(1) Something
intended for instruction; instructive:
(2) Inclined
to teach or lecture others too much.
(3) In art
or literature, containing a political or moral message to which aesthetic
considerations are subordinated.
(4) The
art and science of teaching (if used with a singular verb).
(5) In
medical education, of or relating to teaching by lectures or textbooks as
distinguished from clinical demonstration with patients.
1635-1645:
From the French didactique (fitted or intended for instruction; pertaining to instruction), a Latinized adaptation of the Ancient Greek
διδακτικός (didaktikós) (skilled in teaching), from διδακτός (didaktós) (taught,
learnt), past participle of didaskein (teach), from διδάσκω (didáskō) (I teach, educate), from the primitive Indo-European dens (to
learn), source also of the Sanskrit dasra (effecting miracles). The adjective autodidactic (self-taught) is
from 1838, from the Greek autodidaktikos (self-taught) the construct being autos
(self) + didaktos (taught).The adjective didactic (fitted or intended for instruction; pertaining to instruction) has been in use since the 1650s while the noun didactics (the science of teaching) dates from 1836, the noun didacticism (practice of conveying instruction; tendency to be didactic in style) is attested from 1841.
In the
original Greek, didacticism was a description of educational technique or
content that emphasized instructional and informative qualities in literature
and other types of art.In the Hellenic
tradition, the didactic signified learning in a fascinating and intriguing
manner, supposed both to entertain and to instruct. Didactic plays, of which the Greeks wrote
many, were intended to convey a moral theme or other truth to the audience so the word was thus either neutral or
positive. In
English, during the nineteenth century, the meaning shifted and didactic came
be used as a criticism for work felt to be overburdened with instructive,
factual, or other educational information, to the detriment of the enjoyment of
the reader.The use has persisted to
this day and the word seems now seldom to appear without an adjective (needlessly didactic, excessively didactic, pedantically didactic, academically didactic etc).
The
King's English (1997) by Sir Kingsley Amis (1922–1995), Penguin Classics, ISBN:
9780141194318, 272 pp. Recommended to read, much fun, though not all his prescriptions should be followed.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) in his essay The Poetic Principle (1850)called didacticism “the worst of
heresies”. Kingsley Amis in The King’s English wasn’t as emphatic
but was inclined to the view an author unable to succeed in their didactic
purposes without boring the reader, just wasn’t a good writer.One does wonder if he had in mind the works of
his son and he was more acerbic when commenting on one of Martin Amis's interviews in which he'd said readers should really read his novels twice fully to understand them. "That means the little shit has failed doesn't it?" observed the father.
(2) In zoology, of the body proper, as distinguished from the head and limbs.
(3) As corporeal, belonging to the material world (mostly obsolete except for historic references although still used as a technical term in philosophy).
(4) In ecclesiastical accoutrements, a fine cloth, usually of linen, on which the consecrated elements are placed or with which they are covered during the Eucharist (also called the communion cloth).
(5) In Christian theology, as the seven Corporal Works of Mercy, the practical acts of compassion, as distinct from the seven Spiritual Works (the contemplative acts).
(6) In military use, a non-commissioned officer ranking above lance corporal (private first class (PFC) in US Army) and below a sergeant; in the Royal Navy, a petty officer who assists the master-at-arms; similar use in the armed services of many countries.
1350–1400: From the Middle English corporall, from the Anglo-French corporall, from the Latin corporālis (bodily, of the body) from corpus (body), the construct being corpor- (stem of corpuscorpus) + -ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle), used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals, from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of -aris).The use describing alter cloths was derived from the Medieval Latin corporālepallium eucharistic (altar cloth) and replaced corporas, itself inherited from Classical Latin under the influence of Old French. The pronunciation is kaw-pruhl in military use and kawr-per-uhl for all other purposes. The adoption by the military dates from 1570–1580 but the origin is uncertain.It may have come from the Old French (via Italian) into Middle French as a variant of caporal, from the Italian caporale, apparently a contraction of phrase capo corporale (corporal head) in the sense of the head of a body (of soldiers). Source was the Latin caput (head), perhaps influenced also by the Old French corps (body (of men)). Corporal is a noun & adjective, corporality, corporalcy & corporalship are nouns and corporally is an adverb; the noun plural is corporals.
