Heptadecaphobia

Heptadecaphobia (pronounced hepp-tah-dech-ah-foh-bee-uh)

Fear of the number 17.

1700s: The construct was the Ancient Greek δεκαεπτά (dekaepta) (seventeen) + φόβος (phobos).  The alternative form is septadecaphobia, troubling some the purists because they regard it as a Greek-Latin mongrel, the construct being the Latin septem (seven) + deca, from the Latin decas (ten), from the Ancient Greek δεκάς (dekás) (ten) + the Ancient Greek φόβος) (phobos) (fear).  Heptadecaphobia deconstructs as hepta- “seven” + deca (ten) + phobos.  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).  Heptadecaphobia, heptadecaphobist, heptadecaphobism, heptadecaphobiac and heptadecaphobe are nouns, heptadecaphobic is a noun & adjective and heptadecaphobically is an adverb; the common (sic) noun plural is heptadecaphobes and they should number 59 million-odd (the population of Italy).

Morphologically, “heptadecaphilliac” is possible but is clumsy and unnecessary, the standard noun agent (-phile) rendering it redundant and although used, not all approve of the suffix -phobiac because it’s a later hybrid formation from modern English and thus judged “less elegant”.  The opposite condition (a great fondness for 17) is the noun heptadecaphilia, those with the condition being Heptadecaphiles, the derived words following the conventions used with heptadecaphobia.  Whether any of the derived forms have much (or ever) been used beyond lists asserting they exist (which, except as abstractions, may be dubious) is unlikely but concerned Italians should note the noun heptadecaphobist would seem to imply doctrinal adherence rather than suffering the fear.  Still, it’s there if the need exists for precision in one’s behavioural descriptors.  Modern English constructions (like heptadecaphobia) built from Greek morphemes are neo-classical” compounds rather than a “proper” words from the Ancient Greek and while some amuse or appal the classicists, in practice, variations in suffix-use have long be tolerated.

In Classical Greek, the cardinal number 17 was ἑπτακαίδεκα (heptakaídeka; literally “seven-and-ten”) but the Ancients were as adept as us at clipping for convenience and the variant ἑπταδέκα (heptadéka; literally “seven-ten”) also exists in surviving texts.  The shorter element embedded in heptadecaphobia corresponds to heptadeca- (from ἑπταδέκα) and genuinely that is Classical Greek, although, on the basis of the count from what documents are extant, it was less common than ἑπτακαίδεκα. The latter-day hybridization was inevitable because, as far as in known, “seventeen” had not before been used as a combining stem in compounds.  In English, the convention in neoclassical formation tends the sequence: (1) take the cardinal form, (2) drop the inflection and (3) treat it as a stem, thus the construct heptadeca + phobia, familiar to structuralists in the more common triskaidekaphobia which uses the Greek tris-kai-deka (“three and ten”) despite in genuine Greek morphology, compounds being not usually directly from ἑπταδέκα as a bound stem.  It’s better to follow modern practice rather than try to conjure something “classically pure” because although one could argue heptakaidekaphobia (closer to ἑπτακαίδεκα) is a better tribute to Antiquity, as well as being historically unattested, it’s phonetically cumbersome which seems a worse linguistic sin.

Just because a “fear of a number” is listed somewhere as a “phobia” doesn’t mean the condition has much of a clinical history or even that a single case is to be found in the literature; many may have been coined just for linguistic fun and students in classics departments have been set assessment questions like “In Greek, construct the word meaning “fear of the number 71” (the correct answer being “hebdomekontahenophobia”).  Some are well documented such as tetraphobia (fear of 4) which is so prevalent in East Asia it compelled BMW to revise the release strategy of the “4 Series” cars and triskaidekaphobia (fear of 13) which has such a history in the West it’s common still for hotels not to have a 13^th floor or rooms which include “13”, something which in the pre-digital age was a charming quirk but when things were computerized added a needless complication.  The use of the actual number is important because in such a hotel the “14^th” floor is (in the architectural sense) of course the 13^th but there’s little to suggest there’s ever been resistance from guests being allocated room 1414.

Some number phobias are quite specific: Rooted in the folklore of Australian cricket is a supposed association of the number 87 with something bad (typically a batter (DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) means they're no longer "batsmen") being dismissed) although it seems purely anecdotal and more than one statistical analysis (cricket is all about numbers) has concluded there's nothing “of statistical significance” to be found and there’s little to suggest players take the matter seriously.  One English umpire famously had “a routine” associated with the score reaching a “repunit” (a portmanteau (or blended) word, the construct being re(eated) +‎ unit) (eg 111, 222, 333 etc) but that was more fetish than phobia.

No fear of 17: Lindsay Lohan appeared on the covers of a number of issues of Seventeen magazine.  Targeted at the female market (age rage 12-18), the US edition of Seventeen is now predominately an on-line publication, printed only as irregular "special, stand-alone issues" but a number of editions in India and the Far East continue in the traditional format. 

