Tu quoque

Tu quoque (pronounce to-koh-cue-e)

(1) In philosophy, an appeal to hypocrisy is an informal logical fallacy that intends to discredit the validity of the opponent's logical argument by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with its conclusion.

(2) In international law, a justification of action based on an assertion that the act with which the accused is charged was also committed by the accusing parties.

From the Latin Tū quoque (translated literally as "thou also" and latterly as "you also"; the translation in the vernacular is something like "you did it too", thus the legal slang "youtooism" & "whataboutism". 

An example of the tu quoque fallacy in philosophy

In formal logic, tu quoque is a type of ad hominem argument in which an accused person turns an allegation back on the accuser, thus creating a logical fallacy.  It happens when for example when one charges another with hypocrisy or inconsistency in order to avoid the substantive matter.

Mother: You should stop smoking; it's bad for your health.

Daughter: Why should I listen to you? You started smoking at fourteen.

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

The daughter's tu quoque fallacy lies in dismissing or avoiding the argument because she believes her mother is being hypocritical or at least inconsistent.  While both may be true, that has nothing to do with and does not invalidate her argument.  In 2012 Lindsay Lohan tweeted a hint she had some sympathy with the tu quoque defence gambit: "Why did I get put in jail and a nickelodeon star has had NO punishment(s) so far?". 

International Military Tribunal Trial  (IMT) Trial #1, Nuremberg, 1945-1946

At law, the classic tu quoque defense is an attempt by an accused to deny the legitimacy of a charge by alleging those mounting the prosecution committed exactly the same offence and thus stand equally guilty.  An interesting variation was raised by German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891-1980), appointed head of state in Hitler's will but on trial for his role as head of the Kriegsmarine (the German Navy) between 1943-1945.  Dönitz argued he should be acquitted because the navies of other (victorious) nations had conducted their operations using exactly the same tactics with which he was charged as war crimes but what was novel was the argument that the conduct in dispute (essentially, unrestricted submarine warfare) was, as practiced by both sides, entirely lawful and within the rules of war at sea.  A great many British & US sea captains and admirals agreed (“admirals are a trade union” Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) would later remark in another context), some of whom provided affidavits for the defense in which they provided the details of they way they had their submarine forces conduct exactly the same operations which were the basis of the charges against Dönitz.

Defendants in the dock. IMT Trial #1, Nuremberg, 1945-1946.  All were guilty of something but three were acquitted by the IMT and later tried by German courts.  Dönitz (wearing dark glasses) is sitting in the back row (far left of the photograph). 

The tribunal's aversion to a classical tu quoque being even admitted for discussion was not mere legal pedantry.  Hinted at by the prosecution declining to indict the German air force for their wartime conduct, despite pursuing the army, navy, and many other institutions of state, there was no hunger to offer defense counsel the chance to cite, inter alia, the carpet bombing (then often referred to as "area bombing") of Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden and other German cities (and of course the matter of Tokyo or the later use of A-Bombs).  For the same reason, the Kremlin had no wish to have discussed the secret protocol to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact which had divided the spoils of Poland between Germany and the USSR although, because it had become known to the defense lawyers (who managed to sneak-in a mention) the curious situation came to prevail that the protocol, while not formerly admitted as a document, could be referred to but not in detail.  So, in the narrow technical sense, whether specific acts were justified in law depended (at least for the purposes of the trial) on whether or not they were part of the indictment, a position described by one twenty-first century author as “…hypocrisy permitted by Realpolitik” since the novel and vital ideas behind the creation of Nuremberg trial would have been jeopardized had the IMT cast doubt on the legitimacy of the victors’ actions, strategic or tactical.  That has been criticized but mostly by legal theorists who state, correctly “…there is no moral or legal basis for immunizing victorious nations from scrutiny… [and]… the laws of war are not a one-way street”.  In the abstract they are of course correct but the circumstances and timing of the Nuremburg trial were, and remain, unique and the matters for judgment so grotesquely horrid that it will always be a special case.

Dönitz’s defense appeared to impress the judges (though obviously not the two Russians who were under instruction from comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) to vote to have every defendant hanged).  Although convicted on counts two (crimes against peace) and three (war crimes), he received only a ten-year sentence, the shortest term of the seven imposed on those not hanged or acquitted.  Perhaps tellingly, one has to read the summary of the verdicts to work out against which of the indictment's four counts he had been convicted; it really isn't possible to work it out from the judgment and it wasn't until later it emerged it had been written by one of the judges who had voted for his acquittal.

Laconic

Laconic (pronounced luh-kon-ik)

(1) Using few words; expressing much in few words.

(2) A reply or phrase of this character.

1580–1590: From the Latin Lacōnicus (Spartan) from the Ancient Greek Λακωνικός (Lakōnikós) (Laconian) from Lakōn (a Laconian).  Laconia was the region inhabited and ruled by the Spartans, noted for their economical use of language.  The alternative spelling laconick is long obsolete.  Because of the long history, there's no exact synonym but words in a similar vein include terse, brusque, pithy, brief, compact, compendious, concise, crisp, curt, sententious, short and sweet, succinct, breviloquent & brevity.  Laconic & laconical are adjectives, laconism is a noun and laconically is an adverb; the noun plural is laconisms.