The strategic corporal
The
idea of the “strategic corporal” was first explained in a paper published in
1999 by USMC (US Marine Corps) General Charles Krulak (b 1942). Based on both practical experience and his
analysis of the likely evolution of conflicts into localized, small-scale but
intense theatres of operation, he described what he called the “three block war”
in which the Marines could be involved in conventional fire-fights, peacekeeping
operations and humanitarian aid, all conduced in a geographical area no bigger
than three city blocks and undertaken either sequentially or, more
challengingly, simultaneously and in an environment in which hostile, friendly
& neutral forces are intermeshed. The
reference to the “three city blocks” was included for didactic purposes to
illustrate his point that the training of military personnel needed to be refined
better to encompass those required to make independent decisions, including the
non-commissioned officers (NCOs) & junior officers actually commanding small
numbers of troops on the ground. Just as
the term “three blocks” wasn’t a literal limitation but a way of illustrating a
change of mindset from the traditional focus on divisional & brigade level
deployment, the phrase “strategic corporal” was chosen because in the military
that is the lowest rank at which a soldier is in command of others and thus in
a position to make decisions which could have some strategic significance. Typically, a “strategic corporal” might be a lieutenant
who in modern warfare, must be trained to make major decisions without the
benefit of direction from the chain of command.
The
concept has been influential in many militaries and has been compared with the
idea of the “man on the ground” doctrine which emerged in the nineteenth
century when the early technologies of long-distance communication meant that
for the first time it was practical for military commanders in remote locations
to seek and receive instructions from perhaps thousands of miles away. It would however be decades before those
interactions habitually became real-time so the idea of the “strategic corporal”
would not then have been unfamiliar and there was an at least tacit
acknowledgement that the man on the ground would often be the one making critical
decisions rather than anyone in the high command or even the headquarters staff
in theatre. This could of course mean a
bad decision could theoretically trigger a war but as "the Fashoda Incident" (1898 and the retrospective re-naming of what was at the time in Paris and
London thought of as “the Fashoda Crisis”) illustrated, the man on the ground having
the necessary background and training to make a decision based on factors
beyond what was militarily possible could have far-reaching consequences.
So
the idea of the strategic corporal is that training in such matters needs to
extend to the layers of command where such decisions need to be made, not to
the point at which formerly they’re delegated or devolved. In a sense that of course is a mere
recognition of reality but the elevation of the concept into a doctrine has
been criticized as becoming “mythologized within the military culture [and] forever
associated with negative consequences”, the result of the ultimate responsibility
for decisions being seen through legal filters, leaders now too “…concerned
with the perceived risk..” and as a means to manage that “…senior leaders have
elevated decision authorities far away from anyone but themselves”.
Military
analysts have noted that military operations conducted in the Gaza Strip
provide the perfect example of a “three block war”, one that has the potential
to unfold as a series of “three block” theatres. In these urban environments in which a
civilian population co-exists still in high-density with paramilitary forces
and irregular combatants, decisions taken by a soldier in direct command of
fewer than a dozen troops in the invading army can have a strategic
significance well beyond the particular three blocks in which they’re operating.
Complicating this is the suspicion
expressed by some that a high civilian death-toll is actually an outcome desired
by the Hamas (Hamas the acronym of the Arabic
حركةالمقاومةالإسلامية (Ḥarakah
al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah) (Islamic Resistance Movement); HMS glossed in
the Hamas Covenant (1998) by the Arabic word ḥamās
(حماس) (which translates variously as “strength”,
“zeal” or “bravery”)). The evidence to
support this is strong in that the nature of the attack staged by the Hamas on
Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023 was of such a nature that retaliation by
the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) would be bound to result in civilian causalities in
Gaza; there are not effective alternative military tactics available, the
choices being only to retaliate or not.
The
idea used by Hamas is not new. In 1942,
the Czechoslovak government-in-exile (which in 1940 had shifted from Paris to
London), had become especially disturbed by the success SS-Obergruppenführer (general)
Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942)
was enjoying as Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, a role in which he was
effectively the Nazi’s “governor of Czechoslovak”. Using the Nazi’s tradition method of governing
conquered territories by “carrot & stick” Heydrich had not spared the stick
early in his administration (1941-1942) but been remarkably successful with the
inducements he offered and had achieved an unexpectedly high degree of
cooperation with the local population.
With little signs of an effective resistance movement operating, the government
in exile took the decision, in cooperation with the British Special Operations
Executive (SOE), to send an assassination squad to Prague, knowing full well
the retribution against the population would be severe but the object was to
use that to stimulate local resistance.
More than a thousand Czechs were killed in revenge for Heydrich’s death.
