It is with great sadness and bitterness of heart that I find I have yet again been overlooked for a peerage in the New Year’s Honours.
There is some modest consolation to be found, though, in the fact that I was invited to a reception at the House of Lords earlier this month by one of their lordships. It turned out to be a most agreeable occasion, but hobnobbing with a lord or two over champagne and canapés is hardly the same as being a member of the club, is it? As for how I improbably came to be an honoured guest at such an event, discretion, alas, forbids me from saying. There are people I would not wish to embarrass. All I will say is that it was perfectly legit: I was security checked like everyone else; the invitation was made for an entirely respectable reason and there is nothing for IICSA’s Westminster strand to worry about.
An even better consolation prize was to be dubbed an “edgelord” in the media, which is apparently a term of derision applied to anyone who tries too hard to attract attention by being controversially “edgy”, especially undergraduate rebels. Judging by these examples I found online, I am totally relaxed to find myself awarded membership of this club. Very rejuvenating! I love example number 12: “If there is a god he will have to beg for my forgiveness”. Cool, man! Wish I’d thought of that!
The word itself is fabulous: Edgelord. Lord of the wild margins. Has a romantic ring, don’t you think? Like the Lord of the Isles who ruled the remote coastal islands that edge north western Scotland, or a Time Lord, whose vast domain is an entire dimension.
Anyway, dragging myself prosaically back to a spate of otherwise very unromantically rude articles about my work this month, I am going to stick resolutely to the old Hollywood maxim that there is no such thing as bad publicity. This is not strictly true, of course, as fallen film producer Harvey Weinstein and many other celebs are now all too painfully aware. Nevertheless, we must take our positives where we can, so I will start by noting that in the immediate wake of these articles appearing online, PDF downloads of my recent CHIN piece for Sexuality & Culture shot up by a couple of thousand. Against this background, I feel, there will come a time – maybe in the new year and almost certainly before the end of 2020 – when CHIN begins to attract serious comment and critique in the academic and wider world.
As for the hate-splattered bile that erupted this month, it began with a 2,000-word essay in an otherwise rather sophisticated (albeit with a pro-religious bias, judging by the editorial board membership) American online current affairs and cultural journal called Arc Digital. In an article titled “The Pedophile Apologist”, writer Justin Lee attempted to discredit my philosophical arguments through a number of misleading, inaccurate claims as to the basis of my case. Apparently lacking confidence that this critique would be convincing, he tried to buttress it with heavy reliance on vicious and indeed libellous personal attack – which will certainly have damned his approach in the eyes of any academic philosopher.
Another writer, Rod Dreher, in a piece for The American Conservative, tried to invest Lee with some much needed authority by referring to him as a professor. But he is certainly no professor of philosophy. Rather, Lee has announced himself as “the founder of the world’s largest LGBT Christian advocacy organization”. He is a regular columnist with non-fiction books and novels to his credit and teaches writing skills to undergraduates, through something called the Composition Department at the University of California, Irvine. Nothing wrong with any of that except that his style is neither objectively philosophical nor, indeed, very Christian. Ironically, one of his books is Talking Across the Divide, described by the publisher as “A guide to learning how to communicate with people who have diametrically opposed opinions from you, how to empathize with them, and how to (possibly) change their minds”. Physician, heal thyself!!
I was kindly alerted to the existence of Lee’s article and Dreher’s by blogger Christian, host of Agapeta and long-time Heretic TOC commentator. The news also reached us thanks to Explorer, who mentioned in a comment here that the blog Pro-Pedo Front (PPF) had come to my defence. PPF, which has now been added to Heretic TOC’s blog roll, also turned up as a commentator at HTOC. Replying to PPF, I was able to take up his astute recognition that Lee’s critique did nothing to refute my position. Instead, Lee had merely berated me for failing to consider some supposedly vital aspects of the virtue ethics tradition. The point I made to PPF bears repeating in this more prominent position:
This aspect of Lee’s criticism reminds me of the response made by theologians to the case made for atheism by Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion. They claimed that Dawkins had ignored huge swathes of theology, entirely missing the point that Dawkins’ arguments had rendered such theology redundant. It would be equally ridiculous for astrologers to “refute” the findings of modern astronomy by saying they contradict the elaborate theories in their dusty old pre-scientific books and charts.
But Dreher is probably a far more influential figure than Lee: The American Conservative has clout and Dreher is one of its star writers. His article about my work, though, titled “Making Pedophilia Respectable”, is largely just a lazy crib of Lee’s essay, citing from it extensively. His more distinctive contribution comes only at the end, when he hits a purple patch of scaremongering:
The normalization of pedophilia is coming. The destructuring of human relations under the guise of liberating desire is the goal of these people, whether they realize it or not. Without God, or some other binding source of sacred order, there is only nihilism. If you will not have God, prepare to make room for Tom O’Carroll and his celebration of diversity.
Can he really be so worried? Does he really believe the normalisation of paedophilia is already on its way? Seems hard to believe from where we stand, doesn’t it? We see only oppression, with no obvious road towards acceptance. But two of Dreher’s readers take the argument much further, in observations that draw on the debate over trans kids. These are presented by the author as “updates”; thus they are accorded an official status and are distinct from the hundreds of “below the line” comments that follow:
UPDATE: Reader kgasmart comments:
The normalization of pedophilia is coming.
I agree, but when it does it will come under the ruse of “marginalized communities” because really, who’s more marginalized than a pedophile?
The concept of “consent” will be the biggest hurdle to get over. The left has fetishized consent; so long as consent is involved, any and all sexual practices are permitted – indeed, to be celebrated! But who can give consent?
How is it the LGBT left holds that pre-teens can consent to, say, taking hormones or binding their breasts, or whatever measures precede transition surgery – but those pre-teens can’t consent to sex? How can they consent to one but not the other; how can they have full agency regarding the first – but not the second?
That’s the slippery slope we’ll slide down here.
UPDATE.2: Reader Xenie:
Lee lays out perfectly why “consent” ethics will be inadequate to stop this: children are already given medical treatments, personal hygiene care, etc, that they cannot consent to. Either the powers that be will reverse engineer things to claim they can give consent after all (as is happening with the transing of very young children) or they will shrug consent off as not always mattering so much, or for certain important things. If consent is all you’ve got, then, it’s game over either way, and evil wins the day.
I cannot overstate just how much the rhetoric of the transgender movement is working to soften society up for this horrific pedo revolution to come. If you can believe, as many well-meaning liberals now do, that a 4 year old boy can meaningfully declare himself a girl and “consent” to a name change, social status change, and then, at age 12 or so, the first medical interventions to transform him into a “real girl,” then how will they defend themselves against the idea that he could also “consent” to a “mentoring” relationship of a sexual nature with some “caring” adult?
Never mind that these readers are hostile to us, there are profound insights here, it seems to me. What do you think? I would be interested to hear what other heretics make of these thoughts.
Lee’s and Dreher’s articles were quickly followed by another in the Christian Post, which was then reprinted in the British-circulated Christian Today. Any heretics who bother to check all these out will see that they include some ghastly allegations against me. Some of you, indeed, will be disappointed that I have not shown more anger over this in today’s blog. But that is not my way. All too often, I have found, those activists who burst into flames of outrage under attack tend to burn themselves out quite quickly: they don’t last long.
That does not mean we should always ignore libellous attacks. We should do what we can to defend ourselves when it is practical to do so. For instance, one serious allegation against me in these latest articles has been sourced to a news story from years ago in the Irish Times. The story is false but it was only many years after its publication that I first heard about it, when it was put on Wikipedia (WP) as one of several sources used to justify repeating the allegation in the biographical page about me. A number of newspapers, including the Irish Times, had published stories put out by the Press Association in the UK that appeared to rely on incorrect information that had found its way into a police press release. The BBC carried a similar report.
I decided this was intolerable. Whereas old news reports are quickly forgotten, what is said on WP is permanently on high-profile display. It is the first source everyone turns to when they “look up” people who are in the news. So I complained to WP. After several months of detailed, documented explanation on my part as to the unsoundness of the allegations my complaint was upheld. The offending allegations were duly withdrawn from the WP page in question – not something WP ever does lightly, as those who have put themselves through the mill of their labyrinthine, intensely bureaucratic complaints procedures will know.
However, I was advised by one of the senior figures at WP that the only way to resolve the problem permanently would be for me to get the BBC and others to remove their old web pages in which the offending story was mentioned. I always knew this would be a gargantuan task. The Press Association story would have been published all over Great Britain and Ireland and perhaps even beyond. But my first target had to be the BBC. As a prestigious national broadcaster, this organisation’s reports tend to be believed. So if I could get them to remove their story other editors and web archivists would be inclined to accept that my case must have merit.
Accordingly, I launched a complaint against the BBC some months ago. This complaint was rejected at the first and second times of asking. But I persisted, and it finally landed on the desk of Andrew Bell, the Complaints Director. When he too professed himself unwilling to remove the report from the BBC’s website I sent a letter shortly before Christmas threatening to take legal action.
That is where the matter stands. There has been no reply so far from the BBC’s Legal Department. In the event that I do not receive a satisfactory response within the first week of January I will be consulting one of the country’s leading firms of libel lawyers with a view to bringing a court action.
So, rest assured, I am not taking all this lying down. It is impossible to tilt at every windmill. The libel laws are so lax in the US that it might not make sense to pursue Lee and the rest into the courts just yet, but a successful case against the BBC might change that. We’ll see. Watch this space. But don’t hold your breath as these things can take years, so don’t expect to hear any more for a long time. Just wish me luck!
[…] Note that “compelled” bit. Whatever may be the practice in Afghanistan and elsewhere, I see absolutely zero evidence that either Desmond or any other drag kids in the western world are being forced to perform. This is just a smear – a tactic regrettably par for the course on the “fake news” Right, as I know to my cost: Dreher was among the traditionalist, mainly religious, scribes who loudly and libellously denounced my article “Childhood ‘innocence’ is not ideal” last year. See Lording it from the wild margins. […]
Lo, long time lurker, but first time commenter, here.
For all y’all debating peds out there, how real does this vid feel?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsSD7msEXVE&w=560&h=315%5D
Very stylish but not so sure about the message.
What do YOU make of it prodigaljohn? No pressure to answer straightaway though. Might be good to hear first from anyone else who might feel moved to respond.
Good to hear from you, BTW.
Well, it’s just the general nature of debates where, however elaborate and packed with citations one’s argument may be, it’s a house of straw in the face of any opponent’s breath of dismissal. To me, that even encompasses us, especially in light of the average opinion on ped’s (Nevermind if any given pedophile is anti, or pro, all of us should just drop dead, as far as they’re concerned). It is encouraging to see a lot of comments, and debates in these threads, and the growing number of MAP blogs you seem to be keeping tabs on. Though they are interesting to read, and there’s still plenty for me to go through, there’s this nagging feeling a lot of this is for naught. It’s that catch-22 of ideological entrenchment that I observe. They’ll say we are wrong, and that is proven by the fact that we’re advancing arguments to disprove that we are wrong begin with. It’s not that they’re not grounded on sound evidence, but to even present said evidence to back up our arguments is itself a damning act.
However, I suppose I shouldn’t be too pessimistic. I heard that Yure, and Hikari’s MAP Starting Guide even managed to get neutral reception from it’s exposure on Mumsnet. Pretty well received, all things considered. Then there’s the fact that you have someone on these threads who’s pro-ped, and he’s not one himself! …or at the very least he’s not anti-ped. And if what you said is true, from an interview you that I won’t specifically cite, there’s that Michael Bailey guy, from Northwestern University. He made concessions that perhaps allowing child-adult intimacy wouldn’t be so bad after all, especially if the child is in a much better position to speak up and actually be listened to. Am I right?
>I heard that Yure, and Hikari’s MAP Starting Guide even managed to get neutral reception from it’s exposure on Mumsnet. Pretty well received, all things considered.
Is there a link for this? Don’t want to get too excited until I’ve made my own assessment. Sounds good though.
>Michael Bailey guy, from Northwestern University. He made concessions that perhaps allowing child-adult intimacy wouldn’t be so bad after all, especially if the child is in a much better position to speak up and actually be listened to. Am I right?
Mike has been a great supporter of my writings, but I do not recall him being quite as positive as you suggest. Again, do you have a reference? Oh, wait a minute. You say “from an interview [with] you that I won’t specifically cite”. OK, right. I have an an idea of what you might mean.
