Kindleberger

Kindleberger (pronounced khin-dil-berg-ah)

A family name of Germanic origin.

As “Kindleberger Moment” & “Kindleberger Trap”, two related terms describing different aspects from an underlying problem in international political economy and named after economist Professor Charles P. Kindleberger (1910-2003) whose writings inspired their coining.  Professor Kindleberger’s middle name was “Poor” and while that may seem more appropriate for a monk than an economist, it didn’t appear to hamper his career.

The surname Kindleberger is of German origin, functioning as a habitational or topographic name, the construct being Kind(l)- + -berg + -er.  Kind (kid, child, young person) was from the Middle High German kint, from the Old High German kind, from the Proto-West Germanic kind, from Proto-Germanic kindą & kinþą, from the primitive Indo-European ǵenh- (to give birth); there were many local dialect variations.  Berg (mountain, hill) was from the Middle High German bërc, from the Old High German bërg, from the Proto-West Germanic berg, ultimately from the Proto-Germanic bergaz; it may be compared with the Dutch berg, the German Low German Barg, Berg & Biärg, the West Frisian berch, the English berry & barrow, the Danish bjerg and the Swedish berg.  The –er suffix (in this context) was appended to indicate inhabitant or person from a specific locality.  The “-berg” element thus in general was used in the names of those living near a specific hill or a place named with those combined linguistic roots and Kindleberger would likely have began with someone who was the (probably male) offspring of someone named “Berg”, “Berger” or such.  As a compound surname, it may in some instances have referred not to individuals living near mountainous regions but those (likely female) who were known for their roles as caretakers of children; the etymological structure can indicate a connection between familial roles and the natural landscape.  The name dates from at least the Late Medieval period (when surnames became hereditary) and records of use exist in several German-speaking regions, clusters found concentrated in areas like the Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate) region that, while not characterized by alpine peaks, does have a topography noted for rolling hills, low mountain ranges, and deeply carved river valleys.  As internal migration increased (notably within the Holy Roman Empire), like many European surnames, variations like Kindleberger and Kindelberger spread and this occurred internationally during the nineteenth & twentieth centuries; outside of Europe, the Kindleberger name is most likely to be found in the states of the north-eastern US (the largest concentrations historically in West Virginia, Ohio & Pennsylvania).  Kindleberger is a proper noun; the noun plural is Kindlebergers.

A red meteor observed by US-born astronomer Stephen James O'Meara (b 1956) in the skies above Maun, Botswana.

Asteroid 42354 Kindleberger was named after the professor.  Originally listed by the International Dark Sky Discovery Center in Fountain Hills, Arizona on 12 February, 2002 (and provisionally allocated ID 2002 CK43), it was discovered by Charles Juels (1944–2009) and Paulo Holvorcem (b 1967), both amateur astronomers.  Paulo Holvorcem (b 1967) is a mathematician based in Brasília (one of a handful of “created” capital cities), Brazil while Charles Juels (1944–2009) was a US psychiatrist practicing in Phoenix, Arizona; after retirement, he became one of the planet’s most prolific discoverers of asteroids, minor planets and such.  The naming conventions administered by the IAU (International Astronomical Union) permit those who discover minor planets to submit potential names, once the orbit officially is confirmed.  Professor Kindleberger was honoured in recognition both of his academic contributions to the discipline of economics and the role his books (especially Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (1978) played in explaining such phenomena to a non-specialist audience.  The choice (within certain limitations) is in the hands of the discoverer(s) and other economists have had asteroids named after them.  Red-tailed asteroids are rare but do exist, 3200 Phaethon's (provisionally 1983 TB) vivid tail made of sodium vaporized from the rock by the heat of the Sun, inducing  fluoresce an orange glow.  Definitely the next red-tailed asteroid should be named after Lindsay Lohan.

The World in Depression, 1929-1939 (1973) by Charles P. Kindleberger.

A “Kindleberger Moment” is a critical point in global history when the world’s dominant power (of late typically a hegemon) ceases providing economic leadership and no other country is able or willing to assume the role.  MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Professor of Economics Charles P. Kindleberger illustrated the concept during his study of the Great Depression of the 1930s, arguing the global economy “crashed” (ie suffered a significant decline in economic activity, employment, trade etc) because (1) the economy of the previously dominant power (the UK) had been too weakened by the First World War (1914-1918) to be able to provide the necessary leadership and corrective mechanisms and (2) the rising power (the US) was both also greatly affected by the downturn and anyway uninterested in becoming entangled in international affairs.  A Kindleberger moment can be considered a “global power vacuum”, the previous leader withdrawing from maintaining and contributing to global rules, trade agreements, and international organizations with no successor available.  At such moments, competing rising new powers tend to focus only on their own interests instead of supporting global stability, meaning the international system faces heightened risks of financial collapse, trade wars, political instability and related chaos (mass irregular migration, border conflicts etc).  Of late, there has been renewed interest in the Kindleberger moment as doubts have been raised about the ability of the US to continue in the rule it has fulfilled since 1945 at a time when the PRC (People’s Republic of China, 1949-) is becoming increasing powerful and assertive but has neither the capacity nor (apparently) the inclination to be the world’s “indispensable nation” (ie “global policeman and banker”).

Professor Kindleberger in his office at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As an economist discussing the smooth operation of the international economy, Kindleberger didn’t attach to the concept of “hegemon” the negative connotations vested famously by the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) who had used to idea in a predictably Marxist way (of a “ruling class & ruling culture” able within a society to exert control and maintain power for its own economic benefit).  For Kindleberger, a hegemonic power was a highly desirable element in an inter-connected world economy that in the absence of such an authority would inevitably descent into conflicts that likely would spread.  A Kindleberger moment occurs when there’s hegemonic absence (or even significant deficit) in which the international system lacks a power willing and able to supply essential stabilising functions including:

(1) Maintaining an international trading system in which markets were free, open and transparent.

(2) Providing a system in which international capital flows were regulated to the extent of ensuring stability.

