Witch

Witch (pronounced wich)

(1) A person, historically either male or female but now especially a woman, who professes or is supposed to practice magic or sorcery; a sorceress (especially popular in mythology and fiction but also associated with certain societies and historical periods and still current in some countries).

(2) In the weird world of the "new age movement", a practitioner of a nature-based religion founded on ancient beliefs, which honors both a male and female divine principle and includes the practice of magic (associated especially with healing).

(3) An informal and derogatory term for an ugly, mean or wicked old woman; a hag.

(4) Used selectively, a fascinating or enchanting woman (usually in the (figurative) sense of "bewitching").

(5) A person who uses a divining rod; dowser (archaic).

(6) In the sense of "witch-hunt", an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion, dishonesty or the like, based usually on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence.

(7) A flatfish, Pleuronectes (or Glyptocephalus) cynoglossus, of North Atlantic coastal waters, having a narrow greyish-brown body marked with tiny black spots.  The family group is Pleuronectidae (plaice, flounders etc)

(8) In geometry, a certain curve of the third order, also known as versiera.

(9) In entomology, the Indomalayan butterfly Araotes lapithis, of the Lycaenidae family.

Pre 900: From the Middle English wicche from the Old English wicce (sorceress, witch (female)), the feminine forms existing in conjunction with wicca (witch, sorcerer, wizard), the masculine deverbative from wiccian (to practice sorcery) from the Proto-Germanic wikkōną.  Related were the West Frisian wikje, wikke (to foretell, warn), the Low German wicken (to soothsay) and the Dutch wikken, wichelen (to dowse, divine).  Root was the primitive Indo-European wik-néh, derivation of weyk- (to consecrate; separate); akin to the Latin victima (sacrificial victim), the Swedish vicka (to move to and fro), the Lithuanian viẽkas (life-force) and the Sanskrit विनक्ति (vinákti) (to set apart, separate out).  Witch, witchcraft, witcher & witchery are nouns; witching is a verb & adjective and witchy is an adjective, the noun plural is witches.

The homophones “witch” & “which” are yet another pair that must make those learning English wonder how a language with so many curious anomalies became something of the planet’s lingua franca.  Which was from the Middle English which, hwic, wilche, hwilch, whilk & hwilc, from the Old English hwelċ (which), from the Proto-Germanic hwilīkaz (literally “like what” and used in the sense of “what kind”), from hwaz.  It was cognate with the Scots whilk, the West Frisian hokker, the Dutch welk, the Low German welk, the German welcher, the Danish hvilken, the Swedish vilken, the Norwegian hvilken and the Icelandic hvílíkur, all of which convey the sense of the English “which”.  “Which” is used (1) as an interrogative (seeking a choice from a limited number or group implied to be a closed set), (2) as a relative pronoun (either adding introducing clauses or referring to a whole statement or (3) as conditional or indefinite (whichever) operator used to mean any one or whichever option from a group.

An illustrative example was Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; Prime Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) leaving a cocktail party after having been introduced to a number of visiting dignitaries from the Balkans, confessing to his companion he’d be unlikely to recall: “which ‘vitch’ was which”.  In English, the choice between “that” and “which” often baffles but the convention is “that” is used when introducing a restrictive (essential) clause and “which” when the clause is non-restrictive.  To illustrate that (1): “The car that has the red interior is mine” (the clause identifies which car) and (2) “The car, which has a red interior, is mine” (identity of car already certain).  However, “which vs that” is more a convention of style than a hard grammatical “law” and a handy rule of thumb is (1) if “that” can be removed from a sentence without compromising meaning, it should be removed, (2) if a comma exists, use “which” and (3) if there’s no comma, used “that”.  That will please most people most of the time.

An obviously guilty witch haranguing the court, lithograph of a witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1692.