>Is there a link for this? Don’t want to get too excited until I’ve made my own assessment. Sounds good though.
There’s Yure’s entry on the aftermath of the Mumsnet debate on the guide: https://pedrapapeletesoura.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/the-good-side-of-hate/
And this is the aforementioned Mumsnet thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3470090-Twitter-hosts-paedophiles-AIBU-to-think-this-should-change
I’ve been trying to read through the postings, and saving the pages as I went along, but I haven’t got through all them, myself. But Yure seemed to have read them, and made adjustments according to some criticisms he apparently found constructive.
>Mike has been a great supporter of my writings, but I do not recall him being quite as positive as you suggest.
As for how I wrote Prof. Michael Bailey’s stance, from my limited access and assessment, suppose it was the way I wrote it, or something. But I didn’t mean to write it such that he was positive about what you had to say about pedophilia. It didn’t sound like he thought it would be great, but just that it may not be bad (and that it may not be bad is, I imagine, said with utmost caution). Or is that just it? Even he, however supportive of your writing he may be, doesn’t think that this is not bad, but that it is bad. So I was inadvertently stretching it by saying Prof. Bailey didn’t think it would be bad.
I’m just scratching the surface of all that’s been talked about, up to this point, and trying to do independent research on these matters. So if I am writing inaccuracies, that’s probably just me being overwhelmed by trying to catch up, and make sense of it all. I was just finished with your Radical Case, and there’s still more literature I have to waddle through. So, sorry.
>So if I am writing inaccuracies, that’s probably just me being overwhelmed by trying to catch up, and make sense of it all. I was just finished with your Radical Case, and there’s still more literature I have to waddle through. So, sorry.
No apology needed. It’s good to see you getting engaged with a lot of relevant reading. And thanks for the links.
I get the impression that Bailey is very close to adopting a permissive line on paedophilia, but is perhaps held back only by the requirements of his professional status.
>but is perhaps held back only by the requirements of his professional status
One would think there is bound to be some inhibition. On the other hand, Bailey is one of the bravest in the business. He’s a legend for “calling it as he sees it”, based on the evidence.
But the focus of his attention is largely elsewhere. His research background is strongest on transsexuality, and with trans kids being such a hot topic much of his bandwidth these days is taken up with that – and also with defending free speech in the academy, which is increasingly being eroded.
It has been tempting to think that people are being held back by pressure. After what happened with Bruce Rind, and company, it seems professionals who know better have to be disingenuous about the nature of pedophilia. I don’t think even the replication of that infamous analysis, by Heather Ulric, with a new conclusion of it’s effects not being so bad but still needs to prevented anyway, hasn’t calmed people down about it at all. That itself triggers a convoluted chain of zealous rage that’s twistedly polarized. But I’m pretty sure this has been said thousands of times already.
Suppose that’s the great mental barrier that many have broken themselves upon, in trying to break through it: people think that any remotely positive or neutral experience necessarily negates the existence of rape victims, and undermines every reason to protect, or prevent the creation of any more such victims. Because some have had it good, and they have reasons to think so, that somehow erases the experience of the traumatized, and, indeed, damaged. There’s no reason that there can be anything good, or not bad about it. It has to be bad. It simply cannot be good. Because all such experiences are bad, and those who say it’s good are merely waiting for it to be bad, even decades after the fact. They just need help in saying that it was bad, or even realizing that it was so.
So, if they have to, from what I can see, they will help these neutral/positive victims via inquisitorial styled force confessions. Then of course they’ll say having to resort to such methods, and create such trauma for said willing, or neutral victims is just part of the trauma of child-adult sex.
It’s all very contrived.
Bring me spaghetti!
I THINK U WILL FIND THIS VIDEO AMUSING ESPECIALLY IF YOU WATCH THE EPISODE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-9Aygwp_B0
Just American clap-trap!
You do realise it’s not entirely serious, don’t you?
When the Malcolm in the Middle series was originally broadcast, I saw a number of episodes, maybe 5-10 in all. At that time it seemed to me to be witty and wise. Most important of all, it gave every appearance (although appearance is not everything) of taking kids seriously. The eponymous Malcolm is clearly depicted not just as smart but as having views that might even make more sense than those of his teachers, or some of them.
And it was definitely not suggested that the adolescent Malcolm was sexually “innocent”: girls were perpetually lusted after; he was not asexual.
I was amused by the clip Daniel gave us. However, I think I can understand Debauch’s reaction. As a stand-alone it gives a bizarre, deliberately unrealistic twist to the American masculinity of its time. I’d say it amounts to an imaginative, creative satire; but for that very reason – the unrealistic element – it is not unreasonable to see it as claptrap.
OK, but then Debauch’s words are misleading. It would be like calling ‘Yes, Minister’ claptrap on the grounds that the British government is full of absurdities. To say this without any further explanation would make it sound like you were attacking the satirists instead of what they were satirising.
But then maybe I have failed to apply the principle of charity. Perhaps Debauch should explain what he meant.
Well, I am not a fan especially of American Romantic comedy, But American comedy seems to be much the same these days. I will make a few exceptions like ‘The Hangover’, 1,2 & 3, Or ‘Let’s play Cops’. I have not seen that many; Why would I, if I can’t stand them. I am just going by what I have seen. But when it comes to films and dramas, That is another matter. Prison Break that was on a decade ago on channel five was excellent. As for UK comedy, I’ll go for ‘Farther Ted’, ‘Allan Partridge’, ‘Porridge’, ‘Keeping up with appearances’ to name a few.
I’m not sure that this would be categorised as ‘romantic comedy’. That usually takes the form of films (such as ‘There’s something about Mary’) in which the subject of romance specifically is treated (whether successfully or not) in an amusing and entertaining way. This excerpt is from what you might describe as a family-based sitcom. I was wondering, though, specifically what you disliked about it.
It was produced by one of the big commercial networks, where selling advertising, not intelligence, is their raison d’etere. These networks don’t want to offend their mass audiences by pushing any envelopes, so they produce empty-headed pabulum that requires minimal attention spans and hurts no one’s feelings. No uncomfortable violence, no nudity (though lots of sexual innuendo), doesn’t come close to some of the British comedies I mentioned.
I will make another exception to the Animated comedy ‘American Dad, and ‘Family Guy, The old perverted pederast Herbert has been mentioned on here before.
So I guess you don’t see it as satirical then, in the way Tom and I do? Or maybe you think it’s just not very good satire?
LOL!
I also need to add to what I’ve just said, a certain wonder at your invocation of the sign “plain english”, and would do so I think by putting the question this way: just how many ‘blokes’, scoffing and blustering away semi-merrily down at their ‘local’ at any uttered departure from what they apparently like to celebrate as ‘plain english’, would cotton to the demanding exactitudes of your great essay at Sexuality & Culture?
Can anyone here honestly say that they are capable 24/7 of such, such ‘instant universality’ as to pour their wisdom like elixir-of-enlightenment down the gullets of all those only waiting for this uttered moment to arrive?
Somewhat parenthetically, was even the reputed master and exemplar of ‘plain english’ (ntm metaphors tailored to the last crease in a man’s brain), that is to say the magnificent blimp called GK Chesterton, capable of reaching the ‘plain speaking hordes’?
I for one would love to know even that much
LANGUAGE AND MORALITY (and parents?)
Language and morality have been at the basis of many of my replies to LSM, and a little to Turps, so I thought I would provide this quote from Jeremy Lent’s book The patterning instinct.
This quote says more clearly what I have tried to say. Ethics, as LSM has it, arise from our common tangible experiences; but each people in a cultural group proposed different content for their ethics, and even where it can be said to be the same, e.g., the encouragement of “flourishing”, what each culture means by this is different in instance and conceptual content. This is to say that the ethics is culturally relative, just as is the morality built on the ethics.
I have no doubt that both LSM and Master Turps will disagree for a variety of reasons, none the less, this is my basic position. It is sheer luck that I have obtained Lent’s book and started reading it over the past week, and a surprise to find many of his arguments and conclusions so close to mine.
But I want to talk about paedophiles and parents also, because LSM asked how any paedophile could expect parents to welcome them into their child’s life.
In many ways this seems to me to be a question that denies any sensible answer at this point, on the simple grounds that few to no parents would do so. The more important question, which is culturally and perhaps even logically prior is: How do paedophiles change the way in which they are perceived in this culture, such that a parent would at least consider the paedophile’s desires?
Perhaps LSM is correct to say that paedophiles need to have a higher morality (whatever that is or may look like) in order for this to happen. But, it is clear to me that a higher morality (impossible, I suspect) is totally irrelevant if non-paedophiles cannot even think of a paedophile without seeing them as a monster. This is to say: surely you must be accepted as paedosexual people well before any parent would consider your involvement with their child?
And, surely, that is what is being argued for here, and must continue to be argued for if any paedophile is to be accepted as a human being deserving of respect simply because of their humanity?
Just a thought for you all to think about, a thought that I believe to be very important to answer.
“Before language, early humans shared with other animals a universal set of tangible experiences: touch, sensation, up and down, warm and cold, near and far. They also shared with each other specifically human capacities: perceiving the intentions of others, imitating them, using categorization and analogy to find meaning in things. If we view language as a construction of symbolic building blocks, then these universally shared experiences are its foundation. As language became more sophisticated and crossed the metaphoric threshold, different cultures began to develop their own unique concepts from that shared foundation, thus creating new levels of culture-specific meaning”
BJ, oh BJ… I have but one question (which may of course lead swiftly to other questions but it’s ‘one’ to begin with): What would you say gives us the right (I think that’s right) to characterize these “before language” beings as being human? Whatever is it, would you say, that could define them as such thing?
Do you really, really accept just like that the inane assumption “categorization, and analogy to find meaning in things” can actually precede the advent of language???
THAT is what your quote is saying, and I recognize to be outrageously glib balderdash.
What, then, IS language, in your understanding? Where inm God;s name do these :”symbolic building-blocks” come from?
Thin air?
What was shared before language was VIOLENCE. INSTINCTUAL PROGRAMMING. PECKING ORDER ORGANIZED SOLELY BY MEANS OF DOMINANCE AND SUBMISSION.
please, forgive my abominable typos in the previous. Written hotly on the fly and fired prematurely
/sarcasm {Yes, you are correct, anyone without language is not and can never be human, the potential for language is irrelevant, and intelligence, it is language dependent, so anyone without a WAIS IQ of 145 is not human, because they do not have the potential for full humanity. Down with the sub-humans!}
With such language-based standard of being-human status, pre-verbal babies and toddlers are not human beings (at least, not yet).
Not the standard I can approve of.
And, just to say about the idea of “nothing but violence and subjugation before language”: pre-verbal small children are not especially violent or dominance-seeking. Instead, they are quite affectionate and prone to sincere emotional attachment and deep empathy with the people around them – recall a toddler scared and crying if becoming an unwilling observer of an angry quarrel of adults, especially the adults (s)he love… an episode you almost certainly witnessed at least once at your life, if you are not a hermit.
Turp, I want to ask: what is / are your own idea(s) about the origin of semiotics in general and language in particular, if any?
Ok, Turps, now that my sarcasm has been there, even if I used incorrect markup…
One of the reasons we use the term “cognitive” and its cognates is that we now know, with as much certainty as possible, that other animals have thought and intelligence. These other animals may not be human, may not have language (as far as we know), but this is a little irrelevant when cognition is displayed in behaviour, in learning (it was Darwin who first showed that earthworms can learn and display intelligence).
Ah, Tommy, I didn’t know you had been reincarnated, but now that you have, please catch up with the research which shows that this was not the case, which shows that those brutish bastardly pre-humans and others probably were better fed and more peaceful than we now are.
What was “before language” is a notion which I am not sure even makes sense, once we realise that other animals have cognition, and ways of communicating with each other which, it is claimed, in our human ancestors turned onto language as we (now) know it.
Now, I know you will be outraged by what I have said in this post—your previous comments are enough to justify the inference—so I will not bother making more positive statements, but will leave it alone, if only because far too many words would be required to do justice to demolishing your apparent opinion.
IN REPLY TO WARBLING TURPITUDE: COMMENT BELOW OF Jan 17, 2019 @ 09:45:43
On the origins of language
Mr Turp wrote:
>Thanks for literally ‘rocking up’ again with your grumble in plain sight here
Not a grumble, Turp, just a question. I made several points, leading up to this question: “Is GA [Generative Anthropology] perhaps a bit wrapped up in itself, or am I doing it an injustice?”