(3) Maintaining a stable monetary system by providing a stable, convertible reserve currency, able to be used by trading nations.

(4) Acting as a lender of last resort.

(5) Coordinating international responses to economic and other crises.

The related “Kindleberger Trap” (a term dating only from 2017) describes the structural dilemma that can arise from the world entering a “Kindleberger Moment”.  Were there always a nice symmetry in that as one power withdrew from the role, another took over on a “business as usual” basis, it would be a smoothly run world but in international relations things tend to be more messy and depending on the dynamics, things can take decades or even centuries to be resolved (for better or worse).  As a rising power acquires sufficient economic, military and geopolitical weight, it might be expected to contribute to maintaining the international order (from which, by definition, it has gained that strength) at a time when the established hegemon simultaneously is reducing its capacity or willingness to carry the burden but history suggests conflict is more likely than cooperation.  The twist in the “Kindleberger Moment” theory is that in a situation where the existing hegemon is in decline but the rising power is unwilling or unable to assume the role, a “trap” begins to open.  That trap is created by the rising power “probing” often regional weaknesses in the hegemon’s strategic architecture and the response to that often is localized tactical violence (often called “containment”), something that can exacerbate the decline of the authority of the established power while doing little to curb (and likely even encourage) the assertiveness of the rival.  Once the hegemon is so engaged, the trap has closed and the point is the “trap” is likely a process rather than a singer decisive event.  Deliberately the phrase echoed the better-known “Thucydides Trap” (the name from the Ancient Greek general & historian Thucydides (circa 460-circa 400 BC)). Describing the idea that when a rising power threatens to supplant the established one, the result is often war (pre-emptive or preventive depending on the spin chosen), either through a fear of being attacked or in an attempt to “contain the upstart”.  So, conceptually, a Kindleberger moment is the situation; the Kindleberger Trap is the recurring structural predicament that can lead to it.

Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (1978) by Charles P. Kindleberger, fifty years on, still the standard work and now in its eighth edition (2023) and, there being no indication there'll not be more manias, panics, and crashes, a ninth edition can be expected, updated to document the latest crises.

The consensus among specialists seems to be the world is not at this point in a Kindleberger Moment because structurally the PRC is not yet able to assume the global role the US has evolved to fulfil since 1945.  These was nothing unique about the shift in 1945, just as the US replaced the UK, the UK had replaced the Netherlands, the Netherlands had replaced Spain and Spain had replaced various Italian city-states.  What however now makes the situation potentially unstable is that the PRC does not accept the existing US-led order, but is not only unable to replicate the global role but uninterested in doing so.  The PRC’s preferred model is “spheres of influence” on a grand scale administered on a “Westphalian basis” (ie non-interference in each other’s spheres).  In that, Beijing’s vision differs from spheres of influence approach during the Cold War in that the earlier model was one of conflict disguised as peaceful co-existence; the PRC’s regarding their mode; as beneficial for all.  Unlike those running the early Soviet Union (1922-1991), the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has no interest in exporting its system of governance to other states; the lessons have been well-learned from the US attempting to “impose democracy” in places where historically it has never taken root.  The modern CCP does not wish to attempt to transform other places to clones of the PRC; what is wants is for them become good, reliable suppliers and consumers and whether they are run as democracies, theocracies or dictatorships is an “internal affair”.  What matters is peace, good order and a common system of “non-interference”.  The CCP’s collective view is not unknown in the annals of the US State Department, the diplomat and historian George Kennan (1904-2005) in one of his long (and mostly ignored) reports from Moscow in 1945 noting the US should “…remain true to its ideals but should not try to foist them on peoples with entirely different national traditions.”

Leviathan (1651) by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).  The etching used for the frontipiece of the original edition was by the French printmaker Abraham Bosse (circa 1604–1676) “with input from the author”.

The One comparison that can be made is between the notion a world hegemon is necessary for a generally stable world economy and the idea the very clever and deliciously wicked English philosopher Thomas Hobbes explored in Leviathan (1651): A strong sovereign (to whom individuals must cede certain “natural rights”) is essential for a peaceful, stable society.  Although striking, there are limitations to the extent the hegemon in Professor Kindleberger's model can be thought an international analogue of the grim vision in Leviathan; it is not a direct application of Hobbesian political theory.  Hobbes argued the fundamental problem in the “state of nature” (ie in which the earliest “societies” came to be formed) was the lack of a sufficiently powerful common authority to prevent individuals from pursuing their interests against one another.  In that model, because each person (at least theoretically) possesses roughly equal capacity to threaten others, rational individuals have an incentive to seek security by establishing a sovereign and one not there merely to coordinate but also with coercive power.  What the existence of a powerful sovereign offered was that in exchange for restrictions on individual freedom (at the most basic, not killing one’s opponents), collective security would be guaranteed.  Because all in the society would be subject to the same authority (and thus the same loss of certain freedoms) the arrangement would come to be accepted, if for no other reason than the alternative(s) being worse: “nasty, solitary, brutish and short” Hobbes’ memorable phrase.

Kindleberger's argument was developed in his book The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (1973) and concerned something analogous to what Hobbes described but at the international economic level.  His thesis was that (1) with an economy damaged by involvement in World War I and the consequent “difficulties” of the following decade, the UK was no longer able to provided the international economic leadership it had delivered before the war while (2) the US was unable or unwilling to assume the role.  With no stabilising hegemon, nations resorted to acting in short-term self interest, leading to reductions in trade, wealth and employment; Professor Kindleberger's key insight was that whatever their granular nature, in international economics these things must be thought public goods but, of course, individual countries each had incentives to have others bear the cost of maintaining them, thus the famous “Kindleberger Problem”: Who pays for the system?  That the UK was not prepared to go deeper into debt and the US preferred to focus on its own problems he held to be the major factors that made what might have been a sharp but relatively short recession into the Great Depression of the 1930s.  It was the leadership vacuum that created the conditions leading to the collapse of the international economic order.

