Faction

Faction (pronounced fak-shun)

(1) A group or clique forming a minority within a larger body, especially a dissentious group within a political party, government or organization.  The terms “splinter group”, “breakaway”, “reform group”, “ginger group” et al are sometimes used as factional descriptors depending on the circumstances but the more familiar (and sometimes formally institutionalized) are forms like “right”, “left”, “wet”, “dry” “moderate”, “conservative” et al.

(2) Internal organizational strife and intrigue; discord or dissension (applied mostly to political parties but used also to describe the internal workings of many institutions).

(3) As a portmanteau word, the construct being fact + (fict)on), in literature, film etc, a form of writing which blends fact and fiction (though distinct from the literary form “magic realism); in journalism, elements of faction are seen in variations of the technique sometimes called “new” or “gonzo” journalism.  In reportage, it should not be confused with “making stuff up” and it’s distinct from the “alternative facts” model associated with some staff employed in the Trump White House.

1500-1510: From the fourteenth century Middle French faction, from the Latin factionem (nominative factiō) (a group of people acting together, a political grouping (literally “a making or doing”)), a noun of process from the perfect passive participle factus, from faciō (do, make), from facere (to make, to do), from the primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set; put; to place or adjust).  The adjective factious (given to faction, turbulently partisan, dissentious) dates from the 1530s and was from either the French factieux or the Latin factiosus (partisan, seditious, inclined to form parties) again from factionem; the related forms were the noun factiousness and the adverb factiously.  In ancient Rome, the factions were the four teams which contested the chariot racing events in the circus, the members distinguished by the colors used for their clothing and to adorn their horses and equipment.  Because politics and the sport soon intertwined the meaning of faction shifted to include “an oligarchy, usurping faction, party seeking by irregular means to bring about a change in government”.  Even after the fall of Rome, the traditional Roman factions remained prominent in the Byzantine Empire and chariot racing went into decline only after the factions fought during the Nika riots in 532 which saw some thirty-thousand dead and half of Constantinople razed.  Faction, factioneer, factionist & factionalism are nouns, factionalize is a verb, factional & factionless are adjectives, factionally is an adverb, factionary is a noun & adjective, factionate is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is factions.

The use of the word to describe the literary device which blends facts with fiction faction is said to date from the late 1960s although some sources suggest it had earlier been used in discussions held in conferences and meetings but the most usual descriptor of such works was the earlier “non-fiction novel” which by the mid century (especially in the US) had become a popular (and in literary circles a fashionable) form although, as such, it was not originally directly related to post-modernism.  Critics trace the origins of the form to the years immediately after World War I (1914-1918) and distinguish the works produced then from earlier texts where there was some use of dubious material presented as “fact” in that in the twentieth century the author’s made their intent deliberate.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was well acquainted with the earthly lusts and frailties of men and in Coriolanus (1605-1608) act 5, scene 2, at the Volscian camp when Menenius is halted by sentries who refuse to allow him to see their generals he knew what to say though it did him little good.

First sentry: Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.

Menenius: Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary on the party of your general.

Second sentry: Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say, you cannot pass.  Therefore, go back.

Menenius: Hath he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not speak with him till after dinner.

The Baader-Meinhof faction

Founded in 1970, the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction (RAF)) was a left-wing, armed militant revolutionary group based in the Federal Republic of Germany (The FRG or West Germany (1949-1990)) which, for almost thirty years, undertook assassinations, kidnappings, robberies and bombings and although actually less active than some other terrorist cells, the RAF was better known and most influential in the early-mid 1970s.  The RAF was dissolved in 1998 although, in the nature of such things, some members continued to use their skills in criminal ventures including drug-trafficing as a form of revenue generation.  The RAF always used the word Fraktion, translated into English as faction.  The linguistic implications never pleased RAF members who thought themselves the embedded, military wing of the wider communist workers' movement, not a faction or splinter-group.  In this context the German doesn’t lend well to translation but closest single-word reflecting the RAF’s view is probably “section” or “squad”.  German journalist Stefan Aust (b 1946) also avoided the word, choosing Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (the  Baader-Meinhof Complex) as the title of his 2008 book because it better described how the organization operated.