I was hoping for an answer.
Instead of answering it, you have posed a challenge of your own. OK, I am happy to address that, but not before noting that I asked my question over a month ago. I am still waiting for an answer.
Or perhaps you think your challenge constitutes an answer in itself? If so, I don’t think it will do, because your challenge has a simple answer.
THIS IS YOUR CHALLENGE:
>If you can find me one single attempt to fully theorize the origin of language ANYWHERE in the history of recorded thought…then please do so now.
HERE IS MY ANSWER:
Not one attempt but more than a dozen!
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language
2 Language origin hypotheses
2.1 Early speculations
2.2 Problems of reliability and deception
2.2.1 The ‘mother tongues’ hypothesis
2.2.2 The ‘obligatory reciprocal altruism’ hypothesis
2.2.3 The gossip and grooming hypothesis
2.2.4 Ritual/speech coevolution
2.3 Tool culture resilience and grammar in early Homo
2.4 Structuralist theory
2.5 Chomsky’s single step theory
2.6 Gestural theory
2.7 Tool-use associated sound in the evolution of language
2.8 Mirror neurons and language origins
2.9 Putting the baby down theory
2.10 From where to what theory
2.11 Grammaticalisation theory
2.12 Evolution-Progression Model
2.13 Self-domesticated ape theory
So, more hypotheses than any of us could shake a generative anthropologist at!
Whether some or all of this baker’s dozen of distinct hypotheses fall short of being attempts to “fully” theorize the origin of language might be debated, but even if that were the case it would do nothing to rescue your untenable main assertion, which was to claim there has been a “quasi-pathological reluctance we cultivate to this day, to seriously consider the birth of language”.
This is clearly not true, unless you are going to claim that none of the work on these hypotheses has been “serious”. All these claims have specialised WP pages associated with them. Open the links and you will page after page showing the nature of the work that has been done, in detail.
I am not saying anyone has found a compelling answer, but the same could be said about theories on the nature of matter or the origins of the universe. Any hard question will be a work in progress.
Having said that, I note your interesting point that in “the late 18th Century, the French Academy declared the enquiry into TOOL effectively TABOO”.
The ever-useful Wikipedia tells us about this taboo, which seems to me to have been perfectly rational at the time. There are also good grounds for it no longer being necessary.
Here is the relevant WP paragraph:
>>This shortage of empirical evidence has led many scholars to regard the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any existing or future debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influential across much of the Western world until late in the twentieth century. Today, there are various hypotheses about how, why, when, and where language might have emerged. Despite this, there is scarcely more agreement today than a hundred years ago, when Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection provoked a rash of armchair speculation on the topic. Since the early 1990s, however, a number of linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have attempted to address with new methods what some consider one of the hardest problems in science.<<
So there we have it. The subject was taboo among scholars in 1866 (which is the 19th century BTW, not the 18th, as you said, unless there was indeed an earlier ban by the French Academy) for the very good reason that TOOL was then only a subject for idle speculation: no one had any good evidence, or ideas for getting hold of any.
But that has changed dramatically in recent years, using the "new methods" to which the above paragraph briefly alludes.
okay, I will continue to respond in O-razor nicks, as this means so much to me I’m afraid I’ll trip over myself if I try to address everything at once.
(I am sorry but I did not quite realize how much you required an answer to your ‘cult/closed in on itself’ take on the wiki entry. That seemed to me somewhat of a non-sequitur.)
So here is the nick numero uno:
“This shortage of empirical evidence has led many scholars to regard the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any existing or future debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influential across much of the Western world until late in the twentieth century. ”
Let me ask you this, Tom. Does a “shortage of empirical evidence” seem like a sane rationale for not simply seeking further or even alternative means of enquiry, but to ban outright, a ban what’s more that affected “much of the Western world”?
The only way to “investigate” language is with more language yet, and therein lies the paradox extraordinaire. Irreducible at every possible point of the thinking compass. What more ‘evidence’ do we need than the internal dynamics and unbroken continuity of language generation from day one? What makes us think the secrets are to be found anywhere but within the language ITSELF, and not somewhere inside its visceral host, the brain?
But first, a real explanation of why on earth the outright BAN.
what I’m trying to get at there Tom, is that this prohibition (no less!) must have amounted to much much more than what ‘seemed rational at the time’ (for how would we ever rationally go about judging that?) and more along the lines of successful displacement of one sacred (al-kademic) center by another. How else to explain the absence of any imperative like ‘if at first you empiricists don’t succeed, then damn well try harder’!
You claimed that The Original Of Language (TOOL) has never been theorised. I believe my answer thoroughly refuted that claim.
I will deal with your points above if you either admit that I was right or show that I was wrong. We won’t make progress in this discussion unless we can nail things down along the way.
There is nothing in that list Tom that comes close to a rigorous hypothesis of any kind, one iow whose chief mission is to minimize all presuppositions and to never flinch from the fact that it is is supreme paradox above all that we are confronting all the way, that of having to tackle the origin of the sacred,signs & significance with yet more signs.
All of the above listed do little more than attempt to assimilate one mode of accepted discourse to an other mode of accepted discourse, and maybe swirl them around a little. Not one of then gets beyond the still terminally Platonic notion that the ‘ideas’ in our brains are something different from the words we use to refer to them.
The notion that we somehow invented words to convey the ‘ideas’ we already had in our individual brains is as absurd as saying we invented genes to transmit our ‘phylogeny’. If you can show me that any of them attempt for one moment to get beyond the basic, metaphysical, mature *proposition” to the earlier linguistic forms (ostensive, imperative, interrogative, negative-ostensive,,,,) that it depends upon (and what those stages correspond to ethically & culturally) then please do.
The ‘mirror neurons’ ref stems from an overeager Indian boffin who tried to take his observations of certain monkey responses to other monkeys’ motor movements into the neuropsych stratosphere, and consequently became the ‘ scientific basis’ of the insanely profligate ’empathy’ industry. (I would say neurobabble is even more of a travesty than psychobabble, most of the time) “Ritual/speech co-evolution” is of course interesting but the very use of ‘speech’ ensures that all the writer has in mind is the voicebox we grew to adapt TO the new existence of language. Gestures are of course important when considering their great similarity to (what would become) linguistic-signs, but all I’m seeing here is the word “theory” tacked on onto other words just for good measure.
Prime example of Neurobabble, this one Chomsky
“the emergence of language resembled the formation of a crystal; with digital infinity as the seed crystal in a super-saturated primate brain, on the verge of blossoming into the human mind, by physical law, once evolution added a single small but crucial keystone.”
to paraphrase your own GKC, if you believe that, you’ll beleive ANYTHING
I gather there are now strong grounds for thinking Chomsky’s once revolutionary innate grammar idea was wrong. But that doesn’t mean he was a bad thinker or a (very) bad writer.
The quote you have given could be just neurobabble, but I doubt it. I think we would need to know the context to be sure. What he gives us here is simply an extended metaphor. We humans are hugely influenced by metaphors (which may be part of the language problem you mention Mr Turp). They can be very illuminating, even though they are never exact and can be misleading.
Chomsky’s handling of this particular metaphor doesn’t strike me as all that great. It looks like an attempt at purple prose that doesn’t quite hack it. But the verdict on whether it is neurobabble would need to bear some relationship to the ideas and evidence leading up to the point at which this metaphor comes in. My guess is that he had already explained earlier on (in plain English) what he means by a “super-saturated” brain, for instance.
But a requirement for plain English coming from you, Turp, seems a case of the pot calling the kettle black! It seems Turp “warbling” is pure poetry, but Chomsky’s admittedly slightly clumsy attempts to explain things for the lay person are just “babble”!
Well Tom if I am to be perfectly honest I’d admit that I chafe quite considerably at what you have to say there, and am in fact more than just a wee bit hurt by it. For if there is anything, anything at all in what I have ever written to your blog that can come within a country mile of this Chomsky fellow’s brazen concoction of fabulist nonsense, then I need you to show it to me now. That you would seek to ‘redeem’ the obviously self-contained assertion in some way by imagining a “context” for it, when that context is clearly a hodge-podge of notions swiped from this ak-yak or that ak-yak, and cobbled together at Chompsky’s whim, is also fairly astounding to me.
Surveying once again the Wikipedia page on “language origins”, I see almost nothing but entities multiplied hand-over-fist beyond necessity everywhere I look, when really, the sole, ‘brutal’ question we ought to be asking ourselves is, HOW do we think the virtual space ever opened up for all time between the thing (referent) and the *sign* which now refers to that thing?
Good to see Roy Rappaport in there of course (swimming for his life among the res numerosis) but don’t you think it utterly remarkable -if not spectacularly weird – given that TOOL was published in 1981, TEOC (The End of Culture) in 1985, and the Anthropoetics website published the first Open Access Journal ever in 1995 (with Chronicles of Love & Resentment), that the Wikipedia pages on “origins of language” DO NOT EVEN MENTION GA or The Little Bang Theory of TOOL?
Stranger things have never been known to happen
>when that context is clearly a hodge-podge of notions swiped from this ak-yak or that ak-yak, and cobbled together at Chompsky’s whim
Clearly a hodge-podge? It might seem clear to you, Mr Turp, but I have not read the book or essay or whatever in question, so I am inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, in accordance with the philosophical principle of charity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
This principle applies when assessing the strength of anyone’s arguments, whether they are on the margins of society, as we are, or a famous public intellectual such as Chomsky. I do actually try hard to figure out the strongest interpretation of what everyone on this forum says, even when the meaning is far from obvious and expressed in unfamiliar language or syntax (a particular problem when English is not the writer’s native language).
So I would not brush aside anyone’s ideas lightly. But it also makes sense, I suggest, to have some regard to high reputation. We should not be overawed; we should not be afraid to challenge the big cheeses. In the article you mention, I felt I had to take on Roger Scruton — Sir Roger, as he is these days — which some would consider an impertinence on my part.
But respect for reputation is also wise. Although Chomsky is, in my somewhat hazy and inexpert estimation, wrong on TOOL, and perhaps much else, I think it is very unlikely he would have earned a high reputation as an intellectual if his writing was just so much “ak-yak”. Pioneering thinkers, such as Freud, may be criticised as unscientific, or proved wrong later on, but that does not mean their writing was less than important, of their reputation undeserved.
Also, by belittling figures such as Chomsky, you are implicitly setting yourself and your school of thought above such people. Your message seems to be: listen to me, I am much smarter than them. You might think you are only saying Chomsky and others have got off on the wrong foot, and therefore cannot possibly say anything meaningful about TOOL.
But you could be wrong as well. We all need due humility.
Scruton is a twat.
Now I’ve got that out of my system, I will just say, Tom, that you were quite right to take him seriously, given his reputation.
>Scruton is a twat.
LOL!
I think it is true to say that, unlike philosophers in general, Scruton has deliberately stirred up hatred and contempt. In this respect he has more in common with religious bigots than with what I would call good philosophy. Those who refuse respect to others can hardly expect it for themselves.
Well, I won’t pretend to understand this, Tom, as it seems like a vote for ambivalence at best and for (what I’d call) equivoca-centricity (hehe..) at worst.. Why strike an attitude of such reverence just for the sake of it, I must ask? How is this different from say, being bowled over by the debut album of some punk band, and then, on the sole basis of that achievement, putting up with – and even paying lip service to – how many more years of utter swill? Chomsky’s career is surely very much like that – if he hadn’t had that big hit he had back in the day *contra behaviourism* nobody would ever have listened to a word he had to say. Especially about “Amerika” and its neverending sins, which I don’t need to tell you carried on quite interrrrrrrrrrrminably. He just could not stop frantically trying to bite the hand that fed him. (We were always fond of referring to him as ‘the Ayatollah’). I could also go into great detail here about the corruptness of his linguistics, but I won’t. Respect for Noam Chomsky? Have I NOT.
Suffice to say for now that I feel it’s as if you’re saying we are somehow incapable of judging statements on their own terms, and ought rather to defer to the status of the person who wrote them, in what you call “due humility”?
Haven’t the two major successful publishing hoaxes (Sokal and the recent “feminist studies” one) demonstrated beyond a S.O.D that the academy is rife from end to end with what can only be called massively indulgent ac-yak?