So
in the awful business of war, civilian deaths can be thought of as useful
political devices, something which in Islamic theology is regarded as the noble
sacrifice of martyrdom.The Hamas,
having concluded (not unreasonably) that 75 years on, the leaders of many Arab
states had tired of the Palestinian “problem” and were moving on, regarding the
Jewish state as a permanent part of the region’s political geography with the
advantages of détente greater than those of conflict, needed to be back on the
agenda.The Hamas understand a resort to
diplomacy is unlikely much to influence the Arab rulers but the spilling of
Muslim blood at the hands of the IDF will bring protest to the streets in the
region and beyond.This
of course makes inevitable that when the strategic corporals proceed, however
cautiously, through the rubble of Gaza’s blocks, they’ll be encouraged by their
opponents to make decisions and these decisions can have consequences which ripple
far and perhaps for a generation.What one
strategic corporal decides to do really does matter.By comparison, most of the statements and resolutions, issued or passed by politicians, ex-politicians and other
worthies around the planet will be noted with equal interest by those in Tel Aviv, the Hamas to the south, the
Hezbollah to the north, the Ayatollahs to the east and the fish to the west.
Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
The Bible reduces the New Testament’s conception of mercy to seven practical (corporal) and seven spiritual (contemplative) acts, each said to be a virtue influencing one's will to have compassion for, and, if possible, ameliorate another's misfortune. Italian Dominican friar & philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) thought that although mercy is, as it were, the spontaneous product of charity, it must be thought a special virtue adequately distinguishable from its effects. Later theologians noted its motive is the misery which one discerns in another, particularly in so far as this condition is deemed to be, in some sense at least, involuntary but even if not, the necessity is to offer succor of either body or soul.
Corporal works of mercy
To feed the hungry To give drink to the thirsty To clothe the naked To harbor the harborless To visit the sick To ransom the captive To bury the dead
Spiritual works of mercy
To instruct the ignorant To admonish sinners To bear wrongs patiently To forgive offences willingly To comfort the afflicted To pray for the living and the dead To counsel the doubtful
The Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 25:34-41) makes clear those who offer mercy “…are righteous and their souls will be granted eternal life…” whereas those who do not “…shall be cursed, cast into everlasting fire and given over to the devil.”
34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
***
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Tony Abbott (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2013-2015) visited Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) in prison (a corporal work of mercy). In this act, come Judgement Day, he will be found to have acted righteously.
Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) didn't visit Cardinal Pell in prison but did remember him in his prayers (a spiritual work of mercy). In this act, come Judgement Day, he will be found to have acted righteously. Within the Roman Curia (a place of Masonic-like plotting & intrigue and much low skulduggery), Cardinal Pell's nickname was “Pell Pot”, an allusion to Pol Pot (1925–1998, dictator of communist Cambodia 1976-1979) who announced the start of his regime was “Year Zero” and all existing culture and tradition must completely be destroyed and replaced.
Military uniforms have long influenced fashion and in the 1960s, the counter culture adopted them with some sense of irony. Camouflage patterns have always been popular but the dress uniforms are also used as a model, the insignia, sometimes in elaborated form added as embellishments. The insignia of a corporal is a two-bar chevron, depicted variously upwards or downwards, depending on the service.
Someone noted for their sparkling dinner-table
conversation.
1650–1660: From the Ancient Greek Δειπνοσοφισταί (Deipnosophistaí), the title of a literary
work in fifteen volumes (translated usually as something like “philosophers at
their dinner table”) by the third century scholar Athenaeus of Naucratis, describing
learned discussions at a banquet, the construct being δειπνο- (deipno-) (meal) + σοφιστής (sophistḗs).The plural of sophistḗs was sophistaí
and the sense used by Athenaeus was one of “wise men knowledgeable in matters
of art & science”.The now obsolete
alternative spelling was dipnosophist.Deipnosophist, deipnosophistry & deipnosophy are nouns; the noun
plural is diepnosophists. Tempting though they are, forms such as deipnosophistically and deipnosophising are non-standard.
Deipnosophistry in practice: Lindsay Lohan at the Fox News table, White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner, Washington DC, 2012. At the annual event, there is much table talk.
Scholars of Antiquity regard the Deipnosophistaí as a
conceptual work encompassing the aspects of life most interesting to the elites
of society and these included matters of gastronomy, philosophy, music,
literature, women and fine points of grammar.Structurally, the approach of Athenaeus would have been familiar to
twentieth century modernists, the fifteen volumes absorbed by an account of the
discussions which transpired during a banquet given by a rich man and attended
by two-dozen of those he thought possessed knowledge and conversational skills
sufficiently sparkling to be worthy of an invitation; “chaps with some
background” as it were.As a literary
(and didactic) technique, this approach was known from Plato’s (circa 427-348
BC) Dialogues but the Deipnosophistaí is a sprawling work and the author made
no attempt to disguise the use of the format as a device to explore an
extraordinary range of ideas and concepts; he did not claim to be writing a
transcript.Because a substantial part
of the text was devoted to the cooking and serving of fine food, in the
seventeenth & eighteenth centuries, the noun deipnosophist was used also as
learned synonym of gourmand and not always in a complimentary way, the English viewing
ornate, stylized food as “something continental” and therefore suspicious and
the word “sophist” was similarly suspect, used often in the pejorative sense of
someone “silver tongued” rather than simple and sincere.
