Phenomenology

Phenomenology (pronounced fi-nom-uh-nol-uh-jee)

(1) The study of phenomena.

(2) In philosophy, the system of German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) stressing the description of phenomena; the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view; developed later as existential phenomenology, in the work of Husserl's student, the one-time Nazi, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976).

(3) In the philosophy of science, the science of phenomena as opposed to the science of being.

(4) In architecture, a school of design based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties.

(5) In archaeology, a set of theories based upon understanding cultural landscapes from a sensory perspective.

(6) In physics, a branch which deals with the application of theory to experiments.

(7) In empirical psychology, the study of subjective experiences or the experience itself.

(8) In the study of comparative religions, a field of research concerning the experiential aspect of religion in terms consistent with the orientation of the worshippers.

1764: A compound word phenomen(on) (from the Late Latin phaenomenon (appearance) from the Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon) (thing appearing to view), the neuter present passive participle of φαίνω (phaínō) (I show) + logy.  In English the logy suffix originates with loanwords from the Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned.  Within English, the suffix became productive, forming names of sciences or departments of study and original compositions with no link to Greek or Latin forms were common by the late eighteenth century.  Phenomenology & phenomenologist are nouns phenomenological is an adjective and phenomenologically is an adverb; the noun plural is phenomenologies.

The road to Hegel

Portrait of the philosopher as a young man: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).

Phenomenology was a created philosophical system that was intended to be free of presupposition, the notion being that objects and events should be observed and described from the position of the observer(s) a process supposedly free from claims about any objective reality. Anything not immediately conscious is to be excluded and rather than deductive or empirical methods, there was a reliance on the information gathered by the senses; all scientific or metaphysical knowledge or belief was discarded.  Phenomenology is not an essentially theoretical exercise like idealism which claimed the only thing truly to exist is the mind.  Phenomenology instead takes the position that that can be known is subjective reality, thus the pointlessness of an attempt to seek out some objective reality.  The focus is on the subjective.  That didn’t mean existentialism and phenomenology were the same.  Phenomenology was a toolbox of processes with which to view metaphysics and knowledge; existentialism, ultimately, was about generating the normative ethics to make a worthwhile life.  Phenomenology’s core method was the investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, devoid from any theoretical framework, and, to whatever extent was possible, undertaken without preconceptions and presuppositions.

Lindsay Lohan capturing Hegel's phenomenology of spirit in a T-shirt.

The word, though without quite its modern meaning, seems first to have been used in 1764 by Swiss philosopher and mathematician, Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) in his work Neues Organon, a treatise on logic, the title (New Organon), a nod to The Organon (Ὄργανον in the Ancient Greek meaning “instrument, tool, organ"), the collection of Aristotle's (384-322 BC) six works on logic assembled (circa 40 BC) by a group of disciples known as the Peripatetics.  In the reductionist spirit of logic, Lambert applied the word to his particular exploration of the systemic use of knowledge to differentiate truth falsehood but it wasn’t until the publication in 1807 of Phänomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of Spirit) by German philosopher GWF Hegel that lineal paths to the twentieth century phenomenological can be traced.  Hegel was impenetrable even by the standards of German philosophers so the discursive output of the new phenomenologists of the new century seems hardly surprising.  As many students discovered, one can find one's way to Hegel but it's hard to find one's way back.

Occidental & Oriental

Occidental (pronounced ok-si-den-tl)

(1) Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Occident or its natives and inhabitants (usually initial capital letter).

(2) A literary or formal word for Western.

(3) A native or inhabitant of the Occident (usually initial capital letter).

(4) An artificial language, created by Baltic German mathematician Edgar de Wahl (1867-1948), later renamed Interlingue shortly before the publication of Interlingua (1949) (always initial capital).

1350–1400: A Middle English borrowing from the Old French occidental from the Latin occidentālis (western), the construct being occident- + -ālis.  The Latin occidentalis was from occidēns (west), the present active participle of occidō (I fall down; pass away).  Occidental is a noun & adjective, occidentalism, occident & occidentalist are nouns and occidentally is an adverb; the noun plural is occidentals.

Oriental (pronounced awr-ee-en-tl or ohr‐ee-en-tl)

(1) Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Orient, or East; Eastern (usually initial capital letter).

(2) Of the orient, or the eastern region of the world.