Taking Hemlock with Socrates, gracefully

In Antiquity, Laconia was the region inhabited and ruled by the Spartans, known for their brevity in speech and in English, the meaning "concise, abrupt" emerged in the 1580s (although laconical was created and went extinct a decade earlier).  The origin of this sense was when Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC; king (basileus) of Macedonia 359-336) threatened the Spartans with the words: "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground." to which the Spartans' replied: "If."  Although allied when faced with the threat of Persian invasion, Athens and Sparta had a long tradition of enmity, realized most famously in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).  Their differences were cultural as well as political for while the Spartans were known for their dry, understated wit (which we now call "laconic humor"), the Athenians more readily displayed their "Attic wit" (the Attic peninsula the region encompassing the city of Athens), something refined, poignant and delicate, though often not brief.

Death of Socrates (1787), oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In Ancient Greece, it was in Athens that art, education and literature was most valued, virtues never forgotten by modern historians, many of whom contrast the earthier Spartans unfavorably although, at the time, perhaps not all Athenians shared the view.  Socrates (circa 470–399 BC), in Plato's (circa 427-348 BC) dialogue Protagoras, detected some cleverness in the Spartans' economy of language which hid their wisdom, revealing sometimes with a brief remark a sophistication of thought and understanding.  Scholars tend however to take this with a grain of Attic salt, noting Socrates’ fondness for a little gentle irony.

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

The Laconia Order

The Laconia-Befehl (Laconia Order) was one of the more controversial documents submitted by the prosecution to the International Military Tribunal (IMT) which in 1945-1946 presided over the trial of the leading Nazis.  The order was issued in 1942 by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; head of the German Navy 1943-1945, German head of state 1945) which he was commanding officer of the Kriegsmarine's (the German Navy) Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (BdU) (U-boat or submarine) fleet and was pursuant to what became known as the Laconia Incident.  RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner which the British Admiralty had converted to an armed merchant cruiser, making her a legitimate military target.  On 12 September 1942, she was sunk in a U-Boat attack and in the aftermath, while several U-Boats were rescuing survivors with the intention of transferring them to other vessels, they were attacked by US bombers, despite having informed Allied forces by radio that both the Allied soldiers and women and children had been rescued and were sheltering on the decks of the submarines.

In response, the Germans abandoned the rescue operation and cast the survivors adrift.  The new policy was formalized on 17 September when the Laconia Order was signalled to the fleet, dictating, inter alia, henceforth no rescue attempts of survivors were to be attempted unless it was to secure prisoners of military value (captains or ships' engineers) and then only if there was no risk to the U-Boat.  The British prosecution team introduced the order as evidence of a war crime ordered by Dönitz which effectively amounted to ordering the murder of shipwrecked survivors and treated it as the beginning of "unrestricted submarine warfare".  However, the British seem genuinely to have been unaware of the circumstances which led to the issuing of the order and the Americans certainly didn't wish to discuss the conduct of their air-crews, some of whom had been awarded medals for the attack, even though their claim to have sunk the U-Boat were erroneous (though understandable, a crash dive and a sinking visually similar when viewed from the air.  The IMT noted the ambiguity in the order but in the circumstances granted Dönitz the benefit of the doubt and they were further swayed by the affidavit of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz (1885–1966) who commanded US forces in the Pacific.  Nimitz's submission, supported by others was that the US had conducted unrestricted submarine warfare from the point of the nation's entry into the conflict in December 1941 and that such a policy was wholly lawful under the rules of war at sea.

Defendants in the dock at Nuremberg, Dönitz (in sun glasses), sitting in the back row.

Thus the partial success of Dönitz's sophisticated variation of a tu quoque defense, an attempt by an accused to deny the legitimacy of a charge by alleging those mounting the prosecution committed exactly the same offence and thus stand equally guilty.  The IMT had explicitly banned the use of tu quoque but allowed the argument in this one case because it hung on the notion that unrestricted submarine warfare was, as practiced by both sides, entirely lawful and within the rules of war at sea.  A great many British & US sea captains and admirals agreed (“admirals are a trade union” Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) would later remark in another context).  The judges must have been impressed but the eventual judgement was certainly murky.  Although convicted on counts two (crimes against peace) and three (war crimes), he received only a ten-year sentence, the shortest term of the seven imposed on those not hanged or acquitted.  Perhaps tellingly, one has to read the summary of the verdicts to work out against which of the indictment's four counts he had been convicted; it really isn't possible to work it out from the judgment and it wasn't until later it emerged it had been written by one of the judges who had voted for his acquittal.

Tango

Tango (pronounced tang-goh)

(1) A syncopated ballroom dance of Latin-American origin, danced in duple time by couples, having many varied steps, figures, and poses and characterized by long gliding steps with sudden pauses

(2) A piece of music composed for or in the rhythm of this dance

(3) A word used in communications to represent the letter "T", most famously in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

(4) In military and paramilitary slang, a code for the enemy, derived from the abbreviation of target using the NATO phonetic alphabet.

(5) A dark orange color shade; deep tangerine.