So the Deipnosophistaí was a kind of idealized conversation
of the kind only something scripted (and thus artificial) can be.However, even the most reliable of verbatim
transcripts erroneously can convey the impression that what’s been recorded are
the words of a deipnosophist because even if annotated, much is missed: the
pauses, the volume, the inflections and changes in tone of the voice and
perhaps especially the little variations which mean a passage of conversations
could have been delivered with confidence of diffidence.The case study is the distance between
conversational reality and the impression which can be left when published in
transcript is Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier (Hitler's Table Talk), a
series of what were presented as monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head
of state 1934-1945) between 1941-1944, mostly over the dinners held in the two
Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters), the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) in
what was then East Prussia (present-day Poland) and Werwolf (Werewolf) in the
Ukraine.Because of Hitler’s pattern of
life (which became more extreme as the military situation deteriorated), the
dinners could be held at any hour and not infrequently extended to the early morning.
Published in several languages between 1953-1954, the
transcripts have extensively been studied and while the consensus has always
been that while there’s no evidence of any great inaccuracy in terms of what
was said (except for some of the material about Christianity which does appear
to have been somewhat “embellished” by Martin Bormann (1900–1945; Hitler’s
secretary 1941-1945) who hated the churches and the Jews with almost equal vehemence),
just about all historians have observed that based on the reports of those who
were actually at these meals and listened, a casual reader would gain entirely
the wrong impression. For one thing,
what is missing is the repetition.
Hitler had a number of what were really set-piece speeches which for
some twenty years he returned to on these occasions, the topics including
vegetarianism, his dislike of smoking, the making of artificial honey, the
relative merits of various styles of architecture and the history of
opera. For occasional visitors or
someone new, the experience of listening to these banalities may have been
pleasant enough but many of the regulars interviewed after the war recounted
their boredom at the repetition, something noted especially by the military and
secretarial staff who listened to the “script” dozens or even hundreds of times;
many knew the words off by heart. So a deipnosophist
can’t be judged by words alone, even if recorded verbatim and nor is an audio
tape of necessity any better because obviously the visual clues which lend so much
to meaning are lost.
Psychological pain, especially when it
becomes unbearable, producing suicidal thoughts.
1993: The construct was psyche- +
ache.Psychache was coined by US clinical
psychologist Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) and first appeared in his book Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to
Self-Destructive Behavior (1993).The
prefix psych- was an alternative form of psycho-.Psycho was from the Ancient Greek ψῡχο-
(psūkho-), a combining form of ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).Wit was used with words relating to the soul,
the mind, or to psychology.Ache was
from the Middle English verb aken &
noun ache (noun), from the Old
English verb acan (from the Proto-West
Germanic akan, from the Proto-Germanic
akaną (to ache)) and the noun æċe (from the Proto-West Germanic aki, from the Proto-Germanic akiz), both from the primitive Indo-European
heg- (sin, crime).It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian eeke & ääke (to ache, fester), the Low German aken, achen & äken
(to hurt, ache), the German Low German Eek
(inflammation), the North Frisian akelig
& æklig (terrible, miserable,
sharp, intense), the West Frisian aaklik
(nasty, horrible, dismal, dreary) and the Dutch akelig (nasty, horrible).Historically
the verb was spelled ake, and the
noun ache but the spellings became
aligned after Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) published A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), the lexicographer mistakenly assuming it was from the Ancient Greek ἄχος
(ákhos) (pain) due to the similarity
in form and meaning of the two words.As
a noun, ache meant “a continuous, dull pain (as opposed to a sharp, sudden, or
episodic pain) while the verb was used to mean (1) to have or suffer a
continuous, dull pain, (2) to feel great sympathy or pity and (3) to yearn or
long for someone or something.Pyscheache is a noun
Psychache is a theoretical construct used
by clinical suicidologists and differs from psychomachia (conflict of the soul).Psychomachia was from the Late Latin psӯchomachia,
the title of a poem of a thousand-odd lines (circa 400) by Roman Christian poet
Prudentius (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens; 348-circa 412), the construct being
the Ancient Greek Greek psukhē
(spirit) + makhē (battle).The fifth century
poem Psychomachia (translated usually as “Battle of Spirits” or “Soul War”) explored
a theme familiar in Christianity: the eternal battle between virtue & vice
(onto which can be mapped “right & wrong”, “good & evil” etc) and
culminated in the forces of Christendom vanquishing pagan idolatry to the cheers
of a thousand Christian martyrs.An
elegant telling of an allegory familiar in early Christian literature and art, Prudentius made clear the
