Distract
(pronounced dih-strakt)
(1) To draw
away or divert, as the mind or attention.
(2) To
disturb or trouble greatly in mind; beset.
(3) To
provide a pleasant diversion for; to amuse or entertain.
(4) To
separate or divide by dissension or strife; to confuse.
(5) To make
“crazy or insane” (now rare except in the idiomatic “drive to distraction” and
its variants when the concept of “mad” is used in its colloquial sense).
1350–1400:
From the Middle English, from the Medieval Latin distracten (to turn or draw (a person, the mind) aside or away from
any object; divert (the attention) from any point toward another point), from the
Latin distrahō (to pull apart), the
construct being dis- + trahō (to pull), from distractus (drawn apart), past participle
of distrahere (to draw apart), the
construct being dis- + trahere (to draw). The dis prefix was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek
δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).
It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative
valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”. In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a
verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded
by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took
place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin)
from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”. The combination of prefix and following vowel
did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not
necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)). Distract,
distracting & distracted are verbs & adjectives, distractionism,
distractibility, distraction, distractedness, distracter & distractee are
nouns, distractable, distractible, distractionary, distractive &
distractful are adjectives and distractedly & distractingly are adverbs;
the common noun plural is distractions.
Diversions are where one finds them.
The sense
of “to throw into a state of mind in which one knows not how to act; cause
distraction in; confuse by diverse or opposing considerations” has been in use
by at least the 1580s. Obviously related
(and emerging a decade-odd later) was the stronger sense of “disorder the
reason of, render frantic or mad”, once in common use and preserved (in rather
diluted form) in the idiomatic phrase “driven to distraction”. The literal senses of “pull apart in
different directions and separate; cut into parts or sections” were in use from
the late sixteenth century but are now functionally extinct. The adjective distracted dates from the 1570s
in the sense of “perplexed, harassed, or bewildered by opposing considerations”
and came directly from the verb distract; from the 1580s it gained the meaning
“disordered in intellect, frantic, mad”.
The noun distraction came from the mid-fifteenth century distraccioun (the
drawing away of the mind from one point or course to another or others), from
the Latin distractionem (a pulling apart, separating), the noun of action from the
past-participle stem of distrahere (draw in different directions). The sense of a “drawing of the mind in
different directions, mental confusion or bewilderment” dates from the 1590s,
and the meaning “violent mental disturbance, excitement simulating madness (in
driven to distraction etc) was known from the turn of the century. The meaning “a thing or fact that causes
mental diversion or bewilderment” was in use by at least 1615 but, like other
related forms, it probably was long in oral use. The special use of distraction in medicine
was used to describe “traction so exerted as to separate surfaces normally
opposed”; it is long archaic. The old
idea of “distraction” meaning “crazy or insane” survives in the idiomatic
phrases “drive to distraction”, “driven to distraction” and “crazy or insane”
are now used in the colloquial, non-clinical sense meaning “a bit stressed or
discombobulated”. Usually, the phrases
are used by those being so annoyed by someone or something they cannot focus on
the task at hand.
Of Dr Faustus
Title page
of the 1620 edition of the ‘B’ text of
Doctor Faustus (first published in 1616
as
The Tragicall History of the Life and
Death of Doctor Faustus).English playwright, poet and translator Christopher
Marlowe (1564–1593) was the enfant terrible of the Elizabethan age (1558–1603)
and the circumstances surrounding his murder at a youthful 29 death has long
attracted speculation. Marlow’s most
famous work was The Tragical History of
the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (clipped usually to “Doctor Faustus”),
a tragedy (some critics class it as a morality play) first staged around 1594. Kind
of the ultimate cautionary tale, it was based on German stories about an eminent
scholar who sells (for eternity) his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years
magical powers. The plot is charmingly
simple: it follows Dr Faustus down the magical path lad for him by the demon Mephistopheles
to his ultimate downfall as he fails to repent before his damnation. An entertaining work, Marlow’s play also has
the virtue of brevity unlike Goethe’s (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832)
sprawling Faust in two parts; Goethe’s
Faust may be the author’s magnum opus
and the finest achievement in German literature but it is very long.
Faust and Mephistopheles (1869), oil on canvas by Alfred
Louis Vigny Jacomin (1842-1913).
