to scold on the interwebs

 There is an etymological mystery about the word ‘scold”. In the great 0ED vol. 9, the etymology is not given – rather, the etymological theories that link the word to some original Scandinavian word are held up as unproven. Others relate the term to “skald”, a kind of satiric poet – the antithesis of bard. However the descent of the word goes, at some point it became contextually misogynistic – the scold and the shrew were stock figures of aggressive women. Scold occurs a number of times in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, where it possesses a certain figurative stature that is curiously attractive to Petruchio:

Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,

Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?

TRANIO, as Lucentio

No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two,

The one as famous for a scolding tongue

As is the other for beauteous modesty.

PETRUCHIO

Sir, sir, the first’s for me; let her go by.

In Blackstone, one reads: “A common scold, communis rixatrix (for our law confines it to the female gender) is a public nuisance to her neighborhood.”

This background makes me wonder about my own reaction to scolding, which is negative. Perhaps, though, there is a reason that the rixatrixaty of political social media is both one of the notable tonal styles – the Democratic claque on bluesky responded to any complaint about the Dems by scolding, and took a scolding view of the people in general – and that this tone comes after the failure of Metoo to overturn the fundamentally misogynistic nature of our establishment. Perhaps, in the poetics of scolding, there is more than a contempt for the masses.

And yet… I think rixatrixaty is a terrible tactic to pursue. It traps one in a reactive circle, where outrage always gives the fascitudinal provocateur the advantage that the conversation is pursued in his terms. At the same time, used against the “left”, it proposes an asymmetric deal that every lefty can easily see through, of giving everything and getting nothing. Which is, come to think of it, the misogynist contract: I’ll “protect” you while you serve me. Not a deal the centrist would ever agree to.

What I lack, what I’d love to read, is a discourse analysis of scolding. It holds a place in the Neolib order that signifies something interesting about our political unconscious.

All reactions:

5Eduardo Gonzalez, Christopher Norris and 3 others