Subsidiarity

A forbidden term.

The only reason people are not attacked for using terms like "subsidiarity" and "supersidiarity" is that they are complex enough (having 6 and 7 syllables, respectively) that most people's eyes glaze over when they are mentioned. And, for those few people who are capable of a partial comprehension of such terms, there's always the progressive semantic dodge that effectively nullifies their effect as useful terms.

For those of you who, out of curiosity (and who are not intimidated by polysyllabic terms), have decided to read further, permit me to offer the following, somewhat arcane, etymology.

The term subsidiarity was invented by Catholics, and comes from Latin roots meaning "serving (or service of) that which is below." This origin, if properly understood in the context of John 13:3-15 and Matthew 20:25-28, provides a clear context for the meaning of the term "service" as used here. The ever inventive progressive, however, is perfectly capable of twisting its meaning so that it amounts to supersidiarity, and the two terms, intended to be opposite in meaning, become indistinguishable.

Thus, in the most semantically abusive form, subsidiarity comes to denote a political philosophy that places the family unit at the service of the all-powerful state, rather than vice versa, ensuring that families, and the individuals that compose them, are enslaved to the aims and purposes of the state. To clarify, the term "state" here means the highest level of operative government in any given context.

How is such an innovation of the term even possible, you ask? Very simple, all you have to do is claim "it's for their own good" because, after all, the state has their best interests in mind. So the best way for families to be served by the state is for families to obey the state in every detail. In effect, this places the state in the position normally occupied by God in most of the world's religions. States, however, whatever their chief executives and other authorities may imagine, are not all-wise and all-knowing, and reality is just complex enough to bite them, and their erstwhile "subjects", in the rectum, and to do so regularly in spite of all efforts to avoid the inevitable, so that "centralism" (the essential meaning of supersidiarity in the "service" context) ensures what engineers call common mode failure. Indeed, the operation of supersidiarity is the most fundamental reason that states always eventually collapse.

Most people who are capable of understanding terms like subsidiarity and supersidiarity are also capable of grasping this reality, which makes their use dangerous to progressive regimes.