The $10,000 word

Other than a few exceptions, I've noticed that the level of intellectual rigor of my posts has fallen a bit lately. I haven't posted new words or concepts as often as I would like to do that. I have been reading quite a lot of classic and modern writings, but haven't run acroos too many new words - at least new to me. So on this "Super Tuesday" I'll use some words on my index cards that I've been saving for an appropriate time.

By the way, I really dislike that press term, "Super Tuesday" as it demeans a crucial aspect of democracy by associating it with a football game. Montesquieu wrote that a republic depends on the cultivation of virtue. Unfortunately, the US leaders don't seem to have had much virtue for about two decades, and the press certainly does little to cultivate it when they treat a primary election like a football contest.

At least the voters today seem ready to choose candidates based on their perceived exemplary character.

I've created a new class of words - the $10,000 word. These words are so rare or sophisticated or intellectually stratosperic that they are not even in the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. I came across two $10,000 words in reading a fine book titled, "Anarchy, State and Utopia" by the famous philosopher, Robert Nozick. I suppose to be able to understand or use such a word, one must take a high level college or graduate school class in an appropriate subject. That would cost about $10,000 at today's prices, hence the $10,000 word class.

The first $10,000 word is "demoktesis", which means a system of ownership of the people, by the people and for the people. This would be a political system where all rights on all persons are held by a corporation in which each person holds one share. Think this through. The corporation in demoktesis actually owns each person shareholder and owns all his/her rights in complete. The adjectives, "all" must be taken literally. The "shareholders" can vote to revoke any or all aspects on the rights or property of any person or group, or confer anything on a favored person or group. So this system is literally a tyrannny of the majority. I found this concept on page 290 of the aforementioned book.

Thinking about aspects deomcracy in this level of detail help one see how it must be modifed in practice, as the Founding Fathers of the US did. Protection of individual and minority rights though supermajority voting rules is crucial.

I have one more $10,000 word which I will write about tomorrow ... leaving you in suspense.

Word of the Day #2: "aperient" - adj. and n., meaning laxative. [$10]
[from "Heaven on Earth", a book about small utopian experimental communities of the 19th century in the US, page 199], "Beneath a sugar coating of fiction that is transparently thin lies like the same old communist aperient ..." I think substituting "Clintonist" for "communist works well, too, in describing Hillary's patent medicine she offers voters.

Word of the Day #3: "traduce" - v. trans., meaning to speak ill of, misrepresent. [$10]
[from Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin, introduction page xli], "... [ a contemporary Southerner writing to object to the book ] "Stowe traduced the slaveholding society of the UNited States ... ]. In modern times, some political leaders [Hillary & Bill ?] seem to traduce their opposition in any manner that can fool voters.