battle was one which happened in the soul of all people and thus one which all
needed to wage, the outcome determined by whether the good or evil in them
proved stronger.The poem’s characters
include Faith, Hope, Industry, Sobriety, Chastity,
Humility & Patience among the good and Pride, Wrath, Paganism, Avarice, Discord,
Lust & Indulgence in the ranks of the evil but scholars of literature
caution that although the personifications all are women, in Latin, words for
abstract concepts use the feminine grammatical gender and there’s nothing to
suggest the poet intended us to read this as a tale of bolshie women slugging
it out.Of interest too is the
appearance of the number seven, so familiar in the literature and art of
Antiquity and the Medieval period as well as the Biblical texts but although
Prudentius has seven virtues defeat seven vices, the characters don’t exactly
align with either the canonical seven deadly sins, nor the three theological
and four cardinal virtues.In modern
use, the linguistic similarity between psychache and psychomachia has made the
latter attractive to those seduced by the (not always Germanic) tradition of
the “romance of suicide”.
A pioneer in the field of suicidology, Dr
Shneidman’s publication record was indicative of his specialization.
Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) was a
clinical psychologist who practiced as a thanatologist (a practitioner in the
field of thanatology (the scientific study of death and the practices
associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and
their families); the construct of thanatology being thanato- (from the Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos) (death)) + -logy.The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) + -logy.The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the
Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an
integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia)
since the sixteenth century.French
picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía)
abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account,
explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).In English the suffix became extraordinarily
productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study,
analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from
astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth
century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to
terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or
German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).Within a few decades of the intrusion of
modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology
(1820); hatology (1837)).In this
evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day
proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).
Death and the College Student: A Collection of Brief Essays on Death and Suicide by Harvard Youth (1973) by Dr Edwin Shneidman.Dr Shneidman wrote many papers about the prevalence of suicide among college-age males, a cross-cultural phenomenon.
Dr Shneidman was one of the seminal figures
in the discipline of suicidology, in 1968 founding the AAS (American
Association of Suicidology) and the principal US journal for suicide studies: Suicide
and Life-Threatening Behavior.The
abbreviation AAS is in this context used mostly within the discipline because
(1) it is a specialized field and (2) there are literally dozens of uses of
“AAS”.In Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior
(1993) he defined psychache as “intense psychological pain—encompassing hurt,
anguish, and mental torment”, identifying it as the primary motivation behind
suicide, his theory being that when psychological pain becomes unbearable,
individuals may perceive suicide as their only escape from torment.
Although since Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior
appeared in 1993 there have been four editions of American Psychiatric
Association's (APA) Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “psychache” has never appeared
in the DSM.That may seem an anomaly given
much in the DSM revolves around psychological disturbances but the reason is
technical.What the DSM does is list and
codify diagnosable mental disorders (depression, schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder etc), classifying symptoms and behaviors into standardized
categories for diagnosis and treatment planning.By contrast, psychache is not a clinical
diagnosis; it is a theoretical construct in suicidology which is used to
explain the subjective experience of psychological pain that can lead to patients
taking their own lives.It thus describes
an emotional state rather than a psychiatric disorder.
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los
Angeles, December, 2011.
Despite that, mental health clinicians do
actively use the principles of psychache, notably in suicide risk assessment
and prevention and models have been developed including a number of “psychache
scales”, self-reporting tools used to generate a metric measuring the intensity
of psychological pain (categorized with headings such as shame, guilt, despair
et al).The approaches do in detail
differ but most follow Dr Shneidman’s terminology in that the critical
threshold is the point at which the patient’s pain becomes unbearable or
inescapable and the objective is either to increase tolerance for distress or
reframe troublesome thoughts.Ultimately, the purpose of tools is to improve suicide risk assessments
and reduce suicide rates.
DSM-5 (2013).