1913: From the Argentine Spanish tango, originally the name of an African-South American drum dance and most likely of Niger-Congo origin and usually thought derived from the Ibibio tamgu (to dance).  The phrase “it takes two to tango” was from a 1952 popular song; tango first used as a verb in 1952.  Tango & tangoist are nouns, the verbs (used without object) are tangoed & tangoing, the noun plural being tangos.  A 1913 University of Michigan publication noted tango was pronounced either tahn-go or tan-go “depending on your social status”.

Lindsay Lohan in white Kritik sweatsuit, practicing tango moves with instructor, Pacific Palisades, 2007.  It was preparation for her role in Alfonso Arau's Dare to Love Me (2008).

Because of the paucity of documentary evidence, etymologists have long argued over the origin of tango.  Some scholars credit African culture, suggesting the word evolved from the Yoruba shangó which refers to the Nigerian God of Thunder.  This theory holds shangó was morphed through the dilution of the Nigerian language once it reached South America via slave trade.  An alternative theory is that tango is derived from the Spanish tambor (drum) which subsequently was mispronounced by inhabitants of the more impoverished areas of Buenos Aires to become first tambo then ultimately tango.  Less supported is a Portuguese connection, the theory that tango is derived from the Portuguese tanger (to play a musical instrument), a variation of which is the Portuguese tangomão, a combination of the verb tanger (to touch) and the noun mão (hand), resulting in the meaning "to play a musical instrument with one's hands.”  Despite these speculations, most prefer the Niger-Congo origin story.

It takes two.

The phrase "it takes two to tango" is used often by lawyers, moral theologians (amateur and professional), politicians and diplomats.  It applied usually as a way either of spreading blame for something or (often inaccurately) as shorthand for variations of a Tu quoque (you did it too (literally "and you also")) defense.

President Mobutu in Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulet.

That it takes two to tango was a point made more than once by President Mobutu Sese Seko (Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Bangaa, born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, 1930-1997; President of Zaire 1965-1997) when responding to accusations of bribe taking and corruption by African dictators in general and him in particular.  He had a point, up to a point.

Apostolic

Apostolic (pronounced ap-uh-stol-ik)

(1) Of or characteristic of an apostle.

(2) Pertaining to or characteristic of the twelve apostles.

(3) Derived from the apostles in regular succession as bishops.

(4) Of or relating to the pope as being chief successor of the apostles.

1540–1550: From the French apostolique (pertaining to, related to, or descended from the apostles), from the Church Latin apostolicus (apostolic), from the Ancient Greek ἀποστολικός (apostolikós) (apostolic), from apostolos.  The derived form apostolical emerged also in the fifteenth century.  The construct in the Church Latin apostolicus was apóstol(os) + -ic.  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Apostolic succession

Apostolic succession is the term describing the method through which the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church is held to derive its unique validity by virtue of an unbroken chain of succession from the twelve apostles (or disciples) of Christ.  The mechanics of this are that every bishop is ordained by a previously ordained bishop and that linkage reaches back two millennia to the apostles.  The purity of apostolic succession is an important part of the mystique of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican maintains the linkage is exclusive to them, the schism of 1534, in which Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) separated the English Church from Rome, sundering also the apostolic succession.  Fearing some doubts might exist, Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) in 1896 delivered Apostolicae Curae, stating all the Church of England’s ordinations were "…absolutely null and utterly void…".

In terms of canon law, it’s not hard to see the pontiff’s point but the English archbishops soon issued their retaliatory Saepius officio, a highly technical piece, offering a kind of elaborate Tu quoque defense which did little except answer questions nobody had asked.  Almost a century later, the Anglicans offered another, admittedly more convincing but still legalistic, argument based on Anglican consecrations since the 1930s being co-performed by bishops recognized by Rome, so, given the effluxion of time, all Anglican bishops were now also in the old Catholic succession; Apostolicae curae, while not invalid, had been rendered obsolete by events, most obviously the bishops in dispute having by then dropped dead.

The view probably never had any chance of being accepted by the Holy See but the Anglicans’ ordination of women and embrace of gay clergy ended all discussion.  In 1998, Cardinal Ratzinger (b 1927; Pope Benedict XVI 2005-2013, pope emeritus since), head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the old Holy Office or Inquisition) issued a statement confirming Leo XIII’s view, adding ominously that anyone who denies such truths "... would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church".  There the matter has since rested.

Cardinal Pell places hands on the head of newly ordained bishop Peter Bryan Wells (b 1963; apostolic nuncio to South Africa and Botswana, apostolic nuncio to Lesotho and Namibiaand & titular Archbishop of Marcianopolis since 2016)  of the United States.  St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican, 19 March 2016.

Cardinal Pell’s appointment as a bishop lies in an unbroken chain of apostolic succession from the twelve apostles of Jesus.  By touch, he’s able to add links to the chain.

 

Succedaneum

Succedaneum (pronounced suhk-si-dey-nee-uhm)

(1) Something used as a substitute, especially any medical drug or agent that may be taken or prescribed in place of another (obsolete).

(2) One who takes the place of another.

