Fadism

Words are meaningless.

We give words meaning.

We give words meaning to convey an idea.

If a word does not convey an idea, then why bother using it?

Have you ever met someone who said, “I’m spiritual but not religious?” I’m willing to bet you have. I’m also confident that you know what that means.

Have you ever met someone who said, “I’m religious but not spiritual?” I’m less confident that you have.

I’m sure you have met someone who is religious but not spiritual.

And what is the definition of religion?

There is honestly not a consensus. Words are meaningless, remember? But, yet, you know what I mean.

If we look at the etymology (which itself is debatable) we find the Latin “religare” meaning to “to bind,” or impose an obligation on someone, or something. As it came to be understood, this “bind” was between the Divine and the faithful (broadly speaking.)

 The meanings of words change and evolve.

Take the word “magazine” for example. The word comes from the buildings in which the Moors housed their military arsenals “maḵzans,” which itself was derived from the Arabic word “ḵazana” (“store up.”) Maḵzan became the Italian magazzino, the French magasin, and the English magazine. By the seventeenth century, the word magazine also referred to “storehouses of technical information on military or naval subjects.” The first “periodical magazine” began in 1731 with The Gentleman’s Magazine.[1] The “periodical magazine” is likely what comes to mind when the word is used—because that is the agreed upon meaning.

Religions are like words.

They change.

Sometimes organically. Sometimes not.

Sometimes they are replaced with something else.

But the “religious” impulse remains.

Sometimes words are invented to describe this impulse.

FADS

One such word, “Fad,” making its appearance in 1881, is a term that is still in use today. It began as fatuus, meaning “stupid.” In French this became fadais, meaning “nonsense.” In the 1880s the word became popular in America through wide circulation in magazines, being used to describe a “trivial fancy adopted and pursued for a time with irrational zeal; a matter of no importance, or an important matter imperfectly understood, taken up, and urged with more zeal than sense.”[2] As one newspaper stated at the time: “The world is governed by whimsical people, and by their whims or ‘fads.’ ‘Fad’ is absolutely a new word, coined in Belgravia, and sent out broadcast with that language which is so persistently creeping into every hole and corner of this wide, wide world.”[3] The article continues:

“Fads” are, as a rule, very harmless. In fact, they are somewhat idiotic. They develop in various ways with all sorts and conditions of men. They burst into blossom at stated periods, flourish and fade. They do not last long. They are fevers that burn themselves out, after a given date. Fashion is, of course, the fountain of faddism, for “fad” pervades society with the big, big S, and it is in this rich loam that it thrives. To be talked about is social fame. But how is one to get talked about? That is the question. Why, by a new “fad.” Start something quaint, original, harmless—a gesture, a costume, a vivid display of some exceeding fondness for something out of the—and the “fad” steps to the front, becomes familiar in the mouth as a household word; the high-priest is immortalized, and the disciples and followers share the triumph and the glory.[4]

 

Despite it being coined in the 1880s, contemporary observers were quick to apply it to the phenomena of the previous decades. As one paper noted at the time: “The ‘fads’ of the last quarter of this century are well worth looking up, and their names is simply legion.”[5] Skimming through the “legion,” we find a world not substantially different from our own. “Some people who act queerly because they do things out of the ordinary are called ‘daffy,’” one commentor noted. “If many persons do the same act the case is diagnosed as ‘faddy,’ and everybody who wants to be in style adopts the new order of things.”[6]

POTICHOMANIA

One early “fad” that got hold of Society and kept it for a time was potichomania, and “the ladies went fairly crazy over it.” This “fad” consisted of cutting the shape of flowers, birds, reptiles, etc. from chintz or muslin, and pasting them onto earthenware vessels. “The stranger the shape, the more salable the piece,” it was said.[7]

FASHION

Then there were fashion “fads.” Mustaches and beards “came into faddism” after the Crimean War, (1855-1856.) Prior to that time no Briton wore a mustache, compelled, as it were, by the “regulations” to shave. A cold Winter in the trenches before Sevastopol laid all ranks low, so Private Tommy Atkins sported a beard alongside Captain Lord Fitznoodle of the Tenth Hussars. “The ‘fad’ became epidemic,” and soon Mustaches bristled on the upper lip of nearly every man in Britain.

A year later, following the Indian Uprising (1857,) saw the “bangle fad.” The circumstances of which have a tragic origin. A native regiment under the command of Captain Carleton mutinied. Louisa Carleton, the Captain’s daughter, was among those murdered. When they found her body, she was wearing a silver bangle on her left wrist. The bangle soon “blazed into a fad” and every woman who could purchase one wore it “conspicuously, and in all places, and at all times.” For a time the “bangle fad” superseded that of the engagement ring.

When Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, hid a scar on her neck with choker-necklaces and high necklines, she launched a fashion “fad” that would last for fifty years. “Women are warmer and more enthusiastic faddists than men,” it was reported, “and, as a matter of course, set the fashion.”[8] This was consistent with the trends of (traditional) religious conversion across cultures. In a report of the Native American Ghost Dance movement at the time, it was found that “young women are usually the first to be affected, then older women, and lastly men.” Another study found that women were six times as likely than men to be “converted at the regular church services.”[9]

SCIENTIFIC “FAD”

In the 1870s literary circles were agitated over the scientific “fad,” lamenting that “even schoolgirls wandered down the lanes with Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley under their arms.” The theory of evolution was in the air, and words like “species,” “heredity,” “fittest,” and the like, “were in everybody’s mouth.” The “magic formula” which began with “a change from incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity,” was repeated ad nauseum. There was “evolution of ethics,” the “ethics of evolution,” the “evolution of religion,” and even the “religion of evolution.” This litany of academic jargon was picked up by advertisers, and loyal “fadists,” who repeated them “over and over.” Soon a reaction set it. Surprisingly, “persons whose most cherished notions had been rudely overthrown” raised a protest. The “ethics of evolution” was declared “low,” and “grossly mechanical.” The “religion of evolution” was criticized for being “agnostic (coined by Huxley in the 1870s,)” or “atheistic.” As Harvard Psychologist, William James, noted in 1874,  there was a trend among scientists to assume a role more akin to a dogmatic cleric, and treat science as “scientism.”[10]

“AESTHETIC FAD”

Then there was the “Aesthetic Fad.” This began when Oscar Wilde, “the young poet whose connection with the aesthetic movement in England has made famous,” arrived in New York on January 2, 1882.[11] He was in America to produce his first play, “Vera or, The Nihilists,” at New York’s Union Square Theatre, and embark on a nation-wide lecture tour.^[12] He was also the “subject of much ridicule in the English papers.”[13] Wilde praised the beauty of the sunflower while touring America, which lead to its adoption as an emblem of the aesthetic movement.^[14] When he lectured in Boston, sixty Harvard men emulated Wilde’s sense of fashion, wearing “dress coats, knee breeches and large green neckties,” and it was said “large clusters of lilies were in their coats, and each carried a sunflower.”[15] In America, for a time, both prose and poetry were “full of rose-water.”[16]

Another “fad,” more or less local to Boston, was the “philosophic fad” centered around Concord. The first (and second) rate philosophers of the “fad cult” vigorously milked it for all it was worth. “Each one was anxious to found what he called a ‘school.’” One paper noted. Another stated:

To secure appreciation in Boston, it is only necessary that a “fad” shall be sufficiently unhealthy. Anything that is morbid in the way of religion or pseudo-science—spiritism, faith-healing, Theosophy, or what you will—goes in this town. The demand for such incitement to dementia here is never equaled by the supply.[17]

 

Then came the “Hypnotism Fad” and “Fortune Telling Fad,” of which it was said “there never was a time when fortune telling in drawing rooms was so rife or apparently so much believed in.”[18] Sociologist Edward A, Ross states:

The fad originates in the surprise or interest excited by novelty. Roller-skating, blue glass, the planchette, a forty days’ fast, tiddledy-winks, faith healing, the “13-14-15” puzzle, baseball, telepathy, or the sexual novel attract those restless folk who are always running hither and thither after some new thing. This creates a swirl which rapidly sucks into its vortex the soft-headed and weak- minded, and at last, grown bigger, involves even the saner kind. As no department of life is safe from the invasion of novelty, we have all kinds of fads : philosophic fads, like pessimism or anarchism ; literary fads, like the Impressionists or the Decadents ; religious fads, like spiritualism or Theosophy; hygienic fads, like water-cure or breakfast foods; medical fads, like lymph or tuberculin; personal fads, like pet lizards or face enamel. And of these orders of fads each has a clientèle of its own. In many cases we can explain vogue entirely in terms Of novelty fascination, and mass suggestion.[19]

 

This, of course, means that “fads” were found in politics. At the close of the 1880s we find a “political fad” surrounding Allen G. Thurman, the running-mate of Democrat incumbent, President Grover Cleveland. Thurman was known for waving a red bandana during speeches.[20] This emblem was “seized upon by the young and enthusiastic partisan,” as a sign of support for Democrats.[21]