(3) In geography, belonging to a geographical division comprising southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago as far as and including the Philippines, Borneo, and Java (initial capital letter).  (In pre-modern geography, pertaining to the regions east of the Mediterranean, beyond the Roman Empire or the early Christian world).  Oriental is a noun & adjective, orientalism, orient & orientalist are nouns and orientally is an adverb; the noun plural is orientals (often correctly used with initial capital).

(4) In jewelry, designating various gems that are varieties of corundum: Oriental aquamarine; Oriental ruby (usually initial capital letter).

(5) Designating certain natural saltwater pearls found especially in Asia.

(6) Of a pearl or other precious stone: having a superior lustre.

(7) A breed of slender muscular cat with large ears, long legs, and a long tail.

(8) A native or inhabitant of the Orient (usually initial capital letter).

(9) In astronomy and astrology), pertaining to the eastern part of the sky; happening before sunrise.

(10) Designating various types of aromatic tobacco grown in Turkey and the Balkans (post-nineteenth century use).

(11) A lily cultivar of a widely varied group, with strong scent.

(12) In any context, eastern or of the eastern part (obsolete except as a literary or poetic device).

1350–1400: Middle English from the Middle French $ Anglo-Latin oriental from the Latin orientālis (eastern), from oriēns (rising (of the sun)), present active participle of orior (I rise), the construct being orient- (east, the east) –ālis.  The suffix –ālis was added to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship; it was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –aris, perhaps connected to hzel- (to grow).  The neuter form was –āle.

Edward Said

Controversial even in the post-colonial milieu of the time, Edward Said’s (1935-2003) Orientalism (1979) was a critique of a particular construct of the historic Western treatment of things eastern.  It dealt with not only academic orientalists but also seminal figures of western social science such as Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) whose writings emphasized fundamental differences between East and West.  It’s regarded still, by some, as a dangerous book, blamed for the schism in the field of modern Middle Eastern studies which coalesced into the polarized factions of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and its newer rival, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).  The stylistic patchwork Said adopted perhaps made criticism inevitable.  Within a scholarly framework, the author laid bare his outage at the reductionist objectification of the Western tradition in its treatment of the other, his words construed as political and polemic.

Even the book's covers attracted comment and varied according to the market in which it was sold although, unlike some controversial titles, it was apparently never necessary anywhere to offer it in a plain, brown wrapper. 

Detractors and admirers alike all were aware of the significance of Orientalism and it’s regarded still as “one of the most influential scholarly books published in English in the last half-century”, even by some who documented its flaws.  The book was one of those rare texts in historiography which stirred up a stormy debate in and beyond academia, the idea of authors in the West having a skewed and condescending view towards the East finding a sympathetic audience.  So incendiary was the reaction that not only was the book controversial but so was the nature of the reaction although, despite the claims of some, the pattern of the responses appeared not to align with the ethnicity or religious orientation of the scholars and intellectuals but with their attitude to history and the modern and post-modern philosophical ideas (deconstruction, truth as illusion, intellectual hegemony et al).

In a sense, it was Said himself who created the structure for the criticism which would follow because he defined Orientalism in three ways: (1) the academic profession, (2) the world view and (3) a mode of hegemony.  The first was the most readily understood, an academic Orientalist was anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient, whether they be an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, philologist or literary critic.  That did not imply the world view of Orientalists was monolithic but Said did contend that their views were almost invariably dictated by a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the “the Orient” and “the Occident” (ie between Eastern & Western culture) and this applied also to poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists and economists, their position a direct inheritance from the ideas spread by European imperial administrators, travellers and explorers; whether in simple or elaborate form, the theorists, novelists and poets all worked within the same framework of “difference”.  Finally, Said defined Orientalism by the actual political and colonial relations constructed in “the West” epistemologically, based on the earlier definitions; it was this construct with which the West conducted itself with the Orient.  Perhaps predictably, the academics appeared more upset at what they perceived as Said’s attack on the accuracy of their research and their intellectual impartiality than what was done with what he claim they created, even if unknowingly. 

One concept he introduced was the notion of “the distinction between the latent and manifest orientalism”, the latent being a general unconscious certainty the Orient was the way it has been described by the practitioners while the manifest was the supremacy of American imperialism as practiced since in the post-war years they assumed the hegemony in things east of Suez from the British and French: “The distinction I am making is really between an almost unconscious (and certainly an untouchable) positivity, which I shall call latent Orientalism, and the various stated views about Oriental society, languages, literatures, history, sociology, and so forth, which I shall call manifest Orientalism”.  The idea of the latent and manifest wasn’t wholly new but was one which later would be picked up and developed in critical race theory (CRT).