The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) does note the generally accepted etymology is not without phonetic or semantic difficulties and suggests some connection with the Old English wigle (divination) and wig & wih (idol), the nouns representing a Proto-Germanic wikkjaz (necromancer) (one who wakes the dead) from the primitive Indo-European weg-yo from weg (to be strong, be lively).  That wicce once had a more specific sense than the later general one of "female magician, sorceress" is suggested by the presence of other words in Old English describing more specific kinds of magical craft.  “Witch doctor” is from circa 1715; from the mid 1830s it was applied to African “healers by means of spells & potions”, soon becoming interchangeable with “medicine man”.  The fear of witches and witchcraft is described as wiccaphobia and neither phobia nor subject has ever been mentioned in the APA’s (American Psychiatric Association) DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) although that’s not unusual, the DSM not listing phobias as distinct diagnostic identities but instead providing diagnostic criteria for categorizing phobias listed under five headings: (1) animal type, (2) natural environment type, (3) blood-injection-injury type, (4) situational type & (5) other types.  Depending on the patient's circumstances, a clinician presumably would place their wiccaphobia in either (4) or (5).

Poster for the movie Warlock (1989).  In Hollywood, warlocks are men and witches are women.

However, although "witchcraft" and "witch" may not appear in the DSM, both terms did once make frequent appearances in the literature of medicine and psychiatry.  Historically, at least some of those accused of practicing witchcraft in the Middle Ages and early modern period are thought to have been experiencing conditions such as severe depression, epilepsy, or psychosis; rather than being condemned as witches, they’d now be diagnosed with a neurological or mental illnesses.  In the modern era, clinicians are trained to detect the difference between true psychotic delusions (a manifestation of irrational phobias) and beliefs a product of cultural or religious conditioning.  Sometimes seriously and sometimes less so, there have been scholars and other critics (including ex-patients) of modern psychiatry who have compared the DSM to the old “witch-hunting” texts, the classic example the Malleus Maleficarum.  Written by German Dominican friar and inquisitor Heinrich Kramer (circa 1430-1505), the widely-read treatise Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches, 1487), not only described the rituals of witchcraft but was also a manual for the identification of witches, documenting methods by which their guilt could be proven (as a prelude to execution).  Scholars now regard Malleus Maleficarum not as original but a kind of “review of the classics” and a codification of many previous works but the publication long exerted much influence on the witch trials of the early modern period.  Kramer was on sound theological and political ground because early as the tenth century the Church had published Canon Episcopi (Canon Law) in which it was made explicit witchcraft and magic were delusions and practitioners (or even believers) were suffering “possession by the Devil”.

To gain a flavour of the Malleus Maleficarum, consider the representative extract: “What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted in fair colors...The word woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh, as it is said: I have found a woman more bitter than death, and a good woman more subject to carnal lust...Women are naturally more impressionable...Women are intellectually like children...She is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations...Therefore a wicked woman is by her nature quicker to waver in her faith, and consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root of witchcraft...”  One does suspect copies of the Malleus Maleficarum might sit well-thumbed on the bedside tables of Talibs in Kabul and ayatollahs in Tehran.  They know the old ways are best.

The old ways are best: Malleus Maleficarum.

The comparison between Malleus Maleficarum and the DSM is the claim both are guidebooks used by an elite to label and classify nonconformity or social deviance as “abnormal” and thus to be “treated” (sometimes by incarceration).  Structuralists note one interesting aspect of this is the “imprimatur of veracity” provided by the written word, both Kramer’s text and the DSM gaining their authority from being hefty published works.  While Malleus Maleficarum faded from use, the DSM’s seven decade evolution from DSM-I (1952: 130 pages listing 106 mental disorders) to DSM-5-TR (2022: 1152 pages and 298 disorders) has been one of increasing influence to the point that, in the minds of many, it is definitive.  The “mission creep” of the DSM has attracted comment and while whether there’s now “more madness” or what there now is more readily identified and better treated can be debated, the growth of the profession also accounts for some of the spread, doctors sometimes in demarcation disputes about who gets to treat whom: With each addition to the DSM the psychiatrists get to stake their claim to another market segment and in the twenty-first century, the DSM seems as canonical a text as was Malleus Maleficarum in the sixteenth.