Interestingly, Suicidal Behavior Disorder
(SBD) was introduced in Section III of the DSM-5 (2013) under “Conditions for Further Study”. Then, SBD chiefly was characterized by a
self-initiated sequence of behaviors believed at the time of initiation to
cause one’s own death and occurring in the last 24 months.That of course sounds exact but the
diagnostic criteria in the DSM are written like that and the purpose of
inclusion in the fifth edition was to create a framework so systematically,
empirical studies related to SBD could be reviewed so primary research themes
and promising directions for future research could be identified.Duly, over the following decade that
framework was explored but the conclusion was reached there seemed to be little
utility in the clinical utility of SBD as a device for predicting future
suicide and that more research was needed to understand measurement of the
diagnosis and its distinctiveness from related disorders and other self-harming
behaviors.The phase “more research is required” must be one
of the most frequently heard among researchers.
In the usually manner in which the APA allowed
the DSM to evolve, what the DSM-5s tentative inclusion of SBD did was attempt
to capture suicidality as a diagnosis rather than a clinical feature requiring
attention.SBD was characterized by a
suicide attempt within the last 24 months (Criterion A) and that was defined as
“a self-initiated sequence of behaviors by an individual who, at the time of
initiation, expected that the set of actions would lead to his or her own
death”.That sounds uncontroversial but
what was significant was the act could meet the criteria for non-suicidal
self-injury (ie self-injury with the intention to relieve negative feelings or
cognitive state in order to achieve a positive mood state (Criterion B) and
cannot be applied to suicidal ideation or preparatory acts (Criterion C). Were the attempt to have occurred during a
state of delirium or confusion or solely for political or religious objectives,
then SBD is ruled out (Criteria D & E). SBD (current) is given when the suicide
attempt occurred within the last 12 months, and SBD (in early remission), when
it has been 12-24 months since the last attempt.It must be remembered that while a patient’s
behavior(s) may overlap across a number of the DSM’s diagnosises, the AMA’s
committees have, for didactic purposes, always preferred to “silo” the
categories.
DSM-5-TR (2022).
When in 2022 the “text revision” of the DSM-5
(DSM-5-TR) was released, SBD was removed as a condition for further study in
Section III and moved to “Other
Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention” in Section II. The
conditions listed in this section are intended to draw to attention of clinicians
to the presence and breadth of additional issues routinely encountered in
clinical practice and provide a procedure for their systematic documentation.According to the APA’s editorial committee, the
rationale for the exclusion of SBD from the DSM-5-TR was based on concerns the
proposed disorder did not meet the criteria for a mental disorder but instead
constituted a behavior with diverse causes and while that distinction may
escape most of us, within the internal logic of the history of the DSM, that’s wholly
consistent.At this time, despite many
lobbying for the adoption of a diagnostic entity for suicidal behavior, the
APA’s committees seem still more inclined to conceptualize suicidality as a
symptom rather than a disorder and despite discussion in the field of
suicidology about whether suicide and related concepts like psychache should be
treated as stand-alone mental health issues, that’s a leap which will have to
wait, at least until a DSM-6 is published.
How to and how not to: Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about
the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) by Stichting
Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek naar Zorgvuldige Zelfdoding (The Foundation
for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide) (left) and How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by
Clancy Martin (right).
Came the last night of sadness And it was clear she couldn't go on Then the door was open and the wind
appeared The candles blew then disappeared The curtains flew then he appeared Saying don't be afraid
There is a diverse literature on various
aspects of suicide (tips and techniques, theological & philosophical
interpretations, cross-cultural attitudes, history of its treatment in church & secular law etc)
and some are quite personal, written variously by those who later would kill
themselves or those who contemplated or attempted to take their own lives.In How
Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Canadian philosopher
Clancy Martin (b 1967), it was revealed the most recent of his ten suicide attempts was
“…in his
basement with a dog leash, the consequences of which he concealed from his
wife, family, co-workers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with
a hoarse voice, a raw neck and series of vague explanations.”
BKA (the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Criminal Police Office of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany (the old West Germany)) mug shots of the Red Army Faction's Ulrike Meinhof (left) and Gudrun Ensslin (right).
The song (Don't Fear) The Reaper also made mention of William Shakespeare's
(1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) and in taking her own life (using her dead
lover’s dagger) because she doesn’t want to go on living without him, Juliette
joined the pantheon of figures who have made the tragedy of suicide seem, to
some, romantic.Politically too, suicide
can grant the sort of status dying of old age doesn’t confer, the deaths of
left-wing terrorists Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) and Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977)
of the West German Red Army Faction (the RAF and better known as the
“Baader-Meinhof gang”) both recorded as “suicide in custody” although the circumstances
were murky.In an indication of the way moral
relativities aligned during the high Cold War, the French intellectuals Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905–1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) compared their deaths to
the worst crimes of the Nazis but
sympathy for violence committed for an “approved” cause was not the exclusive
preserve of the left.In July, 1964, in
his speech accepting the Republican nomination for that year’s US presidential
election, proto-MAGA Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) concluded by saying: “I would
remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in
the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”The audience response to that was rapturous although a few months later
the country mostly didn’t share the enthusiasm, Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973;
US president 1963-1969) winning the presidency in one of the greatest
landslides in US electoral history.Given the choice between crooked old Lyndon and crazy old Barry,
Americans preferred the crook.
