Rachel Maddow was thrown by the word “Laodicean.” I’m guessing her Bible literacy is a bit … lukewarm.
"Austro" as in Rothbard and Wittgenstein, "Athenian" as in Aristotle and smashing-the-plutocracy.
About Roderick T. Long
The Empirical Me
I’m Roderick T. Long, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. I’m an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. (More about me here.) This blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, is a continuation of my earlier blog, archived here.
I could make a crude sexual joke here…
Must be fun getting to exercise those Greek and Latin roots, eh Roderick?
Delightfully witty. Ranks with up there with my favorite Voltaire quote “A witty saying proves nothing”
I must confess that I had to look the word up myself. I suppose my biblical knowledge is equally laodicean. Perhaps downright cold.
If it’s cold, then it’s not Laodicean:
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write … I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:14-16)
It’s OK to be ignorant in many situations, but it’s rarely a good thing to be proud of one’s ignorance.
Although “Laodicea” is often thought to be a Greek name, there’s a good chance it’s actually Phrygian. Anyway, I knew it not from its faux-Greek roots but from the wonderful spewing passage in Revelation.