misologist and missiologist and misanthropos

I decided to write on this prefix, and words formed using it, because I spent the afternoon trying to do my taxes. Like the ancient Hydra of Greek mythology, every time I lop off one problem, another appears in its place. I think I will take a tax lawyer friend to lunch this week under the guise of wanting to "catch up" and then spring some questions on him while he is savoring his sweet & sour pork or endive salad.

Whenever I think of the word hatred, however, a memory from 1972, my sophomore year at Brown, floods back on me. In those days I spent a good deal of my time memorizing the Bible. I neglected almost everything else that was important in life because of the perceived surpassing worth, to quote St. Paul, of this task. One person that joined me in the task for a while was a member of the Brown Crew Team, Jim Ulrich. Jim became fascinated with Ps. 139, and I remember him glowering at me and reciting Ps. 139: 21-22, which says: "Do I not hate them that hate you? I hate them with a perfect hatred." So, with this subject on my mind, I thought I could do no better than bring out some terms that begin with "mis" or "miso-," the Greek root for "hatred."

Beginning with Misanthropos

The OED lists about 40 or so words that are formed off the root "Miso," which means the hatred of something. Of course, not every word beginning with "miso" has to do with hatred. For example, misobservance has something to do with the failure to observe rules or conditions properly, and has nothing to do with hating anything. If we are to begin at the beginning, we need to start with misanthropos, a word made popular by Thomas North's 1579-80 translation of Plutarch's Lives. One of the Plutarch's biographies was of "Timon, surnamed Misanthropos." Within two decades or more Shakespeare had popularized the term by writing his little-read (today) but delightfully quick-flowing play about the Athenian noble Timon. In Timon 4.3.53, he says: "I am Misant(h)ropos, and hate Mankinde." Francis Bacon, a contemporary of S, defined the term as follows: "Misanthropi, that make it their practise, to bring men to the bough."

"Bring men to the bough"? I think I need to research that one. In its fourth definition of "bough," the OED has: "A gallows." Then it lists an old legal proverb, of which I was ignorant. "The father to the bough, the son to the plough." This is supposed to mean that, "according to Kentish custom, attainder for felony does not deprive a man's children of the succession to his property." The land of Kent is famous in the common law tradition because of the unique nature of property distribution, called gavelkind, practiced there. Instead of primogeniture, where land was given to the eldest son through the device of the fee tail, gavelkind was the practice by which the land descended to all sons in equal shares. Now we can understand the first attestation of "bough" in this way, from 1590: "Or in Kent in Gavelkind..for there it is said, "the father to the boughe, and the son to the ploughe." American law preserved the English doctrine against attainder, though we lost the catchy and pithy proverb when the word crossed the ocean. Too bad for us.

It was not until the late 17th century that the Greek form of the word yielded to that which we know today: misanthrope. Macauley used the word in his magisterial History of England: "Ill as he (Charles II) though of his species, he never became a misanthrope." Then, concluding our treatment, from 1905 we have: "The Celt of the 'Forty-five' was not a mooning misanthrope." What, pray tell, is a "mooning misanthrope?" It has nothing to do with dropping one's pants and bending over. Rather "mooning" as an adjective only goes back to 1864 and means "characterized by dreaminess; aimless, listless." I like John Steinbeck's use of the term best of all (East of Eden): "Joseph was the fourth son--a kind of mooning boy, greatly beloved and protected by the whole family."*

[*Sorry but I just had to check out uses of "mooning" on the web, and I ran across the Wikipedia article on it. Even though it mentions the "former" meaning, it focuses on the exposing of the buttocks, and has a picture of a mass mooning at respected Stanford University from 1995 to "illustrate" the concept. It tells all kinds of interesting things about contemporary mooning. For example, did you know that when you press your buttocks against glass (such as in a moving vehicle) it is known as a "pressed ham"? So much to learn..]

Misology

I like the word misology both because of what it means and how it could easily be misunderstood. Since "logos" means "knowledge" or "reason," misology is "hatred of reason or discussion." A synonym is a misomusist. Though misomusist has an attestation going back to 1642, a 2001 appearance in the Guardian ought not to be missed: "The Czech novelist Milan Kundera has coined a wonderful word--misomusist--to describe the sort of person who is at war with art and forces it to a 'purpose beyond the aesthetic.'" I suppose this means that Kundera is opposed to anyone who wants to use art in service of a cause. Art only ought to be used for art's sake. Why? Well, I may not have fully understood Kundera, and since he is not the point of this essay, I will move on.

The word misologist was only invented in 1870, and became popular through Benjamin Jowett's famous translation of Plato's Dialogues. "As there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas." But, use the word with a person with a smattering of theological education and it might lead to a confusion between a misologist and a missiologist. I first ran into this latter term in seminary late in 1974, and learned it to be a person who studies the theory and practice of the mission of the Church. This might include church planting, the approach of the Church to the ideas of the culture it is seeking to evangelize, or various strategies to maximize one's mission efforts. If you kind of slur your sounds, you might just say "misologist" when you mean missiologist. And, as we see, there is more than an iota of difference between the two (after all, there is also an additional "s" in the latter).

Conclusion

All this writing on hatred is now making me feel better. I think I will write one more soon and then be able to return to my teaching work with gusto.

1789