Andreas Baader & Ulrike Meinhof

In the era they were active, a common descriptor in the English-speaking word was the Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang, named after two of its members Andreas Baader (1943–1977) and Ulrike Meinhof (1934-1976) and the media’s choice of “gang” or “group” may have reflected the desire of governments for the RAF to be depicted more as violent criminals and less as revolutionaries.  The popular press however certainly preferred Baader-Meinhof to RAF because of the drama of the story, Meinhof having been part of the gang which freed Baader from prison.  Both later killed themselves and, although they were never the star-cross'd lovers some journalists liked to suggest, it added to the romance and the Baader-Meinhof name survived their deaths and although the media, politicians and security agencies adopted the eponymous title, it was never used by the RAF.  In the tradition of Marxist collectives, the members regarded the RAF as a co-founded group of many members and not one either defined by or identified with two figureheads, apart from which, the dominant female of the group was actually Gudrun Ensslin (1940-1977).

Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin in court, "Department store trial" (Galeria Kaufhof GmbH), Frankfurt am Main, FRG, 14 October 1968.

The early years of Gudrun Ensslin would have given little hint of how her life would unfold but at 16 comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary to train as a Russian Orthodox priest at the Tiflis Theological Seminary so things can change.  In her youth, Fräulein Ensslin had been a scout leader and assisted her parish priest in work such as organizing Bible studies; her school reports all record her as a diligent, well-behaved student but according to her father (who, as a priest may have some bias), all that changed when “she became erotized” and discovered the charms of dating boys.  By 1967 she was engaged and had given birth to a son when she met Andreas Baader who had arrived in Berlin four years earlier to evade the attention of the Munich police force which had shadowed his dissolute life of petty crime, youth detention centres and prison.  He'd also gone "underground" to escape conscription and rapidly he and Ensslin became lovers; she abandoned her child and with some other discontented souls, the pair decided to escalate their fight against the system, their early attempts to undermine bourgeois capitalism involving fire-bombing the Galeria Kaufhof department stores they considered citadels of "consumerist materialism".  Later they would expand their activities to include kidnappings, bank robberies, bombings & murder and it was in 1968 the German journalist, Ulrike Meinhof, “joined the fight”, writing in the Konkret (published by her husband Klaus Rainer Röhl (1928–2021)):  “Protest is when I say it does not suit me.  Resistance is, when I make sure that what does not suit me, no longer happens.”  The German konkret can be translated as “concrete”, “specific” or “tangible”, depending on the context.  In the sense of Herr Röhl’s (who styled himself “K2R”) magazine, “Konkret” carried the connotation of “real” or “practical”, a nod to Marxist revolutionary principles which tended to discount abstract theoreticians or those who dreamed of utopias; the focus was on what should be done and what could be achieved.  Herr Röhl certainly had a practical understanding of German accounting law because Konkret provided him with a Porsche 911 as a company car.  Because the KPD (German Communist Party) was banned in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany, 1949-1990), Herr Röhl's membership was clandestine, as were the payments Konkret received from the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany, 1949-1990) and Moscow although funds also came from the FRG.  It must have amused him that Moscow was, in effect, paying for his Porsche, villa and pleasant lifestyle while simultaneously Bonn was contributing to what might be its own overthrow.

Police inspecting the stolen Porsche 911S Targa, Frankfurt, June 1972.

Although a left wing revolutionary, Andreas Bernd Baader liked fast cars owned usually the class enemy and that he never held a drivers licence didn’t deter him from stealing or driving these status symbols of the system he planned to destroy.  His favorite cars by the early 1970s were the Porsche 911 and the BMW E9 coupé and one note in the police reports on him notes that he liked to have a tennis racquet on the passenger seat, the thinking apparently that it was such a middle-class symbol that just the sight of it would make him less suspicious to police.  At the time the Baader-Meinhof gang were active, his automotive taste clearly had been imposed on his fellow revolutionaries because “BMW” came to be understood as “Baader-Meinhof-Wagen” (ie Baader-Meinhof car), the vehicle of choice for the senior gang members whereas newcomers were permitted to drive nothing more elevated than an Audi 100.  Baader-Meinhof had its own class structure and the proletariat was relegated to FWD (front wheel drive), surely as demeaning a humiliation as any inflicted by the plutocracy.

The stolen Iso Rivolta IR300, Frankfurt, June 1972.

