totalitarianism today

Old Winston ads and the poetry of Henrik Nordbrandt.

To the latter belong my new fountain pen

a well-known perfume

on the skin of a woman I hardly even know

and the new light bulb I put in the bedroom lamp

by whose light I read about you

in every book I try to read.

    Excerpted from Pragmatic by Henrik Nordbrandt

Something "goodly": A list of links + the American eugenics medal.

Art Histories

David Bate gives a two-page description of the Surrealists and their politics.

David Evans does likewise for Guy Dubord and the Situationists.

Literary Kicks, an online memoir in progress.

"Unusual Imports" by Paul E. Richardson from the brilliant Russian Life (PDF).

An excerpt from Diane P. Koenker's article, "Whose Right to Rest? Contesting the Family Vacation in the Postwar Soviet Union", Comparative Studies in Society and History, April 2009. 

An interview with Jonathan Hoenig, manager of Capitalist Pig Hedge Fund.

Portal 31, Kentucky's first exhibition coal mine.

Zombies, Vamps, and the Undead

"Dracula's Charity Ball" at The Smart Set.

Speak of the devils, Romaniuc reports that the Strigoi (i.e. vampires) are "getting out of their graves" and harassing the humans in Mogoseni-Dambovita. 

"Why Zombies Are Inconcievable", a paper by Professor Eric Marcus of the Auburn Philosophy Department (PDF).

Vultures descend upon Andre Breton's exquisite corpse.

Eugenics in America

The medal to the right, officially known as the "Fitter Family Medal" awarded by the American Eugenics Society, reads I have a goodly heritage. These medals were regularly awarded in the early and mid 1900s at various social events and family fairs, especially in the midwestern states. Is it smug on my part to prefer my good heritage-- my decent, quaint, non-eugenic heritage-- to the possibility of a "goodly" one?

Sacred Reagan + votes by color = something akin to salvation.

More than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, blacks, or members of other races. Gallup has more goods here. But Gallup doesn't answer the pressing questions of whether hairspray and cocaine use is higher among Republican voters. 

Steven Hayward thinks the cost of rethinking the Reagan mystique is too high. Church-shopping might be the way to get your high across the spectrum, a multiculturalism of sorts. Dianne Kirby reviews Mark Edwards' "God Has Chosen U.S.", an article about the foreign policy dictates of American Christian realism. God as verbal talisman dominates the airwaves. Everything happens according to God's will. God wants Andy Stanley to God chose Dubya to drill oil in Texas, marry a librarian, and then some. Not even the Communists claim to be "godless" anymore. Is this because God works wonders? Or maybe Kierkegaard was right about the strange, convenient God embraced by Christendom? Maybe the God we exhort is the God on our dollar bills, but not the God in whom we trust. 

A global study by Gallup on religious coexistence.

A new report published today by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation shows that European Muslims in the United Kingdom, France and Germany "feel more loyalty toward the country in which they live than the general public believes they do". The report, The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations, bills itself as "the first annual report on the state of faith relations in countries around the world". It also shows that European Muslims are striving to be more involved, with 96% of German Muslims saying that mastering the national language is necessary for integration, 87% of French Muslims saying finding a job is important, and 84% of British Muslims expressing the need to celebrate national holidays.

Wondering about the news.

I wonder if the US still playing the same foreign policy role vis-a-vis Europe as it did during the Cold War? If so, does that mean Russia remains a security threat? + Daniel Stoffman wonders if Canadians are "safe yet", eight years after the September 11th attacks. I wonder if anyone will ever be "safe" as long as human beings roam the planet. + European companies, like Fiat, are using data mining in ingenious and effective ways. Now that Business Week is carrying the story, I wonder which American companies will follow suit? + I wonder if there are reasons to be hopeful about religious coexistence in the parts of the Middle East... Saleem H. Ali and Hiba Zeino see a star in Lebanon: Take Lebanon for example, a country traditionally polarized along sectarian lines. Political alliances for the upcoming Lebanese parliamentary elections show that the traditional Muslim-Christian divide is being replaced by cross-cutting ideological, economic and political differences. In a symbolic gesture that hints at the potential for reaching a secular system of political governance in the future, the Lebanese government has also recently taken steps to remove any mention of citizens' sect from official identification cards, if this is requested by the card holder. In addition, calls for civil marriage laws have become ever more forceful with current confessional-based laws permitting only religious matrimonies inside Lebanon. + I wonder why the far right seems to be benefitting more in European politics from the economic downturn than the far left? Usually, the socialist left scores more points when the economy turns sour. Has something happened to the far right that makes it a far greater threat to liberty than even the extreme Marxist left? Has the European far right created its own lethal combination of socialism, corporatism, and nationalism? + I wonder if Caspar Melville is right about globalization leading to more religion, rather than more secularism. If so, then what will John Richard Neuhaus have to get riled up about?