Other illustrative number phobias include oudenophobia (fear of 0), (trypophobia (fear of holes) said to sometimes be the companion condition), henophobia (fear of 1) (which compels sufferer to avoid being associated with “doing something once”, being the “first in the group” etc), heptaphobia (fear of 7) (cross-culturally, a number also with many positive associations), eikosiheptaphobia (fear of 27) (a pop-culture thing which arose in the early 1970s when a number of rock stars, at 27, died messy, drug-related deaths), tessarakontadyophobia (fear of 42) (which may have spiked in patients after the publication of Douglas Adams’ (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992), enenekontenneaphobia (fear of 99) (thought not related to the Get Smart TV series of the 1960s), tetrakosioeikosiphobia (fear of 420) (the syndrome once restricted to weed-smokers in the US but long internationalized), the well-documented hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (fear of 666), heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphobia (fear of 747) (though with the withdrawal from passenger service of the tough, reliable (four engines and made of metal) Boeing 747 and its replacement with twin-engined machines made increasingly with composites and packed with lithium-ion batteries, a more common fear may be “not flying on a 747”, most common among heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphiles).  Enniakosioihendecaphobia (fear of 911) was, in the US, probably a co-morbidity with tetrakosioeikosiphobia but it may also have afflicted also those with a bad experience of a pre-modern Porsche 911 (1963-) which, in inexpert hands, could behave as one would expect of a very powerful Volkswagen Beetle, the most acute cases manifesting as triskaidekaphobia (fear of 930, that number being the internal designation for the original 911 Turbo (1974-1989), the fastest of the breed, soon dubbed the "widow-maker").

Nongentiseptuagintatrestrillionsescentiquinquagintanovemmiliacentumtredecimdeciesoctingentivigintiquattuormiliatrecentiphobia (fear of 973,659,113,824,315) describes a the definitely rare condition and it's assumed that was word was coined by someone determined to prove it could be done. There’s also compustitusnumerophobia (fear of composite numbers), meganumerophobia (fear of large numbers), imparnumerophobia (fear of odd numbers), omalonumerophobia (fear of even numbers), piphobia (fear of pi), phiphobia (fear of the golden ratio), primonumerophobia (fear of prime numbers), paranumerophobia (fear of irrational numbers), neganumerophobia (fear of negative numbers) and decadisophobia (fear of decimals).  All such types are unrelated to arithmophobia (or numerophobia) which is the "fear of numbers, calculations & math", a syndrome common among students who "just don't get it" and there are many because those "good at math" and those not really are two separate populations; it's rare to be able to transform the latter into the former, a better solution being to send them to law school where many flourish, needing to master the arithmetic only of billing their time in six-minute increments (1/10th of an hour).  Having ten fingers and thumbs, most manage the calculations.  The marvellous Wiki Fandom site and The Phobia List are among the internet’s best curated collection of phobias.

The only one which debatably can’t exist is neonumerophobia (fear of new numbers) because, given the nature of infinity, there can be no “new numbers” although, subjectively, a number could be “new” to an individual so there may be a need.  Sceptical though mathematicians are likely to be, the notion of the “new number” ("zero" debatably the last) has (in various ways) been explored in fiction including by science fiction (SF or SciFi) author & engineer Robert A Heinlein (1907–1988) in The Number of the Beast (1980), written during his “later period”.  More challenging was Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by English schoolmaster & Anglican priest Edwin Abbott (1838–1926) which was published under the pseudonym “A Square”, the layer of irony in that choice revealed as the protagonist begins to explore dimensions beyond his two-dimensional world (in Victorian England).  Feminists note also Ursula K Le Guin’s (1929–2018) The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) in which was created an entirely new numerical system of “genderless" numbers”.  That would induce fear in a few.

Lindsay Lohan's cover of the song Edge of Seventeen appeared on the album A Little More Personal (2005).  Written by Stevie Nicks (b 1948), it appeared originally on her debut solo studio album Bella Donna (1981).

In entymology, there are insects with no fear of the number 17.  In the US, the so-called “periodical cicadas” (like those of the genus Magicicada) exist in a 17 year life cycle, something thought to confer a number of evolutionary advantages, all tied directly to the unique timing of their mass emergence: (1) The predator satiation strategy: The creatures emerge in massive numbers (in the billions), their sheer volume meaning it’s physically impossible for predators (both small mammals & birds) to eat enough of them to threaten the survival of the species. (2) Prime number cycles: Insects are presumed unaware of the nature of prime numbers but 17 is a prime number and there are also periodic cicadas with a 13 (also a prime) year cycle.  The 13 (Brood XIX) & 17-year (Brood X) periodic cicadas do sometimes emerge in the same season but, being prime numbers, it’s a rare event, the numbers' LCM (least common multiple) being 221 years; the last time the two cicadas emerged together was in 1868 and the next such event is thus expected in 2089.  The infrequency in overlap helps maintain the effectiveness of the predator avoidance strategies, the predators typically having shorter (2-year, 5-year etc) cycles which don’t synchronize with the cicadas' emergence, reducing chances a predator will evolve to specialize in feeding on periodical cicadas. (3) Avoidance of Climate Variability: By remaining underground for 17 years, historically, periodical cicadas avoided frequent climate changes or short-term ecological disasters like droughts or forest fires. The long underground nymph stage also allows them to feed consistently over many years and emerge when the environment is more favorable for reproduction.  Etymologists and biological statisticians are modelling scenarios under which various types of accelerated climate change are being studied to try to understand how the periodic cicadas (which evolved under “natural” climate change) may be affected. (4) Genetic Isolation: Historically, the unusually extended period between emergences has isolated different broods of cicadas, reducing interbreeding and promoting genetic diversity over time, helping to maintain healthy populations over multiple life-cycles.

