Monthly Archives: April 2019

By Michael F. Duggan

In this posting, I would like to propose an integrated way of thinking about political and policy leadership and advisement in terms of categories defined by personality type as well as by role and function.  Although I do not subscribe to the fallacy of psychologism—reducing a person’s ideas to their mental state instead of taking the concepts on their merits—I do believe that personality does play a role in the ideas one chooses and therefore in one’s policy outlook.  I do not know if anyone has suggested a similar model, but I am not aware of any.

Rather than examining policy outlooks on a conventional ideological spectrum from left to right (although these categories certainly fit into my scheme), perhaps we should look at them in terms of how categories of policy outlooks exist in relative proximity to each other in terms of degree of moderate-to-severe, by categories of temperament/personality/imagination, and by type in terms of approach/function in implementing policy.  Some categories are ideologically neutral and take on the doctrinal coloration of their milieu.  Because of this, my model has elements of a scale and a spectrum.  The idea is not to look at these things in terms not entirely reducible to ideology (which it treats only as a single factor or intensifier), but rather how they function in the real world in regard to competing individuals and their policy positions. 

In policy, as in business, these categories of leaders and advisors are Conventionalists, The Establishment (and Establishment Types), Mavericks, and Rogues. These categories are seldom found in unalloyed form, and they may overlap, influence, build upon, and cross-pollinate with each other, even in a single person.  There are also multitudes of followers who also break down along these lines.  This is not a completely fleshed-out idea, but one that I am just throwing out in nascent form.  Per usual I wrote this very quickly, so please forgive any mechanical errors

Conventionalists
Conventionalists are men and women who subordinate their views to the perspective a la mode and whose allegiance to these outlooks and regard as necessary in order to advance themselves. These operators act with an eye to the powers that be who promote and embody the dominant ideology of the time.

The Conventionalists are often careerists and credentialists, even though credentials are seen as value-neutral instruments necessary to get ahead.  In periods of sensible policy outlook, these people can be constructive in that they reinforce positive trends by their numbers, if not a strong commitment to the good ideas.  They blow with the wind. 

Beyond self-interest, the perspective of the Conventionalist is often (at least publicly) non-ideological in a negative sense (realism may also be non-ideological, but has been constructive in its commitment to practical goals and in its result-oriented flexibility).  The Conventionalist point of view is tends toward moral neutrality or petty, functional psychopathy and the amoral sensibility that whatever advances one’s career is by definition good, regardless of the ethical and practical consequences.  Such people will adhere to failed policy as long as it continues to be the dominant outlook or until they adumbrate its failure and the outlook that will succeed it.  The driving forces in this type are the ego, vanity, and the power drive.  

Today the Conventionalist embraces and reinforces the orthodoxy of the Washington Consensus, the outlook of the DNC and RNC and “The Blob” of the U.S. foreign policy Establishment. This ideology subscribes to neoconservatism/neoliberalism, economic globalization, a domestic economy founded on Big Finance and an ever-growing split between high-end and low-end services, and U.S. military hegemony and the industries related to it.  By virtue of the dominance of this outlook in the upper reaches of the government, it has been the controlling view of the Establishment in recent years.  As Andrew Bacevich and others have observed, you will not get anywhere in government today if you do not swear allegiance to this “deeply pernicious collective naivete” (see America’s War for the Greater Middle East, 363).  An Establishment characterized by lock-brain conformity to shared assumptions drives the dominance of conventionalism at all levels of policy.  Individuals of this type should not be confused with lower level career government servants that are the backbone of the Federal Government and tend to avoid the political intrigues of successive administrations.

We should note that a good (i.e. loyal or compliant/cooperative) subordinate may be a genuine protégé, or he/she may be an earnest believer in a different outlook biding his/her time (e.g. the “good soldier,” the conservative William Howard Taft, during the more progressive administration of Theodore Roosevelt).  On a less positive note, he or she may equally be an opportunistic true believer playing the part of the sycophant and waiting for their time.  One of the most common things in Washington, D.C. is the true believer boss cultivating true believer underlings.

The Establishment and Establishment Types
The Establishment is the governing mean, the formal and informal structural context in which all of these types exist and operate.  It is a median (and medium) of people and outlook. It is in principle value-neutral but it always takes on the character and ideology of the people in it (today this is the Neoliberal; in the late 1940s it was dominated by moderate realists who were increasingly replaced by hardliners).  It is the generalized governmental temperament of a period, an aggregate of multiple perspectives into a status quo in which strong-minded individuals may divide the policy community into camps—into a majority as well as influential plurality and minority outlooks.  The dominant of these is the official view of the government, although historically, there have often been balancing and countervailing currents.   