A stunning piece of journalism by Jeff Sharlet: The holy warriors among us.

Jeff Sharlet's "Jesus Killed Mohammed", published in the May 2009 issue of Harper's Magazine, is a stunning piece of journalism. The distinction between merely decent and stunning journalism rests on the ability to combine information in a way that offers a new perspective on disparate events and ideas without abandoning the structural charms of the story. By identifying and examining the "evangelical transformation of the military", which began during the Cold War, Sharlet digs into rocky and ungiving soil. 

The development of a volunteer-based military in the post-Vietnam era made self-selection for military service the law of the land. But the end of the draft also signaled the end of a continuing public interest in the workings of the US military. Since most American men would never spend time in the military, the public lost interest in the details. Sharlet describes a current "civil war" between the "majority of military personnel, professionals who regardless of their faith and lack thereof simply want to get their jobs done" and the "small but powerful movement of Christian soldiers concentrated in the officer corps". 

What men such as these have fomented is a quiet coup within the armed forces: not of generals encroaching on civilian rule but of religious authority displacing the military’s once staunchly secular code. Not a conspiracy but a cultural transformation, achieved gradually through promotions and prayer meetings, with personal faith replacing protocol according to the best intentions of commanders who conflate God with country. They see themselves not as subversives but as spiritual warriors—“ambassadors for Christ in uniform,” according to Officers’ Christian Fellowship; “government paid missionaries,” according to Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry.

Sharlet cites the Officers' Christian Fellowship as a key player in the "fundamentalist front" of the officer corps, with 15,000 active members at 80 percent of military bases and a recent annual growth rate of 3 percent.

Founded during World War II, OCF was for most of its history concerned mainly with the spiritual lives of those who sought it out, but since 9/11 it has moved in a more militant direction. According to the group’s current executive director, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Bruce L. Fister, the “global war on terror”—to which Obama has committed 17,000 new troops in Afghanistan—is “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.” As jihad has come to connote violence, so spiritual war has moved closer to actual conflict, “continually confronting an implacable, powerful foe who hates us and eagerly seeks to destroy us,” declares “The Source of Combat Readiness,” an OCF Scripture study prepared on the eve of the Iraq War.

In the context of the war on terror, the expansion of the spiritual warrior into a representative of US diplomatic policy threatens more than just the secular tradition of the military. Many Muslims believe that the war on terror is secretly a war against Islam-- against their culture, way of life, and community. Comments like those made by Army Lt. Gen. William Jerry Boykin serve to reinforce and validate such views. While US policy makers have insisted that this is not the case, that the war on terror is not a holy war in disguise, the beliefs and behavior of US troops abroad are far from persuasive on this point. 

Threat perception plays a large part in the formulation of foreign policy-- "national security interests" and "threats" depend on where you stand, how much you fear the dark, how much you want to control, and your preferred methods of engagement. For many Muslims, the only palpable information about the US military's intentions abroad comes in the form of interaction with American troops. 

Three significant and equally-destructive consequences would likely result from the US military's domination by Christian holy warriors. These consequences should be upsetting to Americans in general and American Christians in particular. The first consequence would be an insecurity-generating confusion over purpose and plans in the policy community. US foreign policy would no longer represent the security interests of the American people; instead, it would represent the particular policy agenda of a specific Protestant outlook. As such, US foreign policy could not be relied upon to serve the American public during a time of generalized international uncertainty. US foreign policy would not serve the interests of peace and freedom; it would serve the interests of Christians who consider military service a form of missionary work. 

