Pathocracy /kieselguhr, jeshimon,

[Paul Mackin]

On May 3, 2007, at 9:03 AM, Glenn Scheper wrote:

>
> I once surfed preterite to see which way it would fall, but cannot now
> remember: Are the preterite those that are passed by in the temporal
> blessing? Or are they those showing an excess of temporal blessing who
> have been passed by in the spiritual and eternal/post-mortal blessing?


why not split the difference?

the way I've always read it is that the two meanings depend upon each  
other

the noun Preterite  started being use by Pynchon (or somebody) as a  
take off on the religious doctrine of Preterition (Late 17th Century)

under this doctrine the non-elect are passed over for eternal  
salvation regardless of where they stand on the socio-economic scale

Pynchon secularized this  notion, so that non-election  referred   
strictly to worldly success

it's important to note that some versions of the religious doctrine  
give  Pynchon's usage  an important extra assist

that's when they held  that worldly success was an external "sign" or  
a sort of leading indicator of success in heaven




>
> I get the impression it is used as the former, but I feel it is the  
> latter.

Both are sort of right