What enabled Mephistopheles to tempt Faustus
was that the doctor, who regarded himself an expert of just about every aspect
of science and philosophy, had become enchanted by the idea of necromancy,
something not easily explored in the temporal world. Dating from the late twelfth century, necromancy
was from the Middle English nigromancye,
from the Old French nigromancie, from
the Medieval Latin nigromantia, from the
Classical Latin necromantia, from the
Ancient Greek νεκρομαντεία (nekromanteía),
the construct being νεκρός (nekrós) (dead)
+ μαντεία (manteía) (divination). The spelling in the Medieval Latin with the
element niger (black) was influenced
by the notion of this being a “black (in the sense of “dark”) art; the modern
spelling had emerged by the mid sixteenth century. Necromancy, as understood by Faustus, meant
the sorcery associated with raising or reanimating the dead and the Devil uniquely
was well placed to provide instruction but there would be a price to be
paid. One of the devices Marlow has Mephistopheles
(and sometimes the Devil himself) use to divert Faustus’s thoughts from
anything which might bring about his repentance and save his soul are “distractions”. The distractions are presented as essentially
theatrical spectacles in the form of sensual pleasures, promises of power and
trivial entertainments, all designed to ensure spiritual distraction; it was
something like Faustus’s Elizabethan TikTok feed.
Distractions
played a part: Al Gore (b 1948; VPOTUS 1993-2001 & NPOTUS 2000, left) and crooked
Hillary Clinton (b 1947; NPOTUS 2016, right).
The distractions take many forms
but their principle purpose is to divert Faustus from thinking about or
speaking of Christ and heaven, thus the famous rebuke: “Thou shouldst not think of God.” What Lucifer does is stage a pagent of the
Seven Deadly Sins, a masque-like parade of Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy,
Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery to amuse and seduce Faustus away from repentance. As one might expect of weak, mortal man, Faustus
delights in the spectacle: “O, this feeds
my soul!”; well the Devil knew his customer. Also provided are texts teaching
transformations, conjuring, and occult knowledge, intellectual distractions
appealing to Faustus’s vanity and appetite for mastery of new and unexplored
subjects. This is however a play written
for the stage and it has a beginning, middle and end with much of the middle devoted
to diversions: invisible tricks played on the pope (said to be very popular
with contemporary audiences), conjuring spirits for emperors and nobles,
practical jokes, feasts, and displays of magical power. What Marlowe does is show Faustus squandering his
grand bargain on shallow amusements rather than profound knowledge; comparisons
have been made between what was promised would be the role of the “Information
Super Highway” (dating from the time when “Al Gore invented the Internet”) and
TikTok feeds.
Helen of Troy (1898), oil on canvas by Evelyn De
Morgan (1855–1919). Helen has for millennia been depicted by painters and sculptors and historians of art have used the images to track changes in Western ideal of female beauty.
Near the end, when an Old Man urges Faustus sincerely to
repent, Mephistopheles counters with Helen of Troy as an erotic and aesthetic
temptation, Faustus responding with the famous: “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand
ships…?” Helen represented the
ultimate sensual distraction from salvation; as the Devil and advertising
agencies understand: sex sells. As a
psychological study, Marlow’s work is a clever piece of the way manipulation
can work, certainly with a victim as vain and self-absorbed as Faustus who Mephistopheles
can convince repentance has become impossible, trapping him in a twilight zone between
fear of the consequences of his actions and his irresistible urge to taste the
distractions offered. For those
attracted by the comparisons with the internet, a major theme of the play is
the notion of distraction, Faustus almost never allowed (or willing, depending
on the reading), to sustain serious contemplation of repentance, Marlowe
presenting damnation not as an open rebellion against God, but a gradual
surrender of attention to spectacle, appetite, vanity and diversion.
Of Marjorie
Taylor Greene and flying saucers
Marjorie Taylor Greene with assault rifle, campaign material, 2020.
Marjorie
Taylor Greene (MTG, b 1974; US Representative (congressperson)
(Republican-Georgia 2021-2026)) parlayed a career as a conspiracy theorist (evils
of Islam, anti-Semitism, white genocide / replacement, Pizzagate, QAnon, etc (although
she later disavowed her acceptance of what QAnon promotes)) into a seat in the
US House of Representatives. Once very
much a Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) fan-girl and a devotee
of the his MAGA (Make America Great Again) cult, during the second Trump
presidency she made a remarkable volte-face, accusing him of betraying the “America
First” movement, criticizing his policies (both domestic and foreign) and
reluctance to release files related to convicted paedophile sex trafficker
Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019). With apologies
to William Congreve (1670–1729) who included the original line in his tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697): “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred
turned, Nor hell a fury like a MAGA woman scorned.” and Mr Trump responded
to this treachery by attacking her in a post on his ever-entertaining Truth
Social platform, vowing to have her “primaried” (denied a place on the Republican
ticket for the mid-term congressional elections in November 2026). As recent Republican primaries have
demonstrated, Mr Trump continues to hold the party in his thrall and MTG might
have expected to suffer the same fate.
