, the 10 nuns of the order reporting sales of the pastries and chocolate truffles they produce as their only source of income are down, the faithful of the nearby villages clearing having been told by their priests to buy their sweet treats from non-heretics.  According to Rome, the bolshie Poor Clare nuns of Belorado have committed the crime of schism (Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law states defines schism as “the refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him”, the penalty for which is excommunication).  Since burnings at the stake and such became unfashionable, excommunication is now the most serious penalty a baptized person can incur; it consists of being placed outside the communion of the faithful of the Catholic Church and denied access to the sacraments but it need not be final, the theological purpose of the act being “to bring the guilty to repentance and conversion” and, in a phrase with internal logic which makes complete sense in the corridors of the Vatican: “With the penalty of excommunication the Church is not trying in some way to restrict the extent of mercy but is simply making evident the seriousness of the crime.”

Of course heretics are flesh and blood and as they have declared themselves no longer members of the Catholic Church, by remaining in the monastery they are occupying property of the Church to which they do not belong and may be found to have no legal right to stay there.  Their archbishop has told them they are now trespassing but seems to be taking a patient approach, saying he hopes they will leave of their own volition, avoid the need to assemble a team of black-clad monsignors forcibly to evict them.  The social media savvy Francis would understand that might be “bad optics”.  Still, the archbishop insists the matter will be pursued and that Spanish civil law recognizes the Church’s Code of Canon Law as governing such things, adding “…they were told that they should not be in the monastery and in a steadfast and contumacious way they persist in being there”, concluding ominously “…so the legal authorities will act against them.”

This is not an isolated case and in the last year there have been a number of excommunications of bishops and archbishops, all of whom have denied the legitimacy of Francis, some actually calling him “a heretic”, something almost unknown for centuries.  With the death of Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), so died too the last restraining influence on Francis’s reformist tendencies and the tensions which have mostly be suppressed since Vatican II are now bubbling over.  As an amusing spectacle for the neutrals, Church politics: (“You’re a heretic!”, “No, you’re a heretic!”) is something like modern Spanish political discourse: (“You’re a fascist!”, “No, you’re a fascist!”) but how this plays out in what may be the last days of this pontificate is likely much to influence the voting in the College of Cardinals when it comes time to choose the next pope.

As the Vatican takes heresy seriously, so the fashionistas guard haute couture.  The reaction to Lindsay Lohan brief fling as fashion designer for Ungaro, Paris Fashion Week, March 2010.

Reich

Reich (pronounced rahyk or rahykh (German))

(1) With reference to Germany or other Germanic agglomerations, empire; realm; nation.

(2) The German state, especially (as Third Reich) during the Nazi period.

(3) A term used (loosely) of (1) hypothetical resurrections of Nazi Germany or similar states and (2) (constitutionally incorrectly), the so-called “Dönitz government (or administration)” which existed for some three weeks after Hitler’s suicide. 

(4) Humorously (hopefully), a reference to a suburb, town etc with a population in which German influence or names of German origin are prominent; used also by university students when referring to departments of German literature, German history etc. 

(5) As a slur, any empire-like structure, especially one that is imperialist, tyrannical, racist, militarist, authoritarian, despotic etc.

1871: From the German Reich (kingdom, realm, state), from the Middle High German rīche, from the Old High German rīhhi (rich, mighty; realm), from the Proto-West Germanic rīkī, from the Proto-Germanic rīkijaz & rikja (rule), a derivative of rīks (king, ruler), from the Proto-Celtic rīxs and thus related to the Irish rí.  The influences were (1) the primitive Indo-European hereǵ- (to rule), from which is derived also the Latin rēx and (2) the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line", thus "to lead, rule".  Cognates include the Old Norse riki, the Danish rige & rig, the Dutch rike & rijk, the Old English rice & rich, the Old Frisian rike, the Icelandic ríkur, the Swedish rik, the Gothic reiki, the Don Ringe and the Plautdietsch rikj.  The German adjective reich (rich) is used with an initial lower case and as a suffix is the equivalent of the English -ful, used to form an adjective from a noun with the sense of “rich in”, “full of”.  As a German noun & proper noun, Reich is used with an initial capital.