For someone trying to avoid the attention of the authorities, Porsches and the big BMW coupés may seem a curious choice given one could more inconspicuously move about in a beige VW Beetle but Baader also affected his style in other ways, his fondness for velvet trousers and designer sunglasses (a thing, even then) mentioned in police reports.  Nor was his taste restricted to German machinery because he also stole an Italian Iso Rivolta IR 300, another inadvisable choice for someone with habits which would have been better pursued with a low profile because of the 800-odd made between 1962-1970, only a reputed 50 were in the FRG when one fell into his (legal but unlawful) possession in 1972.  Apparently he was about to inspect the Rivolta (which he’d yet to drive since the theft) when he was arrested, emerging from the purple (aubergine in the Porsche color chart) Porsche 911S Targa which had been painted its original yellow when he’d stolen it some months earlier.  He and two fellow terrorists had made themselves quite an obvious target, sitting in the aubergine 911, parked facing the wrong way in a middle-class neighbourhood where nobody ever parks in an unapproved manner.  Pleased with the opportunity presented, a police marksman ensconced in a building across the street shot Baader in the thigh and the trio were arrested. Stashed in the Porsche and the garage in which sat the Iso were self-made hand grenades, a bomb in the form of a welded cash box, ammunition, detonators and cables.

Ulrike Meinhof (left) and the cover art for Marianne Faithfull’s album Broken English (1979, right).

Ulrike Meinhof came to public attention for her part in the operation which freed Baader from custody and the escape vehicle used was a silver-grey Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT, a model in which he’d never expressed any interest but which he presumably came to hold in high regard.  Subsequently, for years, Meinhof, the Baader-Ensslin couple and the rest of the RAF left a bloody trail of attacks and bank robberies in their wake and, as a footnote, most of their prominent victims drove Mercedes-Benz, a coincidence of economic circumstances and market preferences.  The title track of Marianne Faithfull’s (1946-2025) album Broken English (1979) was inspired by the life and death of Ulrike Meinhof.

Broken English by Marianne Faithfull, Dave Genn, Matthew Good, Joe Mavety, Barry Reynolds, Terence Stannard & Stephen York.

Could have come through

Anytime

Cold lonely

Puritan

What are you

Fighting for?

It's not my

Security

 

It's just an old war

Not even a cold war

Don't say it in Russian

Don't say it in German

Say it in broken English

Say it in broken English

 

Lose your father

Your husband

Your mother

Your children

What are you

Dying for?

It's not my

Reality

 

It's just an old war

Not even a cold war

Don't say it in Russian

Don't say it in German

Say it in broken English

Say it in broken English

 

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

Factionalism

Factionalism is probably inherent to the nature of organizations and it really needs only for a structure to have two members for a faction to form.  Factions can be based on ideology, geography, theology, personalities (and factions have been formed purely as vehicles of hatred for another) or just about basis and the names they adopt can be designed to denigrate (redneck faction), operate euphemistically (centre-left (just right wingers who didn’t want to admit it)) or indicate a place on the spectrum (left vs right, liberal vs conservative et al).  They can also be modified by those wishing to demonize (lunar-right, hard-right, religious right etc).  The labelling can also be linguistically productive  In the UK during the 1980s, “the wets” was an epithet applied within the Conservative Party to those who opposed the government’s hard line policies, on the model of the slang “a bit wet” to describe those though effete or lacking resolve.  The wets responded by labelling their detractors “the dries” to which they responded with “warm and dry”, words with positive associations in a cold and damp country.  The names constantly evolve because fissiparousness is in the nature of organizations.

Of human nature

Cady's Map by Janis Ian.

The human race does seem inherently fissiparousness and wherever cultures have formed, history suggests divisions will form and folk will tend to coalesce (or be allocated or otherwise forced) into factions.  Usually, this is attributed to some defined or discernible difference (ethnicity, skin color, language, tribal affiliation, religion et al) but even among homogeneous groups, it's rare to identify one without sub-groups.  It does seem human nature and has long since become institutionalized and labelling theory practitioners can probably now build minor academic careers just by tracking the segregation as it evolves (boomers, gen-X, millennials etc).  The faction names of the cliques at North Shore High School (Mean Girls, Paramount Pictures 2004)) were Actual Human Beings, Anti-Plastics, The Art Freaks, Asexual Band Geeks, Asian Nerds, Burnouts, Cheerleaders, Cool Asians, Desperate Wannabes, Freshmen, Girls Who Eat Their Feelings, J.V. Cheerleaders, J.V. Jocks, Junior Plastics, Preps, ROTC Guys, Sexually Active Band Geeks, The Plastics, Unfriendly Black Hotties, Unnamed Girls Who Don't Eat Anything, and Varsity Jocks.  Given the way sensitivities have evolved, it’s predictable some of those names wouldn’t today be used; the factions' membership rosters would be much the same but some terms are now proscribed in this context, the threshold test for racism now its mere mention, racialism banished to places like epidemiological research papers tracking the distribution of morbidity. 