Accordingly, she resigned her seat so Mr Trump can treat that as a
victory although she became what Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS
1961-1963 & POTUS 1963-1969) called “outside
the tent” (his argument being often it was preferable to have malcontents “inside the tent pissing
out rather than outside pissing in”).
Marjorie Taylor Greene in happier times.
Outside the
tent, the scorned MTG renewed her attacks.
Most displeased at US military action against Iran, she called for the
cabinet to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the constitution and remove the
president from office (on the grounds of physical or mental incapacity) and, in
a rhetorical flourish, suggested the Republican Party should be “burned to the
ground.” That was good but
she also provided a critique of the administration’s tactic of “rolling out
distractions”, calling the Pentagon’s release of “UFO (Unidentified Flying
Object) files” as “look at the shiny object”, propaganda, placed in
the public domain to divert public attention from matters such a high gas (petrol)
prices, inflation and foreign military operations. She dismissed the “UFO files” (the Pentagon prefers
the nerdier UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena)) as revealing “nothing” and
said the release was a mere strategic diversion, the administration knowing
news outlets would think it a “sexy” topic that would displace gas and egg
prices from the headlines and hopefully encourage the usual suspects in the
public arena to start arguing about flying saucers. Her core point was instead of publishing “UFO
files” containing nothing substantive, the administration should fully disclose
the Epstein files with no redactions beyond what was necessary to “protect the
victims”.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, post MAGA.
President Trump
said he’d directed the Pentagon to make available on their website 161 (with
more to come) files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified
aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)",
because of “the
tremendous interest shown”.
Of course, as MTG pointed out, there is also “tremendous interest” in
what’s as yet unseen in the Epstein files.
What MTG claimed was the public’s “tremendous interest” is seeing “names
named” in the Epstein files was in conflict with the equally “tremendous
interest” Mr Trump told her his “friends” had in the information remaining
suppressed. According to her, Mr Trump
asked her to remove her support from releasing the Epstein files because placing
them in the public domain would “expose and hurt ‘good people’ he knew at Mar-a-Lago”.
That clash of interests hasn’t gone away
so while it can’t be predicted whether it will involve the White House’s new
ballroom or some other “shiny object”, more distractions may be expected.
Of political
distraction
In
political science, “distraction” is used in two ways. The first sense describes forces or events
which operate to divert a government’s attention from the matters on which they
intended to focus. Sometimes, this can
happen because external events impose themselves or it can be a product of the
attention of those in government being drawn to “other matters”. The most amusing of these are personal
vendettas which can assume a life of their own but they can involve just about
anything. The more interesting
“political distractions” are those governments, parties or individual
politicians “manufacture” to divert public attention away from damaging
scandals, corruption, policy failures or unpopular legislation. As one might imagine, given those
imperatives, politicians often feel the need to distract the press and public
for the public from thinking or talking about their many failings. The orthodox approach among political
scientists is to list diversions in six categories:
(1) Toss a dead cat on the table. This describes the tactic of suddenly introducing
an outrageous, shocking or highly controversial topic into the public arena,
something designed to force the media and public to become interested in the
new matter and forget or at least neglect whatever damaging discussion was
dominating news cycle. Aspects of the
“culture wars” are dependable dead felines which is why matters such as
trans-women’s participation in women’s sport do seem often to “crop up” when a
politician’s poll-numbers are looking dire.
(2) Take out the trash. The polite term for TotT is “Strategic Timing”
which describes announcing policies likely to be unpopular policies or
controversial executive orders on days when public attention is guaranteed to
be fixed elsewhere, such as during big sporting events or during major
holidays. The trick to a successful
execution of TotT is just to do it without leaving a “paper trail” (which can
now be electronic). That was a mistake
made a certain bureaucrat in the UK government who, within minutes of the
second jet hitting New York’s World Trade Center on 9/11 (11 September, 2001),
sent a memorandum to her department head suggesting “It's
now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury.” What was meant by that was that the coverage
of the terrorist attacks would “swamp” just about everything else, meaning the
government wouldn’t have to try to “defend the indefensible”.
