Covid-19: Words

Greg posts regular photos of him and
"the cat" "checking the perimeter"; this
one was titled, "The cat says, 'Dude, snow?
This is bullshit.'"

One of my stalwarts on Facebook is a fellow I've never met, and may never meet, a friend of a woman I've likewise never met, may never. What a funny world we live in! But actually, both of them are two of my favorite people to follow on Facebook, him for his acerbic wit, political incisiveness, and photos; her for her ruthless self-honesty and creativity—musical, sculptural, and (also) photographic. He lives in Iowa, she in Baltimore. I believe the two of them actually know each other in the flesh, though I could be wrong. Our connections can be so very virtual anymore.

He—his name is Greg—is also a wicked-good writer, with a blog that I enjoy following: he uses a lot of cusswords and pillories the current administration regularly (he's got plenty of fodder, to mix metaphors), but he also writes tender tributes, insightful, or merely fun, explorations . . . and more. He's always a pleasure to read.

The other day Greg commented on FB, "We need a new word to describe how mega-unctuous Mike Pence is." When I said I thought that word summed Pence up perfectly—why look for a "better" one?—he responded: "'Mega-unctuous' doesn't flow very well. It doesn't slide trippingly on the tongue. We need a word that sounds as lubricated as Pence's flattery—a word that melts the way lard does on medium low heat." Someone else did suggest "oleaginous," which would seem to do the trick, but Greg didn't bite. The question remains open.

Today on our walk David and I were discussing the recent—and I suppose ongoing—"protests" of the stay-at-home orders. A few days ago I posted an article on FB, asking what the upside is, and who exactly is staging these events. I was hoping to spur a discussion, and it worked—interesting, polite (not always a given) conversation ensued. 

Today, after a lull in said conversation, my niece remarked, "There's a pretty exact explination. Its gun-rights folks. You can only assume what they'd like the outcome to be." To which I thought, well, yes—and no. It's bigger than gun-rights folks, though there is a certain (perhaps close to one-on-one) overlap. There's a whole class/cohort/what have you of people who hate government just because—not understanding, apparently, what it actually does for us all . . . or at any rate, most of us—those of us who haven't sunk below the surface and drowned.

On this afternoon's walk, I tried to come up with a term for that cohort. What about anarcho-libertarian? Anarchy being, by one definition, the "absence or denial of any authority or established order"—which is what they would seem to want; and libertarian being "a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action." Individual liberty at the expense of anything else. So in my mind, there is a term for those folks.

But what about the other side? What am I, in a simple, succinct term? I'm not a socialist, though I believe in socialism, tempered by democracy, even to some degree by capitalism. I don't like big government—especially not as it's practiced nowadays, here in this country. Which, actually, I wouldn't call "government": I'd call it oligarchy, wannabe tyranny, corporate capitalism run amok. Nevertheless, I believe government—well-functioning government—is not just necessary, but a key ingredient of democracy. I am somewhat progressive, but I'm also a pragmatist—which is one reason I never jumped on the Sanders bandwagon. Elizabeth Warren is a pragmatist. I was so sorry to see her drop out of the race. I'm sorry Biden is it. But I will be voting for him, because . . . the alternative is unthinkable.

In any case, I couldn't think of a decent term to describe me and most of my friends. I'm not really sure how to describe friends of mine who continue to call themselves Republicans, either (as opposed to the GOP politicians in Washington, who are soulless, grasping, greedy . . . is monsters too strong a word?). I wish we could all—all of us who are still reasonable, who still recognize that we live in a society together with other people, who understand that it can't be "each person for themself," or however we write that nowadays— . . . I wish we could sit down and talk together about how screwed up things are now. And how to make things better.

But even that seems impossible. 

(And truth be told, in what I wrote above? That "us vs. them" rhetoric makes me uncomfortable, but oh lord, what a divide we have in this country today.)

Whew. Okay. I wasn't intending to go there, but there I did go. I will end with a link to one of Greg's funny-but-not-funny blogposts and two more words. He used the first word in the post, and it's one that I want to retain. The second word is a relative, and yeah, I guess I want to retain it too.

First, haecceity: that property or quality of a thing by virtue of which it is unique or describable as "this (one)"; the property of being a unique and individual thing. Isn't it marvelous to know that there's a word for that? It's actually from medieval scholastic philosophy, coined by followers of Duns Scotus: a "non-qualitative property responsible for individuation and identity." In other words, "this-ness," or essence. It derives from the Latin haec, meaning "this."

Second, quiddity: whatever makes something the type that it is: essence. (It also means quirk or eccentricity.) It derives from the Latin quid, meaning "what."

So there are (at least) two really good words for essence, a rather inchoate notion, and yet I can't find a word for the opposite of anarcho-libertarian? What's that about? If you've got any suggestions, send 'em my way.

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Monterey County confirmed cases of Covid-19 today stand at 148; 4 fatalities.

Stay inside. Stay sane. Work on your vocabulary while you have this time. Stay healthy.