In 2015, Nylon ran the story Lindsay Lohan had taken up witchcraft and wished to be consecrated by a coven as a white witch.  Nylon did caution the source of the story was the National Enquirer, a publication sometimes referred to as a NRS (normally reliable source) with some irony; a representative for Ms Lohan released a statement denying she practiced witchcraft.  Published continuously since 1926, since the early 2000s the National Enquirer has been a good source of Lohanic content, its coverage extending to her weight (suggestions of anorexia during “thin phase”), driving history (patchy), being stalked by the Freemasons (verified), feuds (frequent), legal issues (since resolved), family squabbles (legion), hair care (highly recommended), shoe & handbag collections (much envied) and, of course, aspiration to be admitted to a coven of witches (dubious).  

Women being burned at the stake (circa 1580), engraving by Dutch illustrator Jan Luyken (1649–1712).  Widely practiced in parts of Europe, in England, burnings at the stake tended to be restricted to those convicted of heresy, convicted witches usually hanged (if they survived the various "trials by ordeal" used to establish guilt).

The glossary of the Laws of Ælfred (circa 890) translates the Latin necromantia (demonum invocatio) as galdre or wiccecræft and in the Anglo-Saxon poem Men's Crafts, wiccræft appears to mean "skill with horses" so the OED is right to note the contested history but, in the history of the British Isles, the mention in the Laws of Ælfred of witchcraft being exclusively female activity is unique although that sense clearly endured and by the early 1600s, the feminine form was so dominant that the forms "men-witches" or "he-witches" came into use.  Warlock was never a universally accepted masculine form of witch despite the notion in modern popular culture and it’s from wicca that English ultimately gained both wizard and wicked.  Even in the sixteenth century, the implications were blurred, Reginald Scot in his The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) asserting it was synonymous in the English tongue to say either “she is a witch” or “she is a wise woman”.  In the popular imagination there's still a widespread perception witches were burned at the stake and while that was the case in many places (along with other methods of dispatch), in the English-speaking world, because witchcraft was a felony in both England and the American colonies, witches were hanged and not burned.  Witches’ bodies were burned in Scotland, although, just to be sure, they were first strangled to death.  The confusion may have arisen because there were cases of witches being burned at the stake but that was because they'd been convicted also of heresy.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) has never denied practicing witchcraft (digitally altered image).

The extended sense of “young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners” was in use by at least 1740 and although that sense has been used both admiringly (of “feminine charms) and as a warning (of the power of a seductress over men) it seems now usually positive and of “ways & means” rather than merely the Paris Hiltonesque “hot”.  It’s certainly more encouraging than the use in the Old Testament in which appears מְכַשֵּׁפָה (mekhashshepheh, in the Hebrew the feminine term for an “enchantress or sorceress”.  The word was from the root כשף (kashaph) and used to refer to those who whispered mystic formulas or cast spells, antics that attracted one of the more famous (and consequential) biblical injunctions: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18; King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611)).  A similar condemnation also appears in Deuteronomy 18:10-12:

10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

The verse “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” echoed through time, the Mosaic legal decree held to command the execution of those practicing sorcery or illicit magic.  In the archaic English of the KJV, “suffer” means “allow or permit”, thus the understanding “Do not allow a sorceress to live”.  However, scripture is open to interpretation and, for thousands of years, priests, theologians (amateur & professional), lawyers and charlatans (there’s some overlap between those categories) have done exactly that and adding to the tangle is the history of variations in translation and meaning-shifts in words.  In the ancient Septuagint (a translation in Ancient Greek), the Hebrew word was translated as pharmakos (a brewer of lethal potions, drugs, or poisons) leading some scholars argue the verse targeted “dark herbalists” (ie those who literally mixed poisons) while others held this was metaphorical and still explicitly proscribed (on pain of death) supernatural sorcery.  The latter (harsher) view is more in accord with the spirit of Deuteronomy in which it was made clear all must follow the teachings in the tradition of the prophet Moses, meaning all divination and magical techniques of enquire must be eliminated on the grounds such things were “spiritual treason”.  For the ancient Israelites, spells and magical incantations were attempts to bypass God's authority by manipulating spiritual forces or a summoning of pagan deities, sorcery thus a form of idolatry that threatened the purity of the community.  Of course the commentaries have always emphasised execution of transgressors must be judicial with the accused granted due process; neither in Exodus or Deuteronomy is licence granted for vigilantism or mob justice.