No 17^th row: Alitalia B747-243B I-DEMP, Johannesburg International Airport, South Africa, 2001.

There are a variety of theories to account for the Italian superstition which had rendered 17 the national “unlucky number” but it does seem to be due primarily to a linguistic and symbolic association from ancient Rome.  The most accepted explanation is that in Roman numerals 17 is XVII which, anagrammatically, translates to VIXI (Latin for “I have lived” (the first-person singular perfect active indicative of vīvō (to live; to be alive)), understood in the vernacular as “my life is over” or, more brutally: “I am dead”.  It was something which appeared often on Roman tombstones, making an enduring record which ensured the superstition didn’t have to rely on collective memory or an oral tradition for inter-generational transfer.  That would have been ominous enough but Romans noted also that Osiris, the Egyptian god of, inter alia, life, death, the afterlife and resurrection, had died on the 17^th day of the month, 17 thus obviously a “death number” to the logical Roman mind and the worst 17^th days of the month were those which coincided with a full moon.  The cosmic coincidence was an intensifier in the same sense that in the English-speaking world the conjunction leading to a Friday falling on the 13^th makes the day seem threatening.  Thus, just as in some places hotels have neither 13^th floor or rooms containing “13”, in Italy it’s “17” which is avoided although not having a row 17 in its airliners didn’t save Alitalia (Società Aerea Italiana, the now-defunct national carrier) from its COVID-era demise.  Of course not labelling a row or floor “13” or “17” doesn’t mean a 13^th or 17^th something doesn’t exist, just that it’s called “14” or “18” so it’s the symbolic association which matters, not the physical reality.  Mashing up the numerical superstitions, that 17 is an “unlucky number” shouldn’t be surprising because it’s the sum of 13 + 4, the latter being the most dreaded number in much of East Asia, based on the pronunciation resembling “death” in both Chinese and Japanese.

In automotive manufacturing, there was nothing unusual about unique models being produced for the Italian domestic market, the most common trick being versions with engines displacing less than 2.0 litres to take advantage of the substantially lower tax regime imposed below that mark.  Thus Ferrari (1975-1981) and Lamborghini (1974-1977) made available 2.0 litre V8s (sold in RoW (rest of the world) markets variously in 2.5 & 3.0 litre displacements), Maserati a 2.0 V6 (usually a 3.0 in the Maserati Merak (1972-1983) although it appeared in 2.7 & 3.0 litre form in the intriguing but doomed Citroën SM (1970-1975)) and Mercedes-Benz created a number of one-off 2.0 litre models in the W124 range (1974-1977) exclusive to the Italian domestic market (although an unrelated series of 2.0 litre cars was also sold in India).  Others followed the trend although, the more expensive they were, the less appeal seemed to exist despite, in absolute terms, the saving increasing as the price rose.  Maserati offered a twin-turbo 2.0 in the aptly named BiTurbo, BMW did a one off 320is and Alfa Romeo produced a run of 2.0 V6s.

Lindsay Lohan, aged 17, Teen Choice Awards, Universal Amphitheatre, Universal City, California, 2 August 2003.

From an engineering point of view, most audacious doubtlessly was the 2.0 litre version of TVR's V8S (1991-1994).  Supplied usually with a 4.0 litre version of the versatile Rover V8, the capacity of the version for the Italian market was halved by de-stroking, the bore of 88.9 and stroke of 40.25 mm creating an outrageously oversquare bore/stroke ratio of 45.28 but, with the assistance of a supercharger, the quirky engine almost matched in power and torque the naturally aspirated original with twice the displacement; It was a classic example of the effectiveness of forced-aspiration although it did demand of drivers a different technique.  By comparison, the Formula One BRM H16’s (1966-1967) bore & stroke was 69.8 x 49.9 mm and it was so oversquare to reduce the frictional losses which would have been induced had a longer stroke been used with that many cylinders; its bore/stroke ration was 71.48 compared with the almost square BRM V16 designed in the 1940s, the latter able to be in that configuration because (1) it was supercharged and (2) being only 1.5 litres, the stroke was anyway physically short in absolute terms.  The 2.4 litre V8s used in Formula One between 2006-2013 had to have a maximum bore of 98 and stroke of 40 mm (bore/stroke ratio 40.81) and that’s an indication of the characteristics the 2.0 litre TVR V8S offered.  Disappointingly, it was an experience few Italians sought and only seven were built.

