history of word

[James Devine]

I remember that when I took Ancient Greek History when I was an
undergraduate, the students started laughing when the prof. referred to the
Cretans. He corrected us: the word "cretin" has nothing to do with Crete,
said this very conservative prof. (Donald Kagan). No, it's from the early
French word "cretien," which means Christian. Also the name of some fellow
in Canada, I understand.


>>I don't have the patience right now to look up the exact history of the 
>term
>>*idiot*, but I know it in general. In Greek *idiotes* (sp?) meant 
>something
>>like a private person, a person who did not take part in the collective
>>(political) life of the *polis* and was therefore (as we can see from
>>Arisotle's use of *political* [I forget the Greek]) "not all there, not
>>fully human, incomplete." 

Also, I think Jim and Hobsbawm are right below. Marx was talking about the
_sociological_ idiocy of rural life, where the peasant families tended to
very isolated from each other, encouraging a very individualistic outlook.
(Sounds like L.A.!) Marx thought that people in the city, especially
workers in factories, were more able to unite in a sustained way, a
necessary condition for their liberation. Peasant rebellions, on the other
hand, tend to be temporary, followed by a return to individualism. People
like Barrington Moore picked up on this, arguing that peasant revolutions
are likely to establish some other group (likely an urban one) as the new
ruling class. (See his SOCIAL ORIGINS OF DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY.) 	


>My yuppie Verso edition of the Communist Manifesto has an introduction 
>by Eric Hobspawn that talks about Marx's use of the phrase "the idiocy 
>of rural life".  He says the sense Marx meant was the isolation, both 
>cultural and political, the peasantry had from the larger society.

Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html