The historical legacy of Exodus 22:18 was profound and lingered long in Western culture.  It was James I (1566–1625;King of England 1603-1625) who commissioned the translation still influential as the KJV and he was a religious zealot both fearful of and somewhat obsessed with the dangers in witchcraft; translating mekhashepha specifically as “witch” reinforced the secular laws of his time and on both sides of the Atlantic, European inquisitors and American Puritans alike, cited Exodus 22:18 as the primary biblical justification to hunt, torture, and execute thousands (mostly women) accused of witchcraft.  Delivered mostly by the European colonialists, scripture (often selectively quoted) spread to other continents and to this day, Akan Christians in Ghana justify praying for the death and destruction of witches and wizards of the basis of “not suffering witches to live”.  In some places where the scriptural condemnation of witches became better embedded in culture than the companion notion of "due process before punishment", mobs not infrequently assemble and kill those accused of witchcraft, parts of Africa and PNG (Papua New Guinea) especially afflicted.  In some cases the killings are opportunistic and based on other motives including "blood feuds" and economics, inconvenient wives sometimes murdered so a family can gain title to her land.      

Peter Dutton, carrying volume one (of three) of his enemies list (volume two including several witches).

In Australia, Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party 2022-2025) had something of an unfortunate history with text messages (SMS, short message service) including sending one calling a journalist a “mad fucking witch”.  Unfortunately, he sent the text to the target of his thoughts but, fortunately, the witch worked for Liberal Party supervisor Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) and thus had to cop it sweet which, with some aplomb, the witch did, even complimenting Mr Dutton for having been a minister who had made "a great contribution to government" (one way of putting things).  Mr Dutton's SMS was especially interesting because there's an extensively documented library of the links between Freemasonry and witchcraft and, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.  Whether it can be said Mr Dutton’s truly made "a great contribution to government" (examples don't readily come to mind), in coining “mad fucking witch” he certainly made a notable contribution to the political lexicon and, unlike most of what he said and did over his well-remunerated decades in public life, the phrase proved enduring, albeit as an “unintended consequence”.

In Australia, MFW (Mad Fucking Witches) is a political pressure group targeting media figures usually described as “right wing” and although the label can be misleading, those attracting the attention of the MFW generally are port of the “populist vibe”, a movement not sympathetic to the “progressive” issues though the preserve of the (again nominal) “left wing”.  The MFW approach comes from the playbook of BDS (boycott, divestment & sanctions) community and their preferred tactic since 2016 has been the “collective boycott”, a technique in which companies are pressured not to advertise on programmes or outlets that have attracted their disapproval.  So it’s an attempt at a kind of censorship but the MFW’s stated position is those using the media to advocate, support or at least “dog whistle” world views such as “sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of hate and bigotry” should not tolerated and have no right to claim the protection of the liberal concept of “free speech”.  Potential MFW supporters should note the coven's position is both men and women can be consecrated as witches and it'll be interesting to see if a kind of “anti-MFW” emerges from the  “manosphere” (a MFW enemy) as the “Mad Fucking Warlocks”.  On X (previously known as Twitter), #witches-vs-warlocks would be a battle worth following.   

MFW merchandise.  Rupert Murdoch too has feelings and must find the Tee-shirts hurtful.  Those concerned should send him an appropriate emoji.  

