Bromide.I first came across this word outside of formal Chemistry in descriptions of additives put in military tea(allegedly) to suppress sexuality, to remove libido in all-male communities.
The second occurence was in certain works by Ayn Rand, and I found the use of this word, while precise, to be inelegant and cumbersome.
But what is a 'bromide', taken on her terms?
I can remember scenes, pictures and sounds from the 70s and 80s which are and have been regarded as iconic. Like the picture above.
The original power of the bromide was in its ability to acquire a particular meaning to the majority of the population-specifically unspecific, meaning different things to different people, but always being capable of endless interpretation.
So a bromide has to be vague. Vague and portentious, something that makes people sit up and take notice-but not noticeable itself.
It needs to make people sit up and take notice then disappear from the perceptive threshold, leaving a vacuum that the weasels of the world can fill and use.
Against us. To keep us quiet, to keep us contented, to sell us the illusion that all is going well.
So this is a bromide.
Not an illusion.
Not a neutral icon.
But something that actively makes us stop seeking.
4 comments:
I also came across that word from the same Randian provenance. She refers to 'stale bromides'. Should not all paedos be administered a dose?
It's the paedos who are giving us the bromides these days.
I first heard this comment while watching a '30s movie - Dinner at Eight. The doctor character was prescribing a bromide for a distraught woman. Just like a valium.
Bromide compounds, especially potassium bromide, were frequently used as sedatives in the 19th and early 20th century. This gave the word "bromide" its colloquial connotation of a boring cliché, a bit of conventional wisdom overused as a sedative.
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