Patriot”ism”
Today is the 4th of July, when we celebrate our nation's birth. It’s a day when patriotism is king, an ironic statement given our forefathers were rejecting rule by a king with their declaration. Wikipedia defines patriotism as "the will of the members of a country to support their country and help it continue". America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed, set forth in the Declaration of Independence, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So Happy 4th of July to all Fish Report readers.
Patriotism is just one of 887 words that end in “ism” according to this website. Many I’ve never heard of and for sure don’t know their meaning. These days we’re regularly blasted in the news with all kinds of words ending in “ism", like terrorism, racism and socialism to name a few. That’s quite a contrast to the days when I was growing up in Ft. Loramie when “ism" words like catholicism, baptism, catechism, along with of course, patriotism, were the norm.
Remember the Baltimore Catechism pictured above? It was the standard for Catholic teaching, starting out as a first grader all the way through elementary school. Rote memorization was key as there were hundreds of questions in the catechism like those listed below that we had to learn verbatim. It all culminated in the sacrament of Confirmation during the 8th grade when the Bishop would preside over the services and randomly ask the confirmation class questions out of the catechism. Everyone, especially the boys, were deathly fearful the bishop would call upon them. For some reason, the girls in the class were better at memorization than the boys! Most were taller, too! Fortunately, I seem to recall somehow responding adequately but with much nervousness when posed a question by the Bishop, which was a huge relief as I didn’t want to flunk confirmation. For my younger siblings, the process must have changed since the Bishop asked the question and allowed one of the about-to-be-confirmed to volunteer an answer. The instructors must have learned their lesson after our class!
Another “ism”, a critical one, communism, was on our parents minds a lot in those days, but fortunately not on ours as kids. I can recall our Civics teacher, Mr. Hancock, trying to explain the meaning of communism and the implications of the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis during class in the fall of 1962. We were thankful Ft. Loramie wasn’t shown on the map below that depicted nuclear bombs from Cuba landing on major cities across the country. This map was predominantly displayed on TV and in the newspapers at the time of the crisis.
I don’t recall being scared at all during that period; only feeling intense dislike for the Cuban and Russian leaders Fidel Castro andNikita Khrushchev shown below.
There’s another “ism” word that I recall while growing up - Antidisestablishmentarianism. Back then, it was known as the longest word in the English language. Even though I had no idea what it meant, I could spell it. According to Wikipedia, this long “ism”s definition is a political position that developed during the 19th-century in opposition to the removal of the Anglican Church's status as the state church of England. The long word must have worked since the Anglican Church is still in place. By the way, it’s not the longest word anymore, which is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, referring to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano. Thankfully there are no volcanos in the midwest spewing clouds of silica soot.
Speaking of clouds, ever heard of a word cloud? Below are two examples using “ism”-ending words from now and back when I grew up.
According to the New York Times, there’s one “ism” missing from the above list, "Trumpism". See what the NYT had to say before the election in that regard:
People speak of “Trumpism” as if it were an obvious political policy that we recognize as soon as we hear the word, when in reality it is no more than pre-election rhetoric puffed up with a generous supply of Mr. Trump’s campaign trail hot air (“We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare, which is a disaster”; “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay”; “I know more about ISIS than the generals,” and so on). “Trumpism” is far from a political philosophy, and no think tank of smart people (“brains”) could possibly morph it into substantive policy.
“Trumpism" is now much more than pre-election rhetoric, wouldn’t you say, NYT? Skepticism is my “ism" word for the NY Times and most media these days.
There’s even a book about “ism”s by Peter Saint-Andre entitled “The Ism Book: A Field Guide to Philosophy”. Ironically, the author, a philosopher, also has a blog - note our similarities!
So “ism"s today can be rather scary in our current vernacular; a big difference from those “scary" catechism questions asked by the Bishop during Confirmation. But there’s noting scary about the “ism” below discovered while doing on-line research for this blogpost. It’s my new favorite that gives comfort on this summer holiday, or especially when the media bombards you with more and more “fakenewsism”s.
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