A note in Laudator Temporis Acti on Ezra Pound's coinage "pejorocracy", rule by the worse
One thing that puzzles me about pejorocracy is this — why the comparative degree and why not the superlative (pessimocracy, from Latin pessimus = worst)?
There is also the delightful "kakistocracy", the Greek version of rule by the worst, with echoes of Musil's Kakania, of "catastrophe", of "caca".
Rule by the worse seems suitably lukewarm and half-baked, the pejorocracy not being capable of the superlative in any field.
I have the feeling that this year marks the end of the West as a going concern, its inmates abandoning the last of any functional understanding of "reality" or "civilisation", its pejorocrats fumbling their way to the rubbish heaps.
2 comments:
Cor, dear. Your posts seem so erudite I can't think of anything to say without spending ages on Google trying to figure out what you're talking about. Most impressive anyway.
Right, where's the vodka?
I too spend ages on Google trying to figure out what I'm talking about. To no avail, but at least it keeps me away from the puppy and kitten meme sites.
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