The factions of the Anglican Church

Fissiparousness is much associated with the modern Church of England, factions of which some time ago mostly abandoned any interest in God or the message of Christ for the more important matters of championing or decrying gay clergy, getting women into or keeping them out of the priesthood, and talking to or ignoring Rome.  Among those resistant to anything beyond the medieval, there's even an institutional forum, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) which holds meetings at which there is much intrigue and plotting; it's sort of an anti-Lambeth Conference though the cucumber sandwiches are said to be much the same.  Under the stresses inherent in the late twentieth-century, fissiparousness saw the Anglicans coalesce into three factions, the low & lazy, the broad & hazy and the high & crazy.

Overlaps in the Anglican Church factions

The Low & Lazy

Like the high churchers, the low lot still believe in God but, their time not absorbed plotting and scheming or running campaigns to stamp out gay clergy and opposing the ordination of women, they actually have time to pray, which they do, often.  The evangelical types come from among the low and don’t approve of fancy rituals, Romish ways or anything smelling of popery.  Instead, they like services where there’s clapping, dancing and what sounds like country & western music with sermons telling them it’s Godly to buy things like big TVs and surf-skis.

The Broad & Hazy

The broad church is more a club than a church, something like the Tory Party at prayer.  The parishioners will choose the church they (occasionally) attend on the same basis as their golf club, driving miles if need be to find a congregation acceptably free of racial and cultural DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).  They’re interested not at all in theology or anything too abstract so sermons need to be brief and sufficiently vague to please the bourgeoisie.  The broad church stands for most things in general and nothing in particular; finding most disputes in Anglicanism baffling, they just can't see what all the fuss is about.

The High & Crazy

The high church has clergy who love dressing up like the Spice Girls, burning incense and chanting the medieval liturgy in Latin.  They disapprove of about everything that’s happened since the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and believe there’d be less sin were there still burnings at the stake.  Most high church clergy wish Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) still sat on the throne of Saint Peter and some act as though he does.

Now

Now (pronounced nou)

(1) At the present time or moment (literally a point in time).

(2) Without further delay; immediately; at once; at this time or juncture in some period under consideration or in some course of proceedings described.

(3) As “just now”, a time or moment in the immediate past (historically it existed as the now obsolete “but now” (very recently; not long ago; up to the present).

(4) Under the present or existing circumstances; as matters stand.

(5) Up-to-the-minute; fashionable, encompassing the latest ideas, fads or fashions (the “now look”, the “now generation” etc).

(6) In law, as “now wife”, the wife at the time a will is written (used to prevent any inheritance from being transferred to a person of a future marriage) (archaic).

(7) In phenomenology, a particular instant in time, as perceived at that instant.

Pre 900: From the Middle English now, nou & nu from the Old English nū (at the present time, at this moment, immediately), from the Proto-West Germanic nū, from the Proto-Germanic nu, from the primitive Indo-European nū (now) and cognate with the Old Norse nu, the Dutch nu, the German nun, the Old Frisian nu and the Gothic nū.  It was the source also of the Sanskrit and Avestan nu, the Old Persian nuram, the Hittite nuwa, the Greek nu & nun, the Latin nunc, the Old Church Slavonic nyne, the Lithuanian nū and the Old Irish nu-.  The original senses may have been akin to “newly, recently” and it was related to the root of new.  Since Old English it has been often merely emphatic, without any temporal sense (as in the emphatic use of “now then”, though that phrase originally meant “at the present time”, and also (by the early thirteenth century) “at once”.  In the early Middle English it often was written as one word.  The familiar use as a noun (the present time) emerged in the late fourteenth century while the adjective meaning “up to date” is listed by etymologists as a “mid 1960s revival” on the basis the word was used as an adjective with the sense of “current” between the late fourteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  The phrase “now and then” (occasionally; at one time and another) was in use by the mid 1400s, “now or never” having been in use since the early thirteenth century.  “Now” is widely used in idiomatic forms and as a conjunction & interjection.  Now is a noun, adjective & adverb, nowism, nowness & nowist are nouns; the noun plural is nows.

Right here, right now: Acid House remix of Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) How dare you? speech by Theo Rio.