Reich was first used in English circa 1871 to describe the essentially Prussian creation that was the German Empire which was the a unification of the central European Germanic entities.  It was never intended to include Austria because (1) Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) intricate series of inter-locking treaties worked better with Austria as an independent state and (2) he didn't regard them as "sufficiently German" (by which he would have meant "Prussian": Bismarck described Bavarians as "halfway between Austrians and human beings".  At the time, the German Empire was sometimes described simply as “the Reich” with no suggestion of any sense of succession to the Holy Roman Empire.  “Third Reich” was an invention of Nazi propaganda to “invent” the idea of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) as the inheritor of the mantle of Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814) and Bismarck.  The word soon captured the imagination of the British Foreign Office, German “Reichism” coming to be viewed as much a threat as anything French had ever been to the long-time British foreign policy of (1) maintaining a balance of power in a Europe in which no one state was dominant ("hegemonic" the later term) and (2) avoid British involvement in land-conflicts on "the continent".

The term "Fourth Reich" had been around for a while when it was co-opted by Edwin Hartrich’s (1913-1995) for his book The Fourth and Richest Reich (MacMillan 1980), a critique both of the modern German state and its influence on the European Economic Community (the EEC (1957) which by 1993 would morph into the European Union (EU).  The term is still sometimes used by those criticizing the German state, the not so subtle implication being Berlin gradually achieving by other means the domination of Europe which the Third Reich attempted by military conquest.  Fourth Reich is also sometimes used, erroneously to describe the two-dozen day “administration” of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; German head of state 30 April-23 May 1945) who in Hitler’s will was appointed Reich President (and therefore head of state); the so-called “Flensburg Government”.  That’s wrong and the only difference of opinion between constitutional theorists is whether it was (1) the mere coda to the Third Reich or (2) a charade, the German state ceasing to exist by virtue of events on the ground, a situation the finalization of the surrender arrangements on 8 May merely documented.  The latter view certainly reflects reality and in a legal sense the formal existence of a German state was required to ensure the validity of the surrender and other administrative acts; the consensus is the German state ceased to exist on 8 May 1945.  That the Allied occupying forces allowed the obviously pointless “Dönitz administration” to “function” for some three weeks has been the subject of historical debate.  Some have suggested there were those in London & Washington who contemplated using (at least temporarily) the “Flensburg Government” as a kind of “administrative agent” and it's true Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) did briefly flirt with the idea.  However, what's more plausible was it was so unexpected and no planning (military or political) had been had undertaken to deal with such a thing: "Hitler in his bunker was one thing, an admiral in Flensburg was another".

Hartrich’s thesis was a particular deconstruction of the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), the unexpectedly rapid growth of the economy of the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) in the 1950s and 1960s which produced an unprecedented and widespread prosperity.  There were many inter-acting factors at play during the post-war era but what couldn’t be denied was the performance of the FRG’s economy and Hartrich attributed it to the framework of what came to be called the Marktwirt-schaft market economy with a social conscience), a concept promoted by Professor Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) while working as a consultant to the Allied occupying forces in the immediate aftermath of the war.  When the FDR was created in 1949, he entered politics, serving as economy minister until 1963 when he became Chancellor (prime-minister).  His time as tenure was troubled (he was more technocrat than politician) but soziale Marktwirtschaft survived his political demise and it continues to underpin the economic model of the modern German state.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of the German edition of GQ (Gentleman's Quarterly) magazine, August 2010.  Although published in the Fourth Reich, the photo-shoot by photographer Ellen Von Unwerth (b 1954) took place on Malibu Beach, California during June 2010.  Sommerlust is not as exciting as it may sound to English-speaking ears; it translates as “summer pleasure”

Hartrich was a neo-liberal, then a breed just beginning to exert its influence in the Western world, but he also understood that the introduction of untrammelled capitalism to Europe was likely to sow the seeds of its own destruction but he insists the “restoration” of the “…profit motive as the prime mover in German life was a fundamental step…” to economic prosperity and social stability.  Of course the unique circumstances of the time (the introduction of the Deutsche Mark which enjoyed stability under the Bretton Woods system (1944), the outbreak of the Cold War, the recapitalization of industry and the provision of new plant & equipment with which to produce goods to be sold into world markets under the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (1947)) produced conditions which demand attention but the phenomenal growth can’t be denied.  Nor was it denied at the time; within the FRG, even the socialist parties by 1959 agreed to build their platform around “consumer socialism”, a concession Hartrich wryly labelled “capitalism's finest hour”.  The Fourth and Richest Reich was not a piece of economic analysis by an objective analyst and nor did it much dwell on the domestic terrorism which came in the wake of the Wirtschaftswunder, the Baader-Meinhof Group (the Red Army Faction (RAF)) and its ilk discussed as an afterthought in a few pages in an epilogue which included the bizarre suggestion Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015; FRG Chancellor 1974–1982) should be thought a latter-day Bismarck; more than one reviewer couldn’t resist mentioning Hitler himself had once accorded the same honor to the inept Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945).

