[FRIAM] word of the day: "Eschatology"

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

One day, during geography, I raised my hand and said, “How come north/south America and Europe/Africa sort of fit together?”  General merriment on all sides, including the teacher’s.  

 

Did she do that to YOU, also? 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2020 2:50 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] word of the day: "Eschatology"

 

Nick -



I had to look up eschatological:  Courtesy of wikipedia, 

Eschatology /ˌɛskəˈtɒlədʒi/ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English>  ( <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:En-uk-eschatology.ogg> listen <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/En-uk-eschatology.ogg> ) is a part of theology <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology>  concerned with the final events of history <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world> , or the ultimate destiny <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny>  of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as the "end of the world <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_world_(civilization)> " or "end times <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time> ".[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology#cite_note-1> 

Not to be confused with Ichtyology nor scatology...  (though that is always my first impulse).



Wow.  Glad finally, after all those years, to have that one added to my lexicon.  So, is this what I am accusing steve of when I accuse him of a “hankering”.  Is this what Glen (?) was accusing ME of when he (?) accused me of a belief in progress.  (Was Deweyism a form of eschatology?  Who would have ever thought!)  So Glen.  What does the word mean to you?  Does somebody who believes that history has a vector have thereby to be an eschatologist?  Does the fact that Peirce believes that there are SOME truth and that some forms of inquiry seek these out and sometimes find them make him an Eschatologist?  (That’s right, Nick, when you learn a new word, use it at least 6 times in the next ten sentences.  )

Maybe you and I had the same 5th Grade Teacher.?  She did me two HUGE favors which have lasted all of my life:  

1) her weekly spelling assignments included a requirement for each of us to write a short-story using all of her spelling words (maybe 8-10?), with no grading on anything except proper spelling of the word (naturally) and proper usage.  Grammar, sense-making, and quality of story were not graded, though we all enjoyed it greatly when she read our story out loud to the class (<20 kids).   THAT honor was based on those other qualities, but not helping/hurting our grade in spelling.

2) It was the year New Math hit our backwoods school system, and it overwhelmed her.  For some reason, those 5th-grade-calibrated story problems made perfect sense to me, so she often asked me to explain them to the class.   I'm guessing my explanation saved her the trouble/embarassment of trying but I'm not sure that my exposition for the class did anything for any of them... they probably all just nodded and pretended to write, hoping I would hurry up and finish my lame attempts to make the inscrutable scrutable.  They didn't have a <delete> nor <next> button on their mimeograph sheets...  can you still smell the Banana-esque esters? 

You can probably blame Ms. Naranjo for my penchant for "story".

- Steve

 

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