It was Suzuki which had more success with work-arounds to Rome’s tiresome regulations.  Their two-stroke, triple cylinder GT380 (1972-1980) motorcycle was for most of its existence made with an actual displacement of 371 cm³ but in 1975, the Italian government passed a law banning the importation of motor-cycles under 380 cm³ and weighing less than 170 kg.  Accordingly, the Japanese produced a “big bore” 380 exclusively for the Italian market displacing an actual 384 cm³.  The portly triple would never have run afoul of the weight limit but just to avoid any unpleasantness, the data plate riveted to the frame recorded a verified mass of 171 kg.  Honor apparently satisfied on both sides, the GT380 remained available in some places until 1980, outliving the Suzuki’s other two-strokes triples by three seasons.

US advertisement for the Renault 17 (1974), the name Gordini adopted as a "re-brand" of the top-of-the-range 17TS,  Gordini was a French sports car producer and tuning house, absorbed by Renault in 1968, the name from time-to-time used for high-performance variants of various Renault models.

One special change for the Italian market was a nod to the national heptadecaphobia, the car known in the rest of the world (RoW) as the Renault 17 (1971-1979) sold in Italy as the R177.  For the 17, Renault took the approach which had delivered great profits: use the underpinnings of mundane mass-produced family cars with a sexy new body draped atop.  Thus in the US the Ford Falcon (1959-1969) begat the Mustang (1964-) and in Europe Ford made the Capri (1968-1976) from the Cortina (1962-1982).  Opel’s swoopy GT (1968-1973) was (most improbably) underneath just the modest Kadett.  It wasn’t only the mass-market operators which used the technique because in the mid 1950s, Mercedes-Benz understood the appeal of the style of the 300 SL (W198, 1954-1957) was limited by the high price which was a product of the exotic engineering (the space-frame, gullwing doors, dry sump and the then novel MFI (mechanical fuel-injection)), the solution being to re-purpose the platform of the W120, the small, austere sedan which helped the company restore its fortunes in the post-war years before the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) was celebrated in 1959 with the exuberance of the Heckflosse (tailfin) cars (1959-1968).  On the W120 platform was built the 190 SL (W121, 1955-1963), an elegant (it not especially rapid) little roadster which quickly became a trans-Atlantic favourite, particularly among what used to be called the “women’s market”.

Only in Italy: The Renault 177, exclusively for heptadecaphobes.

Using the same formula, the Renault 17 was built on the underpinnings of the Renault 12, a remarkably durable platform, introduced in 1969 and, in one form or another, manufactured or assembled in more than a dozen countries, the last not produced until 2006.  Like the Anglo-German Ford Capri, the 17 was relatively cheap to develop because so much was merely re-purposed but for a variety of reasons, it never managed to come close to match the sales of the wildly successful Ford, FWD (front wheel drive) not then accepted as something “sporty” and Renault's implementation on the 17 was never adaptable to the new understanding of the concept validated by FWD machines such as Volkswagen’s Golf GTi which would define the “hot hatch”.  Like most of the world, the Italians never warmed to the 17 but presumably the reception would have been even more muted had not, in deference to the national superstition about the number 17, the name been changed to “Renault 177”, the cheaper companion model continuing to use the RoW label: Renault 15.

Condign

Condign (pronounced kuhn-dahyn)

(1) Well-deserved; fitting; suitable; appropriate; adequate (usually now of punishments).

(2) As condign merit (meritum de condign), a concept in Roman Catholic theology signifying a goodness that has been bestowed because of the actions of that person

(3) As “Project Condign”, a (now de-classified) top-secret study into UFOs (unidentified flying objects, known also as UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomenon)) undertaken by the UK government's Defence Intelligence Staff between 1997-2000.

1375–1425: From the late Middle English condign, & condigne (well-deserved, merited) from the Anglo-French, from the Old French condign (deserved, appropriate, equal in wealth), from the Latin condignus (wholly worthy), the construct being con- + dignus (worthy; dignity), from the primitive from Indo-European root dek- (to take, accept).  .  The Latin con- was from the Proto-Italic kom- and was related to the preposition cum (with).  In Latin, the prefix was used in compounds (1) to indicate a being or bringing together of several objects and (2) to indicate the completeness, perfecting of any act, and thus gives intensity to the signification of the simple word.  It's believed the UK's MoD (Ministry of Defence) chose “Project Condign” as the name for its enquiry into UFOs (1) because (1) the military like code names which provide no obvious clue about the nature of the matter(s) involved and (2) in the abstract, it conveyed the notion the investigation would provide a measured, proportionate, and sober assessment of the issue (ie a response commensurate with the evidence, not an endorsement of unsubstantiated speculation or explanations delving into the extra-terrestrial or supernatural).  Condign is an adjective, condignity & condignness are nouns and condignly is an adverb; the noun plural is condignities.