(3) Tail Wagging the Dog: In
political science this tactic is glossed as “Diversionary Foreign Policy” and
refers to governments initiating or escalating foreign conflicts, border
tensions, or military action to create the “rally 'round the flag” effect and divert
attention from domestic matters which are proving tiresome. Cases studies of “wagging the dog” are
numerous but in the case of nations inclined often to embark upon foreign
military actions, it can be difficult to be sure a certain venture is an
example or just “business as usual” foreign policy doctrine in action. When, in August 1998, Bill Clinton (b 1946;
POTUS 1993-2001) ordered a missile strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical
factory in Sudan, that was claimed by the White House to be based on “solid
intelligence” the facility was (1) connected with Osama bin Laden’s (1957-2011)
al-Qaeda terrorist group (1957-2011) and was “manufacturing or storing the VX nerve agent”. Although a successful military operation (ie
the factory was destroyed with a low civilian casualty toll), the
administration was forced subsequently to concede the intelligence was “not as solid as
first portrayed”. In Sudan,
the locals had few doubts about the president’s motivation, the Monica Lewinsky
(b 1973) scandal at the time dominating the US news cycle.
Distracting: English model Penny Lane (b 1991), Miami Swim Week, June 2026. Her "catwalk strut" in a black, cut-out monokini with a matrix of thin, horizontal straps slashing across the midriff was the sensation of the show.
(4) Scapegoating. Although it’s the always reliable “blame the
Jews” which is the standard template for scapegoating, the formula is adaptable
to circumstances which can extend from religion & ethnicity (the way the
Jews are exploited containing elements of both) to occupational categories,
social class, political alignment and more.
Scapegoating can be a handy device of distraction when managing disquiet
over issues such as unemployment, failing infrastructure, the spread of
disease, crime, urban congestion, economic difficulties, rising prices or the
weather (it really has been done). Of
late, the perfect scapegoats have been “illegal migrants” (often clipped to “illegals”),
now in ample supply.
(5) Culture Wars. Culture wars long pre-date Antiquity but in
their modern sense were really a creation of the left, political parties (labour,
socialist etc) which, even though for decades rarely being in power, were able
in many places to become the central dynamic of the political process by
“setting the agenda” some of their ideas becoming the dominant orthodoxy. However, the right stumbled upon culture wars
after the re-orientation of Western economies to the neo-Liberal model which
tended to damage the interests of the working class. What distractions like the culture wars
(abortion, guns, right to drive huge pick-up trucks etc) offered to the right
was the intoxicating prospect of persuading the working class to vote contrary
to their own economic interest. Threats
to a way of life (trans people, climate change theories etc) have been added as
culture war theatres as they proved to have traction.
(6) Flooding the Zone. In the pre-digital age, this was called
“drowning them in paperwork” which, although a mixed metaphor, conveyed well
the notion of providing so much data it was impossible effectively to
process. In the age of social media, the
technique has had to be adjusted because there are now some who will ignore the
distraction and relentlessly focus of a single issue of interest but it does
still work, advances in AI (artificial intelligence) meaning it’s now possible
to release huge tranches of “redacted documents”. At the micro level, the principle can be used
by issuing literally dozens of executive orders (some of which the
administration may have no intention of effecting and exist only as
“sacrificial devices” in order to divert attention from a certain order. Of course, just as AI can be a shield, it can
also be a weapon, journalists and others now able to apply a Bot to a tranche,
enabling in a short time the sort of analysis which would take a team of humans
months or even years.
The
ultimate usual suspect: Noam Chomsky's thoughts on distraction
In full flight: Noam
Chomsky (left) discussing something with Jeffrey Epstein (right) while flying somewhere
on a private jet. Professor Chomsky is
believed “deeply
to regret” his association with Epstein, a man he once described as a
“highly valued
friend”. The image was
released by the US DoJ (Department of Justice).
Linguistics
theorist & public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky (b 1928) has for
decades been something of an institution of the left, his critique of the policies
of the US government in most aspects unchanging yet still attracting interest
with each iteration, despite much of the mainstream media in the US maintaining
what was, in effect, a ban on him appearing.