The limitation in pursuing the analogy is of course that neither the UK in the nineteenth century nor the US since 1945 were the sovereign of the international system in the Hobbesian sense; Hobbes’ sovereign had juridical and coercive supremacy over subjects while the international hegemon does not because, although in the modern age state sovereignty is no longer the fabulous beast it was once claimed to be, individual nations remain still independent with some (though much varied) capacity to resist a hegemon.  In other words, Kindleberger's hegemon can help to provide order through preponderance in economic, political and political capabilities whereas the Hobbesian sovereign, within their territory, enjoyed absolute authority.  So the problems can be seen as similar but the solutions differ, Hobbes describing a rigid hierarchy and Kindleberger a leadership that administers anarchy by making it “managed chaos”.

US National Debt: US$40 trillion by August 2026.

All the history and economic theory is of course of interest but of immediate concern is (1) whether a Kindleberger moment is to hand (protagonist and antagonist being the US and PRC) and (2) whether the consequences of soch a moment will be economic disruption (of unknown extent or duration) or armed conflict (of unknown extent or duration).  The world is in a most unusual situation in that although the US continues of operate as hegemon, debatably it shouldn’t be able to because of its US$40 trillion debt (about 123% of GDP (gross domestic product)) and other problems.  While it’s true US debt was nudging 120% immediately after World War II (1939-1945), the US position at that time (vis-à-vis the rest of the planet) was unique and the debt trend was downwards whereas now it’s upwards.  There are those who argue things have changed and the US$40 trillion number is no longer an expression of “debt” in the conventional sense of the word but merely a way of describing the “new” mechanism of managing the US money supply.  The notion the US Treasury could at any time mint a single US$40 trillion coin, add it to the balance sheet and declare a net-debt free status has been offered as one example of why “deficits don’t matter” and while not all accept that, just about the whole world is now dependent on the US sustaining the existing system with this ever-growing debt so, in the absence of another country (or “demi-country” such as the EU (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957)) able and willing to fulfil the role of hegemon, the world economy and the US remain engaged in what some fear is a kind of economic danse macabre and there seems no way to use the numbers to predict if it's a debt level of US$50, 75, or 100 trillion that risks triggering a crisis.

Presidents Xi (left) and Trump (right).  With sufficient (1) goodwill or (2) amorality, the art of the deal can be done.  With enough of the latter, the former may one day emerge.

Of course the ultimate wild card (others might prefer “joker”) is that Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) is in the White House and while his idiosyncratic methods of governance intrigue political junkies, so marvellously unpredictable are his actions that it’s hard to map onto the dynamics a well understood concept like the Kindleberger Moment.  At heart a CEO (chief executive officer) rather than a democrat operating within constitutional norms, it’s suspected that left to his own devices, Mr Trump would sit down at the map table with comrade Xi Jinping (b 1953; General Secretary of the CCP and paramount leader of the PRC (People's Republic of China) since 2012) and divide up their respective spheres of influence.  Like Mr Trump who wants as little as possible to do with the internal affairs of America’s suppliers and customers (ie other countries), Mr Xi has no wish to waste effort or resources on “pointless squabbles” and not since a couple of horse-traders like Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) & comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), needing nothing more, than pencil, paper and limitless cynicism divided up the Balkans into bite-sized spheres have two great powers been headed by a pair as suited to “doing the art of the deal”.  Of course, for those in places like the “renegade province of Taiwan”, there would be a cost but as at was demonstrated at the Yalta Conference (February 1945), somebody “always has to pay the price” and that may be a better trap to spring than risking the jaws of a Kindleberger Trap.

Feminism

Feminism (pronounced fem-uh-niz-uhm)

(1) A doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

(2) In both its structured and ad hoc forms, a movement for the attainment of such rights for women (sometimes used with initial capital letter).

(3) Feminine character (obsolete except for historic references).

1851: From the French féminisme, ultimately from the Classical Latin fēminīnus, the construct being the Latin fēmina (woman) + ism.  The first known use in French dates from 1837.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up -ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  It seems first to have been used in in English in 1851, originally as a neutral term meaning "the state of being feminine".  The sense of "advocacy of women's rights" began in 1895 ("political feminism" often traced from here although given the history that is misleading) and the word came soon to be used as a "loaded" descriptor of the female character, a kind of informal measure of the patriarchal view of femininity, often in criticism of artistic performance or literature.  So productive has the word feminism proved that there are literally more than a hundred derived forms including the:  geographical (Afro-feminism; Euro-feminism), political (anarcho-feministic, radical feminism), humorous (femocrat; femnazi), structural (post-feminism; lipstick feminism; postmodern feminism) and contested (male-feminism; trans-feminism).  Feminism & feminist are nouns, feministic is an adjective and feministically is an adverb; the most common noun plural is feminists but given the proliferation of terms created with modifiers, feminisms are often referenced even if the word is not used.

Feminism is a widely used word with an accepted definitional range but there’s no universal understanding pattern of use and, like words such as “academic” or “liberal”, the meaning conveyed widely can vary, the senses ranging from the chauvinistically aggressive to the contemptuous.  That of course transfers to “feminist” which while procedural as an adjective (relating to or in accordance with feminism), as a noun it really means what the user wants it to mean because it’s not like many other “–ist” creations (physicist, scientist etc) which are understood as simple descriptors.  Even “artist” is uncontroversial at the linguistic level (one who creates what they claim to be art) although whether what they produce can be considered “art” might be disputed.  The -ist suffix was from the Middle English -ist & -iste, from the Old French -iste and the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō) (the -ize & -ise verbal suffix) and -τής (-tḗs) (the agent-noun suffix).  It was added to nouns to denote various senses of association such as (1) a person who studies or practices a particular discipline, (2), one who uses a device of some kind, (3) one who engages in a particular type of activity, (4) one who suffers from a specific condition or syndrome, (5) one who subscribes to a particular theological doctrine or religious denomination, (6) one who has a certain ideology or set of beliefs, (7) one who owns or manages something and (8), a person who holds very particular views (often applied to those thought most offensive).  Feminists have noted the issue, the journalist & author Rebecca West (1892–1983) once remarking: “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or prostitute.”

