Scatology and tell-tale signs

Ratna Raman

IN Hard Times, Charles Dickens attacks the yawning gulf between lived experience and learning systems. Mrs Gradgrind provides valuable insights by voicing her suspicions about new learning. She complains that her children have been overwhelmed by ‘ologies’. The noun ‘ology’ (from Greek and Latin ‘logia’ and French ‘logie’) refers to a branch of knowledge. It lends itself as a suffix to psychology, sociology, biology, zoology, physiology; new social and empirical sciences in the 19th century. 

‘Eulogy’ is speech or writing in high praise of something or someone. Often eulogies are tributes to deceased persons, usually well-known. ‘Trilogy’ indicates a set of three, and trilogies of paintings, films and novels exist. In the mid-16th century, ‘apology’ indicated a formal defence against an accusation. Indicating deep regret, ‘apologies’ must be proffered after serious study (ology) of appalling behaviour. 

Another word in circulation from the 19th century is ‘scatology’ (Scat; Greek for dung); used to describe excretory waste from all living species. Dung is one of the most examined and analysed substances relied upon by diagnostic processes of modern medicine. 

Scatology was adopted as a tool by satirical writers to articulate disgust over political and social hypocrisies. Jonathan Swift’s sonnet to Stella attacks stereotypical portrayals of the beloved mistress as an ethereal being by reiterating: ‘And, Stella, Stella, Stella *****!’ (shits). Like all satirical narration, this remains a brutally malodorous and unaesthetic truth.

OV Vijayan’s political satire, The Saga of Dharmapuri (1987) shows its president immersed in hourly rituals of defecation and documents the collection, study and valorisation of presidential excreta by the state machinery and press; and remains a  visceral indictment of a corrupt and rotten political system.

The corrective and satirical force of scatological literature has now been replaced by a process of trivialisation in every day speech patterns.

The word shit (once hinted at through multiple asterisks) is now used freely to describe all kinds of waste. Shit is now a printable expletive and as slang expresses a wide spectrum of human emotions, such as indifference (‘I don’t give a shit’); rage and disapproval  (‘Don’t give me that shit’); imperative (‘Get your shit together’); acute discomfort (‘in deep shit’); incredulity (‘Are you shitting me?’); compliment (‘He is a cool shit’) or impending crisis (‘The shit is about to hit the ceiling’).

The euphemism ‘manual scavenging’ (collecting and clearing of human excrement through physical contact) deflects attention from the hideousness of subjecting fellow humans to this degrading practice. Laws banning it were enacted in 1993 and yet again in 2013 but primitive sanitation and sewerage infrastructures are yet to be modernised. Rehabilitating manual scavengers as equal citizens is low on priority lists. Pathology (clinical diagnosis of disease) can no longer explain away our collective apathy. It has reached pathological (extreme mental abnormality) dimensions.