Presumably the MFW wouldn’t claim the quote attributed to French philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is “wrong” but, on the basis “one has to draw the line somewhere” (a dictum with a long history in “free speech” matters), would maintain it is “wrong” for corporations financially to support individuals or media outlets disseminating “hate speech”.  Actually, the quote was a paraphrase of Voltaire’s views on the principle of freedom of speech and was coined by Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868–1956, who used the pseudonym Stephen “S.G.” Tallentyre), appearing in her book The Friends of Voltaire (1906); whether that history is enough for the coven to deny Ms Hall the status of “honorary Mad Fucking Witch” isn’t something discussed on their website (on which is merchandise available, including the “Fuck Murdoch” Tee-shirts made famous by #MeToo activist Grace Tame (b 1994 and at least a MFW fellow-traveller).

The MFW will not be unaware of the analysis suggesting at least some of the “hate spewing” commentators choose their content not out of political conviction but merely because it has proved the most lucrative and happily they’d shift to broadcasting something diametrically different if that path proved to be the “money trail”.  However, the MFW is a coven of structural functionalists who hold motivation(s) are irrelevant and what matters is content: “Every single advertiser who pays advertising dollars to a company which spreads dangerous anti-science rhetoric, hate speech, fake news and lies is complicit in the spread of that information … their responsibility is to ensure their money only goes to media organisations with morals and a social conscience.”  Pleasingly for pattern theorists, both Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) and the MFW seek to eradicate “fake news” although while some of their methods may be similar, the definitions and targets differ.  The MFW has pledged also to “rid the world of authoritarianism”, possibly with Mr Trump in the coven’s collective thoughts.

The MFW doesn't make a “call to arms”; the coven calls witches: “To your brooms”.

Of course companies have for a long time been using either the withdrawal of advertising or the threat to do so as a weapon (sometimes deployed with subtlety, sometimes not) to influence “coverage of products” and governments have not been above directing their advertising to publications thought “sympathetic”.  There are terms for those methods but the MFW is an interesting case-study of the way blogs, social media and such have created a kind of “equivalency” between the new “micro-operations” and media outlets with storied histories in some cases dating back centuries.  What makes the MFW campaign(s) structurally different is they’re often focused on the “old media” of radio and terrestrial television, technologies possible only because they are licenced (by governments) exclusively to use a publicly-owned resource (the airwaves) and conditions are imposed on those so licenced, including the general concept of “responsible” use; many individuals and some institutions have views on the parameters of “responsible” (some even codifying things) and the MFW’s strident position is just one of many.  One “codified” document in Australia is commercial radio’s 31-page Code of Practice, a work highly-detailed, frequently ignored and often interpreted on the basis of: “Can we get away with it?”  The MFW have noted this and claim they exist only because the outlets refuse to “regulate themselves” and “regulators failing to discharge their statutory duties”.  Although there is something of the now familiar “agree with us or we’ll cancel you” approach about the MFW, many wish them success, not because they find their targets a political threat but because they’re such ghastly vulgarians. 

Witches and ditches

Witch of the Ditch on broomstick.

Early Reader’s paperback edition of the children's book The Witch of the Ditch by by Steven Butler, illustrated by Nigel Baines.  The early reader series uses a hybrid format in being “stepping stones” designed for children transitioning from picture books to text, the method being associative (illustrations the young reader can identify orally, presented alongside the relevant written word(s)). Appropriately deconstructed, the book is a tale of political conflict, triggered when one witch (Hag of the Crag) moves in next door to another (Witch of the Ditch).  As is notorious, there is in every town room only for one witch so things are not going to go well.  Politicians may be tempted to mine The Witch of the Ditch in the quest for new 3WSs (three word slogans) because that's how political discourse is now done and they’ll find encouraging the publisher’s blurb noting the title is for a “Reading age: 5-7 years”, about the level of comprehension they appear to think most voters have attained.

Ditch Witch at work.