The second consequence easily follows. For many living in closed societies around the world, the introduction to Christ and the Christian faith would be a violent, coercive, and possibly even oppressive one. Professing to prosleytize with a gun on your shoulder can hardly be taken seriously; few of us will get into arguments about ethics with nice policemen that have glocks in their hands. 

The recent experience of communism in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states showed that the majority of human beings are willing to espouse even vulgar Marxist materlalism to protect their loved ones and their lives. Remarkably few former citizens of communist regimes risked their lives or well-being to refuse the predigested promises of communist ideology. In fact, many actually chose to pay lip-service to the idols of communism to secure better schools, vacations, food rations, residential assignments, and career advancements. Those with a tendency towards opportunism will probably employ the same approach to a US military which attempts to win converts for Christianity, especially if increased access to financial goods, careers, and positions of authority are involved. Guns rarely make for good mission work. 

This third consequence, the seeming militarization of Christianity, silently and covertly mainstreams an extreme and arguably blasphemous fundamentalist understanding of the Gospel. Since this mainstreaming is taking place within the closed, secretive culture of the US military, there is little opportunity for a presentation of alternatives. Once an officer begins to tell troops that they are fighting for Jesus by killing hostile Iraqis, honest discussion about the verity of such statements becomes impossible, given the high premium on hierarchy and order which dominates military life. So while the second consequence might be summarized as the imposition of the Christian religion in dubious scenarios where free will and choice cannot be assumed, the third consequence might be restated as political premium being placed on a modern, mongrelized, and militarized interpretation of the Gospel.  

As Leszek Kolakowski explains in "God in a Godless Time" (First Things, June/July 2003: 14-18), "the entire history of Christian teaching can be considered an unending struggle over the boundary line between the sacred and the profane". Kolakowski, a conservative Catholic scholar who refused to support the communist regime in his native Poland, remarks:

There is nothing profane-- no social or intellectual end-- that Christianity would be better prepared than temporal powers to defend. However much Christianity may wish to engage the things of temporal politics and social conflicts, it nevertheless must perceive all temporal goods as relative....... [W]e sense the temptation to subordinate [the vitality of the Christian message] to temporal ends-- that is, to the temptation to transform God into a tool, a potential object of human manipulation. The (weakened but not dead yet) theocratic tendency-- the disastrous, unsuccessful hope that humanity could be led to redemption through coercion-- and the apparently opposing effort to subordinate Christian values to this or that revolutionary ideology run together in their fundamental point of view. Both transform God into an instrument of ends that, whether justified or not, may never be considered final from a Christian perspective. Each of them runs the risk of converting the Christian community into a political party.

The wisdom of Kowlakowski's warnings written in 2003 find a disappointing confirmation in Jeff Sharlet's perfect (and perfectly sad) article.  One can only hope that it receives more attention in DC policy circles and media outlets. 

Sharlet's bio and butterflies for the chasing: Sharlet's first story for Harper's, "Jesus Plus Nothing", grew into a book about the theocrats filling the ranks of "the Family". As an insider, Sharlet provided privileged information about the secret movement of Christian power-brokers influencing US public policy. In addition to his work for Rolling Stone, Harper's, and the books he can't stop writing, Sharlet blogs at The Revealer, a daily review of religion and the press, and his more personal blog, Call Me Ishmael. You can explore more about Sharlet, his writings, and the ripe terrain of evangelical influence on the military via the following particulars (many of them used as examples in Sharlet's article):