Nor was it
just politicians and intellectuals who could resist the appeal of politics being
taken to its logical “other means” conclusion, the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard
Cohen (1934-2016) during the last years of the Cold War writing First We Take
Manhattan (1986), the lyrics of which were open to interpretation but clarified
in 1988 by the author who explained: “I think it means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song. I think it's a response to terrorism. There's something about terrorism that I've
always admired. The fact that there are
no alibis or no compromises. That
position is always very attractive.”Even in 1988 it was a controversial
comment because by then not many outside of undergraduate anarchist societies were
still romanticizing terrorists but in fairness to the singer the coda isn’t as
often published: “I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane –
I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism.”
First We
Take Manhattan (1986) by Leonard Cohen
They
sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For tryin'
to change the system from within
I'm coming
now, I'm coming to reward them
First we
take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'm guided
by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided
by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided
by the beauty of our weapons
First we
take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'd really
like to live beside you, baby
I love your
body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see
that line there moving through the station?
I told you,
I told you, told you, I was one of those
Ah you
loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win
You know
the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline
How many
nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we
take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I don't
like your fashion business, mister
And I don't
like these drugs that keep you thin
I don't
like what happened to my sister
First we
take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'd really
like to live beside you, baby
I love your
body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see
that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you,
told you, I was one of those
First We Take Manhattan performed by Jennifer Warnes (b 1947), from the Album Famous Blue Raincoat (1986).
Whatever they achieved in life, it was
their suicides which lent a lingering allure to German-American ecofeminist
activist Petra Kelly (1947–1992) & the doomed poet American poet Sylvia Plath
(1932-1963) and the lure goes back for millennia, the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius
Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) in his Metamorphoses
telling an ancient Babylonian tale in which Pyramus, in dark despair, killed
herself after finding her young love lifeless.Over the centuries it’s been a recurrent trope but the most novel take
was the symbolic, mystical death in Richard Wagner's (1813–1883) Tristan und Isolde (1865).Mortally wounded in a duel before the final
act, Tristan longs to see Isolde one last time but just as she arrives at his
side, he dies in her arms.Overwhelmed
by love and grief, Isolde sings the famous Liebestod
(Love-Death) and dies, the transcendent aria interpreted as the swansong which carries her to join Tristan in mystical union in the afterlife. This, lawyers would call a “constructive
suicide”.
Austrian soprano Helga Dernesch (b 1939) in 1972 performing the Liebestod aria from
Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989).
While she didn’t possess the sheer power of
the greatest of the Scandinavian sopranos who in the mid-twentieth century
defined the role, Dernesch brought passion and intensity to her roles and while,
on that night in 1972, the lushness of what Karajan summoned from the strings
was perhaps a little much, her Liebestod
was spine-tingling and by then, Karajan had been forgiven for everything. Intriguingly,
although Tristan und Isolde is
regarded as one of the great monuments to love, in 1854 Wagner had written to
the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) telling him:
“As I have never
in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most
beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be
thoroughly satiated. I have in my head ‘Tristan
and Isolde’, the simplest but most full-blooded musical concepion; with the ‘black
flag’ which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die.”
It’s not known whether
Listz reflected on this apparent compositional self-medication for psychache after in 1870 learning from his morning newspaper his daughter Cosima (1837-1930) was to be married to Wagner (then 24 years her
senior) but because she’d been for some seven years conducting an adulterous
affair with the German the news may not have been unexpected.He was aware Cosmia’s daughter (Isolde Beidler
(1865–1919)) had been fathered not by her then husband (the German conductor Hans
von Bülow (1830–1894)) but by Wagner and her second marriage proved happier
than the first so there was that.
(1) In geometry, a plane curve formed by the
intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to a generator of
the cone; the set of points in a plane that are equidistant from a fixed line
and a fixed point in the same plane or in a parallel plane. Equation: y2 = 2px
or x2 = 2py.
(2) In rhetoric, the explicit drawing of a
parallel between two essentially dissimilar things, especially with a moral or
didactic purpose; a parable.