Described by the manufacturer as “The fastest way to drill”, CEA’s Ditch Witch JT21 replaces the previous JT20, the design improvements said to have been “engineered with direct input from contractors and drillers in the field.”  Drills of all types (from the smallest able to put holes in nano-sized objects to the largest used to carve through solid granite when excavating tunnels) are arranged in classes and CEA claim the JT21 “sets a new benchmark for performance, speed, and control in compact drilling”, its “35% faster carriage speed” able to operate at a “blazing 215 feet (66 metres) per minute”, making it “the fastest drill in its class”.  One measure likely novel to those familiar with HP (horsepower) in other contexts is the concept of DHP (downhole horsepower), a measure of the specific efficiency delivered at the critical point (the drill bit); in that it’s analogous with RWHP (rear-wheel horsepower), the traditional metric used by dynamometers quantifying power and a measure more indicative of performance potential than GHP (gross horsepower, what a engine generates in its raw configuration) or NHP (net horsepower, measured with an engine’s accessories attached).  Certainly the Ditch Witch’s stated ratings (21,000 lbs of pullback, 20,000 lbs of thrust, and 2,250 ft-lbs of torque) sound impressive.  The JT21 is also a most modern machine, featuring VAM (Virtually Assisted Make-up, a software-driven pipe handling apparatus that renders redundant floats or sensors).  Pleasingly for those brought up on video games, the JT21 is controlled by a multimode joystick and LCD (liquid crystal display) interface.

Digging a better trench.

Winston Churchill inspecting the progress of project White Rabbit No, 6, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, England, November 1941.

In “Ditch Witch” CEA came up with a catchy name, one that would have appealed to word-nerd Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), had there not been a need for secrecy.  The World War II (1939-1945) era White Rabbit No. 6 was an “trench digging” engineering project co-ordinated by the British Admiralty although, as a security measure, the official code-name was changed to “Cultivator No. 6” to make it sound less mysterious and more like just another a piece of agricultural equipment.  It was a military trench-digging machine, an example of the adage “generals are always preparing to fight the last war” and although designed exclusively for army use on (and at least partially under) land, it came under the auspices of the RN (Royal Navy) because it was one of the many “good ideas” from the brain of Churchill who, between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his assumption of the premiership some months later, served as First Lord of the Admiralty (the RN’s political head).  Trenches and artillery had been the two dominant features of World War I (1914-1918) and Churchill had spent some months (1915-1916) in one of the former under fire from the latter while commanding a battalion; before the implications of mechanization and the German’s Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics were apparent, he assumed the new war in France would unfold something like the old, thus the interest in something which would “revolutionize trench warfare”.

Clipart of sexy Halloween witches (PNG (portable network graphics) format, transparent, 300 DPI (dots-per-inch)) can be downloaded.

Trench warfare however wasn’t repeated so White Rabbit No.6 was soon realized to be already obsolete so the project was abandoned and although the most fully developed of the prototypes did perform according to the design parameters, whether it would have been effective remains doubtful; remarkably, work on these things wasn’t wholly abandoned until 1942.  The “White Rabbit” project codes came from Churchill’s sense of humor, his ideas flowing, as he said: “like rabbits I pull from my hat” and he supported many, some of which were of great military value while others, like the “floating runways” (artificial icebergs made with a mixture of shards of timber & frozen water), were quixotic.  The gestation of the White Rabbit was also an echo of World War I when, in an earlier incarnation as First Lord, Churchill had instructed the Admiralty to begin development of the first “tank”.  The word “tank” was adopted to create the impression the project was about “water tanks” and while it may seem strange to put admirals in charge of what was so obviously a “land weapon”, it was the navy that possessed the expertise in fabricating similar devices (the gun turrets used on warships) and the boat-sized engines that would be used to propel them.

Bronwyn Bishop (b 1942, left), Sophie Mirabella (b 1968) and Tony Abbott (right) at the infamous “Ditch the Witch” protest, 2011.

Tony Abbott (b 1957; Prime Minister of Australia 2013-2015) rarely saw a 3WS he didn’t like and, in 2011, apparently had no compunction in being photographed in front of a placard with the words “Ditch the Witch”, the occasion a “No Carbon Tax” protest, called after Julia Gillard (b 1961; Prime Minister of Australia 2010-2013) had announced such a tax would be imposed, despite having earlier promised there’d be no such tax.  Clearly it must have been a "non-core promise", another Australian contribution to political jargon.  Also displaying the depth of the Australian linguistic imagination (if not grasp of the rules of punctuation) was one reading “Juliar….Bob Browns [sic] Bitch”.  The construct of Juliar was Ju(lia) + liar (alluding to the broken promise) and “Bitch” a reference to the allegation her government was too inclined to be influenced by the Green Party, then led by Dr Bob Brown (b 1944; senator for Tasmania (Australian Greens) 1996-2012, Green party leader 2005-2015).  “Bitch” was also a slur, a snide comment on Dr Brown’s homosexuality.