I think your dismantling of Sir Screwed-On’s virtue-mongering was superb. And I mean really, really superb. It is a reference text for all time. I want to make almost every word of it part of my active mindstuff, so there!
God I hope this doesn’t turn to string when I send
>Suffice to say for now that I feel it’s as if you’re saying we are somehow incapable of judging statements on their own terms, and ought rather to defer to the status of the person who wrote them, in what you call “due humility”?
No, that was not my intention at all.
As for Chomsky, it sounds as though you have paid more attention to his career than I have, so I will say no more about that at the moment.
Thanks so much for your comment on my S&C paper: very gratifying to know it is appreciated in some quarters!
OK, this is all good; or at least it explains a lot, which comes to the same thing whether you are right or wrong. We needed to know the nature of your objections. We cannot be expected to be mind readers. More later.
Mr Turp asked:
>Let me ask you this, Tom. Does a “shortage of empirical evidence” seem like a sane rationale for not simply seeking further or even alternative means of enquiry, but to ban outright, a ban what’s more that affected “much of the Western world”?
An outright ban, if that’s what it was, does seem OTT, for sure. But I suspect it was simply an exasperated response to the baseless speculation that appears to have been very fashionable for a while in those days. Further speculation would have been a waste of time and the tools for deeper investigation were lacking. Now, though, following a vast amount of work in evolutionary biology and psychology, neuroscience and more, the means are at hand to investigate more deeply.
However, you brush all this aside, saying:
>The only way to “investigate” language is with more language yet, and therein lies the paradox extraordinaire. Irreducible at every possible point of the thinking compass. What more ‘evidence’ do we need than the internal dynamics and unbroken continuity of language generation from day one? What makes us think the secrets are to be found anywhere but within the language ITSELF, and not somewhere inside its visceral host, the brain?
You write as though language itself is being ignored. But, linguistics, and psycholinguistics, are thriving fields of inquiry.
Having said that, what I will readily acknowledge is that philosophers spent much of the 20th century tying themselves in knots over what language is and does, along with the limits of our language-constrained thinking.
I like to think we are accelerating out of that morass, but I am not a professional philosopher of any sort, and certainly not a specialist in the philosophy of language; input from anyone with more expertise would be very welcome.
However, I would make one point that might shed some light on your disdain for current science in the field of language.
How we think, and the kind of theories we feel are valid, or attractive, are critically dependant, in my view, on where we are coming from psychologically, both as individuals (according to our innate temperament and lived experience) and as whole cultures.
Take China. According to Kenan Malik, The 20th century Chinese philosopher Fung Yu Lan sees a huge difference between Chinese and western philosophy that can be explained when language is considered. There are few great Chinese philosophical tracts, according to Fung. Chinese philosophy tends instead to be “poetic, aphoristic, suggestive”. We get that in western philosophy too, but this style is less dominant.
Writes Malik:
>>A written language based on the alphabetic system, and with a tight grammatical fabric, as came eventually to be used in the West, provides useful material from which to fashion an argumentative treatise. A language that is constructed from symbolic characters that are not susceptible to considerations of singular or plural, or of past, present or future tenses, and most of which can be equally a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb, but whose connotation changes according to the other symbols alongside which it sits in a sentence, is necessarily more ambiguous and allusive in meaning. Chinese language is, as the philosopher Laurence Wu suggests, “an excellent tool for poetry but not for systemic or scientific thought”.<<
Chinese science is doing very well these days; but there are reckoned to be 200mn English speakers in China now, so it may well be that most of the science is "thought" in English.
Now, I'm not going to ask you whether you have a Chinese background, Turp. Probably not! But your tendency to privilege the poetic over the propositional mode of thought may owe something to a certain temperament or experience.
Were you perhaps attacked in your cradle by a grammarian? 🙂
>”A language that is constructed from symbolic characters that are not susceptible to considerations of singular or plural, or of past, present or future tenses, and most of which can be equally a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb, but whose connotation changes according to the other symbols alongside which it sits in a sentence, is necessarily more ambiguous and allusive in meaning.”
Are we saying you can’t be precise in Chinese? If that were so, not only Chinese philosophy, but also (for example) Chinese law would be impossible, but I don’t believe Chinese law is impossible.
>Are we saying you can’t be precise in Chinese?
Not “we” but Wu! And Yu! Laurence Wu, to be precise, following on from Fung Yu Lan.
Far be it from me to contradict these Chinese guys, who I think probably know what they are talking about. But you make a good point, stephen6000, when you say:
>If that were so, not only Chinese philosophy, but also (for example) Chinese law would be impossible, but I don’t believe Chinese law is impossible.
Perhaps you are right, perhaps not. Without doing possibly a lot of Google research it is hard to tell. We have already heard that context can resolve some aspects of imprecision. Perhaps Chinese laws are more long-winded than ours, requiring lengthier exposition. Or it could be that Chinese law is indeed less precise than in the West, with more being left to the judgement of individual judges and courts.
You claimed that The Original Of Language (TOOL) has never been theorised. I believe my answer thoroughly refuted that claim.
I will deal with your points above if you either admit that I was right or show that I was wrong. We won’t make progress in this discussion unless we can nail things down along the way.
What should we make of this? A very notable absence of hyperbole, but also this bizarrely ‘false choice’ made between the evils of prison or registry? As if ‘offenders’ who had copped the former could ever emerge free from the hideous shadows of the latter? Well, please read on… it’s an interesting alternative to crazed reports from the supposed DoJ battlefront of “Operation Broken Heart” now that is for sure… the whole ‘plea deal’ thing is clearly what corrupts US ‘due process’ potential to the max, but anway..if any Americans in particular could offer some perspective here …?
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/01/03/why_dcs_light_child-sex_penalties_are_not_unusual.html
The US plea deal system is terrible. So are the offender registries.
Worse than either, though, arguably, is the populism built into American “justice” as a result of having elected judges. Judges who need to win a popular vote, and keep getting re-elected, tend to secure success by pandering to the public demand for being tough, no matter what the facts of the case.
In the (interesting) story you have cited, Turp, it is seen that the unelected Washington judges are able to do a better job, precisely because they do not have the punishment-minded public breathing down their necks all the time.
FOURTH REPLY TO LSM ON SEX
This continues from my third reply to LSM, which I finished with the question But what of the sex itself? and the comment that Clearly adults have a variety of teloi which children do not; but just the same, the getting there often is equivalent to childhood sexual activity (play). As I said at the beginning of this section, fair enough, sex should be playful, and if you are with a child, it should be on their terms, but…
I will quote LSM again, in order to show the exact comment which provoked my response, and save everyone from needing to look for it.
I did not, and do not, disagree with this, but we need to be very clear about what we mean by sex. I will begin my answer with an anecdote from my own life.
In the mid-1990s I met (through Wendell Rosevear, whom I knew quite well at the time) and talked to a paedophile on many occasions, and he made comments, many times, to the effect that he did not have to touch or even talk to a child in order to be sexually gratified. This fascinated me: sexual gratification without actual sexual contact appeared, and continues to appear impossible. But, perhaps this is because we think of sex in terms of the teloi of touch, penetration, and perhaps others; perhaps there is another way of thinking about sex which may take this into account. My own conception of sex, based on the ideas in Alan Goldman’s essay Plain Sex, may make this possible. On this view, sex is little more than the desire to touch another, and pleasure in that touch, and I see no reason why this cannot be extended to include looking at, and taking pleasure in the looking. Certainly this is a rather thin, etiolated conception of sex, but it takes into account all possible variations of sex and sexual desire and sexual pleasure, but perhaps this is so only because we have the telos of a specific type of touch?
Because we think of sex as a specific type of physical activity, we do not admit other types of sex into the canon, and I think this is a pity for a variety of reasons. But, ignoring that, onwards…
One study (Sanders et al 2010, Misclassification bias: diversity in conceptualisations about having ‘had sex’, Sexual Health, 7, 31–34) began their discussion of their results with the following:
A very small number of people even said that anal penetration did not constitute having had sex.
This research looked at very specific teloi, not taking into account what was once commonly called foreplay. On my view, all the fiddling and faddling of foreplay, the stroking, tickling and whatever else one does, is sex, and it is similar (not the same, merely similar) to what is called childhood sex play. But it is very important in respect of childhood play, that we may not know what constitutes “normal” childhood sex play. Suzanne Frayser begins her paper Defining normal childhood sexality: An anthropological approach (Annual Review of Sex Research, 5:1, 173-217) with the following:
And Sharon Lamb and Aleksandra Plocha began their Sexuality in childhood (http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14193-014) with this: How does one know what is normative sexual development in childhood? And, in 2011, Sandy K. Wurtele and Maureen C. Kenny, in Normative Sexuality Development in Childhood: Implications for Developmental Guidance and Prevention of Childhood Sexual Abuse (available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245022218) said Although we know a great deal about sexual behaviors in adolescence and adulthood, childhood sexuality is a rather neglected field in sex research. Nothing much has changed in this respect in the past 7 and a bit years: research into childhood sexuality is frequently abandoned because it causes public outrage.
Clearly, we do not really know what childhood sexuality and sexual behaviour are, and we hide this behind the term “play”, because it is easier to think of it as play than to consider the thought that a child may just want something we would call sex. I don’t know that this is true for everyone, but it certainly was true for me when I was a kiddie, and so I propose it as a very real possibility, with the ongoing caveat that a child almost certainly does not have the same concept of sex as an adult. Certainly they probably do not have the same type of teloi in mind when they “play” sexually together.
Moreover, the idea of “sex play” in children needs to be more nuanced: At what stage does it cease to be “play” and become sex? Play at 4? Bur not at 10? My definition resolves this by saying that if a child wants it and enjoys it, however “innocent” the play, then it is sex, just not the type of sex we are accustomed to thinking about, and certainly not the type of sex we (well, me, in this place) gynephilic teleiophiles engage in.
Does any of this mean that anyone should engage sexually with a child in a fashion other than that dictated by the child. Certainly not; that would be rape, not consensual sex. This is true even if it is another child engaging in an unwanted fashion, or, often enough, an adult with another adult.
I am agreeably surprised to see that this fourth reply is richly informative. Rather than being combative, it explores a particular aspect more deeply, in an illuminating way.
BJM mentions Suzanne Frayser. Her anthropological paper on childhood sexuality is superb. Everyone here should read it.
As for Wendell Rosevear, he appears to be a high-profile figure in Australia. But for anyone wondering who he is, there is this:
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/conversations-wendell-rosevear/10201540
I am sorry to hear that my replies came over as combative. I intended, with a few exceptions, to describe in detail my difficulties with LSM’s statements, statements which I actually have a great deal of difficulty with intellectually.
And yes, Wendell is a bit of a figure here, especially in the gay community. When I knew him he worked for the Aids Council in Queensland, in a medical practice they owned. A lovely man in every respect.
>I am sorry to hear that my replies came over as combative.
Sorry, I did not mean to imply that at all. Some people’s comments are combative but I did not have you in mind.
Tom, do you know of any way of getting free access to Suzanne Frayser’s paper?
I have just sent you a PDF copy by email. For those who want to download the paper directly, this is the reference number you need:
DOI: 10.1080/10532528.1994.10559896
Can you send to me as well, Tom? Thanks if you do!
Sure. I have just sent it.
Thanks again, and a small grammar correction: I meant “Can you send IT to me…”.
Your correction is indeed a slight improvement. But native English speakers could easily have written your first version: I didn’t notice anything wrong with it!
I found that native speakers are generally more liberal in their usage of their own language, while foreign speakers like me are much more attentive to the grammatic canon!
REPLY TO BJ’S FIRST 2 RESPONSES (I WASN’T EXPECTING A THIRD!!!!)
First of all there is little in what you say that I find myself disagreeing with. This suggests that we are actually addressing different questions. We are looking at the same thing and you are saying ‘they’re red!’ and I’m saying ‘it’s green’, because I’m referring to the tree, you to its apples.
You correctly state that morality (as is commonly understood) is to some extent a product of social norms and appears to work toward preserving the social and moral order of that society. And that the morals that are accepted in one society may not be accepted in another.
From that fact you conclude that it is not possible to say that a society’s morals are ‘better’ than another’s since their function is essentially relative to the society they serve.
But imagine if you substituted ‘scientific understanding’ for the word ‘morality’ .
I hope you would accept that a relativistic position viz a viz scientific understanding is not tenable – it would be perverse to claim that Aztecs had as valid a scientific understanding of Nature as we do.