An occidental in the orient: Long-time resident Lindsay Lohan creating a photo opportunity with the Dubai Police, thanking them and the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their ongoing support during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.

That the critics found faults in both Said’s historiography and theoretical inconsistencies in his framework clearly pleased them but appeared to do little to affect the impact of Orientalism, something probably at least partly attributable to his deconstruction of the Western filter through which things eastern were viewed being built with the tools provided by some of the cult favourites in late twentieth century Western philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) (representation and the thing-in-itself), Michel Foucault (1926–1984) (discourse, power, knowledge, episteme and truth regimes), Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) (cultural hegemony) and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) (deconstruction).  Said was a subtle thinker but to try to synthesize something from applying the thoughts of that lot would of necessity need some intellectual brutishness just to make it fit and it’s not surprising there were those who faulted him for occupying “…theoretical positions which are mutually contradictory”.  Still, if anything the effect of that was stimulative and Orientalism was one of those books which people read and found it confirmed their own views about the West or the West’s critics.  It’s doubtful Orientalism changed many minds and there were flaws which the critics were right to identify but regardless of how ultimately it will be remembered as an academic text, it remains a literary classic.

Synesthesia

Synesthesia (pronounced sin-uhs-thee-zhuh or sin-uhs-zhee-uh)

(1) In neurology and psychology, a neurological or psychological phenomenon in which a particular sensory stimulus triggers a second kind of sensation.

(2) The association of one sensory perception with, or description of it in terms of, another, unlike, perception that is not experienced at the same time.

(3) In literary theory or practice, an artistic device whereby one kind of sensation is described in the terms of another.

(4) In medical diagnostics, where a sensation felt in one part of the body as a result of stimulus that is applied to another, as in referred pain.

1881: From the Modern French or the New Latin and derived from Ancient Greek σύν (sún (with) or syn (together) + αἴσθησις (aísthēsis), (sensation; feeling) from the primitive Indo-European root au (to perceive) + abstract noun suffix -ia.  The word was modelled after existing construction anaesthesia.  Traditional spelling in the British Empire was synæsthesia but the US form synesthesia appears now global.  The meaning in psychology relating to the senses (colors that seem to the perceiver to having odor, etc.) is from 1891.  Synesthesia & synaesthete are nouns, synaesthetic is an adjective and synesthetically is an adverb; the noun plural is synesthesias..

Clinicians have two categories of synesthesia: projective and associative.  Those who project see actual colours or shapes when stimulated whereas associators will feel an involuntary connection between the stimulus and the sense that it triggers.  For example, in the form chromesthesia synesthesia (sound to color) a projector would listen to a piano and see a purple shape whereas an associator might respond to the music by thinking it “sounds” purple.  There are a number of types of synesthesia, the best known of which grapheme-color synesthesia or the association of colours with letters or words.  In auditory-tactile synesthesia, certain sounds can induce sensations in parts of the body and debate continues about whether the near-universal reaction(s) induced by finger nails on a blackboard indicates synesthesia is a spectrum condition or this example is endemic in human physiology.   Lexical-gustatory synesthesia is the phenomenon of certain tastes being experienced upon hearing certain words.  Mirror-touch synesthesia is where someone feels the same sensation another person feels such as when a synesthete sees another touched on the arm; the synesthete involuntarily feeling a touch in the same place.  Logically, every possible combination of experiences which can occur can be a type of synesthesia.  Something need not be wide-spread to be a type of synesthesia, it needs just to be specific.

Winter Landscape (1909), oil on cardboard by Wassily Kandinsky, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

In Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866–1944) particular synesthesia, color and music inextricably were tangled and so precise was it that he associated each note with an exact hue and it was so intrinsic to his being that he once observed: “…the sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.”  It meant his experience of music was heightened, indeed defined, by the range of visual perceptions which shifted with every note.  The music of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) has had its consequences, good and bad, and it was his vivid visual response to a performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin (1850) at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre that he abandoned his successful career as a lawyer and devoted himself to the painting which had been his hobby.  Accepted as a student at Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts, he later described the Wagnerian transformation of his life: “I saw all my colors in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.”  Wagner has led a few astray but he took Kandinsky on a good path; the world needs more artists more than it needs more lawyers.