An Establishment representing the outlook of an administration may avail itself of Mavericks (see below) and take on the character of their ideas (e.g. the New Deal, the Marshall Plan).  As a thing-in-being, there is always an Establishment of strong players in the system, and it seems counterintuitive to have an Establishment without a dominant view.  As with nature, a policy environment hates a vacuum and a strong personality or coalition will tip an unstable equilibrium one direction or another.  On a related note, the best presidents are always at the heart of their administration, and therefore determine or heavily influence the direction of the Establishment of their times. There are always balancing elements, resistance, and cross currents from other bastions of power and estates of the sovereign whole or aggregate.

Because the Establishment takes on the character of the dominant perspective (which can be top-down), it is altogether possible to have a Maverick or even a Rogue Establishment.  The most constructive periods of the American Establishment are those that utilize constructive/innovative ideas of Mavericks (as with the New Deal—Roosevelt was both a Maverick and Establishment Type who listened to and employed the energies of many Maverick public servants).  In terms of historical context, it is tempting—at least for me—to measure the Establishment of prior and successive periods by the baselines of the social democratic domestic Establishment of 1933-1970 (or thereabout), and the foreign policy and military Establishment of 1939-1949 (or thereabout). 

Leaders and the Establishments they head vary with the policy context and situational dictates of the time.  A sensitive leader intuits what political approach is called for and then attempts to meets those needs in terms of leadership, management, and policy/goals.  History there haven been Bringers of Order (Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, other notable leaders of the late Dark Ages that allowed for the conditions for comparative order of Later Middle Ages), Caretakers/Preserves of the Status Quo (most of the U.S. presidents between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt), Conservative Reformers (Grover Cleveland, and the early Theodore Roosevelt), Progressives (President and Bull Moose Candidate Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson—the latter in a economic, if not social justice sense), and Transformers (the Founders/Framers taken as a whole, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt).  There is also an often corrupt category (e.g. urban political machines based on ethnicity and identity) that picks up the slack when the official governmental structure is insufficient or is not doing its job. This latter category, although often unsavory, is just as often constructive.

The Establishment Type
There is a distinction to be made between the Establishment Type and the The Establishment.  The Establishment Type tends to be temperamentally conservative, but the best are innovators and readily embrace utilize Mavericks, their ideas, and prescriptions (e.g. George C. Marshall as Secretary of State with Kennan as the Director of The Office of Policy Planning).  They differ from Conventionalists in that they put the system and its well being above themselves and their ambitions and in the fact that they seek to do what is right in a broader sense than mere careerism. 

The best Establishment Types employ the creativity of mavericks, and manage and contain rogues.  In bad times, Establishment Types balance and stabilize.  Under good leadership they are also a positive element. They subordinate their careers to duty and service.  Under effective leadership, they tend to rise on a basis of merit rather than credentials. The best of this sort would include the the New Deal Cabinet and the Wise Men of the 1940s such as Charles Bohlen, Averell Harriman, Harry Hopkins, Robert Lovett, George Marshall, and John McCloy.      

Mavericks
Mavericks are the idea men and women—intellectuals—and may be practical or impractical (or even utopian), constructive or pernicious.  The best of these are Cassandras and Jeremiahs who do not rely on theories so much as insight and may design doctrines of their own but may equally be the worst of true believers touting rigid ideology and dogma.  The former are the intuitive creative types who see things before others do and more accurately and are able to effectively plan accordingly.  More generally defined, Mavericks can be vigorous and influential intellectuals of any ideological stripe.  In some instances they may embody the cutting edge of the zeitgeist of the times, but may come to be regarded as ambiguous or even harmful in a larger historical context and retrospect (e.g. the navalist historian and policy theorist, Alfred Thayer Mahan in driving imperialism and the pre-World War One naval arms race).  

Mavericks are weighed in terms of the effectiveness of their policy prescriptions. In an administrative sense, Mavericks are measured in the degree of their influence as well as their distance from the previous status quo of the Establishment and the centrality of their role in creating a new one.  This is why a moderate realist like George Kennan, who had studied history and knew what worked in the past and what did not and why is as much as a maverick as the first Neoconservatives, who were true believers in a theoretical ideology with questionable historical antecedents.  Kennan’s influence contributed to a moderate, if short lived realist Establishment that was quickly supplanted by more ideological mavericks like Acheson, Nitze, and Dulles.

The best Mavericks are insightful creative types who “think outside-of-the-box” (to use an inside-the-box cliché) and devise imaginative policy solutions.  The worst are true believers or else cynics implementing the desires of powerful interests both inside and outside of government.