1635–1645: From the New Latin succēdāneum, a noun use of the neuter singular of the Classical Latin succēdāneus (succeeding, following after; acting as substitute), the construct being suc(cēdō) (succeed, follow) +‎ -āneus (the composite adjectival suffix).  The notion of a succedaneum exists in many contexts and there are descriptions which are exactly synonymous and some which are merely similar or functionally overlap to some extent surrogate, backup, understudy, replacement, stand-in, locum, alternate, deputy, expediency, proxy, stopgap, body-double, sub, makeshift, fill-in, delegate, temporary, assistant, nominee, replica, successor and substitute.  Succedaneum is a noun and succedaneous is an adjective, the noun plural is succedanea.

Lindsay Lohan body-doubles: The Parent Trap (1998) (left) and Irish Wish (2023 (right).

The understudy is a term from the performing arts (theatre, ballet, opera et al) and describes someone who rehearses a part and is available to perform if the designated character becomes unavailable (illness, injury, tantrum, death etc).  In some cases an understudy may become a replacement if a temporary substitution becomes permanent.  A backup is essentially the same concept as an understudy but is used more generally.  Locum was a seventeenth century adoption of the Medieval Latin locum tenens (literally “one holding a place”) and has evolved as a class-based description of “a temporary replacement”, being by convention restricted to the professions (doctors, dentists, lawyers, vets etc (and for historic reasons the clergy)) whereas a replacement plumber is simply a replacement.  A body-double is used in film & television production to take the place of an actor for a variety of reasons (dangerous stunt work, scheduling conflicts, nudity scenes etc).  Alternates are usually those appointed to some sort of deliberative body, typically a judge appointed to some sort of enquiry or tribunal expected to last a long time, the idea being that in the case the primary judge becomes unavailable (illness, injury, tantrum, death etc), the matter may proceed without interruption.  In this context a nominee is someone nominated to fulfill some role which is for whatever reason (ex-officio, inheritance etc) in the gift of the nominator.  A proxy is particular example of a nominee who is authorized to exercise some right (usually a vote or votes) on behalf of the nominator.  A stopgap or makeshift is a description of something or someone temporarily substituted until a permanent arrangement is made. A delegate is an appointment made to exercise authority held by another but also carries the special value in that the extent of the delegation can be split.  In granting authority to a delegate, the delegated authority can be restricted to a single instance with all other matters reserved for the delegator.  In many cases a deputy or assistant will be able to exercise all or some of the authority held by the higher office but there are no set rules and things will vary from place to place.  As successor is simply a replacement and such situations the word substitute usually isn’t applied.

The issue of the appropriateness of the notion of succedaneum in legal proceedings was explored in the hearings of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) during the first trial of the leading Nazis at Nuremberg (1945-1946).  The first matter considered was whether others could be substituted if a preferred defendant wasn’t available for trial (ie they were dead or missing).  Because of the teleological nature of the trial insisted on by the Americans (who were providing the bulk of the resources and paying most of the bills) which was best served by a thematic approach to the choice of defendants, at least one representative of each defined area of interest was needed.  In the case of the army and navy that was simple because senior officers were to hand and the matter of the air force was fudged by indicting Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) although his role as notional head of the Luftwaffe’s and indeed its role in the war received very little attention during the trial; given the Allies carpet bombing campaign had laid waste to German cities which indisputably were treated as civilian targets, it wasn’t something on which the prosecution wished to dwell although the opening address did include the admission the Germans not alone in reducing European cities to rubble and that “… the ruin that lies from the Rhine to the Danube shows that we have not been dull pupils”.  Despite that prosecutorial gesture however, it was make clear to counsel the defense of tu quoque (best translated as “you did it too” (literally “and you also”)) would not be permitted.

The defendants in the dock listening to Kaltenbrunner’s cross-examination, Nuremberg, 1946.

Dead or missing however were three of the most notorious figures from the security apparatus: Heinrich ("Gestapo") Müller (1900-1945 (presumed); head of the Gestapo 1939-1945), Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) and Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945).  However it was unthinkable a trial of the Nazis could be conducted without the Gestapo and the SS being represented so Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1943-1945) was substituted and it proved a wise choice because of all the defendants, he was the one with absolutely no defense, his guilt established beyond any doubt by the wealth of documents signed in his own hand (his cross-examination a remarkably brief 2½ days).  He was a trained lawyer and simply denied everything although given the evidence his protests didn’t convince even the others in the dock.  He also wasn’t happy about the use of succedaneum, saying more than once he was not prepared “…to be an ersatz for Himmler” although that did him no good and he was condemned to hang.

Dead too was Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) but the trial was not simply about the armed conflict which was fought between 1939-1945; the Americans in particular wanted the trial to be a platform to explore the role of propaganda in totalitarian societies and the way it was exploited by the Nazis in the 1930s.  Goebbels however had been a dominant figure in propaganda and the only official from the ministry of any status who could be found was Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953) who while not exactly “the newsreader” some claimed, was not someone ever concerned with matters of high-policy and he was available for the trial only because, in the haphazard ways things happened at the end of the war, he’d fallen into the hands of the Russians.  Certainly, his voice was well-known to Germans but nobody on the British or US prosecution teams had heard of him and, perhaps more tellingly, neither had some of his fellow defendants.  Despite this unpromising background however, a case was prepared but compared with the mass-murderers and plunderers which whom he shared the dock, the tribunal wasn’t convinced he could be convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity and ordered his acquittal.  Unlike the substituted Kaltenbrunner who was guilty as sin of horrific crimes, Fritzsche seemed little more than a clerk, guilty of something but not war crimes.  Arrested shortly afterwards by the German authorities, he was convicted as a “major offender” by a denazification court and sentenced to nine years imprisonment.  In the early Cold War however, attitudes were shifting and like many others, he was soon released.