Composition VII (1913), oil on canvas by by Wassily Kandinsky, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

Music remained critical to the development of Kandinsky’s abstract paintings and noting the way the Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) had abandoned tonal and harmonic conventions in his compositions, he rejected the figure or recognizable object in favor of shapes, lines, and discordant colors which he deployed overlaid on texture to create a rhythmic visual experience which as closely as possible emulated in a two-dimensional space the emotional response he’d experienced when hearing the sounds.  Unsurprisingly, Kandinsky gave many of his paintings musical titles, such as Composition or Improvisation and it wasn’t unusual for critics to use phrases like “Kandinsky’s symphony of colors”.

Lindsay Lohan in blue & yellow as Wassily Kandinsky might have imagined her. 

Kandinsky also perceived color also had the ability to touch the feelings of the viewers, yellow able to disturb while blue awakened the highest spiritual aspirations.  That may have been mapping his experience as a synaesthete on to those not able to enjoy the gift but it was certainly an insight into his visions.  In 1911, Kandinsky published Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) in which he defined the three types of painting: impressions, improvisations and compositions.  Impressions were based on an external reality while improvisations and compositions depicted images summoned from the unconscious, compositions the more formal of the two.  The treatise is one of the landmarks in the theoretical foundations of abstraction and remains an important contribution to an explanation of the techniques with which art can be constructed in an attempt to evoke psychological, physical, and emotional responses.

Plausible

Plausible (pronounced plaw-zuh-buhl)

(1) Having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable; possibly or probably true.

(2) Well-spoken and apparently, but often deceptively, worthy of confidence or trust.  Obtaining approbation; specifically pleasing; apparently right; specious.

(3) Worthy of being applauded; praiseworthy; commendable; ready (obsolete).

1535–1545: From the Middle English, from the Latin plausibilis (deserving applause, praiseworthy, acceptable, pleasing), the construct being plausus (past participle of plaudere (to applaud)) + ibilis (ible) (the Latin adjectival suffix (now usually in a passive sense) which creates meanings "able to be, relevant or suitable to, in accordance with" or expressing capacity or worthiness in a passive sense). The meaning "having the appearance of truth" is noted from the 1560s.  The plausible has become nuanced (the comparative more plausible, the superlative most plausible) but synonyms (of the historic meaning) include credible, probable, persuasive, possible, logical, valid, conceivable, tenable, creditable, likely, presumable, sound & supposable.  Plausible is an adjective, plausibly is an adverb, plausibility is a noun; the noun plural is plausibilities (although the antonym implausibilities is probably the more often heard form.

Cynicism is nothing new and in English the meaning "having a specious or superficial appearance of trustworthiness" had been appended as early as the 1560s.  The noun has been documented since the 1590s in the sense of "quality of being worthy of praise or acceptance" although it too was soon co-opted and by at least the 1640s was also used to suggest "a specious or superficial appearance of being right or worthy of acceptance".  The adjective implausible (not having an appearance of truth or credibility) dates from the 1670s although as late as earlier in the century it was still being used in its original sense of "not worthy of applause".  There's a prejudice that "implausible" and related forms are used more often than "plausible" and its relations nut it may simply we we notice the former more and "plausible deniability" is really just a loaded way of saying "implausible".

Plausible Deniability

Plausible deniability is a construct of language to be used in situations where it’s possible to tell lies because it’s not possible for others to prove the truth.  In common law jurisdictions, it exists also as a legal concept given the evidential onus of proof falls (usually) not upon the defendant so if the opponent cannot offer evidence to support an allegation, variously beyond reasonable doubt or on the balance of probabilities, accusations can plausibly be denied regardless of the truth.  Most associated with politicians or public officials but practiced also by those in corporate chains of command, it’s used usually to deny knowledge of or responsibility for anything unlawful, immoral or in some way disreputable.  Depending on the circumstances, it can protect institutions from damage or, more typically, shift blame (and consequences) from someone senior to others lower in the hierarchy.  While the art & science of plausible deniability doubtlessly has been practiced since the origins of humanity, the phrase was coined within the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), apparently as early as the 1950s although it seems not to have appeared in any printed source available to the public until 1964 and became part of general use only during the Watergate crisis (1973-1974).  Some sources credit Allen Dulles (1893–1969; Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) 1953-1961) himself with the first public use but, like his brother (John Foster Dulles (1888–1959; US Secretary of State 1953-1959)), he's blamed for much.