In Middle English, condign was used of rewards as well as punishment, censure etc, but by circa 1700 it had come to be applied almost exclusively of punishments, usually in the sense of “deservedly severe”.  Thus used approvingly, the adjectival comparative was “more condign”, the “superlative “most condign”.  That means the synonyms included “fitting”, “appropriate”, “deserved”, “just”, “merited” etc with the antonyms being “excessive”, “inappropriate” & “undeserved”, the latter set expressed by the negative incondign.  However, a phenomenon in the language is that words which have, since their use in Middle English, undergone a meaning shift so complete as to render the original meaning obsolete, can in ecclesiastical use retain the original sense.  In the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, meritum de condigno (condign merit) is that due to a person for some good they have done.  As a general principle, it’s held to be applied to “merit before God”, the Almighty binding Himself, as it were, to reward those who do his will; a kind of holy version of social contract theory.  Among the more simple aspects of Christian theology, the conditions for condign merit are: (1) holding oneself in a state of grace and (2) performing morally good actions.  Not transferable, the beneficiary can be only the person who performs the good act with condign merit based on the revealed fact that God has promised such a reward and as a reward it’s accumulative, each individual condignly meriting an increase of the virtue of faith by every act of faith performed in the state of grace.

Pragmatic parish priests probably are inclined to explain condign merit as a way of encouraging kindness to others (linking it to the notion of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” which is the essence of the Christian morality) but the theologians stress the significance of meritum de condign is it refers to merit based on justice rather than mere generosity of spirit.  It seems a fine distinction and doubtless is, both to doer of deed and beneficiary but, because the act is performed in a state of grace and is proportionate by God’s own ordinance to the reward promised, it’s a genuine claim based on justice, God rewarding such acts not out of mere benevolence but because freely He has so bound himself.

Project Condign: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region (in three volumes).  It turns out they're not out there.

The theologians manage to add layers by stressing meritum de condign can apply only to an individual in a state of grace (and thus justified and acting under sanctifying grace); without grace, no strictly meritorious claim on God is possible.  God may still be generous, but the reward will be granted under another head of power.  Additionally, the act must freely be performed and motivated by charity (love of God); mere kindness in the absence of this love not reaching the threshold.  Unusually, the reward of condign merit is by virtue of a Divine promise, the “justice” not “natural” but “covenantal”, God having imposed upon himself the obligation of reward, therefore it would be incongruum (from the Latin, an inflection of incongruus (inconsistent, incongruous, unsuitable)) for him not to do so and unlike the state in the social contract, God regards Himself truly as bound and the proportion is by divine ordination (ie the proportion between act and reward exists only because God has established it; it is not intrinsic to the act itself.

In certain aspects, the comparison with later legal traditions is quite striking.  Condign merit can apply variously to (1) an increase in charity, (2) an increase of sanctifying grace and (3) heavenly glory (eternal life), insofar as it is the consummation of grace already possessed but crucially, even condign merit presupposes grace entirely: the grace that enables the act is itself unmerited.  In other words, God and the church expect a certain basic adherence and this alone is not enough to deserve condign merit.  The companion term is meritum de congruo (congruous merit) in which a fitting or appropriate reward may be granted but that will be based on God’s generosity rather than being the self-imposed obligation that is condign merit.  If searching for a metaphor, condign merit may be imagined as something given according to a salutatory schedule while congruous merit is more like an ex gratia (a learned borrowing from Latin ex grātiā (literally “out of grace”)) payment (a thing not legally required but given voluntarily).

Santo Tomás de Aquino (Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1476) ,egg tempera on poplar panel by Carlo Crivelli (circa 1430-circa 1495) in a style typical of religious portraiture at at time when some Renaissance painters were still much influenced by late Gothic decorative sensibility.  This piece was from the upper tier of a polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli in 1476 completed for the high altar of the church of San Domenico, Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche.

Even among the devotional, in the twenty-first century all that may sound mystical or a tiresome theological point but there was a time in Europe when many much were concerned about avoiding Hell and going to Heaven with the Medieval church was there to explain the rules and mechanisms.  The carefully crafted distinction was made by the Italian Dominican friar, philosopher & theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) in the Summa Theologiae (Summary of Theology, a work still unfinished by the time of the author’s death) and re-affirmed, essentially unaltered, during Session VI (Decree on Justification) of the Council of Trent (1545-1563).  In modern practice, priests don’t much bother their flock with Aquinas’s finely honed thoughts and instead exhort them to acts of kindness, rather than dwelling too much on abstractions like whether God will reward them by virtue of obligation or generosity, the important message being the Almighty remains sole source of both grace and reward, thus the importance to keep in a state of grace with him.

