4 ms·
Kakistocracy
- empath75 7y agoIt's really just another way of saying "oligarchy", which is the negative form of "aristocracy."
- ceejayoz 7y agoNot really, no. Oligarchs and aristocrats are capable of being competent.
- dang 7y agoOligarchy means government by the few: https://www.etymonline.com/word/oligarchy https://www.etymonline.com/word/oligarchy (although today we tend to use it as a synonym for plutocracy, which is government by the rich). So the opposite of oligarchy would be democracy. Aristocracy means government by the best: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=aristocracy https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=aristocracy, so kakistocracy would be its strict opposite. In fact, it was probably coined for that reason, since the people who invented it would have known that "aristos" means "best" in Greek. (Edit: the Wikipedia page says that.) "Best" in aristocracy doesn't mean what we nowadays mean by that word, which is "most qualified". That would be meritocracy. That's strictly a modern notion, in fact a postwar one, and it has not aged well: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E0%20meritocracy&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Actually it was a satirical creation to begin with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy, and the British academic who invented the word would have been aware that he was sticking a Latin and a Greek root together, making the satire funnier, since in classical terms only an ignoramus would do that. See https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/the-monstrous-indecency-of-hybrid-etymology/ https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/the-monstrous-ind... or, if you prefer, https://www.google.com/search?q=%22polyamory+is+wrong%22&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmierM1t7oAhVHpZ4KHclMBXwQ_AUoAXoECA0QAw&cshid=1586549824167658&biw=1370&bih=943&dpr=2 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22polyamory+is+wrong%22&sou.... The pre-modern sense of "best" in "aristocracy" has to do with being of the best class or, if you like, having the best breeding. It has nothing to do with individual quality, except insofar as praiseworthy qualities like "nobility" were traditionally associated with the nobility (making the point rather hard to miss). There have been a couple of HN threads about Michael Young, the coiner of 'meritocracy'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16338360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16338360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18179583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18179583 From the Economist (see the first of those links): Young used the term pejoratively on the grounds that meritocracy was dividing society into two polarised groups: exam-passers, who would become intolerably smug because they knew that they were the authors of their success, and exam-flunkers, who would become dangerously embittered because they had nobody to blame for their failure but themselves. Sounds just like 2020, no? If you generalize "exams" to "education", things exactly like that are being written today. Relatedly, the 1970s coinage "professional managerial class" is currently undergoing a revival (if there were a language market, I'd go long on that one). https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/on-the-origins-of-the-professional-managerial-class-an-interview-with-barbara-ehrenreich https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/on-the-origi...
- papeda 7y agoOligarchy translates literally as "rule by the few" [1], and aristocracy as "rule by the excellent" [2]. Kakistocracy is "rule by the worst" per the featured article. So kakistocracy and aristocracy are opposites, and oligarchy describes something different: the number, not quality, of rulers. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy
- johnmorrow 7y agoalso https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khakistocracy&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khakistocracy&red...
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." H.L. Mencken
- amelius 7y agoArticle doesn't explain how these are formed.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThat's in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia.... ;-) More seriously: Political cronyism, charismatic demagogues, pandering via popular but bad policies, etc.
- gonzus 7y agoAnybody who knows more Greek: is this word in any way related to a Greek word for excrement?
- alexwasserman 7y agoI'd always assumed it was leadership by the shit, similarly to poppycock - https://www.etymonline.com/word/poppycock https://www.etymonline.com/word/poppycock But, that's a latin root, not greek. Then again - it does suggest the same root: https://www.etymonline.com/word/*kakka-?ref=etymonline_crossreference https://www.etymonline.com/word/*kakka-?ref=etymonline_cross...
- dang 7y ago1865, American English, probably from Dutch dialect pappekak, from Middle Dutch pappe "soft food" (see pap) + kak "dung," from Latin cacare "to excrete" (from PIE root kakka- "to defecate"). Wow, poppycock literally means shit pabulum. I had no idea. Puts a new spin on https://www.google.com/search?q=poppycock&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1u43Xg9_oAhVTo54KHXFIDJoQ_AUoAnoECBQQBA&biw=1370&bih=943 https://www.google.com/search?q=poppycock&source=lnms&tbm=is....
- plausible 7y agoNow that's a sophisticated name for the way my country is governed.
- ninetyfurr 7y agoNot to be confused with Kekistocracy, wherein a ruler is selected because it would be funny.