Bigot, bigoted, bigotry

Bigot may be represented by the intolerant partisan, and one who becomes attached to a single movement or concept such as religion, politics, race, group, idea, or deviation. In this respect, bigotry could be classified as a disease of unopenness and separatists thinking, lacking compassion for anyone other than the affliction emanated.

To be bigoted is common today and politics is quite infested with this feeling that displays a broken system. Envy is the culprit and works strongly in the background as a way to sort oneself from others, similar to the way a beast works. It is important to understand the characteristics of this display in humans as a marker of this disease. One is not necessarily a bigot in avoidance of intolerence.

The AHD offers a word history that helps to understand where this old French word is derived.

Word History: "A bigot may have more in common with God than one might think. Legend has it that Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, refused to kiss the foot of of the French king Charles III, uttering the phrase bi got, his borrowing of the assumed Old English equivalent of our expression by God. Although this story is almost certainly apocryphal, it is true that bigot was used by the French as a term of abuse for the Normans, but not in a religious sense. Later, however the word, or very possibly a homonym, was used abusively in French for the Beguines, members of a Roman Catholic lay sisterhood. From the 15th century on Old French bigot meant [an excessively devoted or hypocritical person.] Bigot is first recorded in English in 1598 with the sense [a superstitious hypocrite.]"

The word hypocrite leaves a connotation of hypersensitivity to criticism, which should be noted in this disorder of the mind, and most likely the soul if one exists.

R. Mark Sink  2007/7/25