• Watch video of US military commanders urging soldiers to "get em in the Kingdom"                         
• Listen to podcast with Jeff Sharlet from Writer's Voice
• Christian Embassy + Bible studies used in the Pentagon + Christian Military Fellowship + Peace Officers for Christ International 
• A July 2007 interview with Shalet from Get Religion 
• Firedoglake on Shalet and "the Family"
• "God's Senator" (Jeff Sharlet, Roling Stone, 25 January 2006)
• "Biblical capitalism" (Jeff Sharlet, Religion Dispatches, 3 October 2008)
• "Sarah Palin, American" (Jeff Sharlet, Religion Dispatches, 15 Sept. 2008)
• "Holy Fools" (Jeff Sharlet, The New Statesman, 25 October 2007)
• "Preachers of doom" (Jeff Sharlet, The New Statesman, 19 July 2007)
• Interview with Jeff Sharlet by The Wild Hunt, July 2008  
• The Republic of T's take on the Christianized military 
• Stephen Sizer on Christian Zionism 

Pro-life for fetus', but pro-death for criminals, Arabs, Muslims, and evil commies.

China's totalitarian, anti-life abortion policies continue, understandably, to upset Christians in the West. Meanwhile, America's destructive, anti-life Middle Eastern policy continues, understandably, to upset Christians in the Middle East. What proves less understandable is the disconnect certain American Christians eagerly draw between the value of a life in embryo and the value of a life once it reaches its mother's arms.

For the record, the life of a fetus is not more sacred than the life of a human being. Christians who value the lives of fetuses should also value the lives of the people they become. You cannot be pro-life and pro-war without ultimately eviscerating the word "life" for the sake of political preferences. Christians who are "pro-life" must be for human life in all cases; humility should characterize their spiritual and intellectual position before God.

All life is God's sacred creation and all humans are lovingly crafted in His image. What does this mean exactly? This means that, apart from you and the members of your congregation, Christ also loves Muslims, Greeks, skateboarders, Rastafarians, Victoria's Secret shoppers, vegans, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Richard Simmons, neo-Nazis, rapists, criminals, meth addicts, thieves, Jon Stewart, Oprah, Barbara Walters, harlots, rascists, ignoramuses, prom queens, young single mothers on welfare because they have chosen NOT to have an abortion, yoga instructors, and even old people who drive at 50 mph in the fast lane.

There is no place in the New Testament, the covenant secured between Christ and his followers, which calls upon Christians to kill other human beings. To the contrary, Christians are called upon to love God's enemies as much as they love his followers. Rather than seek revenge, the New Testament encourages us to give love and forgiveness unconditionally to those most in need. Rather than screaming "Whore of Babylon" at young girls entering abortion clinics, we should open our arms to them and show them a love which is greater than the worst sin on this earth. Rather than spit at returning soldiers, we should comfort them and urge our government adopt a more sensible, less trigger-and-death-happy foreign policy. Rather than kill horrible criminals, we should do our best to bring Christ's love to those whose sins are heaviest.

Abortion, like almost every other form of conscious killing, is a sorrowful event. In China, it is mandated. In the US, it is a legal option. In most Muslim countries, it is illegal. While Dr. Albert Mohler mourns the effects of China's policy on Chinese females, he is merely toeing the all-too-familiar conservative Christian line-- "aw shucks, those evil communists are killing again". Of course, Dr. Mohler, like any sensible, publicity-seeking American Christian, knows that criticizing the taking of life by communist regimes is a political winner. No one except a Chinese communist would find an excuse for such horrible policies.

But Dr. Mohler isn't really concerned about valuing human life-- he is mostly concerned about the loss of human life when it is someone else's fault. He prefers judgement to humility. There is no point in being concerned about the loss of human life as a result of his own country's militarist policies (i.e. "collateral damage") because "that's just the way things are" and "wars happened in the Bible too" plus "Christians are supposed to follow their leaders" not to mention that "Muslims hate Christ" and of course "God doesn't expect us to be perfect".

All of this is just another way of saying that Christianity, contrary to Jesus words', is not a radical and life-affirming faith. Instead, it is just another lifestyle trend. There are no sacred traditions, only pragmatic reinterpretations. For Christians who embrace the Christian trend movement, it is not my place to interfere in their styles and tastes. My only request bears on their moral integrity, as opposed to their denominational preference. It's very simple, really. If you oppose abortion but have no qualms about government-sponsored, publicly-funded killing sprees, stop corrupting the language by calling yourself "pro-life". The correct moniker is "anti-abortion". Alas, you cannot be pro-life and pro-war.

