When will we put this verb in the English lexicon?
I have occasionally used this word in a few of my Medium articles and comments.
I think most readers already understand what this word means. Here are some examples:
Margaret is johnwayning through a cold Saskatchewan winter.
Fred believes he can johnwayne through his heart attack.
J.D. Rockefeller johnwayned Standard Oil into a monopoly.
Here is the formal definition that I hope will find its way to dictionaries with in the next decade:
This new verb conjures up an image of rugged individualism that depends mostly on hard and smart work:
• Talent is secondary, maybe tertiary.
• Family and community upbringing are of no importance.
• Using government infrastructure to accomplish great things is also of no importance.
• Success is all because of the individual who pulled himself up by the bootstraps. Anyone can johnwayne in something.
And people who don’t johnwayne are losers:
• Like the thousands of great athletes who didn’t make it the professional leagues.
• Like the thousands of great musicians who didn’t become rich and famous.
• Like the thousands of businesses that either failed or just provided a basic income for their owners.
• Like the millions of parents who chose to nurture their children and volunteer in their community instead of putting in 80-hour work weeks.
The antonym of “johnwayne” is “collaborate”
Have noticed that there are few TV shows and movies about collaboration?
It’s kind of hard to develop a marketable plotline with characters collaborating to solve problems.
The better movies come from a hero johnwayning a really big villain of some kind, like a Dr. No, a tsunami, or a chinless bureaucrat. Even John Wayne was always johnwayning against the bad guys. The bigger the villain, the more johnwayning is required.
Creative writing instructors like to tell their students if there is no conflict, there is no story.
And that’s why my alternative democracy fails to gain traction
My Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG) requires collaboration, a skill which we still have a lot to learn about. But collaboration reduces conflict.
Imagine a TV show of TDG builders. They discuss different angles to a problem. No one has strong opinions. They call in experts and stakeholders. They discuss alternative solutions. They discuss the pros and cons of these solutions. As the discussion continues, the group starts finding consensus to the solution that is going to be implemented.
Boring as all hell, right?
Rather, Hollywood likes dialogue with lots of johnwayning. Our hero johnwayes his idea for the good. The villain johnwaynes his idea for the bad. No give on either side. Lots of conflict and contention as the two johnwaynes (notice how the verb just got turned to a noun?) johnwayne (back to verb) against each other.
And the various artists who create a great johnwayne story make lots of money (now it’s an adjective).
But is all this johnwayning (gerund) a good example for how the world should work?
Now I need to figure out how to use "johnwayne" as an adverb.
How about:
The director was johnwayningly telling his actors to “start acting or they will be replaced.”
Maybe when we make “johnwayne” an official word in the English language, we will start realizing how silly all this johnwayning really is.
Until then, johnwayne your way through life (now it is an imperative). That is what we have been taught. So there is no need to build a new collaborative democracy, right?
Our johnwayne democracy works so well.
Published on Medium 2025