Unlike his work in structural linguistics, the complexities of which
were understood by a relative few, Chomsky’s political writings were more
accessible, something which some criticism from political scientists and those
specializing in international relations who found his “elegant reductionism”
just a form of simplification for mass-market appeal; political scientists much
prefer the arcane. Chomsky regards the
tactics of distraction as tools in the strategy of manipulation and regards the
art and science of distraction as the most significant of the ten vectors of
manipulation practiced by the “political class” (political operatives and the
news media).
(1) The strategy of distraction. The primary element of social control is the tool
of distraction, used to divert public attention issues and changes determined
by political and economic elites; the most common tactic is the “flood”: “flooding”
people with continuous distractions and insignificant information. Distraction strategy is also essential to limit
or even prevent public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the
science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics: “Maintaining
public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters
of no real importance. Keep the public
busy, busy, busy, no time to think.”
(2) Create problems, then offer solutions. This method is also called “problem–reaction-solution.” It creates a problem, a “situation” that will
induce some reaction in the audience and, in time, will see them demanding a “solution”. Examples include allowing urban violence to spread
or intensify (if necessary, agents of the state can even arrange the attacks),
then responding to demands for “security” by passing laws allowing a harsh
crackdown and restrictions on social rights.
Such a tactic can augment a manufactured “economic crisis”, one of the
solutions being a reduction in spending on public services, even to the point
of their widespread disestablishment.
(3) Gradualism. The “gradual strategy” is a form of the “thin
end of the wedge” and is a way of eventually achieving something which would
have been unacceptable had there been an attempt to implement the change is “one
hit”. What’s done is that measures are
applied gradually over years or even decades, the public acting like the tale
of the frog in the pot of water being slowly brought to the boil. That famous example turned out not to be how
frogs react to gradually increasing water temperature but, in the West, it’s
something like the way the radically new socio-economic conditions of neo-liberalism
were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s.
Had the architects attempted to impose at once what proved to be the eventual
outcome, the public would likely not have accepted the change.
(4) Deferment. This is a “long game” tactic, the theory
being a way to have the public accept an unpopular policy is to present it as
“painful but necessary”, the psychology behind that being the notion it’s more palatable
to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate slaughter. Intriguingly, deferment is said to be
effective because there is much to suggest there’s a general public belief “everything
will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice suggested will finally be
avoided. That may sound surprising but
the findings are said to be “solid” and mean people “get used to” the
inevitability of the change and, “with a sense of resignation”, will accept
things.
(5) Infantilism. The theory (adopted also in many forms of
advertising) is that if information is presented in a way one might to a child
of twelve, (in other words as if addressing an adult with a mentally deficiency),
the recipient will digest it with the lack of critical sense typical in a child
of that age. Not all political
scientists are convinced this approach works in matters of public policy but
its success in the marketing of at least certain products is acknowledged.
(6) Emotional appeals work better than anything
analytic. The idea is that stressing
the emotional aspect of something can be effective because it tends to induce a
“short-circuiting” of a recipient’s capacity for rational analysis, and finally
to the critical sense of the individual.
(7) Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity. The object is to make the public incapable of
understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement. Most obviously, this is achieved by keeping
the quality of education provided to the lower social classes at a most mediocre
level, ensuring a wide “ignorance gap” exists between them and the hegemonic
class. Instead of knowledge, the lower
classes are given diversions such as reality TV and an endless diet of football
matches.
(8) Self-identification of the lower classes
with ignorance. Apparently, this
wasn’t something anticipated by the theorists but among sub-sets of the marginalized
class, what evolved was a kind of “cult of ignorance” in which being uneducated
and vulgar is fashionable and a form of class solidarity, toxic masculinity
said by some sociologists to be a modern manifestation.
(9) Strengthen a sense of self-blame. By definition, if individuals blame
themselves for their misfortunes, they won’t blame the government and expect
solutions to be provided although, impressionistically, it would seem demands
often are made of governments regardless of a misfortune’s cause. Still, if individual blames themselves,
(failure of effort or ability), the hope is instead of rebelling against the
economic system, the individual descends into an acquiescent insensibility and
hopefully a state of depression which tends to inhibit getting out of bed, let getting
ideas about staging a revolution.
(10) Knowledge is power. Just because something is a cliché doesn’t
mean it’s not true and in recent decades there does seem to have been a growing
gap between knowledge in public hands and that owned and operated by the power
elite. The system of control has
developed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and
psychologically meaning mechanisms of control can now be more targeted. There were optimistic types who believed
placing AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities in the hands of the masses
might redress this imbalance but there seem little to suggest the technology is
doing anything other than strengthening the existing hegemony.
