Tricoteuses:
Tricoteuse (French pronunciation: [tʁikɔtøz]) is French for a knitting woman. The term is most often used in its historical sense as a nickname for the women in the French Revolution who sat in the gallery supporting the left-wing politicians in the National Convention, attended the meetings in the Jacobin club, the hearings of the Revolutionary Tribunal and sat beside the guillotine during public executions, supposedly continuing to knit. The performances of the Tricoteuses were particularly intense during the Reign of Terror. [Wikipedia]
French? Hell, yeah. A substantial fraction of English words are French extracts. Noted in “A Culture Primed For Indecency,” Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish (paywall):
And indecent gawkers. “It’s good to make fun of people who support criminals when they get murdered by criminals,” commented one on Twitter. “Ryan Carson took the phrase ‘bleeding heart liberal’ way too literally,” said another. (Carson’s actual heart was pierced by the murder weapon.) Other virtual tricoteuses went after the traumatized bystander: “Ryan Carson’s girlfriend is the Douche of the Week. 1. Showed almost no concern as her guy was murdered. 2. Expressed zero concern as he lay on the ground dying. Didn’t even bend down. 3. Refused to give police the murderer’s description. Soulless Marxist.” Another: “WHAT??? Ryan Carson’s girlfriend … started a GoFundMe page to make money off his death. I would tell her to eat trash but that’s cannibalism.” Or this: “She didn’t react when he was stabbed but she sure didn’t hesitate to raise $50k on go fund me. Makes you wonder.”
Culture will coarsen until some incident, linkable to that coarsening, occurs and shocks a large majority of folks into shame. Others, who value their social prestige more than an intellectual honesty, will remain coarse, using various weak excuses for their utterances and sometimes, even, actions. But this coarsening serves to give those being coarse a reason to feel superior not only to the victim, but the victim’s associates and ideological comrades.
