The words covered in this article are disseminate, resolution and resolve, manifest and manifestation, arbitrary, whim, and caprice and capricious. Previously done words that will reoccur today are promulgation, presume, elude, impunity, metaphorical, figurative, irresolution, perceptible, veneration, iconoclasm, and heretical.
In Day 19, you learnt from John’s story that once a law is promulgated, all citizens are presumed to know that law; the courts fear that if a plea of ignorance – someone saying, “I didn’t know such a law was there” – were admitted as a legitimate excuse for breaking that law, the law would be of little effect but might always be eluded with impunity.
Because the consequences of breaking a law are so serious for a citizen, it would be quite unfair and immoral if the state implements a new law without promulgating it first or after promulgating it only as a formality without making an honest effort to disseminate the new law among the general population.
Disseminate
The verb disseminate means to scatter all over, like one scatters the seeds in a field with one’s hand.
Origin: Latin dis-, apart + semen, seed => ‘to spread the seeds apart.’ The ‘semen’ of men is called so because it contains the seeds of their future children.
The scattering of seeds that this word describes may be literal or metaphorical. Here is an example of disseminate being used to describe a literal scattering of seeds:
“As the mistletoe is disseminated by birds, its existence depends on birds; and it may metaphorically be said to struggle with other fruit-bearing plants, in order to tempt birds to devour and thus disseminate its seeds rather than those of other plants.”
Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species
On the other hand, when we talk about disseminating information, news or a rumor, we are using the word figuratively; to disseminate information means to scatter it far and wide like seeds.
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If you as a citizen are going to be punished for violating a law, then it is your human right to know that such a law is there.
As Sir William Blackstone said in his influential 18th-century book, Commentaries on the Laws of England,
“A bare resolution confined in the breast of the legislator, without manifesting itself by some external sign, can never properly be called a law. It is requisite that this resolution shall be notified to the people who are expected to obey it.”
In short, a law is not really law until it has been made known.
Resolution
The noun resolution means a firm determination to do something. You have probably used this word many times in the context of ‘new year resolutions.’ To resolve to do something, such as to exercise more regularly or to learn 5 new GRE words everyday, means to make a firm decision to do that thing.
The opposite of this is irresolution, which is a state of indecision about how to act.
Manifest
The word manifest can be used as a noun, adjective or verb.
The noun manifest means a list of passengers or goods carried on a ship or plane. The popular TV drama series Manifest uses this noun as its title, which is apt, because the series revolves around how the lives of passengers on a particular flight get intertwined.
The verb manifest means to make something visible to the eye; therefore, to show clearly and undoubtedly.
A usage example:
“Of all the brothers and sisters James manifested the most emotion. Tears rolled down the parallel furrows of his thin face.”
John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga.
‘James manifested the most emotion’ means that he showed, he revealed, the most emotion: you could see that he was emotional, because tears rolled down his face. From this sentence, we can also infer that the other siblings of James did not show their feelings so clearly, even though they too may have felt quite emotional.
The word manifest is also used as an adjective, to denote that which is clearly perceptible to the senses, esp. to the sight; that which is obvious.
For example,
“Miss Kroll was conquered by his charm despite his manifest weaknesses.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald: a biography, by Andrė Le Vot, translated from the French by William Byron, Chapter 21
From this sentence, we learn that though the many weaknesses of American author Fitzgerald were quite obvious, and Miss Kroll could clearly see them, she still fell for him.
You are probably familiar with the word ‘Manifesto.’ It is a document that clearly shows – manifests – the principles, policies or intentions of a political party, or an organization.
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Promulgation of laws is a basic principle of the rule of law and has been followed since the ancient times. For example, the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi had promulgated his code of laws on pillars throughout his kingdom, in the script that the common people of the time knew, so that anyone could go to such a pillar and read what the law said about a particular topic.
How does this principle work in the modern world of internet?
One would expect that the legal code of every country in the world would be freely available in all the languages spoken in that country, so that all people of the country could go check what the law said on a particular matter.
This is in fact not the case.
In the American state of Georgia, for example, the official state law was locked up behind a paywall. The state published each new law in the “Official Code of Georgia Annotated” or the OCGA. ‘Annotations’ are relevant commentary and case notes that accompany a regulation and that help to explain or exemplify its meaning and application. While the unannotated version was available free of cost online, the annotated version – which is not only more useful and understandable but also the state’s self-admitted “official” law – carried a hefty price tag of $1200, which of course was beyond the paying capacity of most state residents.