Courtroom during the Krupp trial, Nuremberg, 1947.

By far the most troubling act of (attempted) succedaneum was that of Alfried Krupp (1907–1967).  Krupp was an industrialist and had been head of the Krupp concern (steel works and related production) which was a major supplier of weapons and other materiel to the Nazi war machine, much of it produced using slave labor under appalling conditions.  It was important to ensure a representative of industry be included in the trial and no operation was more dominant in the Nazi economy than Krupps.  In one of those curious mistakes which just can’t be fixed, although it had been intended to indict Alfried Krupp, at some point in the process, a filing error or something happened and instead his father Gustav Krupp (1870–1950) was listed.  The father had actually been “retired” to the titular position of Chairman because of physical and mental incapacity and the error wasn’t noticed until it was too late and the indictment had been issued.  Were it in any other context, an apology could have been made and the paperwork amended but “substitution” in criminal law is a special case and no civilized legal system permits it.  The court had already been made aware that the elder Krupp was physically and mentally not fit to attend a trial which prompted the suggestion he might be tried in absentia but this the tribunal declined.  The prosecution’s alternative plan was therefore to “add” the name of the son to the indictment but this appalled the tribunal even more because it was so obviously as substitution.  By now it was too late to run the argument that the “addition” was simply to correct the earlier filing error and the trial proceeded without either Krupp.

At things turned out, the mistake merely delayed things.  At the time, it wasn’t certain there would be subsequent trials but the success of the main trial encouraged the prosecutors and twelve hearings (referred to usually as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials") were conducted including three concerned with the crimes committed in the course of industrial production (Krupp, Flick & IG Farben).  After the trial (1947-1948), Alfried Krupp received a twelve year sentence and the forfeiture of property although he served only a few years before the sentence was commuted.

Corrupt

Corrupt (pronounced kuh-ruhpt)

(1) Guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked; willing to act dishonestly for personal gain; willing to make or take bribes; morally degenerate.

(2) Debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil.

(3) Of a text, made inferior by errors or alterations.

(4) Something infected or tainted; decayed; putrid; contaminated.

(5) In digital storage (1) stored data that contains errors related to the format or file integrity; a storage device with such errors.

(6) To destroy the integrity of; cause to be dishonest, disloyal, etc, especially by coercion, bribery or other forms of inducement.

(7) Morally to lower in standard; to debase or pervert.

(8) To alter a language, text, etc for the worse (depending on context either by the tone of the content or to render it non-original); to debase.

To mar or spoil something; to infect, contaminate or taint.

To make putrid or putrescent (technically an archaic use but there’s much overlap of meaning in the way terms are used).

(11) In digital storage, introduce errors in stored data when saving, transmitting, or retrieving (technically possible also in dynamic data such as memory).

(12) In English Law, to subject (an attainted person) to corruption of blood (historic use only).

(13) In law (in some jurisdictions) a finding which courts or tribunals can hand down describing certain conduct.

1300–1350: From the Middle English verb corrupten (debased in character), from the Middle French corrupt, from the Old French corropt (unhealthy, corrupt; uncouth (of language)) from the Latin corruptus (rotten, spoiled, decayed, corrupted (and the past participle of corrumpō & corrumpere (to destroy, ruin, injure, spoil (figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe” (and literally “break to pieces”)), the construct being cor- (assimilated here as an intensive prefix) + rup- (a variant stem of rumpere (to break into pieces), from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European runp- (to break), source also of the Sanskrit rupya- (to suffer from a stomach-ache) and the Old English reofan (to break, tear)) + -tus (the past participle suffix).  The alternative spellings corrumpt, corrump & corroupt are effectively all extinct although dictionaries sometimes list them variously as obsolete, archaic or rare.  Corrupt and corrupted are verbs & adjectives (both used informally by IT nerds as a noun, sometimes with a choice adjective), corruptedness, corruption, corruptible, corruptness, corrupter & corruptor are nouns, corruptest is a verb & adjective, corruptive is an adjective, corrupting is a verb and corruptedly, corruptively & corruptly are adverbs; the most common noun plural is corruptions.  Forms (hyphenated and not) such as incorruptible, non-corrupt, over-corrupt, non-corrupt, pre-corrupt & un-corrupt etc are created as needed.