The “Good” Maverick
“Good” Mavericks tend to be high-minded realists who see each new situation with fresh eyes and without assumptions other than a broad and deep base of intimate and formal historical knowledge.  Some are outsiders who made it on merit (Hamilton, Kennan).  This type of advisor may seem to be inconsistent by unimaginative Conventionalists and bad or “Malignant” Mavericks when they (Good Mavericks) prescribe different responses to superficially similar situations that are fundamentally dissimilar or when an idea or approach did not produce favorable results when first used. The Good Maverick eschews ideology, group think, and over-reliance on theories and simple formulas.  Historically they have often been a special kind of outsider who succeeded on a basis of merit and insight. To work effectively, this type must be allowed space for creativity and a free hand (as with Kennan in the Office of Policy Planning, and Kelly Johnson in his Lockheed “Skunk Works”). We live in a time that despises constructive Mavericks in policy.

Given the policy types I have already mentioned, it is noteworthy that in my scheme, Mavericks shake things up, where Establishment Types tend to embrace order and the status quo but may be open to new ideas.  It is possible for the dominant strata of an Establishment to be comprised of Good Mavericks co-mingled with Establishment Types (e.g. Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, and McCloy during the immediate Post-WWII era) or else true believers (e.g. John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, and Elihu Root, during the age of American imperialism).

It is notable that great leaders, although often difficult to categorize or analyze in terms of systems and general reductions, must have qualities of the Maverick along with the balance, leadership, and management skills to direct the Establishment and lead the electorate.

The “Malignant” Maverick
These are the influential ideologues or true believers in theories who are able to influence leaders and colleagues, and influence policy and the nature/direction of the Establishment. They may do this with native charisma, force of personality, and the skills of departmental and political infighting.  They typically have a showy, if narrow and superficially impressive intellect that may dazzle and persuade. In extreme form they may become Rogues.  We live in a time in which this kind of Maverick has set the keynote for the Establishment.

Rogues
Rogues are the self-interested adventurers, the authoritarian lovers of power for its own sake and for gratification of the ego, the borderline or bona fide sociopathic businessman/woman, plutocrat, or military leader.  Rogues are a more extreme hybrid of the Careerist and the Maverick and may appear to be the latter (or, rather, individuals of the latter category, unchecked may morph into actual Rogues).  Where Mavericks may be either understated or charismatic, Rogues tend to be predominantly charismatic and may be powerful demagogues.  Very often they are populist juggernauts or else infighters who have figured out how to dominate within (and beyond) the rules of the system.

These are people who may reach a position where they can defy the Establishment unless and until they are somehow checked or else may come to dominate it.  They can be useful in time of war as a military type if pointed toward an enemy and then kept on a short leach by a strong and well-established system (it is less clear what to do with them when the war is over).  Regardless of whether they are in business, the military, politics, or policy, they must never be allowed to take over or dominate.

Individuals can begin as Rogue insurgents and end up as Conventionalist Establishment types living off of reputations of bringers of change.

Conclusion
There you have it.  This is by no means a comprehensive list of “types” found in the Establishment: there are also Apostates—disillusioned true believers, idealists, and utopians who may go on to become strong critics of their former programs. There are Whistle-Blowers, a hugely important category that is even more universally despised these days than the Good Maverick. Most obviously, as a functional category, there are Principles—presidents, senators, representatives, cabinet members, department heads, and other high-level appointees.

Finally, there is also a functional category or type that I call Hidden Hands or the Opaque Player as working titles. These are quiet, omnipresent high-level advisors of the inner circle who may be team players or self-interested individuals (this may be the type that Henry Adams characterizes as “masters of the game for the sake of the game,” but may equally be loyal and dedicated public officials). In some cases their true beliefs and motives are unknown outside of their immediate circle and sometimes are not fully known even there. Some of this kind never show their ideological hand publicly, and their views may only be inferred by looking at the leaders they handle. They may be great public servants, true believers, or low-key, high-level adventurers or even careerists. They are the “hidden hands” of administrations.

Regardless of motives, the Opaque Players are typically the “smartest kid in the room” (and in the Establishment generally) and may be a handler of a president or else a henchman or a behind-the-scenes whip or button pusher on his/her behalf. They may be the real “power behind the power,” and were and are sometimes women. In our system, they are often lawyers. They know how to “work the system” and get things done and may be more responsible for implementing a program or agenda than the president him/herself. They may be a Chief of Staff or a personal/unofficial advisor of the highest level in the executive. This is the type who has the ear of the leader—has continual access—and in most administrations, is one of the few who is able and positioned to speak the unvarnished truth to his/her boss. They are able to deliver bad news to the president and offer immediate advice. Not elected, they may be the most powerful people in the government in a practical sense and under a weak leader may be a de facto chief executive.

Early Modern examples of this type may include Thomas Cromwell and Cardinals Richelieu and Wolsey. In our own tradition, Elihu Root may be an example of this type. Power is fluid in a robust system, and this type may be far broader an less apparent than suggested by this definition. As with successful conspiracies, we may never know who the greatest Opaque Players of history were. There is also a lover level version of this kind that may act as a personal emissary, lobbyist, or representative, of the president, a person who speaks with the approved authority of his/her boss (Thomas “Tommy the Cork” Corcoran might be an example).