Feminism & Language

Écriture féminine (feminine writing) was a concept proposed by the French feminist and literary critic Hélène Cixous (b 1937).  It denoted writing characteristically feminine in style, language, tone and feeling; it was wholly different from (and opposed to) male language and discourse although in The Laugh of the Medusa (1976) she acknowledged in this there was no biological determinism; women often writing in “male discourse” while men can write in a “feminine way”. She cited the “source” of écriture féminine in the mother-child relationship before the child acquires “conventional” language and suggested this potential language, when eventually used in writing, (whether by men or women) subverted logic, the rational and any element which may constrain the free play of meaning.  In certain feminist circles, this was intoxicating stuff.

Because of the overlap of terms and labels, it’s important to emphasize Cixous meant something different by “conventional language” than did linguistics theorist & public intellectual Noam Chomsky (b 1928), their intellectual traditions (mostly) separate.  According to Cixous, “convention is a social, cultural, and ideological phenomenon”, her concern being how language reproduces power, (especially that of the patriarchy) and her purpose an intention to disrupt existing constructs of “conventional language”.  By contrast, Chmosky was interested in mechanisms and structure (much of his analysis is gender-neutral).  In his model, “convention” was largely a surface property of particular languages, his interest the innate cognitive system underlying language and his goal an explanation of the way speakers unconsciously acquire the syntax and vocabulary of language.  This was less the “nuts & bolts” of language than how people learn to use them to assemble and convey meaning with “conventional language an outcome of process.

White Ink, Interviews on Sex, Text, and Politics (2008), Hélène Cixous, edited by Susan Sellers.

Cixous was thus a critic of “conventional language”, seeing it as a collection of constructs which made up the established forms of discourse inherited from Western culture (most of which was created or propagated by the infamous “dead white males”).  That construct was culturally hegemonic and included (1) accepted literary styles & canonical works, (2) accepted rules of syntax & logic, (3) a limited range of socially sanctioned meanings, (4) binary oppositions that tended to map onto masculine / feminine orthodoxy (reason / emotion,  activity / passivity,  strength / weakness etc) and (5) linguistic habits operating to maintain or reinforce patriarchal authority.  Obviously, none of that could be thought politically neutral and because language is a unique form of communication, being standardized after having been shaped by masculine structures of thought, “conventional language” tended to reproduce existing hierarchies.  Écriture féminine was thus writing exceeding or disrupting the conventional linguistic order, achieved through non-linear structures, ambiguity, excess & rhythm; while those devices and techniques have widely been adopted by many seeking to be disruptive of “something”, what Cixous emphasized was a particular content: bodily imagery & associative movement rather than the rigid logical progression long imposed by the patriarchy.  In other words, Cixous defined “conventional language” as something effectively synonymous with institutionalized discourse or the dominant symbolic order.

Syntactic Structures (1957) by Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky’s work in structural linguistics predated his “second career” as critic of socio-economic structures and US foreign policy and although highly controversial, was little known outside the relatively small community of academics working in the field of linguistics.  In producing his polemical work that was more accessible, he reached a much wider audience and managed to become a “celebrity academic”, a reasonable achievement given he was effectively black-balled by all of the mainstream US media (both “liberal” and “conservative” outlets).  Chomsky’s early work was highly technical (and frankly difficult fully to understand without the requisite training) but it’s clear he viewed “conventional language” as an external social system with the parameters of “convention” understood as the “surface properties” and what really mattered was the innate cognitive system underlying language (the means by which speakers unconsciously acquire conventional languages).  At that point his analysis got really dense and one of the few easily digestible concepts he offered to illustrate things was the distinction between I-language (internal language): the mental grammar possessed by an individual speaker and E-language (external language): English, French, Japanese, etc, viewed as public conventions.  For many of us, it was a rare moment of clarity.

So the use by Cixous and Chomsky of the term “conventional language” is just an example of the way language must in its context be deconstructed for meaning to be understood.  That’s not new and is something that’s been required as soon as words or phrases came to capable of carrying more than one meaning but what can’t be denied is that at some point in the twentieth century, deconstruction became fetishized and once postmodernism taught us even meaning must inherently be thought uncertain, it’s little wonder the factions girded their loins and feminist literature was part of the battle.  Cixous (in translation) and Chomsky of course shared vocabulary, linguistic conventions and sometimes even patterns of argument but their work on language was not even parallel streams but more lakes fed by the same tributaries.  Cixous was there to oppose and Chomsky to explain but he later would discover the joy of discontent.

Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1981) by Toril Moi.

There have of course been many forks of feminist thoughts and Belgian-born French feminist psycholinguist Luce Irigaray (b 1930) wrote of a “woman's language” that was multiple, fluid, diverse and heterogeneous, evading the male phallocentric monopoly (a theory with a morphological basis associated with the structure and shape of the genitalia).  A not unrelated view was proposed by Bulgarian-born French feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva (b 1941): a “language” that was pre-Oedipal, pre-linguistic and fundamentally semiotic (associated with the chora, from the Ancient Greek χώρα (khṓra) (location, place (but used here in the sense of “womb”))) as opposed to male-controlled language which she described as symbolic.  That one really disturbed some male critics.  Nearly a half-century on, the classic discussion of these matters (and other competing theories) remains Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1981) by the Norwegian Professor of Literature Toril Moi (b 1953).

A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (1977) by Elaine Showalter.