This implies that there is a standard for ‘scientific understanding’ that transcends individual cultures.
Now, science is not ‘real’ in the sense that it would exist independently of human perception. But tends towards ‘objectivity’, certain axioms granted.
And I make a like claim for Ethics.
>”You say that moral calculations are made on the basis of two axioms, which you did not make entirely clear.”
— Maximising flourishing & minimising pointless suffering —
I leave the terms vague since determining the meanings of those terms is an integral part of the process of ethics. Likewise ‘Truth’ vis a vis Science. And ‘Health’ vis a vis Medicine. In all three we discover what we are aiming for as we go along.
I believe that ethics (but not necessarily ‘Morality’ because it has other functions that may work against those goals) aims at those goals.
To illustrate how morality and ethics only partially intersect let’s take ‘belief in witchcraf’t: if the ethics of witchcraft are completely contextual to the beliefs and norms of the culture in question, then a MORAL evaluation of witchcraft can progress no further than ‘witchcraft is immoral’.
But (and this is maybe where we disagree) ethical calculations and evaluations don’t need to stop at the boundaries of ‘culture’. Ethics is not limited to addressing the question in cultural terms (is witchcraft moral or not?).
An ethical analysis of witchcraft would note that a belief in witchcraft is always detrimental to the flourishing of the communities. Witchcraft attributes the random accidents of life, not to ‘bad luck’ (a theory of life that encourages compassion and solidarity), but to the malevolence of others in the community – creating suspicion, bad feelings, vendettas, violence, unpredictability and arbitrary justice.
This perception that a belief in witchcraft is dysfunctional can then be tested (through the study of history, anthropology and sociology) across a range of societies. And generally it is found that a society that does not believe in witches is better for it, and a society that does believe in witches is worse for it (all other things being equal).
I’m not sure how this kind of analysis even maps onto ‘morality’ (with its simplistic commands and rules). But I hope you understand that my ‘ethical objectivism’ is not an alternative to ‘moral relativism’ because they are looking at the issues at a different scale – ‘moral relativism’ looks at the islands one by one as discreet entities, ‘ethical objectivism’ looks at the archipelago.
>” Jimmy stabbing Johnny”
These examples don’t address ethical questions but only the difficulties a 3rd party faces in judging an acts morality.
The question of whether Jimmy stabbing Johnny is ‘moral’ does not interest me. What interests me is the question “what would the nature of a society be where stabbing was normative? and would that society tend towards flourishing or pointless suffering?”.
BTW intentions are objective facts – sometimes very hard to ascertain, but nevertheless objective. If it is possible to lie about one’s intention, that implies that there is a truth to be lied about.
>”If, on the other hand, your criteria is harm,”
It should be clear now that it is not ‘Harm’.
>”… Bruce Rind, Susan Clancy, and many others, have provided counterexamples to the harm question of adult-child sexuality.”
I have never said that consensual adult-child intimacy is, of itself, harmful, unethical or immoral.
>”But this is where it stands: they are similar, not identical, and hence they are morally relative in their application and expression. “
There is no ‘one answer fits all’. But there are ‘bad answers’ and ‘better answers’. Belief in witchcraft, ethically, is a worse answer to the challenges of life than disbelief in witchcraft.
>” for example, it was unnecessary for the Aztec’s to perform human sacrifices, but to them, it kept the sun moving in the sky, it maintained lie itself. This is to say that in their civilisation, the suffering was necessary if the world was to be maintained, if the lives of the rest of the community were to continue unhindered.”
Yes, but it is not a detail that the Aztecs were wrong in their cosmological theory. If they had been right then the practice would be justified.
Wrong beliefs tend to produce dysfunctional societies and norms. That is why knowledge and human flourishing go hand in hand – Knowledge mediates between hard facts and humanity.
Trying to work out whether Aztecs were ‘immoral’ is irrelevant . What matters is that they got it wrong and their wrong beliefs led to much pointless suffering.
>”Now, as for flourishing. There are so many ways in which a human can flourish”
Yes, that is one (of many) reasons that ethics is not as easy as ‘morality’. There are many peaks in the ethical landscape.
>”re flourishing and the Polynesians”
I’m not clear what the point is you’re making here. But, yes, on the sexual aspect children seemed to flourish sexually in Polynesia, and that is an aspect that I like about of those societies. But I have doubts as to whether one can just transpose/impose those attitudes onto complex, large, industrial societies.
Societies are no more modular than are any other hyper-complex system – you can’t replace a car engine with a sewing machine and expect either to work. If you want to turn a goldfish into a bird, it’s not enough just to graft wings onto it.
This is not a question of ‘rejecting’ the Polynesian approach. My advocating it does not make it any more POSSIBLE – any more than my advocating my being able to breathe underwater unaided makes it any more likely to happen.
>”Discovery, on the other hand. How does one discover ethics?”
There are many tools – History, experience, current affairs, anthropology, accumulated wisdom, observation…we have discovered that stoning adulterous women does not tend towards societies worth living in; the ancient Greeks discovered that monogamy created more flourishing societies than polygyny; Wilberforce et al were the first humans to discover that slavery not only damaged the slaves, but also the slaving society etc etc.
Once one understands that ethics is a rational evidence-based discipline the world becomes clue-rich.
>”cause slavery continues to be rampant in our world, and even in our dear morally advanced West.”
Nobody (other than fundamentalist Moslems) thinks slavery a good thing any more, or even a ‘necessary evil’. That is moral progress. Likewise disease – the fact that science hasn’t eradicated all disease does not count as a failure of science.
>”Now, this doesn’t mean or in any way entail that I approve of slavery, I merely point out that there is no objective basis for the immorality of slavery other than concepts of human dignity which may not be applied equally to all humans.”
How about slavery being detrimental to human flourishing and tending towards pointless suffering? Both of the enslaved and the society that practices it?
And which humans would you exempt from ‘concepts of human dignity’?
>”Think of Hitler and the Shoah, his equally disturbing destruction of Gypsies, mentally ill and physically handicapped; think, yes, of the laws in Saudi Arabia which cripple the independence and destroy the dignity of women; think even of Australia and the dreadful ongoing treatment of the Aboriginals; and on it goes.”
Yes, their actions are unethical because they were detrimental to human flourishing and tend towards pointless suffering.
>”I don’t object to your arguing for a moral principle,”
I hope it’s clear that I don’t argue for a moral principle.
>”An contemporary example of this is that it is now widely perceived that eating animals is unethical […]” “Really? You would have to work hard to convince me of that.”
If all meat, overnight, tasted like diarrhoea I bet you’d not put up so much of a defence of what is no more than ‘pleasure’.
>”Lastly, for this post: do we really have to wait for the destruction of our civilisation/culture to consider the morality of adult-child sex? I don’t think so.”
You are asking the wrong question – you should be asking ‘is it possible for adult-child sex to be considered as ‘moral’ by our civilisation/culture?’ – the answer is far from simple. And does not depend on what you or I would wish.
This discussion is making me more proud to be hosting HTOC than I have ever been! Love it!
Glad to read that – though I’m going to have to bail out of this exchange PDQ – it (and other such exchanges elsewhere on the net) are keeping me from working on my post for HereticTOC and other projects…
>I’m going to have to bail out…
Very understandable. I for one, recognise that this is bona fide. It is not as though you are ducking away from points you could not address. I am confident you could, with more time.
Yes, I’d like to take this further but it’s all very chronophagic – maybe BJ and I could resume this discussion at some later date…
>chronophagic
Great word!
Happy to do so,but I warn that there will be just one more to read. Needless to say, I understand that time will prevent replying, but I hope you read it none the less. Cheers old mate.
Leonard, you suggest that we may be talking about different things, and this may be so in the sense that I am challenging your meta-ethical position and your terms, especially your notion of objective morality which is discoverable via history, anthropology, and so on. At no point (on my re-reading of my comments) did I say that it is not possible to say that one societies morals are better than another. My argument does not revolve around this, but is intended to suggest that each society has morals which fit and suit themselves. To the extent that this is the case, any society can evaluate another as morally lacking. My point is that these moralities are not objectively derived in any coherent sense, and I sincerely doubt that objectivity in morality is possible in the meta-ethical manner you suggest.
As near as I understand it, your ethical principles are intended to be regarded as as objective in some way; however, to the extent that we can and necessarily do interpret these principles, they are not objective in terms of the moralities which come from them. It seems to me that what human flourishing is, always already is a cultural matter, and always already is open to competing and opposing interpretations.
Your suggestion that the issue between us can be resolved by replacing “morality” with “scientific understanding” may stand (it doesn’t), but does not support your argument. It is a category error to equate these two as different procedures are used in order to arrive at some sort of understanding or conclusion. They are similar, however, in that neither moral reasoning nor science arrive at answers which are not interpretations and which cannot be challenged.
Science as we know it began with the ancient Greeks, and is a method which provides provisional answers to questions which can be investigated with that method. Morality cannot be investigated via this method in any coherent sense, and no one has tried to do so as far as I know. (Happy to be corrected about this?I do not know all research which has been performed.) Where science does investigate morality it is unequivocally culturally specific, and when the same experiments are conducted n different cultures, the results are different, and culturally specific because different cultures interpret similar moral situations and principles differently, just as individuals within the same culture may and often do. What this means is both that the two terms cannot be interchanged sensibly, and that the scientific method does not support your position as yet, (It always is possible that this may change at some point, as research methods improve), but because science is a method, it cannot be relativistic in the same way that morality can be, but the same method shows cultural differences., including relativism in morality.
Maximising flourishing & minimising pointless suffering: your moral axioms which you leave vague because “determining the meanings of those terms is an integral part of the process of ethics…we discover what we are aiming for as we go along.” Ah! An open door! Relativism prevails! ?If you remember, I made a comment to the effect that humans have similar experiences, and so derive similar moral concepts across time, place, and culture. It is the interpretation and application of these which is relative?inevitably and always and already. This does not entail that your axioms are wrong, merely that they are culturally expressed, and that a different culture may express them differently and interpret them in a radically different manner.
I disagree entirely with your analysis of witchcraft, the history and current practice of which does not support your view, but I will leave it at that.
In respect of Jimmy stabbing Johnny, you say “These examples don’t address ethical questions but only the difficulties a 3rd party faces in judging an acts morality.” But that is the point. Ethically, Jimmy stabbing Johnny may enable both to flourish in manners which I certainly would not understand, but my understanding really isn’t necessary if they see it in this manner. Their ethical stance, their morality, may see it entirely differently to the manner in which I do.
For the sake of brevity, against which I have already offended, I will not comment on many of your specific answers and comments, but will go directly to the following:
I think the simple answer to this is yes, it is possible for our society/culture to consider adult-child sexual relations as moral, although there would be caveats and conditions, obviously. On your own view, and as we all know with just a little history, culture and morality change, are open to change, and inevitably will change. I can see no reason why a change in morality in respect of adult-child relations would not be possible, however difficult it may be for that particular change to occur, and I can see no reason why you would accept anything else but that possibility and argue for it. It doesn’t affect me, but I can see that there are thousands upon thousands of people whom would be affected and would benefit from this and other changes, irrespective of whether they acted on their desires.
I think the answer to that one is much simpler than dealing with your meta-ethical position, which rages with difficulty. It is the bringing about of that change which is difficult, and with which you were occupied in the past, and may still be, for all I know.
Bringing about any broad cultural change in morality is difficult (think about your example of slavery, which continues to be practised) but that is not a reason for ceasing to try to bring it about! Think of genital mutilation also: you hope to assist in bringing about a change there, but it is difficult, so very difficult. I would go so far as to say that it is these monster tasks which are the ones needing all the more effort, and if this applies to your personal life and sexuality, why wouldn’t you continue to try to make the change occur?
But I will deal with sexuality, etc, in another reply, and hopefully make sense.
And sorry, but I am attempting to answer your position as fully as I can in limited space. There is yet one more to come, and then I stop. 😉
I’ll get a response to you, but it will be short and I too will have to call it a day.
No need to apologise, BJ – I’m finding this exchange interesting and appreciate the attention you’ve given to my ideas. But I have commitments which this, and other exchanges I’m engaged in elsewhere on the internet, are taking me away from. I’m going to have to absent myself from various discussions otherwise I’ll never get the tasks at the top of my list crossed-off. So apologies if I don’t continue this and if this is a bit short. Maybe we could pick up where we left off some time..?