Google ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

So while it has always implied “deserved”, Roman Catholic theologians thus still use “condign” in the context of a “reward for goodness” but in secular use it has for centuries been associated only with punishment and, the more fitting the sentence, the more condign it’s said to be.  As Christianity in the twentieth century began its retreat from Christendom, condign became a rare word and some now list it as archaic although as late as 1926, in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Henry Fowler (1858–1933), no great friend of “decorative words” and “elegant variations” though it still worth a descriptive (and cautionary entry: “Condign meant originally ‘deserved’ and could be used in many contexts, with praise for instance as well as with punishment.  It is now used only with words equivalent to ‘punishment’, and means deservedly severe, the severity being the important point, and the desert merely a condition of the appropriateness of the word; that it is an indispensable condition, however, is shown by the absurd effect of: ‘Count Zeppelin’s marvellous voyage through the air has ended in condign disaster’”.

Boris Johnson (right) handling a prize bull (left), Darnford Farm, Banchory, Scotland September, 2019.

Quite what old Henry Fowler would have made of the way the language of Shakespeare and Milton is used on social media and the like easily can be imagined but he’d have been heartened to learn the odd erudite soul still finds a way to splice something like “condign” into the conversation.  One, predictably, was that scholar of Ancient Greek, Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) who, during his tumultuous premiership, needed to rise from his place in the House of Commons to tell honourable members that the withdrawal of the Tory Party whip (“withdrawal of the party whip” a mechanism whereby a MP (Member of Parliament) is no longer recognised as a member of their parliamentary party, even though in some cases they continue for most purposes to belong to the party outside the parliament) from a member accused of sexual misconduct was “condign punishment”.

Mr Johnson was commenting on the case of Rob Roberts (b 1979; MP for Delyn 2019-2024) and while scandal is nothing novel in the House of Commons (and as the matter of Lord Peter "Mandy" Mandelson (b 1953) illustrates, nor is it in the upper house), aspects of the Roberts case were unusual.  In 2021, an independent panel, having found Mr Roberts sexually had harassed a member of his staff recommended he should be suspended from parliament for six weeks.  The panel found he’d committed a “serious and persistent breach of the parliament’s sexual misconduct policy” and although the MP had taken “positive steps”, he’d demonstrated only “limited insight into the nature of his misconduct”, the conclusion being there remained concerns “he does not yet fully understand the significance of his behaviour or the full nature and extent of his wrongdoing.”  Politicians sexually harassing their staff is now so frequent as to be unremarkable but what attracted some interest was that intriguingly, Mr Roberts had identified the problem and it turned out to be the complainant.  When alone together in a car on a constituency visit, the MP had said to him: “I find you very attractive and alluring and I need you to make attempts to be less alluring in the office because it's becoming very difficult for me.”  So it was Mr Roberts who really was the victim and the complainant clearly made an insufficient effort to become “less alluring” because the MP later told the man the advance he had made in the car was “something I would like to pursue, and if you would like to pursue that too it would make me very happy”.  From there, things got worse for the victim (in the sense of the complainant, not the politician).

Official portrait of Rob Roberts, the former honourable member for Delyn.

Mr Roberts had “come out” as gay after 15 years of marriage, the panel noting he’d been “going through several challenges and significant changes in his personal life”, adding these “do not excuse his sexual misconduct”.  Despite his announcement, he also propositioned young female staff members (perhaps he should have “come out” as bisexual), suggesting to one they might: “fool around with no strings”, assuring her that while he “…might be gay… I enjoy … fun times”. In April 2021 the Conservative (Tory) Party had announced that the MP had been "strongly rebuked", but would not lose the whip. Apparently, at the time, it was thought sufficiently condign for him to “undertake safeguarding and social media protection training”.  The next month however, the panel handed down its recommendations and he was “suspended from the services of the house for six weeks”, subsequently losing the Tory whip and had his party membership suspended.  In a confusing coda, after (controversially) returning to the Commons in July 2021, he was re-admitted to the party in October 2021 but was denied the whip, requiring him to sit as an independent until the end of his term.  In the 2024 general election, he stood as an independent candidate in the new constituency of Clwyd East, coming last with 599 votes and losing his deposit.  Privately as well as politically, life for Mr Roberts has been discursive.  After in May 2020 tweeting he was gay and separating from his wife, in 2023, he re-married.

The word even got a run on Rupert Murdoch’s (b 1931) Fox News, an outlet noted more for short sentences, punchy words and repetition than words verging on the archaic but on what the site admitted was a “slow news day”, took the opportunity to skewer Jay Robert “J.B. Pritzker (b 1965, (Democratic Party governor of US state of Illinois since 2019), noting the part the wealth of the “billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune” had played in defeating a Republican opponent (it couldn’t resist adding that “money in politics” was something crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) “could tell you more about”).  Fox News’s conclusion was “…the shamelessness and even braggadocio with which Pritzker sought to buy the governorship could be a harbinger of things to come.  But, we suppose, having to serve as governor of Illinois is condign punishment for the offense…”

In happier times: But wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal!  Mandy’s (pictured here in dressing gown, tête-à-tête with Jeffrey Epstein) entry in the now infamous "birthday book", assembled for the latter’s 50^th birthday in 2003.