One landmark contribution to the development of feminist literary analysis was made by US literary critic Dr Elaine Showalter (b 1941) who in the 1970s coined gynocriticism, describing studies and interpretation focusing on women as writers, as distinct from feminist criticism and evaluation of the work of men.  Showalter explained gynocritics by saying it was a concept within which could be built “a female framework for the analysis of women's literature”.  By the 1970s literary theory had already evolved into separatist forks so the notion of siloing “women on women” as something distinct in the field suited the critical zeitgeist but what lent gynocritics its identity was a distinct sense of the author-centric.  Although a generation after the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s (1908–1986) The Second Sex (1949) that wasn’t exactly new and whether Showalter really had created “new” models of female literary creation could be debated, gynocriticism certainly drew attention to the history of the way literary critics had handled the work of women.  These days, structural analysis at the textual level is routine but in the 1970s it was illuminating to see tracked the way the critiques by men of the work of George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans, 1819–1880) shifted after the revelation of her identity.  At a time when literary theory was being consumed by postmodernism, not all were happy about the author being “fetishized” because it seemed archaic in the age of “text” and there was of course the objection what Showalter had done was create a “female canon”, an inherently exclusionary project that ignored those not of the white middle-class.  Still, gynocriticism was after all a framework and was there for lesbians, persons of color or others to construct their own canons and whether such “sub-siloing” was a help or hindrance to the cause of feminism really wasn’t relevant; the point being it was inevitable.  Although in the twenty-first century the term gynocriticism rarely is heard, that is an indication of its success because it's part of the fabric of feminist critical theory (on the model of the way the IT industry stopped talking about OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) after it became (for a while) an orthodoxy).  Like structural-functionalism, even though gynocriticism became unfashionable, its core assumptions and methods continue to underpin the field.

Feminism's Waves

Fourth wave feminist: Lindsay Lohan,  image from a photoshoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love magazine, 2012.

The notion of feminism being not a fixed manifesto but a process in incremental waves is from a 1968 piece in the New York Times Magazine by journalist Martha Lear (b 1932).  The context was to note the appearance a decade earlier of second-wave feminism, focusing now on unofficial inequalities, unlike the first wave which was essentially structuralist.  While lineal, there’s overlap between the waves and, in both popular culture and academia, some resistance to change.  Whatever its other implications, feminism needs to be considered a political construct and it operates, as does politics, through cross-cutting cleavages; in the same way the formation of the G8 (the Group of 8, an assembly of advanced industrial economies created when Russia was added to the G7) didn’t mean the G7 ceased to exist, the successive waves in feminism both absorbed and operated in parallel with earlier waves.

First-wave feminism (1895-1950s): In this “de jure” period, the focus was on legal issues such as women's suffrage, property rights and political candidacy.

Second-wave feminism (1960s-1980s): Even before equality in legal rights wholly was achieved, the movement broadened the debate to include sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights and other de facto inequalities. Attention to first-wave issues focused on child custody and divorce law.  In the West, it was the parameters of 2WF that established the popular perception of "feminism".  

Third-wave feminism (1990-2000s): Although there were cultural links, the intellectual origins of 3WF lie in a 1992 article by feminist Rebecca Walker (b 1969) and although never exactly defined, it was said to emphasize an interest in individualism and diversity (which hadn't yet become DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)).  Controversial even at the time, with strains of libertarianism now competing with the historic collectivist model, it sought to change the parameters of feminism and there were those who argued that with men effectively having surrendered, the opposition to the notion of 3WF came mostly from those feminists who had built sometimes lucrative careers on the framework of 2WF.  It was with the emergence of 3WF that feminism truly can be said to have become schismatic with 2WF an orthodoxy (and something of an ancien régime).    

Fourth-wave feminism (circa 2010-): Regarded as a least partially technologically deterministic, 4WF is thought to have emerged circa 2008-2012 as social media gained critical mass.  It focuses on intersectionality and examines the interconnected systems of power that maintain the marginalized of certain groups in society.  4WF advocates for greater representation of these groups in all places within the power-elite, arguing equality for women will become possible only if policies and practices incorporate all groups.  There were those who argued 4WF was really 3WF 1.1 while others suggested the need for a 5WF but no coherent work has yet been published.

Distract

Distract (pronounced dih-strakt)

(1) To draw away or divert, as the mind or attention.

(2) To disturb or trouble greatly in mind; beset.

(3) To provide a pleasant diversion for; to amuse or entertain.

(4) To separate or divide by dissension or strife; to confuse.

(5) To make “crazy or insane” (now rare except in the idiomatic “drive to distraction” and its variants when the concept of “mad” is used in its colloquial sense).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the Medieval Latin distracten (to turn or draw (a person, the mind) aside or away from any object; divert (the attention) from any point toward another point), from the Latin distrahō (to pull apart), the construct being dis- + trahō (to pull), from distractus (drawn apart), past participle of distrahere (to draw apart), the construct being dis- + trahere (to draw).  The dis prefix was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  Distract, distracting & distracted are verbs & adjectives, distractionism, distractibility, distraction, distractedness, distracter & distractee are nouns, distractable, distractible, distractionary, distractive & distractful are adjectives and distractedly & distractingly are adverbs; the common noun plural is distractions.

Diversions are where one finds them.

The sense of “to throw into a state of mind in which one knows not how to act; cause distraction in; confuse by diverse or opposing considerations” has been in use by at least the 1580s.  Obviously related (and emerging a decade-odd later) was the stronger sense of “disorder the reason of, render frantic or mad”, once in common use and preserved (in rather diluted form) in the idiomatic phrase “driven to distraction”.  The literal senses of “pull apart in different directions and separate; cut into parts or sections” were in use from the late sixteenth century but are now functionally extinct.  The adjective distracted dates from the 1570s in the sense of “perplexed, harassed, or bewildered by opposing considerations” and came directly from the verb distract; from the 1580s it gained the meaning “disordered in intellect, frantic, mad”.  The noun distraction came from the mid-fifteenth century distraccioun (the drawing away of the mind from one point or course to another or others), from the Latin distractionem (a pulling apart, separating), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of distrahere (draw in different directions).  The sense of a “drawing of the mind in different directions, mental confusion or bewilderment” dates from the 1590s, and the meaning “violent mental disturbance, excitement simulating madness (in driven to distraction etc) was known from the turn of the century.  The meaning “a thing or fact that causes mental diversion or bewilderment” was in use by at least 1615 but, like other related forms, it probably was long in oral use.  The special use of distraction in medicine was used to describe “traction so exerted as to separate surfaces normally opposed”; it is long archaic.  The old idea of “distraction” meaning “crazy or insane” survives in the idiomatic phrases “drive to distraction”, “driven to distraction” and “crazy or insane” are now used in the colloquial, non-clinical sense meaning “a bit stressed or discombobulated”.  Usually, the phrases are used by those being so annoyed by someone or something they cannot focus on the task at hand.