The verb corrupt in the mid-fourteenth century existed in the sense of “deprave morally, pervert from good to bad which later in the 1300s extended to “contaminate, impair the purity of; seduce or violate (a woman); debase or render impure (a language) by alterations or innovations; influence by a bribe or other wrong motive", reflecting generally the senses of the Latin corruptus.  The meanings “decomposing, putrid, spoiled”, “changed for the worse, debased by admixture or alteration (of texts, language etc) and “guilty of dishonesty involving bribery" all emerged in the late fourteenth century.  The noun corruption was from the mid-fourteenth century corrupcioun which was used of material things, especially dead bodies (human & animal) to convey “act of becoming putrid, dissolution; decay”.  It was applied also to matter of the soul and morality, it being an era when the Church was much concerned with “spiritual contamination, depravity & wickedness”.  The form was from the Latin corruptionem (nominative corruptio) (a corruption, spoiling, seducing; a corrupt condition), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of corrumpere (to destroy; spoil (and figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe”.  The use as a synonym for “putrid matter” dates from the late 1300s while as applied to those holding public office being tainted by “bribery or other depraving influence” it was first noted in the early 1400.  The specific technical definition of “a corrupt form of a word” came into use in the 1690s.  The adjective corruptible (subject to decay or putrefaction, perishable) was from either the Old French corroptible or directly from Late Latin corruptibilis (liable to decay, corruptible), from the past-participle stem of corrumpere (to destroy; spoil (and figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe”.  In fourteenth century English, it applied first to objects and by the mid fifteenth to those “susceptible of being changed for the worse, tending to moral corruption.  The more blatant sense of “open to bribery” appears in the 1670s.

Boris Johnson, hair by Ms Kelly Jo Dodge MBE.

Corruption is probably a permanent part of politics although it does ebb and flow and exists in different forms in different places.  In the UK, the honors system with its intricate hierarchy and consequent determination on one’s place in the pecking order on the Order of Precedence has real world consequences such as determining whether one sits at dinners with the eldest son of a duke or finds one’s self relegated to a table with the surviving wife of a deceased baronet.  Under some prime-ministers the system was famously corrupt and while things improved in the nineteenth century, under David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) honors were effectively for sale in a truly scandalous way.  None of his successors were anywhere near as bad although Harold Wilson’s (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) resignation honors list attracted much comment and did his reputation no good but in recent years it’s been relatively quiet on the honors front.  That was until the resignation list of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) was published.  It included some names which were unknown to all but a handful of political insiders and many others which were controversial for their own reasons but at the bottom of the list was one entry which all agreed was well deserved: Ms Kelly Jo Dodge, for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser, was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for parliamentary service.  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Boris Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.

A corrupted fattie

Corrupt, a drug addict and a failure: The Führer and the Reichsmarschall at Carinhall, discussing beasts of the field.  Hitler once told a visitor; “You should visit the Reichsmarschall at Carinhall, a sight worth seeing.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) was under few illusions about the sentence he would receive from the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and resented only the method of execution prescribed was to be "hanged by the neck until dead".  Göring thought that fit only for common criminals and as Germany's highest ranked soldier, he deserved the honor of a firing squad; the death of a gentleman.  In the end, he found his own way to elude the noose but history has anyway judged him harshly as richly deserving the gallows.  He heard many bad things said of him at the trial, most of it true and much of it said by his fellow defendants but the statement which most disappointed him was that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had condemned him as “corrupt, a drug addict and a failure”.  Once that was publicized, he knew there would be no romantic legend to grow after his execution and his hope that in fifty years there would be statutes of him all over Germany was futile.  In fairness, even in that he’d been a realist, telling the prison psychologist the statutes might be “…small ones maybe, but one in every home”.  Hitler had of course been right; Göring was corrupt, a drug addict and a failure but that could have been said of many of his paladins and countless others in the lower layers of what was essentially a corrupted, gangster-run state.

Corruption is of course though something bad and corrosive to the state but other people's corruption in other states can be helpful.  In 1940, after the fall of France, the British were genuinely alarmed Spain might enter the war on the side of the Axis, tempted by the return of the Rock of Gibraltar and the acquisition of colonial territory in North Africa.  London was right to be concerned because the loss of Gibraltar would have threatened not only the Royal Navy's ability to operate in the Mediterranean but also the very presence of the British in North African and even the supply of oil from the Middle East, vital to the conduct of the war.  Indeed, the "Mediterranean strategy" was supported strongly by German naval strategists and had it successfully been executed, it would have become much more difficult for the British to continue the war.  Contrary to the assertions of some, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) did understand the enormous strategic advantage which would be achieved by the taking of Gibraltar which would have been a relatively simple undertaking but to do so was possible only with Spanish cooperation, the Germans lacking the naval forces to effect a seaborne invasion.  Hitler did in 1940 meet with the Spanish leader Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) in an attempt to entice his entry into the conflict and even after the Battle of Britain, Hitler would still have preferred peace with the British rather than their defeat, the ongoing existence of the British Empire better suited to his post-war (ie after victory over the USSR) visions. 

The Führer and the Caudillo at the French railway station in Hendaye, near the Spanish–French border, 23 October 1940.