The matter of condign punishment has in Westminster of late been much discussed because of revelations of the squalid behaviour of Mandy and his dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019).  Undisputedly, one of politics great networkers, Mandy’s long career in the Labour Party was noted not for any great contribution to national life (although he did good work in the project which was "New Labour" but whether he now should regard that a proud boast or admission of guilt he must decide) or achievements in policy development but blatant self-interest, conflicts of interest and repeated recovery from scandal; twice he was forced to resign from cabinet because of matters classed as “conflict of interest” and his whole adult life has been characterized by seeking association with rich men who, for whatever reason, seem to become anxious to indulge his desire to receive generous hospitality and large sums of cash.  Sir Tony Blair (b 1953; UK prime-minister 1997-2007), clearly seeing talent where many others did not, was most forgiving of Mandy’s foibles, twice re-appointing him to cabinet after decided a longer exile would be most incondign and famously once observed his "mission to transform the Labour party would not be complete until it had learned to love Peter Mandelson."  Even Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010) who is believed to have existed in a state of mutual loathing with Mandy, was by 2008 in such dire political straits he brought him back to cabinet, solving the problem of finding a winnable seat in the Commons by appointing him to the upper chamber, the House of Lords.  While the presence of the disreputable in the Lords has a tradition dating back centuries, it was thought a sign of the times that Brown “ennobling a grub like Mandelson” to take a seat in the house, where once sat Wellington, Palmerston and Curzon, attracted barely an objection, so jaded by sleaze had the British public become.

Still, even by the standards of Mandy’s troubled past, what emerged from the documents released by the US DoJ (Department of Justice) was shocking.  Not only did it emerge Mandy had lied about the extent of his connections with Epstein but it became clear they had, despite his repeated denials, continued long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida on charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution for which he received an 18 month sentence.  So well connected in the Masonic-like UK Labour party was Mandy (and there have been amusing theories about how he has maintained this influence), it might have been possible to stage yet another comeback from that embarrassment but his life got worse when it was revealed large sums of cash had been passed to him (or the partner who later became his husband) by Epstein, transactions made more interesting still when it emerged Mandy appears to have sent to Epstein classified files to which he gained access by virtue of being a member of cabinet.  More remarkable still was Mandy, while a cabinet minister, appearing to operate as a kind of lobbyist in matter of interest to what was described as: “Mr Epstein and his powerful banking friends”.

In happier times, left to right: Tony Blair, Gordon Blair & Mandy (left) and the mean girls: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried, b 1985), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert, b 1982) & Regina George (Rachel McAdams, b 1978) (right).

In the early 1990s, detesting the Tory government, the press were fawning in their admiration and dubbed the New Labour trio "the three musketeers" but they came also to be called: "the good, the bad and the ugly, a collective moniker which may be generous to at least one of them.  There is no truth in the rumor the threesome provided the template for the personalities of the "plastics" in Mean Girls (2004, right) although the idea is tempting because both photographs can be deconstructed thus: Tony & Karen (sincere, well meaning, a bit naïve); Gordon & Gretchen (insecure, desperately wanting to be liked) and Mandy & Regina (evil and manipulative). 

All this was revealed in E-mail exchanges during the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) which unfolded between 2008-2012 after the demise of US financial services firm Lehman Brothers (1850-2008), Mandy giving Epstein “advance notice” the EU (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957) would be providing (ie “creating”) a €500bn “bailout” to prevent the collapse of the Euro (the currency used by a number of EU states).  Those familiar with trading on the forex (foreign exchange) markets will appreciate the value of such secret information and, given the trade in global currency dwarfs that in equities, commodities and such, the numbers (and thus the profits and losses) are big.  Pleasingly, in the manner commercial arrangements often are, it was a two-way trade, representations to the UK and US Treasuries arranged in both directions.

Mandy also acted as Epstein’s advisor about “back channel” ways to influence government policy (ie the government of which he was at the time serving in cabinet) and political scientists probably would concede his advice was sage; he suggested to Epstein he should arrange for the chairman of investment bank J.P. Morgan to “mildly threaten” the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer (the finance minister).  What a cabinet minister is by convention (and implied in various statures) obliged to do is promote and defend government policy while assisting in its execution; should they not agree with that policy, they must resign from government.  Clearly, Mandy decided what is called “cabinet solidarity” was a tiresome inconvenience and in an attempt to change cabinet’s policy on a bankers’ bonus tax, made his suggestion which Mr Epstein must have followed because J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon (b 1956; chairman and CEO (chief executive officer) of JPMorgan Chase since 2006) indeed did raise the matter with the chancellor although opinions might differ on whether what he said could be classed as “mildly threatening”.  In his memoir, Alistair Darling (1953–2023; UK Chancellor of the Exchequer 2007-2010) described a telephone call from Mr Dimon and recalled the banker was “very, very angry” about the plan, arguing “..his bank bought a lot of UK debt and he wondered if that was now such a good idea.  I pointed out that they bought our debt because it was a good business deal for them.  He went on to say they were thinking of building a new office in London, but they had to reconsider that now.”  The lobbying didn’t change the chancellor’s mind and the bonus tax was imposed as planned.  Mandy can’t be blamed for that; he did his bit.