“Now” is one of the more widely used words in English and is understood to mean “at the present time or moment (literally a point in time)”.  However, it’s often used in a way which means something else: Were one to say “I’ll do it now”, in the narrow technical sense that really means “I’ll do it in the near future”.  Even things which are treated as happening “now” really aren’t such as seeing something.  Because light travels at a finite speed, it takes time for it to bounce from something to one’s eye so just about anything one sees in an exercise in looking back to the past.  Even when reading something on a screen or page one’s brain is processing something from a nanosecond (about one billionth of a second) earlier.  For most purposes, “now” is but a convincing (an convenient) illusion and even though, in certain, special sense, everything in the universe is happening at the same time (now) it’s not something that can ever be experienced because of the implications of relativity.  None of this causes many problems in life but among certain physicists and philosophers, there is a dispute about “now” and there are essentially three factions: (1) that “now” happened only once in the history of the known universe and cannot again exist until the universe ends, (2) that only “now” can exist and (3) that “now” cannot ever exist.

Does now exist? (2013), oil & acrylic on canvas by Fiona Rae (b 1963) on MutualArt.

The notion that “now” can have happened only once in the history of our universe (and according to the cosmological theorists variously there may be many universes (some which used to exist, some extant and some yet to be created) or our universe may now be in one of its many phases, each which will start and end with a unique “now”) is tied up with the nature of time, the mechanism upon which “now” depends not merely for definition but also for existence.  That faction deals with what is essentially an intellectual exercise whereas the other two operate where physics and linguistics intersect.  Within the faction which says "now can never exist" there is a sub-faction which holds that to say “now” cannot exist is a bit of a fudge in that it’s not that “now” never happens but only that it can only every be described as a particular form of “imaginary time”; an address in space-time in the past or future.  The purists however are absolutists and their proposition is tied up in the nature of infinity, something which renders it impossible ever exactly to define “now” because endlessly the decimal point can move so that “now” can only ever be tended towards and never attained.  If pushed, all they will concede is that “now” can be approximated for purposes of description but that’s not good enough: there is no now.

nower than now!: Lindsay Lohan on the cover of i-D magazine No.269, September, 2006.

The “only now can exist” faction find tiresome the proposition that “the moment we identify something as happening now, already it has passed”, making the point that “now” is the constant state of existence and that a mechanism like time exists only a thing of administrative convenience.  The “only now can exist” faction are most associated with the schools of presentism or phenomenology and argue only the present moment (now) is “real” and that any other fragment of time can only be described, the past existing only in memory and the future only as anticipation or imagination; “now” is the sole verifiable reality.  They are interested especially in what they call “change & becoming”, making the point the very notion of change demands a “now”: events happen and things become in the present; without a “now”, change and causality are unintelligible.  The debate between the factions hinges often on differing interpretations of time: whether fundamentally it is subjective or objective, continuous or discrete, dynamic or static.  Linguistically and practically, “now” remains central to the human experience but whether it corresponds to an independent metaphysical reality remains contested.

Whig

Whig (pronounced wig)

(1) To move along briskly (obsolete except in Scotland).

(2) A political party in Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1679-circa 1860 and in the and US circa 1834-1855 (initial capital).

(3) Slang for a conservative member of the Liberal Party in Great Britain (used both with and without initial capital).

(4) Slang for certain factions in the US Republican Party (used both with and without initial capital).

(5) A (rarely used) historical term for a seventeenth-century Scottish Presbyterian, especially one in rebellion against the Crown (used both with and without initial capital).

(6) In Northern English dialectal use, acidulated whey, sometimes mixed with buttermilk and sweet herbs, used as a cooling beverage (obsolete).

(7) Buttermilk (now rare)

Circa 1657: The British political movement later called Whig began to emerge in the mid-1650s, (“emerged” is a better expression than “was formed”), in part perhaps a disparaging use of the 1640s whigg (a country bumpkin) but the greater influence was the 1649 Whiggamaire (later Whiggamore) (the Covenanters, adherents of the Presbyterian cause in western Scotland who marched on Edinburgh in 1648 to oppose Charles I)  The sense, from circa 1635, of a country bumpkin may have been linked to "a horse drover," from the dialectal verb whig "to urge forward" + mare (in the sense of a horse).  In 1689 the name was first used in reference to members of the British political party opposed to the Tories.  The American Revolution era sense of "colonist who opposes Crown policies" is from 1768 and, as early as 1825, was applied to opponents of Andrew Jackson and taken as the name of a political party (1834), most of the factions of which were absorbed by the Republican Party between 1854-1856.  The adjective whiggish (used usually as a disparaging way of describing the tendencies of some towards the philosophies of the Whigs while claiming alignment with another political faction) is from the 1670s, the noun whiggery (principles or practices of the Whigs) noted during the next decade.  Whig, Whiggishness & Wiggery are nouns, Wiggish is an adjective; the noun plural is Whigs.