Franco however was a professional soldier and knew Britain remained an undefeated, dangerous foe and one able to draw on the resources both of her empire and (increasingly) assistance from the US and regarded a victory by the Axis as by no means guaranteed.  Additionally, after a bloody civil war which had waged for four years, the Spanish economy was in no state to wage war and better than most, Franco knew his military was antiquated and unable to sustain operations against a well equipped enemy for even days.  Like many with combat experience, the generalissimo also thought war a ghastly, hateful business best avoided and Hitler left the long meeting after being unable to meet the extraordinary list of conditions demanded to secure Spanish support, declaring he'd "sooner have three teeth pulled than go through that again".  Franco was a practical man who had kept his options open and probably, like the Duce (Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)) would have committed Spain to the cause had a German victory seemed assured.  British spies in Madrid and Lisbon soon understood that and to be sure, the diplomatic arsenal of the UK's ambassador to Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare (1880-1959), was strengthened with money, the exchequer's investment applied to bribing Spanish generals, admirals and other notables to ensure the forces of peace prevailed.  Surprising neither his friends or enemies, "slippery Sam" proved adept at the dark arts of disinformation, bribery and back-channel deals required to corrupt and although his engaging (if unreliable) memoirs were vague about the details, documents provided by his staff suggest he made payments in the millions at a time a million sterling was a lot of money.  By 1944, the state of the war made it obvious any threat of Spanish belligerency was gone and he returned to London.

The dreaded corrupted FAT

Dating from the mid-1970s, the file allocation table (FAT) is a data structure used by a number of file systems to index and manage the files on storage devices.  First associated with 8 inch (200 mm) floppy diskettes, it became familiar to users when introduced by Microsoft in the early days of PC (personal computer) operating systems (OS) and was used on the precursors to the PC-DOS & MS-DOS OSs which dominated the market during the 1980s.  Over the years there have been a number of implementations, the best known of which are FAT12, FAT16 & FAT32, the evolution essentially to handle the increasing storage capacity of media and the need to interact with enhancements to OSs to accommodate increasing complexities such as longer file names, additional file attributes and special files like sub-directories (now familiar as folders which technically are files which can store other files).

A FAT is almost always stored on the host device itself and is an index in the form of a database which consists of a table with records of information about each file and directory in the file system.  What a FAT does is provide a mapping between the logical file system and the physical location of data on the storage medium so it can be thought of as an address book.  Technically, the FAT keeps track of which clusters (the mechanism by which the data is stored) on the device are linked to each file and directory and this includes unused clusters so a user can determine what free space remains available.  Ultimately, it’s the FAT which maintains a record of the links between the clusters which form a file's data chain and the metadata associated with each file, such as its attributes, creation & modification timestamps, file size etc.  In the same way that when reading a database a user is actually interacting primarily with the index, it’s the FAT which locates the clusters associated with a request to load (or view, delete etc) a file and determine their sequence, enabling efficient read and write operations.  The size, structure and complexity of FATs grew as the capacity of floppy diskettes and then hard disks expanded but the limitations of the approach were well-understood and modern operating systems have increasingly adopted more advanced file systems like NTFS (New Technology File System) or exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) although FAT remains widely used especially on lower capacity and removable devices (USB drives, memory cards et al), the main attraction being the wide cross-platform compatibility.

A corrupted image (JPEG) of Lindsay Lohan.  Files can be corrupted yet appear as correct entries in the FAT and conversely, a corrupted fat will usually contain may uncorrupted files; the files are content and the FAT an index.

The ominous sounding corrupted FAT is a generalized term which references errors in a FAT’s data structure.  There are DBAs (database administrators) who insist all databases are in a constant state of corruption to some degree and when a FAT becomes corrupted, it means that the data has become inconsistent or damaged and this can be induced by system crashes, improper shutdowns, power failures, malware or physical damage to the media.  The consequences can be minor and quickly rectified with no loss of data or varying degrees of the catastrophic (a highly nuanced word among IT nerds) which may result in the loss of one or more files or folders or be indicative of the unrecoverable failure of the storage media.  Modern OSs include tools which can be used to attempt to fix corrupted FATs and when these prove ineffective, there are more intricate third-party products which can operate at a lower level but where the reported corruption is a symptom of hardware failure, such errors often prove terminal, thus the importance of data (and system) backups.

The grey area between corruption and "just politics"

As an adjective, corrupt is used somewhat casually to refer to individuals or institutions thought to have engaged in practices leading to personal gain of some sort (not necessarily financial) which are either morally dubious or actually unlawful and a corrupt politician is the usual example, a corrupted politician presumably one who was once honest but tempted.  The synonyms of corrupt are notoriously difficult to isolate within set parameters, perhaps because politicians have been so involved in framing the definitions in a way which seems rarely to encompass anything they do, however corrupt it may to many appear.  The word dishonest for example obviously includes those who steal stuff but is also used of those who merely lie and there are circumstances in which both might be unlawful but wouldn’t generally to thought corrupt conduct except by the most morally fastidious.  The way politicians have structured the boundaries of acceptable conduct is that it’s possible to be venal in the sense of selling patronage as long as the consideration doesn’t literally end up as the equivalent of cash in the pocket although such benefits can be gained as long as there’s some degree of abstraction between the steps.

Once were happy: Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire, smiling.