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

Probably the most amusing of Mandy’s reactions to the revelations about his past related to payments he received from Epstein in 2003-2004 (US$75,000 to Mandy and Stg£10,000 to his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva (the couple married in 2023)).  When late in January, 2026 he resigned from the Labour Party (it’s believed he’d been “tapped on the shoulder” and told he’d be expelled if no letter of resignation promptly was received), he used the usual line adopted these circumstances, saying he wished to spare the party “further embarrassment” and added: “Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need investigating by me.”  Few seemed to find plausible a man who has such a history of “money grubbing” could fail to recall US$75,000 suddenly being added to his bank balance and, unfortunately for Mandy, various authorities have decided the matters “need investigating by them”. 

In happier times: Mandy (left) with Sir Keir Starmer (right).

One who seems to be taking the betrayals personally is Sir Keir Starmer (b 1962; prime-minister of the UK since 2024) who appointed Mandy as the UK’s ambassador to the US, the prime minister making clear his outrage at the lies Mandy (more than once) told him and his staff during the (clearly inadequate) vetting process.  In one of his more truculent speeches, Sir Keir contrasting himself with Mandy, pointing out that while he’d come late to politics and entered the nasty business with the intention of trying to improve the country, he contrasted that high aim with the long career of Mandy who, it had become clear, viewed “climbing the greasy” pole of public office as a device for personal enrichment.  Hell hath no fury like a prime minister lied to.  Mandy has already resigned his seat in the Lords (now something separate from his possession of the life peerage conferred by Gordon Brown) although, all things considered, that probably was one of history’s less necessary letters.  However, as well as referring his allegedly nefarious conduct to the police and other investigative bodies, the government is said to be drafting legislation to eject Mandy from the Lords and strip him of his noble title: Lord Mandelson.  Given that over the past century odd members of the Lords have been jailed for conduct such as murder, perjury and what was in the statute of 1553 during the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) called “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery” yet not been stripped of their titles, the act will be a bit of a novelty but constitutional experts agree it’s within the competence of parliament, needing only the concurrence of both houses. Not since the passage of the Titles Deprivation Act (1917) have peerages been stripped and that statutory removal happened in the unusual circumstances of World War I (1914-1918) when it was thought the notion of Germans and Austrians holding British titles of nobility was not appropriate though it was a measure of the way the establishment resists change that the war had been raging three years before the act finally received royal assent.

The irony of a gay man becoming entangled in the scandals surrounding a convicted child sex trafficker who allegedly supplied men with girls younger than the age of consent has been noted, some dwelling on that with unseemly relish; it was with both enthusiasm and and obvious relief that members of the Labour Party felt finally free to tell journalists (or anyone else who asked) just what they really thought of Mandy, their previously repressed views views tending to a thumbnail sketch which could be précised as: “evil and manipulative”.  More generally, although it was the English common law which did so much to establish the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, in parliament and beyond, the consensus seems already reached that Mandy is “guilty as sin”; it’s a question of to what extent and what’s to be done about it.  That will play out but what may happen sooner is that Sir Keir could be the latest of the many victims of Mandy's machinations over the decades.  For matters unrelated to Mandy, the prime minister had anyway been having a rugged time in the polls and on the floor of the house and all that that has thus far ensured the survival of his leadership is thought to be (1) the lack of an obvious contender in the Labour Party and (2) the ineptitude of the Tory opposition, the talents of its MPs now thought to be as low as at any time in living memory.  Sadly, when discussing the travails of Sir Keir, it notable how many commentators have described him with terms like "decent", "integrity" and "honorable" (not qualities much associated with Mandy) but it remains unclear if the prime minister's commendable virtues will prove enough for his leadership to survive in the clatter of one of the moral panics the English do so well.  Over the thirty-odd years, quite often the Labour Party apparatchiks have had to ponder: “What are we going to do about Mandy?” but this time it’s serious and there will be much effort devoted to combining “damage limitation” with what the baying mob will judge at least adequately condign.

Pylon

Pylon (pronounced pahy-lon)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(8) An alternative name for an obelisk.

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

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

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

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

(13) In slang, a traffic cone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The plyon pose: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates some variations.

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

The Pylons

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

The Pylons (1933) by Stephen Spender.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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