>”My point is that these moralities are not objectively derived in any coherent sense, and I sincerely doubt that objectivity in morality is possible in the meta-ethical manner you suggest.”
I agree that most of what constitutes ‘morality’ is not derived in any objective, coherent sense. Morality is made up of a confusing mix of tradition, ethics, competing interests, and mechanisms of social control. ‘Ethics’ is only one part of what makes up ‘morality’.
And all the factors that make up ‘morality’ are contextual to that society. Other than Ethics – which is determined by ‘human nature’, not ‘society’, and which is informed by the most basic of questions: what do humans ultimately want/need from Life?
I would answer that all higher level goals, when analysed, boil down to ‘flourishing’ and ‘avoidance of pointless suffering’.
Even those who do ‘good’ because their gods command it are doing so either in the belief that their gods’ commands are ‘good’ (i.e. they serve human flourishing) or with a selfish expectation of being rewarded with eternal perfect flourishing in an after-life, and avoiding eternal absolute pointless suffering in Hell – which is likewise a concern with one’s own personal ‘flourishing’.
In an ideal world ‘morals’ and ‘ethics’ would be the same thing – but they are not, for reasons I touch on above. But ultimately morals that produce societies that are good to live in tend to align with morals derived from ethics, not from authority, tradition, interests, or social control. What little I know of History and anthropology and Ideology seems to confirm this.
All this means that societies can get their morals hugely wrong – often for clearly identifiable reasons: Aztec because they had a dangerously flawed cosmology, Sharia because it bases itself on an arbitrary, outdated, unquestionable and unalterable rule book, polygynous societies because they create ‘bride vacuums’ in the poorest sectors of society, feudal societies because people are unable to escape the condition they were born into and therefore ‘talent’ and ‘application’ are under-rewarded and under-exploited…
And the fact that we notice that Societies get it wrong suggests that we have a supra-social standard by which we judge successful societies . And that standard is how well the generate human flourishing and avoidance of pointless suffering.
Ultimately I find my tool and level of analysis more interesting and powerful than Moral Relativism – which seems to me to offer a conceptual and analytical void and maintain it much as a someone might blind themselves to avoid seeing. My approach allows us to compare, contrast, pick apart norms and morals, trace causal chains by which a society attempts to establish order and solidarity (i.e. morals). It also allows us to decide that certain institutions, norms, and morals function better than others.
Some structures and institutions within which morals are generated and practised are simply dysfunctional or perverse – and to say so is fine. Slavery is not wrong because it violates human rights, it is wrong because it creates societies that do not flourish and in which there is much unnecessary suffering. That is why societies that don’t practice slavery are better (morally, ethically) than those that do. And it is a sign of the world’s ethical progress that Slavery is illegal now in every country of the world. Yes, some states are half-hearted in their eradication against slavery (Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Sudan etc) – but the fact that they they have been compelled to at least legislate against it at least exemplifies La Rochefoucauld’s aphorism’“Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue”.
And this is what mankind has been doing, piecemeal and empirically, and with much failure and many wrong turns, throughout its history: trying morals and rejecting those that don’t work, those that produce needless suffering. One can trace the evolution of the God of the Jews and Christians along such a trajectory: Jewish societies steadily honing their conception of God (and therefore ‘morality’) in a way where gradually the ethical component of ‘Morality’ comes to dominate over the power components of Morality – we start off with the angry, sadistic god of Abraham, pass by the Decalogue, go into reverse with Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but finish with Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. This is mankind understanding that morality ultimately should align with ‘flourishing etc’, trimming away the dead flesh of ‘Morality’ with the scalpel of Ethics.
And on that bombshell, I’ll bow out gracefully…
The belief that it’s wrong to kill with a shotgun and that it’s okay to do it with a bolt gun (slaughterhouse) is a simple rationalization of those damages that benefit you versus those that don’t benefit you.
But the discourse should not be on meat, but on animal exploitation. Using animals for cheese, milk or eggs is no more immoral than treating them as meat or clothing. We objectify sentient beings as consumer products. Treating humans in this way is considered slavery. There is no reason to judge it differently if the victims are of another species.
Exploiting other animals can be considered an “option” as much as exploiting other humans can be considered an option.
Being vegan means rejecting all forms of animal exploitation in recognition that they too value their own lives. We can live without causing them harm and no harm is justifiable because the animal in turn doesn’t give a damn if you use it in one way or another.
I invite all to read this introduction to Animal Rights:
abolitionistapproach
Put at the end dot com or do google search, for some reason WordPress won’t let me use links.
I have an interest in animal rights and animal welfare, Erik, but extensive posting on this is off-topic for this forum unless in the context of our other concerns here.
I agree. In fact I think killing an animals with a shotgun is more ethical with a bolt gun, in that I think that ‘hunting’ is the most ethical way of obtaining meat, fish etc
I think that what interests me about animal rights etc in the current discussion is that it only becomes an ethical question once not eating meat becomes a choice. This illustrates why ethical progress is linked to other forms of progress (availability of wider range of foods and products) and why mankind tends to progress ethically as civilisation offers more choices to which ethics can be applied.
LSM, your position on morality appears to be quite similar to the one expresed by a devout atheist and anti-voluntarist (even if, very surprisingly and most uncommonly, neither a hardcore materialist nor an absolute paranormal skeptic) Sam Harris in his “Moral Landscape” book. Are he and this book of his among the sources of your moral and intellectual inspiration, or not?
>” Sam Harris in his “Moral Landscape” book. Are he and this book of his among the sources of your moral and intellectual inspiration, or not?”
Yes, well spotted. I’ve always felt that moral relativism was inherently contradictory and a blind alley (how can I say that child-adult sex is not immoral if morality is simply what is normative in a society, and my society considers it immoral?). And having had moral relativism inculcated into me in my higher studies, I never quite had the conceptual tools to work out why it was wrong.
Sam Harris really squared that circle for me quite convincingly.
“Sam Harris really squared that circle for me quite convincingly.”
Well, not for me – my (meta-)moral / (meta-)ethical outlook is as “anti-Harrisian” (to call it so) as it gets, since in my worldview true selfhood and free volition are fundamental.
This alternative set of fundamentals led me to the morality that is greatly different both from your one and BJ’s one – even if BJ’s approach is still much closer to me than yours.
But this requires a longer post, where I may try to describe it – without dwelling too deep in the ontological.
Ok then, Harris is now on the long list I wam reading through, though I’ll have a quick squiz on the weekend.
THIRD REPLY TO LSM ON CONSENT
This is a reply to some comments made by LSM in reply to my first misjudged foray into the debate about his opinions. I am not going to address the majority of his comments, especially genital mutilation, because it is very bad, rampant, and taking place everywhere. One estimation has it that in the UK there are 3 to 4 instances of female genital mutilation every day; another estimate says 1, the mutilation taking place being extreme. These figures are derived from incidents reported to the various authorities. So, I don’t feel the need to address that, other than to say that we all need to be careful that our areas of particular interest do ot take over our whole endeavour; but I am guilty of that as much as anyone else, so it is not much of a comment or criticism.
I have to agree with this, but at the same time, point out that consent appears to be applied differently here than in other comments. This is to say that if “deep consent” is necessary for adult-child sexual interactions, why is it not necessary for child-child interactions?
LSM did not define the notion of “deep consent” when he mentioned it, but it appeared to be a deepening or extension of the notion of informed consent. Without a definition of the former, I am left with the customarily discussed informed consent, to which the same question applies: why is not informed consent required between children when engaging in sexual activities?
Clearly the notion of informed consent as applied to children is a bit of a nonsense, even when it is applied in respect of medical procedures. The depth of knowledge required for informed consent entails that it rarely is given, although we use our limited knowledge to give consent which we claim is informed. But it all comes down to what we mean by consent, and the most general use of the term is the best indicator of the meaning, and in general living, the term is rarely used, unless there is a question about the willingness of a person in the performance of an action.
When it comes to consent, we do not usually ask for consent, that is, we don’t ask Do you consent to sex with me now (even though I may have a communicable disease I don’t know I have, or even though x may occur? We might say something like Do you want a fuck? and get the answer Yes, with this yes being consent, neither deep, nor necessarily informed if, say, the person saying yes is a person who has not yet experienced sex, say someone like a friend of mine who didn’t have sex until she was in her early thirties, and found sex nothing like she had imagined, despite her knowledge. What this all adds up to is that consent usually is informal and, indeed, may take many different forms in its informality.
So, when you are talking abut prepubescent children consensually engaged in some type of sexual activity, it appears that there is no requirement for consent, except that it is play?and does not therefore require consent? Other than the consent given by actually playing with each other sexually?
You can see that I am somewhat confused as to your actual position on consent. Not only do I not know how you define one of your (apparently) key terms, but you appear to apply different types and/or levels of consent to different people and/or situations?depending on age? But surely an adequate model of consent should apply to everyone equally? That is: if a child says to another child Can I see and touch your dick? and the second child says Yes, isn’t this just the same type of consent which adults often give each other?
I know, as we all do, that this often is not taken to be sufficient, for a variety of reasons, but this does not alter that the common model of consent does not require informed consent. Of course, we may wish to assume that adults know more and when giving “simple” consent, do so within the context of this knowledge, which presents as informed consent informing simple consent. But this fails for the quite simple reason that there may be, and almost certainly are, people who do not have the knowledge that is requisite for the informed part of consent.
And fair enough too, but what are we to say about consent? Should the consent gained be the consent that children can understand? Or should it be informed or in some manner deep? The point is that children can become informed; this, after all, is a mere matter of education, which they can receive from virtually anyone, accurately or inaccurately, as the case may be. Dear me, the things I learnt about sex when I was in primary school; hair would stand on end, and fortunately the majority was wrong. I was, that is to say, badly and inaccurately informed, but I was informed.
The question now becomes Is there some reason any adult cannot inform a child about sex and then obtain informed consent from that child?
Informed consent, you see, is not necessarily problematic if a person wishes to actually inform a child about sex over and above what that child already knows. Of course, this is called “grooming” but there is nothing I can see that would make the provision of information in order to receive or be refused consent immoral in and of itself, if and only if the adult concerned accepted the refusal of consent. Of course, there are a thousand and one objections to this proposal, but none of them viable because it is logically clear that a child can become informed and give informed consent, however much this may be rejected on other grounds.
But what of the sex itself? Clearly adults have a variety of teloi which children do not; but just the same, the getting there often is equivalent to childhood sexual activity (play). As I said at the beginning of this section, fair enough, sex should be playful, and if you are with a child, it should be on their terms, but… Too much to say, I will make another post to deal with this, if Tom does not object to my large answers to LSM.
> I will make another post to deal with this, if Tom does not object to my large answers to LSM.
I see plenty of evidence that you are thinking hard, and seriously, on a topic that could hardly be more “on topic” for HTOC. So I have no problem with another long answer on this.
I would advise anyone doing a long piece, though (actually, this applies to all writing, long or short, except perhaps shopping lists and other memos to oneself), to read through carefully at the end. Edit and cut if possible. Restructuring and cutting are easiest when working in Word or similar. Then cut & paste into the comments window.
Thanks Tom, at least one more post then, and I will check it carefully (yeah, I know I made a couple of errors in the last two by not checking carefully enough.)
SECOND REPLY TO LSM ON MORAL DISCOVERY
Taking off from my reply 1, let’s look at objective morality within the context of another of your posts, beginning with the following:
Your axioms, clearly stated, but without definition. This is to say that you do not define unnecessary suffering of what it is to flourish. Without these definitions we are left a little lost. And again, this is cultural. To our minds, for example, it was unnecessary for the Aztec’s to perform human sacrifices, but to them, it kept the sun moving in the sky, it maintained lie itself. This is to say that in their civilisation, the suffering was necessary if the world was to be maintained, if the lives of the rest of the community were to continue unhindered.
This is an extreme example, perhaps, but it highlights the relativity of the notion of “unnecessary suffering” in a very clear manner. It also highlights that each culture has its own cognitions about the world. This is to say that when we are born, and when we grow, we take in the manner in which our culture and society thinks; our cognitions are Western, Aztec, Mexican, and perhaps English, Welsh, French, and so on. The similarities that exist do so because we all are human, the differences that exist do so because we are from different cultures with different cognitive histories and contents. That the contemporary West has homogenised itself across many different cultures is a little sad, but explains the similarities in cognition, if not culture.