The word "Reich" does sometimes confuse non-specialists who equate it with the German state, probably because the Third Reich does cast such a long shadow.  Murdoch journalist Samantha Maiden (b 1972) in a piece discussing references made to the Nazis (rarely a good idea except between consenting experts in the privacy of someone don's study) by a candidate in the 2022 Australian general election wrote:

The history of the nation-state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: German Empire (1871–1918) Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Nazi Germany (1933–1945).

It's an understandable mistake and the history of the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods but that doesn't include the Weimar Republic.  The point about what the British Foreign Office labelled "Reichism" was exactly what the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) as a "normal" democratic state, was not.  The Reich's three epochs (and there's some retrospectivity in both nomenclature and history) were the Holy Roman Empire (1800-1806), Bismarck's (essentially Prussian) German Empire (1871-1918) & the Nazi Third Reich (1933-1945).  

The First Reich: the Holy Roman Empire, 800-1806

The Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the early Middle Ages, the popular identification with Germany because the empire’s largest territory after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany.  On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III (circa 760-816; pope 795-816) crowned Charlemagne (747–814; King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans (and thus retrospectively Holy Roman Emperor) from 800)) as Emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Despite the way much history has been written, it wasn’t until the fifteenth century that “Holy Roman Empire” became a commonly used phrase.

Leo III, involved in sometimes violent disputes with Romans who much preferred both his predecessor and the Byzantine Empress in Constantinople, had his own reasons for wishing to crown Charlemagne as Emperor although it was a choice which would have consequences for hundreds of years.  According to legend, Leo ambushed Charlemagne at Mass on Christmas day, 800 by placing the crown on his head as he knelt at the altar to pray, declaring him Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans), in one stroke claiming staking the papal right to choose emperors, guaranteeing his personal protection and rejecting any assertion of imperial authority by anyone in Constantinople.  Charlemagne may or may not have been aware of what was to happen but much scholarship suggests he was well aware he was there for a coronation but that he intended to take the crown in his own hands and place it on his head himself.  The implications of the pope’s “trick” he immediately understood but, what’s done is done and can’t be undone and the lesson passed down the years, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) not repeating the error at his coronation as French Emperor in 1804.

Some historians prefer to date the empire from 962 when Otto I was crowned because continuous existence there began but, scholars generally concur, it’s possible to trace from Charlemagne an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, describing a gradual assumption of the imperial title and role.  Not all were, at the time, impressed. Voltaire sardonically recorded one of his memorable bon mots, noting the “…agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."  The last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II (1768–1835; Holy Roman Emperor 1792-1806) dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after Napoleon's creation of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The Second Reich: the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty, 1871-1918

German Empire, 1914.

The German Empire existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Kaiser (Emperor) & King of Prussia 1888-1918) in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic, remembered as the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, most ruled by royal families.  Although Prussia became one of several kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory and certainly the greatest military power and the one which exercised great influence within the state; a joke at the time was that most countries had an army whereas the Prussian Army had a country.

To a great extent, the Second Reich was the creation of Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; chancellor of the North German Confederation 1867-1871 and of the German Empire 1871-1890), the politician who dominated European politics in the late nineteenth although his time in office does need to be viewed through sources other than his own memoirs.  After Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck, without his restraining hand, the empire embarked on a bellicose new course that led ultimately to World War I (1914-1918), Germany’s defeat and the end the reign of the House of Hohenzollern and it was that conflict which wrote finis to the dynastic rule of centuries also of the Romanovs in Russia, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans in Constantinople.  Following the Kaiser’s abdication, the empire collapsed in the November 1918 revolution and the Weimar Republic which followed, though not the axiomatically doomed thing many seem now to assume, was for much of its existence beset by political and economic turmoil.  

The Third Reich: the Nazi dictatorship 1933-1945

Nazi occupied Europe, 1942.