In Australia, news the New South Wales (NSW) Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) had handed down a finding that former premier Gladys Berejiklian (b 1970; NSW Premier (Liberal) 2017-2021) had acted corruptly was of course interesting but mystifying to many was that despite that, the commission made no recommendation that criminal charges be considered.  It transpired that was because the evidence Ms Berejiklian was required to provide to the ICAC wouldn’t be admissible in a court because there, the rules of evidence are different and a defendant can’t be compelled to provide an answer which might be self-incriminating.  In other words a politician can be forced to tell the truth when before the ICAC but not before a court when charged.  That’s an aspect of the common law’s adversarial system which has been much criticized but it’s one of the doctrines which underpins Western law where there is a presumption of innocence and the onus of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt lies with the proposition.  Still, what unfolded before the ICAC revealed that Ms Berejiklian seems at the least to have engaged in acts of Billigung (looking the other way to establish a defense of “plausible deniability”).  How corrupt that will be regarded by people will depend on this and that and the reaction of many politicians was to focus on the ICAC’s statement that criminal charges would not be pursed because of a lack of admissible evidence as proof that if there’s no conviction, then there’s no corruption.  Politicians have little interest in the bar being raised.  They were less forgiving of her former boyfriend (with whom she may or not have been in a "relationship" and if one did exist it may or may not have been "serious"), former fellow parliamentarian Daryl Maguire (b 1959, MLA (Liberal) for Wagga Wagga 1999-2018).  Despite legal proceedings against Mr Maguire being afoot, none of his former colleagues seemed reluctant to suggest he was anything but guilty as sin so for those who note such things the comparative is “more corrupt” and the superlative “most corrupt”, both preferable to the clumsy alternatives “corrupter” & “corruptest”.

The release of the ICAC’s findings came a couple of days before the newly created federal equivalent (the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)) commenced operation.  Although the need for such a body had be discussed for decades, it was during the time the government was headed by Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) that even many doubters were persuaded one would be a good idea.  Mr Morrison’s background was in marketing, three word slogans and other vulgarities so it surprised few a vulgarian government emerged but what was so shocking was that the pork-barreling and partisan allocation of resources became so blatant with only the most perfunctory attempts to hide the trail.  Such conduct was of course not new but it’s doubtful if before it had been attempted at such scale and within Mr Morrison’s world-view the internal logic was perfect.  His intellectual horizons defined by fundamentalist Christianity and mercantilism, his view appeared to be that only those who voted (or might be induced to vote) for the Liberal & National Parties were those who deserved to be part of the customer loyalty scheme that was government spending.  This tied in nicely with the idea those who accept Jesus Christ as the savior getting to go to Heaven, all others condemned to an eternity in Hell.  Not all simplicities are elegant.

As things stand, such an attitude to public finance (ie treating as much spending as possible as party re-election funds) is not unlawful and to most politicians (at least any with some reasonable prospect of sitting on the treasury benches) should not be thought “corrupt”; it’s just “politics” and in NSW, in 1992 it was confirmed that what is “just politics” has quite a vista.  Then the ICAC handed down findings against then premier Nick Greiner (b 1947; NSW (Liberal) premier 1988-1992) over the matter of him using the offer of a taxpayer funded position to an independent member of parliament as an inducement to resign, the advantage being the seat might be won by the Liberal party in the consequent by-election.  As the ICAC noted, Mr Greiner had not acted unlawfully nor considered himself to be acting corruptly but that had been the result.  Indeed, none doubted it would never have occurred to Mr Greiner that doing something that was “just politics” and had been thus for centuries could be considered corrupt although remarkably, he did subsequently concede he was “technically corrupt” (not an admission which seems to have appealed to Ms Berejiklian).  The ICAC’s finding against Mr Greiner was subsequently overturned by the NSW Court of Appeal.

So the essence of the problem is just what corruption is.  What the public see as corrupt, politicians regard as “just politics” which, in a practical sense, can be reduced to “what you can get away with” and was rationalized by Ms Berejiklian in an answer to a question by the ICAC about pork-barrelling: "Everybody does it".  Of course that's correct and the differences between politicians are of extent and the ability to conceal but her tu quoque (translated literally as "thou also" and latterly as "you also"; translation in the vernacular is something like "you did it too") defense could be cited by all.  The mechanism of a NACC has potential and already both sides of politics are indicating they intend to use it against their political enemies so it should be amusing for those who enjoy politics as theatre although, unfortunately, the politicians who framed the legislation made sure public hearings would be rare.  One might suspect they want it to be successful but not too successful.  Still, the revelations of the last ten years have provided some scope for the NACC to try to make the accepted understanding of corruption something more aligned with the public’s perception.  Anomalies like a minister’s “partner” being a “partner” for purposes of qualifying for free overseas travel (business class air travel, luxury hotels, lavish dinners etc) yet not be defined a “partner” for purposes of disclosing things which might give rise to a possible conflict of interest for the minister is an example of the sort of thing where standardization might improve confidence.  It probably should be conceded that corruption can’t be codified in the way the speed limits for a nation’s highways can but it’s one of those things that one knows when one sees it and if the NACC can nudge the politicians’ behavior a bit in the direction of public expectation, it’ll be a worthy institution.  On a happier note, Mr Greiner went on to enjoy a lucrative corporate career and Ms Berejiklian (currently with telco Optus) is predicted to follow in his tracks although suggestions posted on social media she'd been offered a partnership at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited) on the basis of her experience making her a "perfect fit for the company" are thought mischievous rather than malicious.