Portrait of Lord Shelburne (1776), oil on canvas, by Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792).

The Whigs were a faction of the Tory party which later became a party in its own right.  In its varied forms, the Whigs operated between 1679 and the late nineteenth-century, their philosophy based on a defense of constitutional monarchism and an opposition to absolutism, the part the Whigs played in British politics later absorbed by Tory factions and the Liberal Party although strains of its philosophy can sometimes be seen still in the Labour Party (depending on which faction is in the ascendant).  Structurally, the morphing of a Tory faction into a formalized party had far-reaching consequences which continue to this day; no prime-minister since Lord Shelburne (1737-1805; UK prime-minister 1782–1783) has attempted to govern without the support of a party.

In the US, a Whig Party was active in the mid-nineteenth-century and four US presidents belonged to the party while in office.  Formed originally in opposition to the policies of Democratic President Andrew Jackson, the Whigs supported the supremacy of the congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking, and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing.  Not directly related to the British Whigs, party founders chose the name to echo those of the eighteenth-century who fought for independence, nodding also in the direction of the earlier Federalist Party but would later dissolve because of internal tensions over the expansion of slavery to the territories.  Charmingly, many joined the short-lived Know Nothing Party; most eventually drifted back to the Democrats or Republicans although the name is revived from time-to-time but without much electoral success.  Of late, some belonging to the more conservative factions in the Republican Party are labeled Whigs and this can be either in disparagement or self-referentially.

The term “Whig historian” was first recorded in 1924.  Despite the temptation, it really can’t be used in any neutral sense because of the legacy of the words of Sir Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979; Regius Professor of Modern History and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge) who, early in life, published the book for which he is still remembered: The Whig Interpretation of History (1931).  In that slim volume, he defined Whig history as "the tendency in many historians... to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present."  Both "Whig historian" and the "Whig interpretation of history" are thus loaded terms.  Sir Herbert, it was clear, was thinking of the English tradition of historiography but his critique has been widely adopted, the idea of the retrospective creation of a line of progress toward the glorious present a theme now explored not only by the odd Whig but also the post-modernists.

Lindsay Lohan in blonde wig (asymmetric bob) on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show, New York, November 2012.

The word wig (a head of real or synthetic hair worn on the head for various reasons) is unrelated to Whig.  Dating from the 1660s, it was a clipping of the French periwig (a wig, especially the large, stylised constructions worn by both men & women) which was an alteration of the Middle French perruque (wig).  The word “wig” in 1730s England was adapted to created the informal “bigwig” (an important person), based on the fashion at the time for those in authority to wear large, elaborate wig, the idea (presumably not without foundation) that the more important the person, the bigger the wig.  The same linkage explains the military slang “brass hat” (a high-ranking officer), based on the brass embellishments or insignia applied to the hats of the upper ranks.  The term persists (even outside the military) even though the metal is now rare even on the hats of dress uniforms but there's still often gold braid to justify the connection.

Convocation

Convocation (pronounced kon-vuh-key-shuhn)

(1) The act of convoking.

(2) The state of being convoked.

(3) A group of people gathered in answer to a summons; an assembly.

(4) In the Church of England, either of the synods of the provinces of Canterbury or York.

(5) In the Protestant Episcopal Church, an assembly of the clergy and part of the laity of a diocese.

(6) The area represented at such an assembly.

(7) A formal assembly at a college or university, especially for a graduation ceremony.

(8) In universities, a term used generally to describe the group (of the institution’s graduates and others) entitled to elect governing bodies such as their senate.

(9) In Indian institutions of learning, a degree-awarding ceremony.

(10) The collective noun for eagles.

(11) In historic Freemasonry, a meeting of companions of a Holy Royal Arch chapter of the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.

1350–1400: From the Middle English convocacio(u)n (assembly of persons) from the Middle French convocation from the Latin convocātiōn (stem of convocātiō).  Old French picked up convocation directly from the Latin convocationem (nominative convocatio), noun of action from past participle stem of convocare (to call together), the construct being com (together) + vocare (to call).  Vocare was derived from vox (voice).  The form exists in many modern European languages; as well as the English and French convocation, there’s convocació in Catalan, convocazione in Italian, convocação in Portuguese and convocación in Spanish.  Convocation and convoker are nouns and convoked & convoking are verbs; the common noun plural is convocations.