1570s: From the Modern Latin parabola, from the Late Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ) (a
comparison; a setting alongside; parable (literally "a throwing
beside" hence "a juxtaposition") so called by Apollonius of
Perga circa 210 BC because it is produced by "application" of a given
area to a given straight line.The Greek
parabolḗwas
derived from παραβάλλω (parabállō) (I set
side by side”), from παρά (pará)
(beside) + βάλλω (bállō) (I throw); a
doublet of parable, parole, and palaver.It had a different sense in Pythagorean geometry.The adjectival form parabolic (figurative,
allegorical, of or pertaining to a parable) from the Medieval Latin parabolicus from the Late Greek parabolikos (figurative) from parabolē (comparison) is now probably
the most widely used.In geometry, in
the sense of “pertaining to a parabola”, it’s been in use since 1702.A parabola is a curve formed by the set of
points in a plane that are all equally distant from both a given line (called
the directrix) and a given point (called the focus) that is not on the line.It’s best visualised as a shape consisting of
a single bend and two lines going off to an infinite distance.
Monza
On the Monza banking: Maserati 250F (left), Ferrari F555 Supersqualo (centre) & Vanwall VW2 (right).
The Autodromo Nazionale di Monza (National Automobile Racetrack of Monza) is now the fastest circuit still used in Formula One, the
highest recorded speed the 231.5 mph (372.6 km/h) attained during qualifying
for the 2005 Italian Grand Prix by a McLaren-Mercedes MP4-20 (in qualifying
trim) on the long straight between the Lesmo corners and the Variante del
Rettifilo.Built in 1922, the Italian
Grand Prix has been held there every year since 1949 except in 1980 when the
track was being modernised and it’s a wonder the track has survived the
attention of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the
International Automobile Federation).Once an admirable body, the FIA has in recent decades degenerated into
international sport’s dopiest regulatory body and has for some yers attempted
to make motorsport as slow, quiet and processional as possible, issues like DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) now apparently more important than quality of racing. Set in the Royal Villa of Monza
park and surrounded by forest, the complex is configured as three tracks: the
3.6 mile (5.8 kilometre) Grand Prix track, the 1.5 mile (2.4 kilometre) short
circuit and the 2.6 mile (4.3 kilometre) high speed oval track with its famous steep
bankings which was unused for decades left to fall into disrepair before it was
restored in the 2010s. The major
features of the main Grand Prix track include the Curva Grande, the Curva diLesmo, the Variante Ascari and the famous Curva Parabolica.
On the parabolica: 1966 Italian Grand Prix.
The Curva Parabolica
(universally known as “the parabolica”) is the circuit’s signature corner, an
increasing radius, long right-hand turn and the final corner before the main
straight so the speed one can attain on the straight is determined essentially
by the exit speed from the the parabolica; a perfect execution is thus
essential for a quick lap. Although in
motorsport it’s common to discuss the lengths of straights, one notable
statistic is that even at close to 150 mph (200 km/h) speed with with the
fastest cars take the curve, to transit the the parabolica takes just over 7.6
seconds.Improvements to both the cars
and the circuit means it’s now a less dangerous place but many drivers have
died in accidents at Monza, some on or approaching the parabolica including Wolfgang
(Taffy) von Trips (1928–1961) and Jochen Rindt (1942-1970).In 2021, the Monza authorities announced the parabolica
officially would be renamed “Curva in honor of former Ferrari factory driver Michele
Alboreto (1956-2001) who to date remains the last Italian driver to win a Formula
One Grand Prix for Scuderia Ferrari.It’s
likely most will still refer to the curve as “the parabolica”.
The Monza circuit in its configuration for the 1955 Italian Grand Prix (left) and a Mercedes-Benz W196R (streamliner) exiting the parabolica ahead of two W196Rs in conventional open-wheel configuration. The 1955 Italian Grand Prix was the seventh and final round
of the World Championship of Drivers, the French, German, Swiss and Spanish
events all cancelled in the aftermath of the disaster at Le Mans. It was the fourth and last appearance of the Mercedes-Benz
W196R streamliners which, after some bad experiences on the relatively tight
Silverstone circuit, were restricted to the fast, open tracks. Mercedes-Benz also withdrew from top-level
competition after 1955 and, as a constructor, it would be half a century before
they returned to Grand Prix racing.
The parabolic arc: A wheel drops off a Boeing Dreamlifter on take-off, describing a a classic parabolic arc. The Boeing 747-400 Large Cargo Freighters (LCF) were created using a modified 747-400 airline frame and were most associated with their use carrying Boeing 787 Dreamliner parts between the US, Italy & Japan. It was an unusual configuration in that it was required to carry components which while large, weren't particularly heavy.