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

Within the CIA, it described the withholding of information from senior officials in order to protect them from repercussions in the event that illegal or unpopular activities became public knowledge.  This was a time when the CIA was lawfully permitted to assassinate people, especially uncooperative politicians in troublesome countries.  It's obviously a murky business but the consensus seems to be the CIA still kills people but never uses the word assassination and, dating from an executive order issued by Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977), the agency is no longer allowed to kill heads of state.  This prohibition was presumably a kind of "professional courtesy" on the part of President Ford and one which he must have hoped would be reciprocated.  It's not difficult to guess which countries definitely have at least one executioner silently on the payroll and which almost certainly don't but most are in that grey area of uncertainty.

Alastair Campbell (b 1957; Downing Street Director of Communications & official spokesperson (1997–2003)) with Vladimir Putin (b 1952; Prime-Minister of Russia 1999-2000 & 2008-2012, President of Russia 1999-2008 & since 2012) and Tony Blair (b 1953; UK Prime Minister 1997-2007).  Mr Putin in recent years has stretched plausible deniability well beyond the point at which plausibility can be said to have become implausible. 

One fine practitioner of the art was one-time tabloid journalist Alastair Campbell, spokesman for the New Labour government during most of Tony Blair’s premiership.  Campbell added a post-modern twist in that he dealt mostly with journalists who knew when he was lying and they knew that he knew they knew.  Things evolved to the point where Campbell came to believe this was proof of his cleverness and some suspected he began to lie, even when the truth would have been harmless, just to show-off his cynical contempt for just about everyone else.  It worked for a while and certainly suited the New Labour zeitgeist but later, when employed as press officer for the British & Irish Lions on their 2005 tour of New Zealand, his effectiveness was limited because even when telling the truth, which, in fairness, he often did, the baggage of his past made everything sound like spin and lies.  The Lions lost the test series 3-0, the first time in 22 years they lost every test match on tour but nobody suggested Campbell was in anyway responsible for the on-field performance.  Still, plausibility deniability remains an essential skill in modern media management.  An example would be:

(1) You run a government in some country about which, for a variety of reasons, Western governments tend not to make tiresome complaints.  Here, you can do just about anything you wish.

(2) One of your people has run away to another country and is being really annoying.  You arrange to have him invited home for discussions over a cup of coffee.

(3) They crew sent to issue the invitation botch the job, murdering him in a quite gruesome manner (ie the method not far removed from how they dispatch them on home soil).

(4) You deny it was an execution, suggesting death happened when an argument about football or something became heated.  (Plausible denial #1).

(5) Didn’t work.  You now deny ordering any connection with the operation, saying it was an unauthorized rogue team.  (Plausible denial #2).

(6) The other country lists nineteen suspects involved in the murder and demands extradition for trial.

(7) You work out which of the suspects is most expendable and it's announced he had died in "an accident" (that and "natural causes" often a grey area you've noticed).  You hope the sacrifice will satisfy honor on both sides.  (Plausible denial #3).

(8) Problem isn’t going away, even though kind folks in many countries are helping you try to make it go away.  You have the remaining eighteen suspects arrested and locked-up somewhere reasonably pleasant and most secret.

(9) Other country is still being tiresome, maintaining people who kill others should be tried for murder in country where crime was committed.  You understand the legal point but still can't see what all the fuss is about.

(10) You arrange it to be announced the eighteen suspects are dead, all SWATE (shot while attempting to escape).  (Plausible denial #4).  The system works.

Pandemonium

Pandemonium (pronounced pan-duh-moh-nee-uhm)

(1) Wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.

(2) A place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos.

(3) Satan’s palace at the centre of Hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

(4) Following Milton, the abode of all the demons (often with initial capital letter).

1667: In John Milton’s (1608-1674) epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667-1674), Pandæmonium was the name of the palace in the centre of hell, "the high capital of Satan and all his peers”.  Milton coined the word as a construct of the Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân) (all; every (and equivalent to the English pan-)) + the Late Latin daemonium (evil spirit, demon), from the Ancient Greek δαιμόνιον (daimónion) (a diminutive form of δαίμων (daímōn) (“little deity”, “little spirit”, “little angel” or (as Christians interpreted it) “little daemon”, later modernized as “demon”).  Depending on one’s didactic or literary purpose, Pandæmonium may thus be translated variously as “All Demons” or, following Milton, as Pandemoneios (Παν-δαιμον-ειον) (the place of all demons).  The transferred sense of “a place of uproar” dates from 1779 while the general use meaning “wild, lawless confusion” has been in use since 1865.  The alternative spellings are pandaemonium & pandæmonium, the latter still in literary use.  Pandemonium is a noun, pandemoniacal, pandemonious, pandemonic & pandemonian are adjectives, pandemoniac is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is either pandemoniums or pandemonia.