Of Dr Faustus

Title page of the 1620 edition of the ‘B’ text of Doctor Faustus (first published in 1616 as The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus).

English playwright, poet and translator Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was the enfant terrible of the Elizabethan age (1558–1603) and the circumstances surrounding his murder at a youthful 29 death has long attracted speculation.  Marlow’s most famous work was The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (clipped usually to “Doctor Faustus”), a tragedy (some critics class it as a morality play) first staged around 1594.  Kind of the ultimate cautionary tale, it was based on German stories about an eminent scholar who sells (for eternity) his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years magical powers.  The plot is charmingly simple: it follows Dr Faustus down the magical path lad for him by the demon Mephistopheles to his ultimate downfall as he fails to repent before his damnation.  An entertaining work, Marlow’s play also has the virtue of brevity unlike Goethe’s (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832) sprawling Faust in two parts; Goethe’s Faust may be the author’s magnum opus and the finest achievement in German literature but it is very long.

Faust and Mephistopheles (1869), oil on canvas by Alfred Louis Vigny Jacomin (1842-1913).

What enabled Mephistopheles to tempt Faustus was that the doctor, who regarded himself an expert of just about every aspect of science and philosophy, had become enchanted by the idea of necromancy, something not easily explored in the temporal world.  Dating from the late twelfth century, necromancy was from the Middle English nigromancye, from the Old French nigromancie, from the Medieval Latin nigromantia, from the Classical Latin necromantia, from the Ancient Greek νεκρομαντεία (nekromanteía), the construct being νεκρός (nekrós) (dead) + μαντεία (manteía) (divination).  The spelling in the Medieval Latin with the element niger (black) was influenced by the notion of this being a “black (in the sense of “dark”) art; the modern spelling had emerged by the mid sixteenth century.  Necromancy, as understood by Faustus, meant the sorcery associated with raising or reanimating the dead and the Devil uniquely was well placed to provide instruction but there would be a price to be paid.  One of the devices Marlow has Mephistopheles (and sometimes the Devil himself) use to divert Faustus’s thoughts from anything which might bring about his repentance and save his soul are “distractions”.  The distractions are presented as essentially theatrical spectacles in the form of sensual pleasures, promises of power and trivial entertainments, all designed to ensure spiritual distraction; it was something like Faustus’s Elizabethan TikTok feed.

Distractions played a part: Al Gore (b 1948; VPOTUS 1993-2001 & NPOTUS 2000, left) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; NPOTUS 2016, right).

The distractions take many forms but their principle purpose is to divert Faustus from thinking about or speaking of Christ and heaven, thus the famous rebuke: “Thou shouldst not think of God.”  What Lucifer does is stage a pagent of the Seven Deadly Sins, a masque-like parade of Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery to amuse and seduce Faustus away from repentance.  As one might expect of weak, mortal man, Faustus delights in the spectacle: “O, this feeds my soul!”; well the Devil knew his customer.  Also provided are texts teaching transformations, conjuring, and occult knowledge, intellectual distractions appealing to Faustus’s vanity and appetite for mastery of new and unexplored subjects.  This is however a play written for the stage and it has a beginning, middle and end with much of the middle devoted to diversions: invisible tricks played on the pope (said to be very popular with contemporary audiences), conjuring spirits for emperors and nobles, practical jokes, feasts, and displays of magical power.  What Marlowe does is show Faustus squandering his grand bargain on shallow amusements rather than profound knowledge; comparisons have been made between what was promised would be the role of the “Information Super Highway” (dating from the time when “Al Gore invented the Internet”) and TikTok feeds.

Helen of Troy (1898), oil on canvas by Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919).  Helen has for millennia been depicted by painters and sculptors and historians of art have used the images to track changes in Western ideal of female beauty.  

Near the end, when an Old Man urges Faustus sincerely to repent, Mephistopheles counters with Helen of Troy as an erotic and aesthetic temptation, Faustus responding with the famous: “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships…?”  Helen represented the ultimate sensual distraction from salvation; as the Devil and advertising agencies understand: sex sells.  As a psychological study, Marlow’s work is a clever piece of the way manipulation can work, certainly with a victim as vain and self-absorbed as Faustus who Mephistopheles can convince repentance has become impossible, trapping him in a twilight zone between fear of the consequences of his actions and his irresistible urge to taste the distractions offered.  For those attracted by the comparisons with the internet, a major theme of the play is the notion of distraction, Faustus almost never allowed (or willing, depending on the reading), to sustain serious contemplation of repentance, Marlowe presenting damnation not as an open rebellion against God, but a gradual surrender of attention to spectacle, appetite, vanity and diversion. 

Of Marjorie Taylor Greene and flying saucers

Marjorie Taylor Greene with assault rifle, campaign material, 2020.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG, b 1974; US Representative (congressperson) (Republican-Georgia 2021-2026)) parlayed a career as a conspiracy theorist (evils of Islam, anti-Semitism, white genocide / replacement, Pizzagate, QAnon, etc (although she later disavowed her acceptance of what QAnon promotes)) into a seat in the US House of Representatives.  Once very much a Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) fan-girl and a devotee of the his MAGA (Make America Great Again) cult, during the second Trump presidency she made a remarkable volte-face, accusing him of betraying the “America First” movement, criticizing his policies (both domestic and foreign) and reluctance to release files related to convicted paedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019).  With apologies to William Congreve (1670–1729) who included the original line in his tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697): “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a MAGA woman scorned.” and Mr Trump responded to this treachery by attacking her in a post on his ever-entertaining Truth Social platform, vowing to have her “primaried” (denied a place on the Republican ticket for the mid-term congressional elections in November 2026).  As recent Republican primaries have demonstrated, Mr Trump continues to hold the party in his thrall and MTG might have expected to suffer the same fate.  Accordingly, she resigned her seat so Mr Trump can treat that as a victory although she became what Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 & POTUS 1963-1969) called “outside the tent” (his argument being often it was preferable to have malcontents “inside the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in”).

