The Rupture

Etymology, YouTube clips, art, and a naive call to action.

Dear reader,

“Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” - Mark Carney

These words from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, spoken at the recent King Dick fest at Davos, seem destined to be some of the most quoted words from that event this year. I have even heard commentators say that this speech will be a “tipping point”. It’s an interesting speech, to be sure, during which Carney explores how a middle power like Canada (and, ahem, Australia) can adapt to the current turbulence seeded by Trump and his awful ilk.

(The section where Carney talks about the theme of rupture starts at 4:39.)

While the political boffins, international affairs experts, and media commentators hummed and haa-ed and harumphed over the ramifications of Carney’s speech, I took refuge in my own particular areas of expertise in the arts and humanities: I looked up the etymology of the word rupture:

“Late 14c., in medicine, ‘act of bursting or breaking,’ in reference to a vessel, etc. of the body, from Old French rupture and directly from Latin ruptura ‘the breaking (of a vein), fracture (of an arm or leg),’ from past-participle stem of rumpere “to break” (from PIE root *runp- “to break;” see corrupt (adj.)).” - from etymonline.com

“See corrupt”? (The bolding of the text above is my own emphasis.) Given that Carney’s speech - and his use of the word “rupture” - were in response to the actions of Trump, of course I looked up ‘corrupt’. I found that it entered into English in the 14th century, coming to us from a French word meaning pretty much what the word means today, which in turn came…

“... directly from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpere ‘to destroy; spoil,’ figuratively ‘corrupt, seduce, bribe.’” - etymonline.com

Remind you of anyone?

Image attrib. 3268zauber, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

And, of course, the Latin word ‘corrumpere’ can be traced back to the same root word as ‘rupture’.

So, to be corrupt is to be a destroyer or a despoiler and to corrupt something is to break it down, fracture it, ruin it. Carney’s evocation of a rupturing of the world order has real poetic power when considering that he is speaking out against corrupt autocrats hell bent on wrecking the world order for their own gratification and empowerment.

And what about you? When you experience a world that confounds you, mystifies you, breaks and makes you with all of its heartbreak and beauty, what do you do? Do you project your inner spoilt toddler? Do you just shrug it off*? Or do you find some other response?

The Childhood of Pantagruel, Gustave Dore, 1873, via Wikimedia.

(Isn’t this picture of the infant giant Panatgruel great? I reserve the right to use it in another Substack).

What is the opposite of ‘spoil’ or ‘corrupt’? The Merriam-Webster entry on ‘spoil’ suggests words such as ‘glorify’, ‘dignify’, ‘cleanse’, ‘ennoble’, ‘elevate’, ‘uplift’, and ‘enshrine’ as its antonyms. Which of these verbs can you put into action in your life to counteract the awfulness, this rupture to which we’re all being subjected? Or maybe the rupture can be exploited for good, somehow?

It’s easy to look at an orange-faced malicious idiot swanking about on Airforce One and to feel helpless, but I am a big believer in the power of cumulative action. So let’s all get out there and glorify or dignify or [whatever] something. And let me know about it in the comments below.

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*Surely I’ve shared this clip with you before. I love it so much. But when I was writing about someone shrugging above, I thought of this with its glorious writing and I feel that you should watch it if you haven’t already. The whole thing is great, but the bit I was just reminded of starts at 2:45.

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Thank you for reading.

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