Now, as for flourishing. There are so many ways in which a human can flourish, and one such way is sexually. But what is it to flourish sexually? When and how do we learn to flourish sexually? Certainly the Polynesian’s flourished sexually and at a very young age, with other children, with adults, with themselves. But this would not, cannot, be acceptable in our Western culture, which denies children even the right to play with each other (this is the public view, but not necessarily the psychological view, but that can be left aside for this moment). If we reject the Polynesian approach, which included free roaming with adult supervision, not sex alone; and if we accept the current Western (and unfortunately Polynesian, to all intents and purposes) view, which set of children are flourishing? In contemporary Western cultures, one may not flourish sexually until their 40s.
Now this is a difficult one, because it all revolves around cognition, which does do something like “evolving” via thinking and reasoning and art, which probably are the primary modes of this “evolution”. But this is far too complex to be discussed here: it merely needs noting.
Discovery, on the other hand. How does one discover ethics?
Well, there are people like J.J. Kupperman, in his book Ethical knowledge, who believe that we discover ethical knowledge and moral “rules” via experience; then there are those, like George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, who believe that these issues arise via the metaphors which comprise our language; and Michael Polanyi would look toward personal knowledge; Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa would look to the personal experience as it affects cognition; and so on. What is common in all of these is cognition, a thinking through what has happened and what may happen. Discovery of ethical principles, therefore is a matter of thinking about them, not of discovering some principle lying about in society, just waiting to be found by an intrepid moral explorer in Plato’s cave.
This, again, is a matter of thinking, but here you are almost thinking a little more clearly, because it is not a matter of discovering some morality, but of a change in thinking about the situation. In this context, your thoughts on slavery are interesting mostly because slavery continues to be rampant in our world, and even in our dear morally advanced West. There have been instances in Australia that have been discovered, because there are people who continue to believe that slavery is morally acceptable. With this in mind, I agree that it is awareness of a principle, but that principle has no objective existence to which we can appeal, we can only think it and try to apply it. And yes, sometimes we will be something akin to being right, but that is contextual and cultural.
Now, this doesn’t mean or in any way entail that I approve of slavery, I merely point out that there is no objective basis for the immorality of slavery other than concepts of human dignity which may not be applied equally to all humans. Think of Hitler and the Shoah, his equally disturbing destruction of Gypsies, mentally ill and physically handicapped; think, yes, of the laws in Saudi Arabia which cripple the independence and destroy the dignity of women; think even of Australia and the dreadful ongoing treatment of the Aboriginals; and on it goes.
I don’t object to your arguing for a moral principle, but please don’t try to disguise it as some objective thingie which we discover as we advance, as something which places us morally “above” other past and present cultures.
Really? You would have to work hard to convince me of that. If good old Pete couldn’t convince me, you ain’t got no chance. Give me a good old meat restaurant any day. Yum! But I do want to eat meat that does as little damage to the environment as possible, I will give that much.
I absolutely agree; incest is the best way to go?keep it always in the family. But…
Adult-child intimacy covers a wide wide range of behaviours. Where are we to make the cut-off? Is it when a parent or a carer uses a towel to dry a child’s genitals? Or is it some other point?
I have never understood why you think the suppression of children is essential for the functioning of “modern industrial societies” so I can’t really comment on this. But I can say that these societies currently are preventing the flourishing of children’s independence, sexuality, perhaps even their general happiness. Is this really necessary for modern industrial societies to function? Then damn them and get rid of them. But I don’t really think your belief is correct. Kids have been playing with each other and and even adults for many centuries in our industrial societies, without the destruction of the latter.
Lastly, for this post: do we really have to wait for the destruction of our civilisation/culture to consider the morality of adult-child sex? I don’t think so.
Bugger! Apologies for my error in html above.
[TOC: OK, I’ve fixed it: “I’d argue that the prohibition of child-adult intimacy…” etc.]
Thanks Tom. 😀
You mention flourishing, BJM. What I see flourishing here is debate the way I like to see it. Great stuff!
Thanks Tom. LSM’s comment got me back to thinking instead of reacting. This is a good thing.
“Now this is a difficult one, because it all revolves around cognition, which does do something like “evolving” via thinking and reasoning and art, which probably are the primary modes of this “evolution”. But this is far too complex to be discussed here: it merely needs noting.
It merely needs noting?
I’m hoping BJ you (ntm Tom!) will excuse me for ‘butting in’ here, but what if we just set aside for a mo this whole gruelling business of “cognition”, which after all is a very recent and even superficial notion, and concentrated instead on what is really germane to the entirety of human growth from day one, which is, in a word, desire. I’m here to insist sir that desire PRECEDES this “cognition”. The latter in fact is, quite obviously, wholly dependent on the existence of the former.
What kind of “cognition” do you think would have ever been possible if the central object of appetitive interest to the wee hominid group had not somehow become now sign-ified as unapproachable, thus forming desires to appropriate it someway in the newborn *imaginations* of all present upon that scene?
Surely it is how a community manages to deal with always freshly emerging desire(s) at every point of its ethical ‘evolution’ that makes this evo possible?
With any desire of goes goes coeval resentment at every conceivable step, and right there we’ve already gone universal. ….
I don’t mind at all your “butting in” Magister Turps, especially as I will now take the opportunity to note that I have changed my idea that civilisation and culture are co-extensive, having just read a few books which have shown me the error of my thought, and opened vistas yet to be fully considered.
However, cognition is now the way we talk about thinking, so it’s not an area of recent interest, it has merely changed some of the terms used. (As far as I can tell from the texts I read, but I am not necessarily correct, merely saying what I have gleaned from reading.)
But I do not know the context within which you make this assertion. I also do not now if we can sensibly talk about a baby having “desires”, because I do not know what that would be, what it would look like. Nor can I sensibly say that one comes prior to the other. What I do suspect to be correct is that immediately after birth, parents begin the inculcation of culture by talking to the baby, which begins as able to identify speech sounds. Thusly a baby grows into culture from the beginning, and it has been suggested that by the age of 4, the culture is fully embodied. (Not sure about this, but it certainly is embodied early.)
As a concept, I really do not see how “desire” can apply prior to the arbitrary age of acquisition of the culture I have discovered in various texts. This is to say that behaviour which adults and parents identify as “desire” in a baby, may merely be behaviour leading to the acquisition of desires in the sense that we customarily use the term.
Having said this, you need to realise that this is not an area of expertise for me. But this will change.
Yes, this is an enormously interesting question, especially if we consider that dogs and cats and birds and fish all have cognitions which are identifiable in research. The types of cognition which are possible therefore appear to depend on the nature of the animal in question. Moreover, it is suggested that the development of language began as mimesis and vocal sounds, possibly singing developing as a precursor to full language and cognition. So, I cannot answer your question, nor am I willing to speculate about imagination at this stage. More research is needed before I would be willing to go there with more than speculation about non-human and human cognition.
This presumes an ethical evolution, and I am not willing to say that there is such a thing. There is ethical change, that much I am willing to accept, but this change is the result of human thought and creation. It may appear to evolve because we can point to a history, but a painting being worked on changes in a similar fashion, and a series of painting about the same subject, and…
We commonly say that such works evolve, but I think this is misapplication of a metaphor. So, ethics do not evolve, they change as a result of thinking, as a result of philosophic and legal thinking. If people, including yourself, wish to call this change as a result of thought evolution all I can do is repeat that this is a misapplication of the term/metaphor in my opinion.
Moreover, if ethics genuinely “evolves” in any coherent fashion, how do we account for changes in ethics which go back to days past? I am thinking about the way Trump is changing the ethics behind their Mexican wall, the way refugees are no longer treated well in many countries. It is not merely, for example, due to economic reasons—it is a change in ethical thought. Or is this best regarded as a negative evolution of ethics?
Apologies for not dealing with all your points; maybe one day in the future.
hello BJ, thanks for responding. Now, despite Mister Dissident’s somewhat sneaky (but in truth mimetic) little shot at lumping me in with the windbaggers (after I called him on his somewhat lecturous tendencies at one point), my aim at least is always for Ockham’s Razor, otherwise known as ‘entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem’. So I’m gonna grab hold of this particular bit of your text
“As a concept, I really do not see how “desire” can apply prior to the arbitrary age of acquisition of the culture I have discovered in various texts. This is to say that behaviour which adults and parents identify as “desire” in a baby, may merely be behaviour leading to the acquisition of desires in the sense that we customarily use the term.”
..and attempt to wring the life out of it 🙂
Pointing out that, just as it’s rather pointless to speak of individual ‘language acquisition’ without ever considering the prior EXISTENCE of language in the first place – which is nonetheless what folks are strangely content to do – your own tendency here is to fasten on the ‘acquisition’ of desire in an individual being without any reference to the pre-existence of such a thing as desire to begin with. Or, to put it more precisely, to the fact of human AS creatures being long capable of desire. A capacity-for-desire that did not pop out of each and every one of their autonomous psyches like magic, but was ‘inherited’ as part & parcel of their very inclusion in humanity.
This does not of course exclude any individualistic potentials they have for bringing their “own” desire to the table, but can we never forget that this desire of ‘theirs’ is learned solely from realizing/internalizing the presence in its world of desiring others, who in turn have…….
It also amuses me (when it doesn’t annoy the hell out of me) to see how many remain so fond of using the idea of “behaviour” as virtually coterminous with ‘explanatory’, as if indeed we were so many little specimens inside a glass case being tweaked this way and that from outside by some (non-behaving!) monster called a Behaviorist!
Eeeeek! Hideous kinky!
Anyhow, Ich habe entschieden that I must now concentrate my Ockhamite aspirations at that juncture where Tom had a brief sniff at the Wikipedia entry on what I’m pleased to call the ultimate in razor-sharp thought, which he came away from grumbling about “cults”. So I’ll close this with what I hope is a sufficiently tantalizing analogy: the insecure awe with which communities consider the emergence of the *sexual* in their miniature offspring, might parallel the quasi-pathological reluctance we cultivate to this day, to seriously consider the birth of language, even as with every breath we pile on layer after layer after layer of yet MORE language, without ever stopping to seriously ask ourselves what we believe to be the real provenance of this miraculously illimitable, quite endlessly signifying fount….
we prefer to mumble away happily about cognition and ‘language modules’…
“But I do not know the context within which you make this assertion.”
Let me tell you about context!
When it comes to the fundamental question of the origin of the “speech” and “culture” that makes us humans forever different from our ape cousins, religion is mentioned at best in passing, as though anything appearing in a “religious” context such as a rite or a statuette or a cave painting can be understood in cognitive terms, INDEPENDENTLY OF THAT CONTEXT, as a sign of a certain level of neurological development—as shown by the ability to dance in coordination, or to form clay to correspond to a mental image.
It is the very language of “cognition” that seeks to disembowel all knowledge of all context
On the subject of Ockham’s Razor, you cited the principle: “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”.
On the other hand, what about Kant’s “Entium varietates non temere esse minuendas”? 🙂
More seriously, I note that you speak of ” the quasi-pathological reluctance we cultivate to this day, to seriously consider the birth of language”. It sounds as though, by “we cultivate to this day”, you are talking about humanity in general rather than just HTOC participants.
But this just isn’t true. Philosophers have long puzzled over the origins of language; and scientists, certainly since Chomsky, have been undertaking a more empirical approach to investigation. Your brief reference to language “modules” indicates that you must be at least vaguely aware of this, so I am surprised by your assertion.
As for me “grumbling about ‘cults'”, I asked whether “great theorists have a way of generating cults”, after taking “a brief sniff at the Wikipedia entry” not on Ockham’s Razor but on Generative Anthropology, in which you have declared an interest.
I hoped you would answer my query, rather than just grumble about my “grumbling”. In fact you promised to do so, but there has so far been no substantive response.
For clarity, my original request is set out again below.
Tom
14 Dec 2018
To Warbling Turpitude
Even more fascinating!
Looks as though Rene Girard was a great ideas guy. His work appears to have anticipated the focus of current science on gene-culture co-evolution, especially with regard to the significance of language for the development of large-scale cooperation based on group loyalty via symbolic forms of allegiance to wholly imaginary entities such as “the nation” and “the church”.
However, great theorists have a way of generating cults. Freud is a good example. His work was long ago largely superseded by later science; but later Freudians continued to cling to outdated theory.