Marjorie Taylor Greene in happier times.

Outside the tent, the scorned MTG renewed her attacks.  Most displeased at US military action against Iran, she called for the cabinet to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the constitution and remove the president from office (on the grounds of physical or mental incapacity) and, in a rhetorical flourish, suggested the Republican Party should be “burned to the ground.”  That was good but she also provided a critique of the administration’s tactic of “rolling out distractions”, calling the Pentagon’s release of “UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) files” as “look at the shiny object”, propaganda, placed in the public domain to divert public attention from matters such a high gas (petrol) prices, inflation and foreign military operations.  She dismissed the “UFO files” (the Pentagon prefers the nerdier UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena)) as revealing “nothing” and said the release was a mere strategic diversion, the administration knowing news outlets would think it a “sexy” topic that would displace gas and egg prices from the headlines and hopefully encourage the usual suspects in the public arena to start arguing about flying saucers.  Her core point was instead of publishing “UFO files” containing nothing substantive, the administration should fully disclose the Epstein files with no redactions beyond what was necessary to “protect the victims”.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, post MAGA.

President Trump said he’d directed the Pentagon to make available on their website 161 (with more to come) files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)", because of “the tremendous interest shown”.  Of course, as MTG pointed out, there is also “tremendous interest” in what’s as yet unseen in the Epstein files.  What MTG claimed was the public’s “tremendous interest” is seeing “names named” in the Epstein files was in conflict with the equally “tremendous interest” Mr Trump told her his “friends” had in the information remaining suppressed.  According to her, Mr Trump asked her to remove her support from releasing the Epstein files because placing them in the public domain would “expose and hurt ‘good people’ he knew at Mar-a-Lago”.  That clash of interests hasn’t gone away so while it can’t be predicted whether it will involve the White House’s new ballroom or some other “shiny object”, more distractions may be expected.

Of political distraction

In political science, “distraction” is used in two ways.  The first sense describes forces or events which operate to divert a government’s attention from the matters on which they intended to focus.  Sometimes, this can happen because external events impose themselves or it can be a product of the attention of those in government being drawn to “other matters”.  The most amusing of these are personal vendettas which can assume a life of their own but they can involve just about anything.  The more interesting “political distractions” are those governments, parties or individual politicians “manufacture” to divert public attention away from damaging scandals, corruption, policy failures or unpopular legislation.  As one might imagine, given those imperatives, politicians often feel the need to distract the press and public for the public from thinking or talking about their many failings.  The orthodox approach among political scientists is to list diversions in six categories:

(1) Toss a dead cat on the table.  This describes the tactic of suddenly introducing an outrageous, shocking or highly controversial topic into the public arena, something designed to force the media and public to become interested in the new matter and forget or at least neglect whatever damaging discussion was dominating news cycle.  Aspects of the “culture wars” are dependable dead felines which is why matters such as trans-women’s participation in women’s sport do seem often to “crop up” when a politician’s poll-numbers are looking dire.

(2) Take out the trash.  The polite term for TotT is “Strategic Timing” which describes announcing policies likely to be unpopular policies or controversial executive orders on days when public attention is guaranteed to be fixed elsewhere, such as during big sporting events or during major holidays.  The trick to a successful execution of TotT is just to do it without leaving a “paper trail” (which can now be electronic).  That was a mistake made a certain bureaucrat in the UK government who, within minutes of the second jet hitting New York’s World Trade Center on 9/11 (11 September, 2001), sent a memorandum to her department head suggesting “It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury.”  What was meant by that was that the coverage of the terrorist attacks would “swamp” just about everything else, meaning the government wouldn’t have to try to “defend the indefensible”.

(3) Tail Wagging the Dog: In political science this tactic is glossed as “Diversionary Foreign Policy” and refers to governments initiating or escalating foreign conflicts, border tensions, or military action to create the “rally 'round the flag” effect and divert attention from domestic matters which are proving tiresome.  Cases studies of “wagging the dog” are numerous but in the case of nations inclined often to embark upon foreign military actions, it can be difficult to be sure a certain venture is an example or just “business as usual” foreign policy doctrine in action.  When, in August 1998, Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) ordered a missile strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, that was claimed by the White House to be based on “solid intelligence” the facility was (1) connected with Osama bin Laden’s (1957-2011) al-Qaeda terrorist group (1957-2011) and was “manufacturing or storing the VX nerve agent”.  Although a successful military operation (ie the factory was destroyed with a low civilian casualty toll), the administration was forced subsequently to concede the intelligence was “not as solid as first portrayed”.  In Sudan, the locals had few doubts about the president’s motivation, the Monica Lewinsky (b 1973) scandal at the time dominating the US news cycle.

Distracting: English model Penny Lane (b 1991), Miami Swim Week, June 2026.  Her "catwalk strut" in a black, cut-out monokini with a matrix of thin, horizontal straps slashing across the midriff was the sensation of the show. 

(4) Scapegoating.  Although it’s the always reliable “blame the Jews” which is the standard template for scapegoating, the formula is adaptable to circumstances which can extend from religion & ethnicity (the way the Jews are exploited containing elements of both) to occupational categories, social class, political alignment and more.  Scapegoating can be a handy device of distraction when managing disquiet over issues such as unemployment, failing infrastructure, the spread of disease, crime, urban congestion, economic difficulties, rising prices or the weather (it really has been done).  Of late, the perfect scapegoats have been “illegal migrants” (often clipped to “illegals”), now in ample supply.

(5) Culture Wars.  Culture wars long pre-date Antiquity but in their modern sense were really a creation of the left, political parties (labour, socialist etc) which, even though for decades rarely being in power, were able in many places to become the central dynamic of the political process by “setting the agenda” some of their ideas becoming the dominant orthodoxy.  However, the right stumbled upon culture wars after the re-orientation of Western economies to the neo-Liberal model which tended to damage the interests of the working class.  What distractions like the culture wars (abortion, guns, right to drive huge pick-up trucks etc) offered to the right was the intoxicating prospect of persuading the working class to vote contrary to their own economic interest.  Threats to a way of life (trans people, climate change theories etc) have been added as culture war theatres as they proved to have traction.