The Holy Royal Arch

A Masonic faction, within Freemasonry the Holy Royal Arch is described as a degree.  The origins of Royal Arch Masonry and the Holy Royal Arch are murky and it’s known only that it dates back to the mid eighteenth century although fragments of Royal Arch rituals exist in Masonic literature from the 1720s.  The first historically verified appearance of was in 1743 when a “Royal Arch” was carried in a Dublin by “two excellent Masons”.  The appearance of the arch provoked controversy and attracted the disapprobation of Dr Dassigny in his critique “A serious and impartial enquiry into the cause of the present decay of Free-masonry in the Kingdom of Ireland” (1744).

Royal Arch Masonry was the subject of a long factional battle within Freemasonry and by 1751 the factions had coalesced into two, the older body paradoxically known as the Moderns, the newer the Antients (an even then archaic spelling of ancient).  Their disputes became increasingly circular and by 1813, Antients and Moderns agreed on an act of union and formed the United Grand Lodge of England.  The compromise became possible by the creation of a protocol under which the union would recognise the Royal Arch (to placate the Antients) but create it as a separate order (to appease the Moderns).

The recognition can be seen as a pyrrhic victory for the Antients.  By 1817, the faction had faded away and, although never formerly dissolved, the membership was soon absorbed into what had previously been the grand chapter of the Moderns with all forming as a group when members attend a grand chapter convocation.  The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or has never denied being a faction of the Freemasons.

Putsch

Putsch (pronounced poo-ch)

A (usually violent) sudden uprising; a political revolt, especially a coup d'état.

1915:  From the German Putsch, derived from the Swiss or Alemannic German Putsch (knock, thrust, blow) and therefore of imitative origin.  It picked up the meaning “a political coup” in standard German through Swiss popular uprisings of the 1830s, especially the Zurich revolt of September 1839; first noted in English in 1915.

Operation Hummingbird (1934): Crushing the "Röhm Putsch"

Adolf Hitler looking at Ernst Röhm, 1934.

Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird) was a purge executed in Nazi Germany between 30 June-2 July 1934, when the regime carried out a number of extrajudicial executions, ostensibly to crush what was referred to as "the Röhm Putsch".  Targets of the purge were those in the Nazi (National-Socialist) movement labelled as identifying with the need to continue the revolution so it would be as much socialist as it was nationalist.  Ironically, at the time, there was no putsch planned although Ernst Röhm (1887–1934; chief of the Sturmabteilung (the stormtroopers (the SA)), head of the four-million strong SA had certainly in the past hinted at one.  A brutal act of mass-murder (the first of many to follow), the Night of the Long Knives was executed with remarkable swiftness and the most generous interpretation is it can be thought a "preventive" rather than a "pre-emptive strike".  Elsewhere in Europe, the events were noted with some alarm although most statesman of the Western democracies came quickly to conclude (in the Westphalian way) it was an "internal German matter" and it was best politely not publicly again to speak of it.  Among Germans, the lesson about the nature of the Nazi state was well-learned.    

Hermann Göring, 1934.

Intended by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; head of government (1933-1945) & head of state (1934-1945) in Nazi Germany) to be a short, sharp hit with a handful of arrests, Hummingbird suffered the not infrequent fate of operations during the Third Reich: mission creep.  By the time Hummingbird ended in early July, Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS (Schutzstaffel (Security Section (or Squad)) 1929-1945), his henchman Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; high-ranking SS official, chief of Reich Security Main Office (Gestapo, Sipo, Kripo & SD 1939-1942) and Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1923-1945 and Hitler's designated successor 1941-1945), then a dynamic force, settled scores and, including collateral damage, the death toll was probably around 180.  Even Hitler thought that a bit much and worried for days there might be consequences but he addressed the parliament, claimed it was a matter of national security and received the thanks of the president for sorting things out.  All’s well that ends well.

The Nazi state was so extreme in its depravity and gangsterism it can be difficult fully to appreciate the enormity of what was done in 1934 and, dreadful as it was, the regime would get worse.  After Nacht der langen Messer, the Nazis cast themselves loose from the moorings of civilization, first drifting, later accelerating towards the holocaust.  The appalling nature of Nacht der langen Messer is best understood by imagining it happening in Australia under vaguely similar circumstances. 

Operation Galah (2018): Crushing the Dutton Putsch

Malcolm Turnbull & Scott Morrison.