“Witch Doctor” was  for several successful seasons campaigned in drag racing by Dr Keith Garner (b 1935), a Cherokee, Iowa-based physician.

A 1970 Ford Torino Cobra, it was ordered from the factory explicitly configured to optimize performance over quarter-mile (402 metres) runs: 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Super Cobra Jet V8 (J-code), C6 automatic transmission & 3.91 Drag Pack 9 inch rear end (V code).  The styling cues were “borrowed” by Ford Australia for the two-door hardtop version of the Falcon (XA, XB & XC, 1972-1979), the lines proving aerodynamically efficient on even the fastest circuits.  Unfortunately, the second generation Torino (1970-1971), while untroubled on drag strips where speeds didn’t exceed 125 mph (200 km/h), on the big NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) ovals where 200 mph (320 km/h) routinely was approached, the shape induced unexpectedly high drag, despite looking sleeker than its slab-sided predecessor (1968-1969); where possible, racing teams opted to run the old body.

Preaching to the converted: One-time seminarian Mr Abbott gets the message across.

Standing with Mr Abbott, Liberal Party luminaries Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella presumably regarded the words “witch” & “bitch” as “political” rather than “sexist”.  That view wasn’t shared by Ms Gillard who later remarked: “I wasn't shocked that some people had those sentiments…” but was, “…shocked that it was so visibly called forth into the public debate and that it didn't get the sort of odium from mainstream commentators that it should have.”  The signage also rated a mention in her strident “misogyny speech”, delivered in the parliament on 9 October 2012 as a reaction then opposition leader Mr Abbott accusing her of sexism.  Actually, she “had a bit of previous” with sexism (notably the “mincing poodle” affair) but the speech was a good performance and around the planet it went viral.  At the time of the “Ditch the Witch” rally, Ms Gillard of course received the expected support from her ALP (Australian Labor Party) party colleagues although Ms Bishop and Ms Mirabella seem to have been unmoved.  One at the time vocal in her condemnation of the signage was Penny Wong (b 1968), then serving in the Gillard cabinet and, as a woman, she would be expected to be sensitive to hints of misogyny.  Gillard of course had only that to resort to when weaponizing “an identity” whereas Wong could play (1) “the woman card”, (2) the “race card” (being of part-Asian extraction) or “the gay card” (being a lesbian).  Still her support must have been appreciated as gesture of feminist solidarity.  Unfortunately, Gillard’s problems got worse and the rest of the country noticed; so did her party colleagues and, in a leadership spill in June 2013, she lost the leadership, Ms Wong among those voting for the alternative.  Feminist solidarity goes only so far when there’s the threat of a big pay cut and the loss of perks.

Briefly in 2026, one of the few pleasures to be see when waiting to catching one's bus in Melbourne.

Genuinely a piece of Australian political history, the “Ditch the Witch” 3WS in 2026 made an unexpected return the streets of Melbourne, appearing on the sides of trucks trundling through the suburbs.  The target this time was Jacinta Allan (b 1973; premier of Victoria since 2023), the lucky recipient of the poisoned chalice of the state’s premiership, handed to her after the retirement of the long-serving Daniel Andrews (b 1972), premier of Victoria 2014-2023.  Several political junkies have been compiling reports with calculations attempting to work out just how much public money has been squandered / stolen / misappropriated / wasted (the terms vary with the author) during the life of the Andrews/Allan government.  While not all the various “incidents” suggest dishonesty (some being mere incompetence), the alleged losses variously are in the thousands, millions or billions.  Ms Allan has made little attempt to address substantive matters (such as the rising state debt) but was most vociferous in her objection to the revival of the “Ditch the Witch” 3WS with her scowling visage appended; within 48 hours the offending images had been banished from the streets although whether that was achieved with threats, persuasion or the premier casting a spell isn’t certain.  In an indication her government had a focus on “high priority issues”, it was announced Aus$134,000 (US$95,000) had been allocated to erect a bronze statue of Mr Andrews.