I am not sure whether this scheme holds any water or if I have even interpreted my own ideas correctly or applied them accurately in terms of analyzing historical leaders and advisors (below).  It is still a very nascent work in progress and I just wanted to get it out there for the consideration of others.  Again, I wrote this very quickly, so please excuse any creative grammar/mechanical mistakes.

Addendum, November 30, 2020: The Most Dangerous Type: The Hyper-Competent True Believer
Like all extremists True Believers differ from one another in the details of their beliefs (fascists and Marxists are both tribalists). Members of this type are not mere careerists, although they are oftentimes the most successful in their field. Unlike simple careerists, they are driven by unquestioned belief and an unexamined certainty in that belief. During periods when their outlook is out of season, they linger in communities of the like-minded. They are not personally corrupt; they seek to implement a program or policies favorable to their beliefs. They are quick to dismantle existing structures, traditions, and precedent that stand in their way, and are therefore not traditional conservatives, but a genera of radical, even when their outlooks are on the right. They may implement what they regard to be traditional views through activist, radical means. They are not in it for personal gain, but rather for actualizing a personal vision in the public sphere, although they will quickly and opportunistically exploit a corrupt leader or regime to further their cause.

Typically they are smart in a focused, often technical sense. Many are at the top of their class in their chosen field, such as the law. They are narrowly brilliant, but may believe in simplistic or naive religious or utopian outlooks. Because of their conspicuous brilliance, they attract young acolytes who regard them to be ingenious, legendary. They inspire fierce loyalty in proteges.

Because of their extraordinary, laser-like intelligence, they may become overconfident and overestimate their abilities in other areas and may fail spectacularly in these (and their ideas/programs may likewise fail spectacularly). They are unlikely to change their views in light of demonstrable failure of their ideas and will construct powerful rationalizations about why their ideas fail. They are therefore at base, irrational in their views, in spite of appearing to he rational and confident. They will deny, rationalize, and transfer the failure of their larger outlook rather than concede to reality. On a related note, there is no practical difference between someone who is irrationally tied to a position and someone who is ideologically wedded to it.

True believers may be opaque or conspicuous players. They are purely conventional it outlook, although they are tactically innovative to the point of genius.

True Believers are the most dangerous people in government.

Addendum, July 2022: The Good People
One of life’s ironies is how people with extreme ideologies and outlooks can be nice people and how people with enlightened outlooks can be horrible human beings. Hitler loved dogs and his secretaries loved him; Churchill’s secretaries hated him (admittedly, Churchill had some ugly views on race and imperialism). William O. Douglas was a holy terror to his law clerks and yet enshrined the right of privacy.

The former category I refer to as The Good People, or those who may be charming, engaging, honorable, loving, polite, and warm as individuals, but who pursue the most illiberal or otherwise destructive of policies in their official capacities. They are often a subset of True Believers. At best, they may be genuinely good people tragically caught up in circumstances and enlisted in a bad cause. It is the sort of person Henry Adams was describing when he wrote, “It is always the good men who do the greatest harm in the world” (he was writing about Robert E. Lee). As Graham Greene writes in The Quite American, “He comes blundering in, and people have to die for his mistakes… God save us from the innocent and good.” (Graham Greene, The Quiet American, New York: Bantam, 1957, quoted by Arthur Schlesinger in Robert Kennedy and his Times, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978, 461).

Historical Examples
In order to flesh-out these categories beyond mere criteria, consider the historical examples below.  This is nothing more than a shot-from-the-hip scattershot of opinion.

• Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt were Maverick presidents who set the tone of the Establishment of their time.
• George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower were military Establishment Types. An imaginative combat commander like Matthew Ridgway was Good Maverick subordinate to them. 
• Churchill had characteristics of a Rogue, Maverick, and a conservative imperial Establishment Type.
• Dynamic combat officers like Curtis LeMay, Douglas MacArthur, and George Patton, were extreme, frequently effective military Mavericks bordering on Rogues.  MacArthur was a cooperative Maverick Establishment Type during the rebuilding of Japan but became something like a partisan Rogue during the final phases of his command in Korea (he did return to the Untied States after being relieved, so he still acknowledged civil authority above him).
• J. Edgar Hoover was a pernicious Rogue who devised a departmental Establishment that exerted influence over the entire government.
• Huey P. Long was a populist Rogue of a state government and within the Democratic Party.
• Robert Moses was an Establishment Rogue of the New York Port Authority.
• Joseph McCarthy was a cynical careerist-turned-Rogue.
• Heinrich Himmler and Albert Speer are paragon examples of the careerist—the person who does whatever is necessary to advance himself/herself to get ahead, regardless of the regime.
• Lyndon Johnson seems to have elements of all of the above categories (except perhaps the Conventionalist).  He availed his administrations of Mavericks and Establishment Types and seemed to have both envied and despised the Eastern Establishment.
• Richard Nixon was an odd combination of a highly individualized (almost outsider), hardball player with interesting contradictions. Like Johnson, he envied and despised the Establishment and eventually became an unhinged Rogue who, at the end of his administration, had sufficient control to resign.
• Napoleon was a strange amalgam of an adventurer, idealist, and realist that gives him qualities of a Maverick, Rogue, and a creator of an Establishment (that collapsed with him).  One problem with a leader who rules by force of personality (other examples would be Cromwell and Castro) is that the system they put in place is difficult to sustain after them, thus creating problems of succession.
• Adolf Hitler was the most pernicious of Rogues. He created and presided over a regime based on an extreme crackpot ideology, ethnic phobia, myths of racial warfare, and bad science. The Weimar Republic before him was a weak and ineffectual Establishment.
• Fidel Castro was a popular rebel who became a Rogue under the guise of a utopian revolutionary.
• Josef Stalin and Mao Zedung were pernicious utopian Rogues.
• Howard Hughes was a good Maverick business type and increasingly psychotic.
• Preston Tucker was a Good Maverick business type.
• Jane Jacobs was a Good Maverick as independent intellectual.
• George Washington was an aristocratic Establishment Type who devised the role of the president and demonstrated a Cincinnatus-like respect for the system by voluntarily relinquishing power at the end of two terms.  His key advisor, Alexander Hamilton, was the prototype American Maverick advisor.
• Oliver Cromwell was a utopian Rogue and Charles II was a regal Establishment Type (here we can see outlook driving the respective roles). 
• Otto von Bismarck was a conservative Maverick who created a domestic social welfare state and a military Establishment that only he could control. 
• Helmutt von Moltke, the Elder, was a military Establishment type who also devised revolutionary ideas within a strict organizational framework.
• Elihu Root was a Hidden Hand/Opaque Player as well as an Establishment Type.

Michael F. Duggan

May Noam Chomsky forgive me for my snobbery.

I know that this stuff is all artificial, but to one degree or another, all wordsmiths are curmudgeons about usage.  I will leave it to others to say whether or not I qualify as a wordsmith, but I certainly have opinions on the use of words. There are people who can discourse at length about why the Webster’s International Dictionary 2^nd ed. is superior to subsequent editions (it is), why the Elements of Style is “The Bible” (it is), or why they rely on The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual.  More generally, everybody who writes or reads has favorite and least favorite words and preferred/least preferred usage.  Likewise, some of us have words and usages that are fine in some contexts but insufferable in others. 

There are pretentious neologisms, self-consciously trendy or generational hangnails of usage, unnecessarily technical social science or other academic jargon that has crept into the public discourse (and don’t get me started about hacks like Derrida and Heidegger), and the overuse and therefore the tweaking of existing words.  Below is a partial list of words and phrases that appeal to me in a similar sense as fingernails drawn down a dry chalkboard.  This posting is written in a tone of faux smugness/priggishness and is not intended to be mean, so don’t take it to heart if you have ever used or otherwise run afoul of any of the offending terms. Below that is a slightly hysterical grouse I wrote a year or two ago about the recent appropriation of the word “hipster.” 

Enjoy (if that’s the right word).