And you cannot purport to respect life while showing such dehumanizing photos of innocent dead babies for the sake of your political message. These babies are deceased human beings, not toys or propaganda ploys. For shame. Anyone can explain why rape is wrong without showing you the naked, bleeding body of a rape victim.

Since I can't leave you with the photos chosen by anti-abortion activists seared in your mind, I'll try to leave you with something more life-giving, like the Bible. Christians who rely on the Bible to justify their support for war often cite Matthew 10:34-36, in which Christ uses the "spiritual warfare" metaphor by saying that he "brings not peace but a sword". Anyone who reads this literally will have to explain why Jesus does not carry swords or give out swords or encourage the making of swords anywhere else in the Bible. If He meant it literally, it stands to reason that He would have a literal sword. Since He used this statement as a metaphor suggesting that His word would destroy life and society as it had previously been known, the absence of swords and weapons from Jesus' ministry makes more sense in context. In actuality, the New Testament never urges one human to kill another. Though there are references to the terrible things that God will do to human beings should they ignore His word, Christ never asks one human to do this work for God.

For more on Christianity and the pro-life movement:

• The Fellowship of Recognition is a wonderful, Christian organization based in the US that urges truly pro-life policy. FOR also has a wealth of links to peace-supporting religious groups and groupings. (Thanks to Nathan for this link.)
• "The Painful and Awful Discussion of the Death Penalty" at Start the Dialogue.
• "Does the Bible Condone Slavery" at In the Agora.
• "Pope thanks New Mexico Governor for death penalty repeal".
• Sojourner's combines faith, politics, and culture in a less-than-mainstream manner. (Hat tip again to Nathan for pointing it out to me).
• Christians For Peace.
• Christian Peacemaker Teams.
• "Fundamentalist Christians opposing peace".
• Peace Through Understanding: Christians and Muslims Seeking Peace.
• A good example of a web-site that should not be shown to children and should be properly called "anti-abortion".

Russia v. US on religion.

As the United States moves towards a "post-Christian American", Russia seems to be experiencing a religious renaissance. Jon Meacham reports:

According to the American Religious Identification Survey... the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago.

In postcommunist Russia, the tide seems to be moving in the other direction. Medvedev makes public appearances with the Russian Orthodox church leaders quite regularly. Church historian Andrei Zubov has an explanation for the new ties between politicians and religious leaders:

"In Communist times, authorities completely lacked human, moral principles....Now that many politicians are religious, they relate their lives to moral principles."

The Russian Orthodox Church, like its American evangelical counterparts, seems to be doing quite well financially:

The glittering Christ the Savior Cathedral, a pale-white marble structure decorated with bronze statuary and swaths of gold leaf, is more than just Moscow's grandest and most opulent place of worship.

Built in the 1990s as a replica of a church dynamited by Communists in 1931, the cathedral symbolizes the Moscow Patriarchate's rising political influence _ which may be greater today than at any time since the 17th century. It also serves as global headquarters of vast and expanding business operations that experts say are worth several billion dollars.

A Biblical vision of God's will on war.

And he shall judge among many people,
And rebuke strong nations afar off;
And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks:
Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.
Micah 4:3-5

Why Islam is not "totalitarian".

The trend of labeling the Islamic religion as "totalitarian" is far too provocative to leave unanswered. Those who argue that Islam, or the Muslim faith, is by its very nature totalitarian turn a semantic gaffe into a pejorative and hostile dogma which, in turn, becomes an article of faith for the avid fans of Fox News. Given the social cost of mobilizing a large segment of the population to fear and abhor Muslims, this error must be addressed.

What do we mean when we use the world "totalitarian"? In her famous book on the topic, Hannah Arendt used the word "totalitarian" to describe the new regimes in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia which had surpassed the expanse of past tyrannies, thus calling for a new term to mark this distinction.