(6) Flooding the Zone.  In the pre-digital age, this was called “drowning them in paperwork” which, although a mixed metaphor, conveyed well the notion of providing so much data it was impossible effectively to process.  In the age of social media, the technique has had to be adjusted because there are now some who will ignore the distraction and relentlessly focus of a single issue of interest but it does still work, advances in AI (artificial intelligence) meaning it’s now possible to release huge tranches of “redacted documents”.  At the micro level, the principle can be used by issuing literally dozens of executive orders (some of which the administration may have no intention of effecting and exist only as “sacrificial devices” in order to divert attention from a certain order.  Of course, just as AI can be a shield, it can also be a weapon, journalists and others now able to apply a Bot to a tranche, enabling in a short time the sort of analysis which would take a team of humans months or even years.

The ultimate usual suspect: Noam Chomsky's thoughts on distraction

In full flight: Noam Chomsky (left) discussing something with Jeffrey Epstein (right) while flying somewhere on a private jet.  Professor Chomsky is believed “deeply to regret” his association with Epstein, a man he once described as a “highly valued friend”.   The image was released by the US DoJ (Department of Justice).

Linguistics theorist & public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky (b 1928) has for decades been something of an institution of the left, his critique of the policies of the US government in most aspects unchanging yet still attracting interest with each iteration, despite much of the mainstream media in the US maintaining what was, in effect, a ban on him appearing.  Unlike his work in structural linguistics, the complexities of which were understood by a relative few, Chomsky’s political writings were more accessible, something which some criticism from political scientists and those specializing in international relations who found his “elegant reductionism” just a form of simplification for mass-market appeal; political scientists much prefer the arcane.  Chomsky regards the tactics of distraction as tools in the strategy of manipulation and regards the art and science of distraction as the most significant of the ten vectors of manipulation practiced by the “political class” (political operatives and the news media).

(1) The strategy of distraction.  The primary element of social control is the tool of distraction, used to divert public attention issues and changes determined by political and economic elites; the most common tactic is the “flood”: “flooding” people with continuous distractions and insignificant information.  Distraction strategy is also essential to limit or even prevent public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics: “Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance.  Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think.”

(2) Create problems, then offer solutions.  This method is also called “problem–reaction-solution.”  It creates a problem, a “situation” that will induce some reaction in the audience and, in time, will see them demanding a “solution”.  Examples include allowing urban violence to spread or intensify (if necessary, agents of the state can even arrange the attacks), then responding to demands for “security” by passing laws allowing a harsh crackdown and restrictions on social rights.  Such a tactic can augment a manufactured “economic crisis”, one of the solutions being a reduction in spending on public services, even to the point of their widespread disestablishment.

(3) Gradualism.  The “gradual strategy” is a form of the “thin end of the wedge” and is a way of eventually achieving something which would have been unacceptable had there been an attempt to implement the change is “one hit”.  What’s done is that measures are applied gradually over years or even decades, the public acting like the tale of the frog in the pot of water being slowly brought to the boil.  That famous example turned out not to be how frogs react to gradually increasing water temperature but, in the West, it’s something like the way the radically new socio-economic conditions of neo-liberalism were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s.  Had the architects attempted to impose at once what proved to be the eventual outcome, the public would likely not have accepted the change.

(4) Deferment.  This is a “long game” tactic, the theory being a way to have the public accept an unpopular policy is to present it as “painful but necessary”, the psychology behind that being the notion it’s more palatable to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate slaughter.  Intriguingly, deferment is said to be effective because there is much to suggest there’s a general public belief “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice suggested will finally be avoided.  That may sound surprising but the findings are said to be “solid” and mean people “get used to” the inevitability of the change and, “with a sense of resignation”, will accept things.

(5) Infantilism.  The theory (adopted also in many forms of advertising) is that if information is presented in a way one might to a child of twelve, (in other words as if addressing an adult with a mentally deficiency), the recipient will digest it with the lack of critical sense typical in a child of that age.  Not all political scientists are convinced this approach works in matters of public policy but its success in the marketing of at least certain products is acknowledged.

(6) Emotional appeals work better than anything analytic.  The idea is that stressing the emotional aspect of something can be effective because it tends to induce a “short-circuiting” of a recipient’s capacity for rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

(7) Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity.  The object is to make the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.  Most obviously, this is achieved by keeping the quality of education provided to the lower social classes at a most mediocre level, ensuring a wide “ignorance gap” exists between them and the hegemonic class.  Instead of knowledge, the lower classes are given diversions such as reality TV and an endless diet of football matches.

(8) Self-identification of the lower classes with ignorance.  Apparently, this wasn’t something anticipated by the theorists but among sub-sets of the marginalized class, what evolved was a kind of “cult of ignorance” in which being uneducated and vulgar is fashionable and a form of class solidarity, toxic masculinity said by some sociologists to be a modern manifestation.

(9) Strengthen a sense of self-blame.  By definition, if individuals blame themselves for their misfortunes, they won’t blame the government and expect solutions to be provided although, impressionistically, it would seem demands often are made of governments regardless of a misfortune’s cause.  Still, if individual blames themselves, (failure of effort or ability), the hope is instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual descends into an acquiescent insensibility and hopefully a state of depression which tends to inhibit getting out of bed, let getting ideas about staging a revolution.

(10) Knowledge is power.  Just because something is a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true and in recent decades there does seem to have been a growing gap between knowledge in public hands and that owned and operated by the power elite.  The system of control has developed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically meaning mechanisms of control can now be more targeted.  There were optimistic types who believed placing AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities in the hands of the masses might redress this imbalance but there seem little to suggest the technology is doing anything other than strengthening the existing hegemony.