Activist Carl Malamud purchased one copy of the OCGA, scanned it and uploaded it for free on his website. In response, the state sued him for copyright violation. The court ruled in Malamud’s favor, saying that law was uncopyrightable. The matter later reached the Supreme Court, which also ruled in Malamud’s favor, stating:
“No one can own the law. . . Every citizen is presumed to know the law, [and] . . . it needs no argument to show . . . that all should have free access to its contents.”
Georgia et al v. Public Resource Org, Inc
In spite of this and other such small wins, Malamud’s quest to make the law fully searchable and downloadable to the public for free remains far from over. In partnership with Internet Archive, all the federal and state laws of America that he has digitized for free are available at this link on Internet Archive.
Explaining the importance of his mission, Carl Malamud writes:
“The pronouncements and edicts of our governments comprise the operating system of our societies, and it is only when that code is repeatedly copied that it may take effect.
Only by promulgating the law can we have rule of law. Only by copying and annotating the law can we understand what it says and inform our fellow citizens. Only by repeating and disputing the law can we refine the principles to make the wheels of our system of justice roll down the road of righteousness.
The law does not occur in a vacuum. The law must be transmitted to others to take effect. If an edict is uttered in the forest but nobody is there to listen, it cannot be considered a law. For a people governed by the rule of law, the laws must be . . . fully promulgated. Only then do we bring justice out from the arbitrary whims of capricious individuals in star chambers into a world of law made for the people and by the people.”
An ‘edict’ is an official order.
Arbitrary
The adjective arbitrary means dependent on the will or pleasure of an individual, and therefore, uncertain, varying.
It is said that the Roman emperor Caligula was once at a dinner party when he suddenly started to laugh out loudly. When the others on the table requested him to share the joke, he said, “I realized just now that I only have to order and the throats of all of you will be cut the next instant.”
Caligula, being an emperor, could have given any orders that he pleased or wished to give. So, he could use his power arbitrarily. His biographer Suetonius portrays him as often saying – “Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.”
If Caligula was in a good mood, then a person who was dining with him could get an unexpected promotion from the emperor. But if Caligula was in a bad mood, then the person sitting next to him could be executed, just like that. There was no rule or principle that governed either the promotion or the death-sentence. The outcome of sitting to dinner with the emperor was not predictable, because it depended not on any constant rules or laws but on the changing moods of the emperor.
Such arbitrary use of power is frowned upon in democracies. In most democracies, government officers need a warrant to search the private property of citizens. Such warrants are given by neutral magistrates. The warrant requirement is meant to assure citizens who are being searched or whose property is being seized that such intrusion into their privacy is not a random or arbitrary act of government agents – the government agents are not harassing them on a whim, just because, like Caligula, they have the power to do so – but because even a neutral third-party, a magistrate, deems such search or seizure necessary.
Whim
The noun whim means a sudden, fanciful idea.
Capricious
The astrological sign Capricorn is represented by a sea-goat. Do you know why?
The word ‘Capricorn’ comes from the Latin caper, goat + cornū, horn, head => ‘horned like a goat.’
The noun caprice too comes from the same root. It means an abrupt change in mind, proceeding from some whim or fancy.
A goat jumps from one point to the other, leaping, and springing with no plotted course. A caprice is such a movement of the mind.
The adjective capricious means acting on caprice; impulsive and unpredictable.
I have already illustrated above Roman emperor Caligula’s capricious decision-making. Here is an example of another such capricious ruler:
“In Equatorial Guinea, in Africa, the first democratically elected president either killed or drove into exile a third of the population, executed all people who wore spectacles as being dangerously intellectual, and kept the national treasury under his bed, at least until he was executed by the next president, his nephew.”
Theodore Dalrymple, Heart of Darkness – New English Review
With this, we are at the end of Day 20. Here are a few more usage examples for some of the words you learnt today:
- Favell was ill at ease and was one of those men who manifest that state by picking up fights with the first person they meet.
- “Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.” Nadia Boulanger
- His face showed irresolution, and a seeking for counsel, support, and guidance in a matter he did not understand.
- A ‘just’ ruler is one who rules by law, not by his own arbitrary will or whim.
- The clergymen who supported icon veneration argued that because God, the formless Supreme being, had manifested Himself in human body by taking birth as Jesus, He would not mind if we humans too tried to manifest God in physical forms, through icons.
- For the people for whom an icon is a manifestation of Jesus Christ, disrespecting that icon is as shocking and intolerable as disrespecting Jesus Christ himself. No wonder then that icon venerators believed iconoclasm to be heretical!