“Fads” and “crazes” are the principal manifestations of “mob mind,” the “irrational unanimity of interest, feeling, opinion, or deed in a body of communicating individuals, which results from suggestion and imitation.” We find “mob mind” manifested in the cries for justice over a sensational crime, in the demand for the blood of a terrorist, in waves of national (or international) sentiment, in political “land-slides,” in the passionate support of striking workers, disease outbreak, “migration manias,” and other agitations and insurrections. Regarding this mental contagion, consider the following statement by E.A. Ross:

As there must be in the typical mob a center which radiates impulses by fascination till they have subdued enough people to continue their course by sheer intimidation, so for the craze there must be an excitant, overcoming so many people that these can affect the rest by mere volume of suggestion. This first orientation may be produced by some striking event or incident. The murder of a leader, an insult to an ambassador, the predictions of a crazy fanatic, the words of a ” Messiah,” a sensational Theory of proclamation, the arrest of an agitator, a coup d’état, the advent of a new railroad, the collapse of a prominent bank, a number of deaths by an epidemic, a series of mysterious murders, an inexplicable occurrence, such as a comet, an eclipse, a star shower, or an earthquake—each of these has been the starting-point of some fever, mania, crusade, uprising, boom, panic, delusion, or fright. The more expectant or overwrought the public mind, the easier it is to set up a great perturbation. After a series of public calamities, a train of startling events, a pestilence, an earthquake, or a war, the anchor of reason finds no holding ground, and minds are blown about by every gust of passion or sentiment.[22]

 

Whether a “fad” or “craze,”  both are manifestations of a need to fill the vacancy left behind with the absence of traditional faiths. It is finding meaning. Though we may have stop calling ourselves religious, it does not mean that we don’t act religiously. There never was a separation of church and state. It was an integration of church and state. What was once performed by priests and parishioners (marriage, social work, moral teachings, education, etc.) is now outsourced to bureaucrats. There are no political parties, only denominations, and they delight in each other’s damnation. Call it what you will, words are meaningless. To my mind we are still very, very, religious.

[1] Weekley, Ernest. An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. John Murray. London, England. (1921): 878.

[2] Smith, Benjamin Eli; Whitney, William Dwight. The Century Dictionary: Vol. III. The Century Co. New York, New York. (1895): 2115.

[3] Ruthven, Noel. “Fads.” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly. Vol. XXVII, No. 3. (March 1889): 350-352.

[4] Ruthven, Noel. “Fads.” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly. Vol. XXVII, No. 3. (March 1889): 350-352.

[5] Ruthven, Noel. “Fads.” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly. Vol. XXVII, No. 3. (March 1889): 350-352.

[6] Parmeler, T.S. “Just Fads. The University Pen. Vol. IX, No. 1 (November 1917): 8.

[7] Ruthven, Noel. “Fads.” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly. Vol. XXVII, No. 3. (March 1889): 350-352.

[8] Ruthven, Noel. “Fads.” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly. Vol. XXVII, No. 3. (March 1889): 350-352.

[9] Ross, Edward Alsworth. Social Psychology. The MacMillan Company. New York, New York. (1911): 16.

[10] James, William (Ignoramus). “The Mood of Science and the Mood of Faith.” The Nation. Vol. XIX. (December 31, 1874): 437.

[11] “Ten Minutes With A Poet.” The New York Times. (New York, New York) January 3, 1882.

^[12] Kohl, Norbert. Oscar Wilde: The Works Of A Conformist Rebel. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, England. (2011): 35.

[13] “Ten Minutes With A Poet.” The New York Times. (New York, New York) January 3, 1882.

^[14] Nelson, E. Charles. “Helianthus Annuus ‘Oscar Wilde’: Some Notes on Oscar and the Cult[ivation] of Sunflowers.” The Wildean. No. 43. (July 2013): 2-25.

[15] “Current Events.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. (Brooklyn, New York) February 1, 1882.

[16] Vance, L.J. “Literary ‘Fads.’ The Epoch. Vol. IV, No.  83 (September 7, 1888) 80.

[17] “Parlor Hypnotism.” The Wichita Eagle. (Wichita, Kansas) March 7, 1889.

[18] “The Fortune Telling Fad.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. (Brooklyn, New York) September 28, 1890.

[19] Ross, Edward Alsworth. Social Psychology. The MacMillan Company. New York, New York. (1911): 18-81.

[20] Poore, Benjamin Perley. Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis: Vol. II. Hubbard Brothers. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (1886): 359-360.

[21] “Allen G. Thurman.” The Phrenological Journal. Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 2 (August 1888): 82-84; Vance, L.J. “Literary ‘Fads.’ The Epoch. Vol. IV, No.  83 (September 7, 1888) 80; “Solid Ranks.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. (Brooklyn, New York) October 13, 1888.

[22] Ross, Edward Alsworth. Social Psychology. The MacMillan Company. New York, New York. (1911): 65-66.