At about 4:30am, Malcolm Turnbull and his entourage flew into Brisbane.  From the airport they drove to Federal Police headquarters, where an enraged Turnbull dismissed the police chief and told him he would be shot.  Later that day, he was executed while a large number of other police were arrested.  Turnbull meanwhile assembled a squad of federal police and departed for the northern suburbs hotel where Peter Dutton and his followers were staying.  With Turnbull's arrival around 6:30am, Dutton and his supporters, still in bed, were taken by surprise.  The squad stormed the hotel and Turnbull personally placed Dutton and other prominent Liberal-Party conservatives under arrest. According to Michaelia Cash, Turnbull turned Abbott over to "two detectives holding pistols with safety catches off".  Turnbull ordered Eric Abetz, George Christensen, Kevin Andrews and others in Dutton’s group immediately to be taken outside, put up against a wall and shot.

Christopher Pyne.

Although Turnbull presented no evidence of a plot by Dutton to overthrow his government, he nevertheless denounced the leadership of the conservative faction.  Arriving back at Liberal Party headquarters in Canberra, Turnbull addressed the assembled crowd and, consumed with rage, denounced "the worst treachery in world history". He told the crowd that "…undisciplined and disobedient characters and malcontents" would be annihilated. The crowd, which included party members and some Dutton supporters fortunate enough to escape arrest, shouted its approval.  Christopher Pyne, jumping with excitement, even volunteered to “shoot these traitors".

Julie Bishop & Peter Dutton.

Julie Bishop, who had been with Turnbull in Brisbane, set the final phase of the plan in motion and upon returning to Canberra, telephoned Scott Morrison at 11:00am with the codeword "Galah" to let loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims.  Some 180 enemies of the moderate faction were killed, most by shooting although there were mistakes; the music critic of the Courier Mail was executed because of a filing error when mixed-up with a member of the hard-right faction of the Young Liberals with a similar name.  The Liberal Party sent a wreath to the funeral along with two complementary tickets to a party fundraiser which was a nice gesture.

Eric Abetz & Scott Morrison.

The regime did not limit itself to a purge of the Liberal-Party conservatives.  Having banished some of them from the ministry, Turnbull and Bishop used the occasion to add to the list some moderates he considered unreliable.  Also executed were Barnaby Joyce and two other members of the National Party, apparently just because Turnbull hated them.  Another against whom he had long held a grudge, a former Treasury official, met an especially gruesome fate, his body found in a wood outside Canberra, beaten to death with a vintage mechanical adding machine.

Tony Abbott & Kevin Andrews.

Dutton, along with Tony Abbott, briefly was held in a cell at Liberal Party headquarters while Turnbull considered their fate.  In the end, he decided Dutton and Abbott had to die and, at Turnbull’s behest, Tim Wilson and Trent Zimmermann visited Dutton and Abbott.  Once inside the cell, they handed each of them a pistol loaded with a single bullet and told them they had ten minutes to kill themselves or they would do it for them.  Abbott demurred, telling them, "If I am to be killed, let Malcolm do it himself."  Having heard nothing in the allotted time, Wilson and Zimmermann returned to the cell to find them still alive, Abbott standing in a gesture of defiance, wearing just his Speedos.  They were then both shot dead.

George Christensen.

As the purge claimed the lives of so many prominent members of the party, it could hardly be kept secret.  At first, its architects seemed split on how to handle the event and Morrison instructed police stations to burn "all documents concerning the action of the past two days". Meanwhile, Julie Bishop tried to prevent newspapers from publishing lists of the dead, but at the same time used a radio address to describe how Turnbull had narrowly prevented Dutton and Abbott from overthrowing the government and throwing the country into turmoil.  Then, Turnbull justified the purge in a nationally broadcast speech in the House of Representatives.

“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this. In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the Australian people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the Australian people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterise down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life. Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the state, then certain death is his lot”.

Peter Dutton & Malcolm Turnbull, 2016 General Election.

Concerned with presenting the massacre as legally sanctioned, Turnbull had the cabinet approve a measure that declared, "The measures taken to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defence by the State."  Attorney-General Christian Porter, a one-time conservative, demonstrated his loyalty to the regime by drafting the statute which added a veneer of lawfulness.  Signed into law as the Law "Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence", it retroactively legalised the murders committed during the purge.  Australia's legal establishment further capitulated to the regime when a leading legal scholar wrote an article defending Turnbull’s speech. It was named "The Prime-Minister Upholds the Law".  From Yarralumla, the governor-general sent Turnbull a personally-signed letter expressing his "profoundly felt gratitude" and he congratulated the prime-minister for "nipping treason in the bud".