Want to start a movement? Here’s how

Trump supporters storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP

For much of modern history the world has been defined and divided by -isms and -ologies. Theologies, ideologies – there’s two of the biggest -ologies for you. Also on display in economic theories and the sciences. Ditto the pseudo-sciences. Think parapsychology versus psychology.

A random collection of -isms. Racism. Fascism. Nazism. Marxism – and subcategories like Leninism and Stalinism. Poor Khrushchev and Gorbachev. Neither Nikita nor Mikhail made the ism cut. Nor were their bodies embalmed and entombed in Red Square.

Trumpism is a recent addition. Picture Chandan Khanna / AFP

You can add an -ism to just about anything that takes your fancy or raises ire or eyebrows, from baptism to cannibalism. But -isms work best for beliefs and doctrines. Ask Karl, Hitler and Musso. With Donald Trumpism a recent addition. (Fugitive thought. Will Donald be entombed in DC? Perhaps in a gilded Trump Tomb in front of the Capitol, so he can storm it forever? Then again, maybe he would prefer to be buried on one of his golf courses, for tax purposes.)

And here’s a truism. The greatest fights are not between political parties but within them. Look at the way factionalism has effed the ALP forever. Not the Libs, though: you may remember Malcolm Turnbull insisting that there is no factionalism in the Liberal Party. Given the response, even he had to laugh.

Denialism has a long, dark history. We’ve a history of denialism about the way we treated the First Nations people. Australia’s own Eric Butler was, like David Irving, a Holocaust denier. The Vatican long denied that there was paedophilia within the priesthood.

And when it comes to being a climate change denialist the queue forms on the Right. There are no climate denialists on the Left.

Other -isms? Fanaticism. Feminism. Sexism. Scepticism. Egoism. Ageism. Pentecostalism. Let’s not forget differentism – a dislike of anyone different. There are a few nice -isms. Optimism. Altruism. Pacifism. Humanism (count me in). Romanticism. Positivism.

And when it comes to ideas in art, -isms are huge. Realism. Dadaism. Impressionism. Fauvism. Pointillism. Surrealism. Cubism. Expressionism. Just slap your paint on in a different way, add an -ism, and let the auction houses know. It’s much the same with -ologies in medicine – think gastroenterology, gynaecology, immunology, cardiology and, unfortunately, oncology.

I’m thinking of odder -ologies, too. Astrology, anthropology, archaeology. palaeontology, volcanology. Cosmology is one of my favourites, thanks to Carl Sagan.

I’ve been involved with many -isms. Communism before the age of consent. That earned me an ASIO file at the age of 16. Very proud of that. Humanism came a little later – and I was proud to be named Humanist of the Year by the Humanist Society, becoming one of a distinguished alumni. Scepticism is a lifelong favourite, too – hence my modest involvement in establishing the Australian Skeptics – in company with Dick Smith and fellow atheist Mark Plummer. I recommend the marvellous magazine The Skeptical Inquirer, home of the best debunkers.

As I prepare to exit the topic I recall the tautology and, as I rub my head, phrenology.