• All you need to know about… Click bait for people who want to know the bullet points of conventional wisdom on a popular or topical issue.
• Bad Ass. A term once reserved for outlaw bikers, rogue athletes, some convicts, gang members, other criminal and quasi-criminal types, as well as tough guy soldiers, sailors, and marines. Today it is a marginally hip compliment used to describe or encourage someone modestly able to assert himself/herself or whose delicate ego could use a boost. When used as an adjective, it is a more self-dramatizing, mildly profane version of “cool” (see below).
• Begs the question. This is a term correctly used in logic and forensics to describe an argument or reply that avoids addressing or answering the issue at hand.  Today you will likely hear it on the news meaning something like “frames,” “poses,” “suggests,” or “implies the question…” as in the statement: “The result of today’s election begs the question of whether the nation is suffering from mass psychosis or merely a bizarre cult-like phenomena.”
• Bucket List. A list of things to cross off in order to know that it is time to die.
• Cool. First used around the time of WWI, this is a ubiquitous, burned-out synonym for “good” or “desirable” in a context of pop culture conformity. A common term of reverse snobbery indicating approval and therefore social acceptance among “cool” people (including, presumably, the speaker bequeathing approval/acceptance) that is mostly identical to the post-1990s use of the world “hip” (see rant below).  Like “hip,” it was once a rebellions alternative to more conventional terms of approval like “good.” Unless I am describing to a day below 60 degrees, soup that has sat around too long, or a certain kind of modern jazz, I am attempting—mostly unsuccessfully—to wean myself off of this insipid, reflexive word. It is still preferable (and more durable) than the comically dated groovy. There is another, related usage, characterizing a kind of effortless nonchalance and grace in a person usually understood in terms of mass culture desirability and approval.
• DMV. Madison Avenuesque abbreviation for the “District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia” region. I associate it with the “Department of Motor Vehicles.” If I ever become hip (modern usage) enough to voluntarily use this term without derision, I hope to be struck by a big Damned Motor Vehicle immediately thereafter. Not actually used by people from the greater Washington, D.C. area.
• Fetishize. Verb form of fetish: to make something the object of a fetish. An obsession. To abnormally or inappropriately ascribe more importance or interest to a thing than is necessary or deserved. Fetishize is commonly used by people who fetishize words like “fetishize.”
• Great Recession. A lazy, pseudo-historical term used by pundits in the corporate media to characterize the depression that followed the collapse of 2008 and the economic conditions that persist today throughout much of the country. A recession is a cyclic downturn in the economy; a depression is an economic crisis caused by structural flaws in the economy. The present crisis will continue, even if some economic indicators improve, as long the the structural defects in the economy remain uncorrected. The underlying causes of the crisis of 2008 are still very much in place as of this writing (2019).
• Hero. A good word, especially when used in discussions on Greek tragedy and in literary discussions generally (e.g. the Byronic Hero, the Hemingway Code Hero, etc.). Also a good word when used sparingly, quietly, and modestly and when it does not command or demand the instant, uncritical adoration or conformity or the surrendering of opinions not shared by the majority (e.g. the silencing of a person who speaks out against a harmful or ill-conceived policy because it might affront the honor and dignity of a person who acted with courage in furtherance of such policy). There is much that is heroic in the human heart and in noble, selfless—especially self-sacrificing—acts that flow from it. In recent years it has been overused in a way that is manipulative or distracting by the corporate media. In the First World War, this kind of usage was derided as “newspaper patriotism” by those who actually served. Literary critic and WWII Marine Corps combat pilot, Sam Hynes refers to this kind of usage as a “windy word.” Ben Franklin writes about the dangers of “the hero” as a historical type. Others have written and spoken thoughtfully of the peril of nations in need of heroes and of the uncritical worship of heroes in a hard, ideological sense.
• I am passionate about ____. An enthusiastic, youthful, way of emphasizing that one cares about something with a depth of feeling beyond the ordinary. Often heard on job interviews to express breathless eagerness.
• Icon/Iconic Good words in traditional usages (e.g. medieval religious portraiture).  In the modern popular and media usage, the new meaning is something like: universally emblematic of itself; characterizing the empty husk of a thing or person once fresh, original, and important, now reduced to an instantly recognizable cliché or a symbol mostly drained of any content, substance, or meaning. An image from which all depth and nuance has been sucked out leaving a reflexively recognizable reduction (e.g. Rodon’s The Thinker, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and Munch’s The Scream). A complex thing reduced to a symbol or to mass culture banality. Ostensibly a compliment, being called an “icon” is in essence the same as being called a lazy, two-dimensional cliché.
• Incentivize. To give people an incentive to do something, I suppose.
• Influencer. Presumably someone with disproportional influence relative to their insight, merit, wisdom, and taste, or lack thereof. Precise meaning non apparent.
• Is that really a thing? A more diffuse way of saying “Really?” or “Is that something people actually do or believe?”
• Juxtaposition.  Use sparingly.  Otherwise it suffers from some of the complaints against “paradigm” (see below).
• Look. A word used by pundits on political talk shows before or at the beginning of a sentence for no apparent reason.
• My Bad. An efficient, if ungrammatical, mea culpa for a minor infraction.
• Miracle. A term of faith cynically and shamelessly appropriated by the media to describe an event (usually an accident or disaster) where survival or a happy outcome was dramatic, surprising, or unlikely, but well within the realm of possibility without divine intervention.
• Narrative. A term borrowed from literary criticism and academic history departments meaning a particular ideological or personal explanation, interpretation, or version.  Often used to cast doubt on or call into question an interpretation by implying a self-serving or subjective account (or that there are no “objective” accounts).  Instead of “narrative,” I prefer “interpretation” as a less loaded alternative.  Explanations should be examined for their truth content and not dismissed solely because of a presumed perspective or the inferred state of mind of the narrator (an error of analysis known as psychologism).