There are special, technical uses of “pandemonium”.  In physics, a pandemonium describes a problem that leads to inaccurate results from high-resolution gamma ray detectors in cases of beta decay when the decay product has a large Q value because the decay product has too many possible energy excitation levels with too much variation in the amount of energy emitted by different levels.  Those who understand that doubtlessly visualize the phenomenon while the rest of us probably need something like a cartoon.  In cognitive science, a pandemonium is a conception of visual object recognition in the brain as a hierarchical system of detection and association by a metaphorical set of "demons" sending signals to each other.  No cartoons required.

Some who have inspired fandemonium: The anyway statuesque Taylor Swift, adding to the effect in 6 inch (150 mm) heels (2016, right), the mean girls of Mean Girls (2004, centre) and the more diminutive Lady Gaga (2023, right).

By way of portmanteau nouns, pandemonium has been an element in (1) pandemonium (panda + (pande)–monium) (the furor induced by the reaction of people to the sight of pandas) and (2) fandemonium (fan + -(pan)demonium) (in pop-culture, the furor caused by or involving fans).  In the matter fandemonium, Lady Gaga (b 1986) called her fans “little monsters” while devotees of the Taylor Swift (b 1989) cult are known as “Swifties” (apparently always with an initial capital).

Paradise Lost

Written in the epic tradition of starting in medias res (in the midst of things), John Milton’s Paradise Lost was published originally as a poem of some ten-thousand lines in ten books (1667) before the second edition (1674) was re-organized into twelve volumes, possibly a nod to the Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) whose epic work the Aeneid (circa 30-19 BC) was thus assembled.  The poem is an account of the biblical tale of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam & Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden and was structured in two narrative threads, one following Satan, the other about Adam and Eve, a depiction of the tragedy of human existence which can be transformed only by a pure will for redemption.  The second edition is easier to read because it includes chapter summaries.

Milton coined the name for the capital of Hell, “the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers”, built by the fallen angels at the suggestion of Mammon and it appears at the end of Book I of Paradise Lost (1667), noted as having been designed by the architect Mulciber (In Ancient Rome, Mulciber was another name for the Roman god Vulcan), the designer of palaces in Heaven before his fall.  Book II begins with the debate among the Stygian Council (known also as the Infernal Council and the grand gathering of the demons of the Inferno; apparently something like a Tory Party conference but with better catering) in the council-chamber of Pandæmonium.  In an example of free-market efficiency, the demons built the structure in little more than an hour though by far it surpassed in grandeur all human palaces and, being made from solid gold, it never tarnished.  Interestingly, it was Tardis-like, being both small yet with a vast and spacious hall which thronged with swarms of shape-shifting demons, a quality which may account for the spatial ambiguity in the account of the dimensions.

The Shepherd’s Dream (1793), from Paradise Lost, oil on canvas by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

One mid-century critique was Milton's God (1965) by Sir William Empson (1906–1984), among the earliest published examples of the techniques of literary deconstructionism being applied to poetic text.   Milton noted his work was a way of “…justifying the ways of God to men” and Empson deconstructed those means, mapping them onto a framework of theological paradox.  While Milton’s God had a mixed reception, it was briefly influential as an early post-modern text although one of the problems inherent in deconstruction is it tempts others to reconstruct and there was a critic who deduced Empson had claimed “the poet felt an active hatred for the God of Christianity.”  That was a challenging notion given the book for so long sat on shelves next to the King James Bible (KJV 1611) and it seemed Epson’s subconscious was being probed.  Although in Milton’s God there was the observation Milton’s social judgment had told him that the Heaven he was imagining before the fall of the angels was already a horrible place, “against his overall intention”, it seems a quite a leap from that to a hatred of the God of the New Testament.

Empson explained what needed better to be understood (because, as he put it, modern Christianity has gone to extreme lengths “to hush it up”) was the moral character of God had become very hard to defend and that this was widely known by the time John Calvin (1509–1564) and Martin Luther (1483–1546) had trod the path of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).  Milton was struggling to defend God, noting that in the De doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching (397-426)), Aquinas himself had written there were many who believed God caused evil, practically making God the Devil and Milton would assert the relevant Bible texts must not be interpreted literally.  Milton certainly presents God at his worst but the Almighty is a agreeable figure by Book III although it remains clear his path for man will long and painful with many casualties but the poet's theme remained that there would be awful consequences if “the widespread hatred of God could no longer be contained” and this Empson understood.