“Nazi Germany” is in English the common name for the period of Nazi rule, 1933-1945.  The first known use of the term “Third Reich” was by German cultural historian Moeller van den Bruck (1876-1925) in his 1923 book Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich).  Van den Bruck, a devotee of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and a pan-German nationalist, wrote not of a defined geographical entity or precise constitutional arrangement.  His work instead explored a conceptualized (if imprecisely described) and idealized state of existence for Germans everywhere, one that would (eventually) fully realize what the First Reich might have evolved into had not mistakes been made, the Second Reich a cul-de-sac rendered impure by the same democratic and liberal ideologies which would doom the Weimar Republic.  Both these, van den Bruck dismissed as stepping stones on the path to an ideal; Germans do seem unusually susceptible to being seduced by ideals.

In the difficult conditions which prevailed in Germany at the time of the book’s publication, it didn’t reach a wide audience, the inaccessibility of his text not suitable for a general readership but, calling for a synthesis of the particularly Prussian traditions of socialism and nationalism and the leadership of a Übermensch (a idea from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) which describes a kind of idealized man who probably can come into existence only when a society is worthy of him), his work had obvious appeal to the Nazis.  It was said to have been influential in the embryonic Nazi Party but there’s little to suggest it contributed much beyond an appeal to the purity of race and the idea of the “leader” (Führer) principle, notions already well established in German nationalist traditions.  The style alone might have accounted for this, Das Dritte Reich not an easy read, a trait shared by the dreary and repetitive stuff written by the party “philosopher” Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946).  After Rosenberg was convicted on all four counts (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and sentenced to death by hanging, a joke circulated among the assembled journalists that it would have been fair to add a conviction for “crimes against literature”, a variation on the opinion his fellow defendant Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945) should also have been indicted for “crimes against poetry”.  Von Schirach though avoided the hangman's noose he deserved.        

A book channeling Nietzsche wasn’t much help for practical politicians needing manifestos, pamphlets and appealing slogans and the only living politician who attracted some approbation from van den Bruck was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The admiration certainly didn’t extend to Hitler; unimpressed by his staging of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November 1923), van den Bruck dismissed the future Führer with a unusually brief deconstruction, the sentiment of which was later better expressed by another disillusioned follower: “that ridiculous corporal”.  The term “Third Reich” did however briefly enter the Nazi’s propaganda lexicon and William L Shirer (1904–1993) in his landmark The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) reported that in the 1932 campaign for the presidency, Hitler in a speech at Berlins's Lustgarten (a place which, again perhaps disappointing some, translates as “pleasure garden”) used the slogan: “In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband”.  Shirer's book is now dated and some of his conceptual framework has always attracted criticism but it remains a vivid account of the regime's early years, written by an observer who actually was there. 

The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich (German Empire) between 1933-1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire) between 1943 to 1945 but so much of fascism was fake and depended for its effect on spectacle so the Nazis were attracted to the notion of claiming to be the successor of a German Empire with a thousand year history, their own vision of the Nazi state being millennialist.  After they seized power, the term “Third Reich” occasionally would be invoked and, more curiously, the Nazis for a while even referred to the Weimar Republic as the Zwischenreich (Interim Reich) but as the 1930s unfolded as an almost unbroken series of foreign policy triumphs for Hitler, emphasis soon switched to the present and the future, the pre-Beer Hall Putsch history no longer needed.  It was only after 1945 that the use of “Third Reich” became almost universal although the earlier empires still are almost never spoken of in that way, even in academic circles.

Van den Bruck had anyway been not optimistic and his gloominess proved prescient although his people did chose to walk (to destruction) the path he thought they may fear to tread.  In the introduction to Das Dritte Reich he wrote: “The thought of a Third Empire might well be the most fatal of all the illusions to which they have ever yielded; it would be thoroughly German if they contented themselves with day-dreaming about it. Germany might perish of her Third Empire dream.”  He didn’t live to see the rise and fall of the Third Reich, taking his own life in 1925, a fate probably not unknown among those who read Nietzsche at too impressionable an age and never quite recover.

Wilhelm Reich, Hawkwind and the Orgone Accumulator

Sketch of the orgone accumulator.

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a US-based, Austrian psychoanalyst with a troubled past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems.  Some of his many books widely were read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards mono-causality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian.  Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received.  Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.

The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London (United Artists UAD 60037/8; referred to usually as Space Ritual) (1973).

The orgone accumulator was an apparently phoney device but one which inspired members of the science fiction (SF) flavored band Hawkwind to write the song Orgone Accumulator which, unusually, was first released on a live recording, Space Ritual, a 1973 double album containing material from their concerts in 1972.  Something of a niche player in the world of 1970s popular music Hawkwind, perhaps improbably, proved more enduring than many, their combination of styles attracting a cult following which endures to this day.