• No worries. This term obviously means “Don’t worry about it” or “No big deal/no problem.” It was appropriated from the Aussies around or just before the turn of the twenty-first century. Do not use unless you are Australian and only if followed by “mate.”
• Paradigm/Paradigm Shift/Paradigmatic. A term that crept out of the philosophy of science of Thomas Kuhn.  A favorite termof hack academics and others trying to sound smart (see “juxtaposition”).  Outside specific academic usage, one should probably avoid this word altogether (and even when writing technically, “frame” or “framework” are less pretentious and distracting).  If someone puts a gun to your head and commands you to use the adjective form, try “paradigmic” (parr-uh-dym’-ik)  I don’t know whether or not it is a real word, but it still sounds better than “paradigmatic,” arguably the most offensive word in modern English (and your example might help start a trend for others under similar duress).
• Reach[ing/ed] out to… Just call the guy; reaching out to him doesn’t make you a better person any more than “passing away ” makes you any less dead than someone who has simply died.
• So, … A horrible word when said slowly and pronounced “Sooo…” at the beginning of a spoken paragraph or conversation or when starting to answer a question.  An introductory pause word common among people born after 1965. It is a word that allows user to sound both didactic and flaky at the same time. A person who uses “So…” this way throughout all but the shortest of conversations can make some listeners from previous generations want to throw a heavy object at the nearest wall.
• Snarky. An old term that came back in the 1990s. Just a weaker and less efficient (two-syllable) way of saying “snide.”
• Society. A decomposing whale carcass left by the tide at the mean water mark, thus denoting a certain time and place. Although silent, it is depicted either as malodorous or once-great. The mean of dominant opinion, mores, and public opinion.
• Spiritual/Spirituality. A word commonly (and confidently) thrown down as a solemn trump card in discussions on metaphysics but which means nothing more than a vaguer form of “religiosity” without a commitment to specific beliefs and obligations. It is a word that allows the speaker to elevate him/herself above the conformist throng of the more conventionally faithful and makes him/her seem deeper, more individualistic, and mysterious to the unwary.
  It is also an ill-defined projection of a speaker’s personality into the realm of metaphysics. It is the result of someone (often an adolescent) who wants to believe in something otherworldly when exiting belief systems are found wanting, implausible or are unacceptable whole cloth. An imprecise word whose imprecision gives it a false authority or gravitas when any number of more precise words from philosophy, psychology, or theology would suffice (e.g. animism, cosmology, deism, epiphany, exaltation, inspiration, pantheism, neo-paganism, theism, transcendentalism, and New Agey cults and religions, etc.). Although the definition of words is seldom important in good faith critical discussions, one should always ask for a concise definition of spirituality whenever it comes up in conversation. Note: there may be a narrow context or range of usage where this word is appropriate, such as referring to a priest or minister as a spiritual advisor.
• Please Talk About... A favorite, if inarticulate, invitation of radio and television interviewers with insufficient knowledge or information to ask actual questions of an expert guest, thus allowing interviewees to spin things in a way that is favorable to their perspective (e.g. “Your company is responsible for the recent catastrophic oil spill that has killed all of the marine life in the region. Talk about the safety precautions it has put in place since the spill.”).
• Text. A noun meaning a written work or a portion of writing.  It is pretentious as hell, and I believe an inaccurate word.  Human beings do not read text. We read language.
• Thinking outside of the box. An inspirational “inside the box” cliche expressing a good idea. Not being bound by a limiting conventional framework (or, in the narrow and correct usage in science/philosophy of science, a paradigm). Science progresses by advancing to a point where it smashes the existing frame (e.g. Special and General Relativity superseding the Newtonian edifice in the early twentieth-century). Ironically, this term is often used by conventionalist businessmen/women who somehow think of themselves as mavericks and innovators. A term favored by motivational speakers, leaders of focus groups, and other manic careerist types and their adjuncts.
•  To be sure. A common infraction even by important historians, social commentators, and novelists when conceding a point they consider to be unimportant to the validity of their overall argument (usually at the start of a paragraph).  No less a writer than Henry Miller has succumbed to “to be sure.” It was fine in Britain 100-150 years ago, but is hard to stomach today because of its confident overuse and how it strikes the ear as old fashioned. Consider instead: “Admittedly,” “Certainly,” “Of course,” “Albeit” (sparingly), and other shorter and less smug-sounding terms. It is still an acceptable mainstay of pirate talk however, and, to be sure, one can easily imagine its use by Wallace Beery as Long John Silver in the 1934 movie version of Treasure Island. International Talk like a Pirate Day is September 19.
• Trope. An okay word that is overused to disparagingly characterize an overused story. Use it perhaps three times in your life.
• You as well. A less efficient way of saying “You too.” A classic illustration of middle class “syllable multiplication” (see Paul Fussell’s Class). I think people use this to add variety to their usage rather than rely solely on the less satisfying “You too.” Unconsciously, people might think that a simple sentiment may be made somehow more interesting by expressing it with more words/syllables (e.g. using “indeed” rather than “yes” in simple agreement). In a similar sense, syllable multiplication gives the illusion of adding content. A similar phenomenon is the pronunciation of some multi-syllable words with emphasis on the last syllable, giving the impression of two words. (e.g. “probably” spoken as “prob-ub lee'” with emphasis on the suffix).
• You’re very welcome. An in-your-face, parrot or mirror-like reply to “Thank you very much.”* Common among people under 40, it may be used earnestly, reflexively, or to mock what the young perceive to be the pretentious hyperbole of older people who have the unmitigated gall to add the intensifier “very” when a simple “thank you,” “thanks, ” or understated nod would suffice. Even in a time when “very” is very much overused, one should take any sincere variation of “Thank you” for how it was intended—as a gift of civility and etiquette freely offered—and a mocking or mildly snarky reply of “you’re very welcome” is at least as smug as this blog posting. *Note: The word very should never be used in writing as an intensifier (there are some acceptable usages such as “by its very nature”).
• Weaponize. To give something an added function by making it into a weapon or something to be turned against another person (e.g “She effectively weaponized the stapler by throwing it at him”).