Sidewinder

Sidewinder (pronounced syde-whine-der)

(1) A North American rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes), also known as the horned rattlesnake and sidewinder rattlesnake, a venomous pit viper species belonging to the genus Crotalus (rattlesnakes) and found in the desert regions of the south-western United States and north-western Mexico. 

(2) An air-to-air missiles of US design.

(3) In nautical use, a type of middle-distance deep-sea trawler widely used during the 1960s and 1970s.

(4) In slang, a person thought untrustworthy and dangerous.

(5) In the slang of hand-to-hand combat, a heavy swinging blow from the side which disables an adversary (now rare).

(6) In the slang of baseball, a pitcher who throws sidearm.

(7) In the slang of certain photographers, a certain aspect used to photograph certain models in certain dresses or tops.

1875: A creation of US English to describe the small horned rattlesnake found in the south-west near the border with Mexico, the construct being the adjective side + the agent noun of wind, so called in reference to its "peculiar lateral progressive motion".  The first known use was in an 1875 US Army report detailing the zoology of the western US.  Dating from 1888, there are also references to the snake as the "sidewiper".  Side was from the Middle English side, from the Old English sīde (side, flank), from the Proto-Germanic sīdǭ (side, flank, edge, shore), from the primitive Indo-European sēy- (to send, throw, drop, sow, deposit).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Siede (side), the West Frisian side (side), the Dutch zijde & zij (side), the German Low German Sied (side), the German Seite (side), the Danish & Norwegian side (side) and the Swedish sida (side).  As an adjective (as in sidewinder) it's used to mean (1) being on the left or right, or toward the left or right; lateral & (2) indirect; oblique; incidental.  The construct of winder was wind + -er and was from the Middle English wynder, from the Middle English wynd & wind, from the Old English wind (wind), from the Proto-West Germanic wind, from the Proto-Germanic windaz, from the primitive Indo-European hwéhtos (wind), from hwéhts (wind), from the present participle of hweh- (to blow).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Sidewinder is a noun; the noun plural is sidewinders.

A sidewinder taking lunch (left) and sidewinding (right).

The snake’s common name, sidewinder, alludes to its unusual form of locomotion, which is thought to give it traction on windblown desert sand, but this peculiar specialization is used on any substrate over which the sidewinder rapidly can move. As its body progresses over loose sand, it forms a letter J-shaped impression, with the tip of the hook pointing in the direction of travel.  The species is nocturnal during hot months and diurnal during the cooler times of its activity period, which typically extends from November to March (though often longer in the southern part of its range, subject to seasonal variation).

The AIM-9x Sidewinder and the Vympel K-13

AIM-9x Sidewinder Air-to Air missile being launched.

The AIM-9x Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile developed by the US Navy which entered service in 1956.  One of the most widely used missiles, it equips both western and (notionally) non-aligned air forces as well as (indirectly), the many nations which use the Soviet-era Vympel K-13, a reverse-engineered clone.  More than 110,000 Sidewinders have been produced and it’s considered outstanding value for money, being one of the less expensive weapons of its type.  Aside from cost, it owes its longevity to a simple, easy-to-upgrade design, long shelf life, robustness and famously high reliability; the US military say it’s possible the Sidewinder will remain in service until late this century, the one basic design might thus endure over one-hundred years.  One of the early mass-produced guided missiles, the Sidewinder name was selected in 1950 because the venomous snake uses infrared sensory organs to hunt warm-blooded prey.  The Sidewinder was first developed by the US Navy (USN) and later adopted by the US Air Force (USAF), both branches still using what is essentially the same design, the critical components of which are (1) an infrared homing guidance section, (2) an active optical target detector, (3) a high-explosive warhead and (4) rocket propulsion.  The attraction of infrared units is their low-cost, ease of maintenance and the ability to be used day and night.  According to the 2021 fiscal year Department of Defense (DoD) budget, AIM-9x Sidewinders are costed at around US$430,000 for Navy use & US$472,000 for the Air Force, the difference accounted for by the cost of the mounting system which attaches to and aircraft’s hard-points.  The DoD’s numbers are not necessarily accurate but the comparative values are probably at least indicative.

The rollerons on the fins of the early AIM-9.