Despite the impression created by popular culture (especially film & television), the “witch = female, warlock = male” thing is quite modern and thus historically misleading; Ms Gillard and Ms Allan are clearly very modern, thus their equating “witch” with “woman” and its use as a slur as sexism.  For most of the history of the English language, a “witch” could be male or female although the record does suggest women were more often accused of witchcraft, while “warlock” often was not applied to male witches.  In the Old English (certainly before circa 1000), the most common forms were wicca (male practitioner of witchcraft) and wicce (female practitioner) both from the same Germanic root; by the late Middle English (and after the Norman Conquest (1066), gradually the forms merged in pronunciation, the spelling shifting to reflect this, “witch” coming to denote either sex.  That’s why there came to be no need for a separate masculine noun.

Macbeth and the three witches (1760), oil on canvas by Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788).  Completed during the artist's “first English period” (1752-1762), historians believe this to be the first European painting depicting theatrical characters in a landscape and in From Rococo to Revolution: Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting (1966), English art historian Sir Michael Levey (1927–2008; director of the National Gallery 1973-1986) notes the work as a fine example of “the beginnings of the Neo-Gothic under the influence of the theory of the sublime.”  When writing The Tragedy of Macbeth (Macbeth, circa 1606) William Shakespeare (1564–1616) had no doubts witches were women.

In the Laws of Ælfred, witchcraft explicitly was singled out as a woman's craft, the practitioners of which were not welcome to live among the Western Saxons but that can’t have been persuasive and it’s clear from later legal and theological writings (fields in which there was long cross-fertilization) that men were a capable as women of practicing witchcraft (the English Witchcraft Act (1604) refers only to “any person”).  Those accused (and sometimes executed) overwhelmingly were women and the numbers in Europe were striking (albeit with wide regional variations), the margin over decades sometimes as skewed as 90-10%.  Of course these are raw numbers from the surviving historic record so while there’s (probably not unreasonably) now the perception women disproportionately were targeted for prosecution, it’s not impossible there simply were more women than men practicing witchcraft.  Popular culture is just as divergent from history in the evolution of “warlock”.  Warlock was from the Old English wǣrloga (oath-breaker; traitor; deceiver) and was related to the notion of “belie one's pledge” rather than magic spells but because of the Biblical association of “deceiver” with Satan, in certain medieval religious texts, wǣrloga was used to mean “the Devil”.

Witches and Witchcraft in Victorian Britain by Emma Woodhouse is scheduled for publication in April 2027.  In Jane Austen's (1775-1817) novel Emma (1815), Emma Woodhouse was the titular protagonist of almost 21, described by the author as “a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.”

The origin of “warlock” being equated with “man practising witchcraft” seems to be in early sixteenth century Scots English but even there it was never the standard form with the church and court records of the time listing men so accused as “witches”, as was the case in England and Wales.  Charmingly, literary historians trace the emergence of “warlock” meaning “a male witch” to the rise of Gothic novel, a form which enjoyed a spike in popularity between the 1760s and 1820s; witches were mentioned in Gothic novel and Warlocks were not but from those beginnings came the “ghost” & “horror” genres and historians have concluded the Victorian writers, mining the occult, folklore, medievalism, picked-up “warlock” for no better reason than it sounded archaic and had the “picturesque” quality novelists like.  From this improbable beginning, “warlock” became vested with an almost wholly bogus “history” readers allowing themselves to be convinced stretched back a thousand years or more.  Victorian novels were however a niche and what’s thought most to have reinforced the popular perception was twentieth century cinema, an industry which cemented the witch/warlock dichotomy, adhered to in fantasy fiction, role-playing games, comics and popular culture of all forms.

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.