Down with the czar
We’re a nation at war, and metaphor is our weapon.
Bob Erlandson, a former Sun colleague and a man so desperate for amusement that he reads this blog regularly, expresses a distaste for the widespread use of the word czar to describe public officials.*
We have had so many of them that it is sometimes hard to remember that the country was founded — somebody did talk to you in school about 1776 and all that, right? — in a revolt against monarchy and absolute power. So our fondness for calling various bureaucrats as czars seems puzzling.
Perhaps we balance it out by depriving these czars and czarinas of anything resembling real power or authority. The title czar is, in practical terms, an empty metaphor.
As such, it dovetails nicely with our taste for bogus metaphors in public life. Lyndon Johnson gave us a war on poverty, which we have, at best, fought to a draw. Perhaps he sought to distract us from the literal and highly unsatisfactory war in Indochina.
Since then, we have declared war on drugs. The victors in that combat seem to be mainly the people who get wages and benefits working as correctional officials for our ever-expanding prison population.
Our triumphs in wars on poverty and drugs are now succeeded by the war on terrorism. (Federal office-holders call it the “war on terror,” but terror is the effect; terrorism and terrorists are the causes.) It appears to be a little early for a declaration of victory there.
Not that I’m hostile to metaphor in principle, or to metaphors that inspire the populace. That is what rhetoric, at its best, accomplishes. But metaphor works best when grounded in reality.
* Feel free to indicate in a comment your preference for the form tsar.
Comments
I had a friend in college who, for the longest time, insisted on using the term fascist to describe anyone he thought was being unnecessarily rude or disagreeable with him. I tried on numerous occasions to reason with him through semantics, but he seemed to think that the term's meaning and usage could be stretched because it's not in use anymore. He then started using it in his writing, and I had to crack down on it.
Posted by: JB Dryden | April 2, 2008 10:38 AM
It is interesting how different spellings of words can diverge semantically. The spelling tsar is well established in Britain, and its use is becoming standard in American scholarship when the word refers to the autocrats of the Russian Empire, but I would find it jarring to see this spelling (e.g., "drugs tsar") used for an American official. The spelling czar, by the way, was a 16th-century transliteration mistake introduced by Sigismund Herberstein, the Habsburgs' ambassador to Moscow. In no Slavic language does the digraph "cz" represent the "ts" sound of the Russian word.
Posted by: Rawley Grau | April 2, 2008 12:33 PM
I am glad that I haven't seen the czar metaphor for some time in our daily type. I used to see it so much that I wondered if it was actually their unofficial title.
You mentioned both male and female variants of czar, but do you know what the czars' children are called?
Czardines.
Thank my elementary school music teacher, Mr. Bowermeister, for that joke.
Posted by: Alan Shaw | April 2, 2008 4:51 PM
Recall the Hapsburgs! Also the Hohenzollerns and the Medicis. I've long wanted to be a Czarina ( or Tsarina) not unlike Lydia the Poisoner in I Claudius, who wanted to be a Goddess.
Posted by: Patricia the Terse | April 2, 2008 5:24 PM
I like making this argument by nodding to its logically illogical extremes:
— "Junta" as slang for "administration"
— "Jihad" for any war
— "Burgermeister" for "mayor"
I wonder if it's time to retire "chief" as a lazy synonym for leader, director, administrator, president, etc.
Posted by: Jim Thomsen | April 3, 2008 11:19 PM
My preference is for 'geezer.'
According to the OED, orthographically identical to "czar."*
*No, just a late 1 April post.
Posted by: c o'donnell | April 4, 2008 9:57 AM
People really use "burgermeister" for mayor?
All I can think of when I see that is "Burgermeister Meisterburger" from the Rankin and Bass "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town" and giggle. . .
Posted by: Denise | April 4, 2008 12:03 PM
From nytimes.com today, a caption: John McCain spoke in Memphis for the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. Meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a cabinet-level poverty czar.
Posted by: Mike | April 4, 2008 3:23 PM
"Czar" is so silly a term that it's used by sports(!) announcer Marv Albert in joking reference to on-air partner/basketball analyst Mike Fratello, "the Czar of the Telestrator."
Posted by: Wayne | April 4, 2008 8:23 PM
Usually these things rise and fall with the life span of a hit single.
For example, I can remember when despots were called "ayatollahs" for a few years. And here in the Pacific Northwest, the term "bhagwan" briefly came into vogue as a synonym for any charismatic but eccentric teacher.
Posted by: Jim Thomsen | April 5, 2008 1:19 AM
For mayor, should it be "burgermeister" or "hizzoner"?
Posted by: Andy Bechtel | April 5, 2008 5:32 PM