Although in production since 1956, the Sidewinder is now a much changed device, product development meaning parts interchangeability between an original and one from the 2020s is limited to the odd screw.  In that, the missile can be compared to something like the Volkswagen Beetle in that while the first in 1938 and the last in 2003 were recognizably related and conceptually the same (rear-mounted air-cooled flat-four engine, rear-wheel drive (RWD), separate chassis etc), the only mechanical carry-overs would be some of the nuts & bolts.  In the 1950s, the technology to permit the Sidewinder's fins to act as self-stabilizer didn't exist.  While it would have been possible to build an electro-mechanical device which could fulfil the function, it would have been prohibitively large and heavy and, when subject to the stresses of launch, anyway too fragile to provide the reliability the military required.  Instead, "rollerons" were fitted to the tips of the fins.  Rotating at 100,000 rpm, these provided gyroscopic stabilization, a solution similar to that adopted by the Germans for their big World War II (1939-1945) ballistic missile (The Aggregat 4 (A4), better known as the V2 (or V-2) (Vergeltungswaffe (Retaliation (ie vengence) Weapon 2)) although being bigger and flying for a greater distance in a more complex trajectory, the V2 was fitted also with controllers on the rocket engine's vanes which compensated dynamically for directional variations.  The issue of directional stability was the most challenging aspect of the V2's development. 

Lindsay Lohan sidewinder shots, 2007.  Where possible, photographers like to take both SFW (suitable for work, left) shots and NSFW (not suitable for work, right) shots so they have product for both market niches.  Paul Smith shot these as part of a sequence at the General Motors Annual Ten Event Fashion Show, Los Angeles, February 2006.

The use of Sidewinders in dog-fights between Chinese and Taiwanese (from the renegade province of Taiwan) pilots during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) was the first use of air-to-air guided missiles in combat and the Vympel K-13 (NATO reporting name: AA-2 (Atoll)) was reverse-engineered (ie pirated) by the Soviet Union, using a Sidewinder launched from a Taiwanese F-86 Sabre during the Crisis which became lodged, unexploded, in the fuselage of a Chinese MiG 17.  The MiG landed safely and although Sino-Soviet relations weren’t at the time ideal, some sort of deal was done between Peking and Moscow which resulted in the missile being delivered to Soviet weapons scientists who deconstructed and replicated it, allowing the Vympel to enter the arsenals of Warsaw Pact nations.  The USSR had something of a tradition of doing this with Western hardware (their Boeing B29 clone legendarily almost identical to Boeing’s original) and the Chinese soon became masters of the technique.  By 1961 the K-13 was in full-scale production and so diligent were the Soviets in their duplication that even the part-numbers stamped on the components were replicated.

In February 2023, the Sidewinder was briefly in the news after one was used by a USAF F-16 fighter to shoot down the balloon which infamously penetrated US airspace.  Depending on whose story one prefers, it was either a weather research device operated by Chinese meteorological authorities or a spy system run by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) to gather data for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  Most observers not in fear of being sent to a re-education camp seem to tend to the latter but for the USAF it wasn’t that important; pilots just like shooting stuff with sidewinders.  Targeted at an altitude around 20,000 feet (6000 m), the balloon was brought down in the vicinity of Lake Huron above over Michigan and was the third such airborne object shot down in a three-day span, all at the time believed to be linked with the CCP.  Once the thing was downed, one of the main interests to those examining the wreckage was to work out how a relatively large object could have evaded the surveillance of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which uses visual contact, radar, and other tracking systems.

1997 Dodge Dakota Sidewinder Concept.

The Dodge Dakota Sidewinder was a one-off concept displayed at 1997’s SEMA Convention in Las Vegas.  It used a 640 hp (477 kW), 490 cubic-inch (8.0 litre) V10 Viper (LA) engine and was said to be capable of 170 mph (274 km/h) although it wasn’t clear whether this was (1) worked out on the back of an envelope, (2) calculated by computer simulation or (3) verified by some intrepid test driver.  Like most of Detroit’s more fanciful creations, it never reached production although Chevrolet later picked up the idea for their retro-styled SSR (Super Sport Roadster) pickup truck (2003-2006) which featured a retractable hard-top and between 2004-2006 Dodge did install the a 505 cubic inch (8.3 litre) version LA V10 in their Ram pick-up truck.  One of the crazier trucks and very much in the tradition of their 1964-1966 D-100 pick-up which used the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Wedge V8, the limited-production V10 SRT-10 is still much in demand in the collector market.