Finally, there is a much-maligned word that I would like to resurrect or at least defend: Interesting. If used as a vague and non-committal non-description or non-answer, it should be avoided unless one is forced into using it (e.g. when one is compelled by circumstances to proffer an opinion or else be rude or lie outright; in this capacity, the guarded “interesting” never fools anybody and is usually interpreted as a transparent smokescreen for a negative opinion). However, for people who like ideas and appreciate the power and originality of important concepts, “interesting ” can be used as an understated superlative—a quiet compliment, a note of approval or admiration that opens a door to further explanation and elaboration.

Essay: On the Hip and Hipsters

Present rant triggered by a routine stop at a coffee shop. 

I appreciate that language evolves, that the meanings of words change, emerge, evolve, disappear, diverge, procreate, amalgamate, reemerge, splinter-off, become obscure, and overshadow older meanings, especially in times of rapid change.  I am less sanguine about words that seem to be appropriated (and yes, I know that one cannot “steal” a word) from former meanings that still have more texture, resonance, authenticity, and historical context for me in their original usage.

For example over the past decade, and probably going back to the 1990s, the word “hipster” has taken on a new, in some ways inverse, but not unrelated meaning to the original. My understanding of the original meaning of “hipster” was a late 1930s-1950s blue collar drifter, an attempted societal drop-out, a modernist descendant of the romantic hero, and borderline antisocial type who shunned the “phoniness” of mainstream life and commercial mass culture and trends and listened to authentic (read: African-American) jazz—bop—(think of Dean Moriarty from On the Road).¹ 

He/she was “hip” (presumably an evolution of 1920s “hep”)—clued-in, disillusioned—to what was really going on in the world behind the facades and appearances. This meaning stands in contrast to today’s idea of “hip” as being in touch with current trends—an important distinction. The hipster presaged the beat of the later 1950s who was more cerebral, contrived, literary, and urban. In the movies, the male of the hipster genera might have been played by John Garfield or Robert Mitchum. In real life, Jackson Pollock will suffice as a representative example. Hipsters were typically flawed individuals and were often irresponsible and failures as family people. But at least there was something authentic and substantial about them as an intellectual type.

By contrast, today’s “hipster” seems to be self-consciously affected right down to the point of his goateed chin: consciously urban (often living in gentrified neighborhoods), consciously fashionable and ahead of the pack, dismissive of non-hipsters (and quiet about his/her middle-to-upper-middle class upbringing in the ‘burbs and an ongoing childhood once centered around play dates), a conformist to generational chauvinism, clichés, and dictates.  Today’s hipster embodies the calculation and trendiness that the original hipsters specifically stood against (they were noticed, not self-promoted).  Admittedly, hip talk was adopted by the Beats and later cultural types and elements of it became embedded in the mainstream and then fell out of favor. Today it seems affected and corny (as Hemingway observes “…the most authentic hipster talk of today is the twenty-three skidoo of tomorrow…”).²

I realize that this might sound like a “kids these days” grouse or reduction—and I hope it is not; upon the backs of the rising generation ride the hopes for the future of the nation, our species, and the world. I have known many young people—interns and students—the great majority of whom are intelligent, serious, thoughtful, and oriented toward problem solving and social justice. There is also a strong current toward rejecting the trends of previous generations among them. The young people these days have every right to be mad at what previous generations have done to the economy and the environment and perhaps the hipsters among them will morph into something along the lines of their earlier namesake or something better.

If not, then it is likely that the word will continue to have a double meaning as the original becomes increasingly obscure or until another generation takes it up as its own.

1. For the best analyses and commentary on the original meaning of “hip” and “hipster,” see Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro,” “Reflections on the Hip,” “Hipster and Beatnik,” and “The Hip and the Square” in Advertisements for Myself.
2. See “The Art of the Short Story,” in The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway Library Edition, 2.