What made these two regimes so mind-boggling and unprecedented was their success in the total domination of a country through a combination of political ideology and constant terror. Arguments attempting to demonstrate how totalitarianism evolves are complicated by the fact that totalitarianism does not appeal to traditional laws or political conventions. Instead, a totalitarian system remains the servant of a higher power-- for Hitler, this was the Law of Nature while for Stalin this was historical materialism.

In his essay, "The Anti-Totalitarian Revolution", Edgar Morin provides a very useful and detailed description of totalitarianism. In his words:

"It is a system based on the monopoly of a party which is unique not only because it is the only party allowed to exist and to have power at its disposal, but because it is a most unusual sort of party. It is a party in which all spiritual and temporal powers are concentrated in the apparatus which governs, controls, and administers. This apparatus can do anything and knows everything. It is a disciplinarian, an activist, a scholar, a soldier, a director, and a policeman, all rolled up into one. At the same time, it is the sacred bearer of an absolute truth which has two grounds for its self-assurance. The first of these is the clear and visible scientific basis which is the knowledge of all truth concerning the world, especially the laws of history. The other is the deep hidden basis of religious conviction with its promise of earthly salvation revealed by these laws of history."

What distinguishes a totalitarian system from a tyranny or a nondemocratic regime is this all-encompassing scientific creed which dictates everything from the number of widgets that must be produced to the greetings and salutations used in the everyday life of its citizens.

One, of course, could use the term "totalitarian" flippantly to describe an all-encompassing worldview. If one used the term in this inaccurate, generalized sense, then Islam is certainly totalitarian. In fact, Christianity, Judaism, and even Buddhism would have to be considered totalitarian for the very nature of religion is to provide an all-encompassing worldview that governs every aspect of one's life. Religions are systems of belief which allow access to Truth in its most powerful, important, and divine sense. Being a Christian, much like being a Muslim, is not intended to be little flourish on one's resume, a weekend hobby, or an occasional dabbling. Instead, it is meant to be the sole venue of Truth and self-government.

Islamist governments, like Christian governments, are totalitarian (in this broad sense) to the extent that they enforce religious views. But Islamist and Christian governments, properly construed, are based on the recognition of a god or deity as the state's supreme civil ruler. Since this god is supernatural,  the state is usually governed by officials who are considered to have access to divine guidance (i.e. a mullah, the Pope, the divine right of kings, etc.).

There is actually a very appropriate term for such governments-- they are called "theocracies". Unlike totalitarian systems, theocracies do not base their government on access to a scientific truth. Instead, they base their governments on a relationship to the will of God; this is their source of legitimacy. While history reveals that most theocracies are authoritarian regimes that limit human freedom, to call them "totalitarian" is a nihilistic approach to meaning that falsely elevates equivocation. It helps to recall that equivocation makes for nasty bedfellows; one of it's best practitioners was Stalin, who constantly described the Soviet Union as a bastion of "freedom".

Equivocations and passionate orations aside, we should agree to use words in a manner which dignifies meaning. In her most beautiful book, Between Past and Future, Hannah Arendt warns against the costs of  wishy-washy word-tossing:

"There exists, however, a silent agreement in most discussions among political and social scientists that we can ignore distinctions and proceed on the assumption that everything can eventually be called anything else, and that distinctions are meaningful only to the extent that each of us has the right to 'define his terms'. Yet does not this curious right, which we have come to grant as soon as we deal with matters of importance-- as though it were actually the same as the right to one's own opinion-- already indicate that such terms as 'tyranny', 'authority', 'totalitarianism' have simply lost their common meaning, or that we have ceased to live in a common world where the words we have in common possess an unquestionable meaningfulness, so that, short of being condemned to live verbally in an altogether meaningless world, we grant each other the right to retreat into our own worlds of meaning, and demand only that each of us remain consistent within his own private terminology?"

Rather than abandon a shared world of meaning in which words can be said to function as designators of ideas or reality, we should work harder to use words in a meaningful fashion. Surely that is not such an insurmountable task. The worst that might happen in an attempt to use language with integrity would be to discover that our language lacks a proper term. Then, as David Brooks so aptly demonstrates, you can feel free to coin a new term.

[Credit for the image belongs to the glorious Cosmin Bumbut.]