I find myself wondering whether Generative Anthropology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_anthropology ) might be going the same way, preferring theory to investigation. There is so much scientific work going on now. Palaeoanthropology, for instance, is being massively informed by DNA studies. Evolutionary psychology is no longer just a theoretical extension of Darwin into the human mind and social world: it actively tests hypotheses experimentally and draws on the great advances being made in neuroscience.
Is GA perhaps a bit wrapped up in itself, or am I doing it an injustice?
okay Tom, fair enough. Thanks for literally ‘rocking up’ again with your grumble in plain sight here (saving me from having to always re-locate etc)
Yes I am speaking of human reluctance to consider TOOL (the origin of l…)
but I am going to have to do this in my own semi-Ockhamite fashion, which is to say in little ‘nicks’.
The first ‘nick’ is to wholly challenge your calm assertion that
“Philosophers have long puzzled over the origins of language; and scientists, certainly since Chomsky, have been undertaking a more empirical approach to investigation. Your brief reference to language “modules” indicates that you must be at least vaguely aware of this, so I am surprised by your assertion”
In fact, the pickings are incredibly slim, and that is really all there is to it. Basically all philosophy – and by extension of course metaphysics – has ever done, is to enshrine the declarative sentence. The presupposition of an extant topic about which one can add a comment./predicate.
If you can find me one single attempt to fully theorize the origin of language ANYWHERE in the history of recorded thought (aside from a few vague gestures in that direction such as Herder’s “bleating sheep’ and other enlightened wonders) then please do so now, The Enlightenment chaps indulged in thought experiments. No more.
Chomsky, for his part, having once upon a time heroically ‘destroyed’ hardcore behaviourism, THEN went on to bury any real question of the “origin” of language per se as deep in the ‘structures’ of a gnostically conceived brain as he possible, using grammatical anomalies as his guide..
and that, dear Tom, is pretty much IT
never forget that in the late 18th Century, the French Academy declared the enquiry into TOOL effectively TABOO
in the nick of time,
N
See top of page: Tom O’Carroll reply of 17 Jan., approx 17:00.
Steven Mithen, The singing Neanderthals 2005
This is one.
Just read the publisher’s blurb. Sounds fascinating:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674025592
It is; I’ve just started reading it. There also is The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the brain by Terrence W. Deacon (1997, W. W .Norton), which is on my to read before starting study again list. And Michael Tomasello, who has written on the evolution of cognition.
Both of those books have long been assessed, absorbed and surpassed by generative anthropology. Tomasello’s work on “joint attention” are very valuable of course but his broader statements on religion (in A Natural History of Human Morality) are foolish and utterly naive. Deacon started out very promisingly with TSS, but sadly never got any further. In fact, he veered instaed straight into bottomless origins of LIFE territory with “Incomplete Nature”.
All I can say is that you have expressed your opinion on an academic work which does what you said had not been done. As I said, I have only just begun to read it.
But: who else do you dismiss on religion? Mrcea Eliade? Needleman? Joseph Campbell? Ninian Smart? I will not bother going on, because it appears that you have an almost religious fervour for “generative anthropology” which, after all, is just another academic way of investigating.
I find it interesting that you are so willing to dismiss the entirety of someone’s work so easily. Is Tomosello such a bad thinker that you will not even credit him at all? I very much doubt it.
BJ, we have gigantic essays at GA devoted to the work of Tomasello, which as I understand it is important for its exhaustive study of the stages of an individual’s language acquisition, the existence of language itself being necessarily taken for granted. Same goes for Eliade, who of course is a highly valuable resource, Joseph Campbell we have a very big bone to pick with, as he basically did what Nietzsche did, which is to try and assimilate Dionysus to the Crucified. Lucky for JC, he didn’t go crazy as a result. All the dudes you speak of I think are coming from that era when other religions were fully opening up to our eyes for the first time, and “comparative” studies were breaking out everywhere. But how did we first manage to break right out of the endless circles of mythology? When did the sacred victim speak for himself for the very first time and directly from the centre he occupied?
“Religious fervour” is kind of tacky. I have the great passion of a disciple for his discipline, yes. And the tremendous urge to get past all the untold fluffy noise to where we can actually think the origin of the human. which we simply insist must have been an event.
Yes, an event.
Else why would ‘hominids’ have ever set about paintstakingly trying to reproduce by means of ritual and on pain of death for the slightest error, the incredible thing that they all now recall collectively??
Do dogs get together to remember the Alamo?
Please provide a short list, with doi for each.
You say “we have” in a rather possessive manner, so I shall assume you are one of these generative anthros, and not merely a fanboy.
In any event, references, with doi and full details so I can put them on the read after Tommy list.
Beyond that, I am not sure y’all got your Nietzsche correct, but it doesn’t matter, does it?
“I’m going to eat meat.” That’s not an argument, it’s a defiance, like saying you’re going to hit your wife because it’s legal and you can do it.
So, are you supposedly defending the right to life and freedom while you decide to systematically deny it to other subjects because they are not human?
Morals and ethics are not relative. Relativism is a moral scam. Ethics are based in logic: anything that violates the legitimate interests and rights of a third party is immoral. There are human tribes that still commit cannibalism. For them, the action of eating humans is as normalized as eating animals. In our society, the only difference between the one and the other lies in the social perception of the action; not in ethics. It is equally unfair to murder a subject regardless of race, sex, or species because such variables or traits do not condition in any way the fact that we all feel, suffer, and value our lives regardless of whether others do or do not. This is why the human concept of “respect” should include other animals rather than being limited to our species.
Eating meat is not like choosing between beach or mountain. By definition, a personal decision (or a matter of preference) is one that does not compromise or affect third parties. Eating meat, on the contrary, implies the breeding, overcrowding and murder of millions of non-human subjects so that human society can feed on their corpses. Since we do not need to eat meat to live and be healthy, such action is both unjust and unjustifiable. Animal Rights activists try to explain that what is unjust is not that we treat animals badly, but that we create ourselves with legitimacy to use them as resources for our purposes. They, like us, have inalienable interests such as freedom, integrity and life. If you value such interests to yourself, you must also value them to others.
Well, Erik, my opinions on meta-ethics are reasonably well stated here, and I don’t feel the need to repeat them.
As for meat eating, I did not deal with my opinions about that, and probably shouldn’t have included my comments in my reply, as they are not germane to the topics discussed in this blog.
All I will say is that humans are omnivores. The difficulty with eating meat is not that we eat meat, but the manner in which we kill the animals we eat, and the lack of gratitude we feel toward the animal.
Now, I won’t answer any more comments about this because this is not a blog that deals with that subject. My apologies for this, but there it is.
Thanks, in any case, for your reply.
FIRST REPLY TO LSM ON MORAL RELATIVISM
I have never heard a philosopher who is a moral relativist make any such claim, nor am I aware of any relativist who denies pain, personal and moral emotions, and so on, as being the subject of morality. The issue for relativists is whether or not there is some objective, overarching moral or ethical notions which are applicable at all times and in all places, and the claim is that there is not.
If we take adult-child sexual contact, a relativist would be perfectly happy to say that it was moral in societies where it was accepted, say pre-contact Polynesian societies where we know—to the extent that we can know—that this type of sexual contact was accepted, but that it is immoral in a society such as ours, where such contact is not accepted. This is the crux of the relativist position, which also recognises that situations in which certain moral emotions, say “fairness” and “justice”, occur may be different at different times and in different places.
The relativist position has a lot of power, because we know that sexual morality is different in different cultures. (I will stick to sexual morality as it is the area most relevant to this blog.)
Now this is something with which I must disagree immediately and without equivocation, but with some explanation.
If we walk into a room and see Jimmy stabbing Johnny in the arm, we can say quite easily that Jimmy is causing Johnny harm, even though Johnny isn’t fighting back. We have to ask: Why isn’t Johnny fighting back? On asking such a question we step outside of “objective facts” and begin to deal with other issues. Johnny, for example, may have, for some reason of his own, wanted to experience what it was like to be stabbed, but in a non-lethal manner. The objective fact, in other words, is insufficient for a moral evaluation.
Or, to return to sex, we walk in and Jimmy is performing fellatio on Johnny, who appears to be enjoying it. Hard (excuse the pun), objective, fact. But we don’t know if Johnny wants this. Say that Johnny is tied up, bound and unable to get away if he wanted to. We still don’t know if Johnny wants this: he maybe experimenting with bondage, he may be enjoying the pain of being bound tightly. The objective fact, in other words, is insufficient for a moral evaluation.
All too often, hard objective facts require more information, which you may regard as “objective” or not, and interpretation. If we walk in on Jimmy with Johnny’s cock in his mouth, we require an immediate interpretation prior to any moral evaluation. You may think Johnny isn’t gay, this must be rape! only to find out when you intervene that Johnny was quite happy to try some homosex. The objective fact, in other words, is insufficient for a moral evaluation.
I am going to skip over your “questions to the moral relativists” concerning adult-child relationships, and go instead to your final paragraph.
You say that moral calculations are made on the basis of two axioms, which you did not make entirely clear, and that humanity often gets these calculations wrong. But by what criteria are these moral calculations wrong? You cannot assume that there is some overarching criteria by which all moral evaluations are judged without saying what that criteria is.
If you are attempting to refute moral relativism, you necessarily fail without being able to state your measuring criteria. If, on the other hand, your criteria is harm, which it seems to be, then please show me a definition (Joel Feinberg took 4 massive volumes in his attempt) that covers all times and all places. This is to say that your definition of harm necessarily must be the same at all times and in all places if it is to be in any way applicable at all times and in all places. But just one counterexample is sufficient to defeat such a definition.
In terms of adult-child sexual intimacy, we do not even have to look to other times and places for counterexamples (objective, even, or as much as anything can be when dealing with humans): Bruce Rind, Susan Clancy, and many others, have provided counterexamples to the harm question of adult-child sexuality.
Now, adult-child sexual relations are no different to any other instance of sexual behaviour in that it always already the case that some sexual contact will be (perceived to) be harmful, irrespective of the age of the participants, irrespective of their actual relationship outside of the context of the sexual contact.
Lastly, universality, which is what you seem to want in order to judge moral actions and rules and calculations.
I am perfectly happy to say that all human beings, at all times that they have existed, and in all places where they have been, have similar experiences of the world. and that all human beings at all times and places have derived similar moral concepts on the basis of these experiences. (Jeremy Lent’s The patterning instinct is a good general introduction to this.) But this is where it stands: they are similar, not identical, and hence they are morally relative in their application and expression. The more any particular society elaborates a concept, the less relation it may have to actual experience. Hence, harm may become looking at a woman in a manner which she objects to, or touching a child without sexual intent, but in a manner which other’s perceive as sexual and therefore harmful or potentially harmful, or…
All of this is no more than my view on the notion that there is an objective morality by which we can evaluate all other moral opinions and actions and beliefs. We can do so, but only within the context of our own culture. And, it is clear that our culture may be entirely wrong and actually causing harm by its moral evaluations.
This is an attempt to re-post here at top my furtheration of the current exchange between me, Dissident and Stephen, which was getting strangled to textual-death below…
“But I don’t think that “mere lust” was what Warbling was concerned about, since his concerns seemed to strongly suggest a large number of individuals who constitute a threat to younger people and who are barely held at bay by AoC laws………..”
Once again, Diss – I do NOT know WHERE you are getting this from.
I have never, ever attempted at any point to guess, gauge or gainsay what sort of “threat” any of these online persons might or might not represent. My purpose all along has been but to ask how, come the day that ‘the public’ is at last confronted by and obliged to consider the claims of MAPs/Kinds/paedos in the light of their newfound legitimacy, we will deal with matters of..well, of association I guess!
Will there be horrible amounts of difficulty in sorting out the lovers from the lusters? This is an unprecedented situation if we calmly accept that, with the “gay” chaps, unbridled, flaming homoSEXuality was always part and parcel of the overall package! ‘Twas only much, much later in the piece that the movement transformed from one wanting no place in the ‘bourgeois’ scheme-of-things to one wanting nothing less!
As for what I was “implying”, that is simply nonsense,
Now:
“but where is this empirical evidence that they exist in “far greater numbers” than MAPs with a full attraction base? ”
You and your ’empirical’ evidence! Do you have a problem with merely noting website figures? The vast number of posters, chatters, the wealth of contributors? I am assuming this burgeoning ‘fanbase’ for super-sexy kids is greater than those with a (gasp) “full attraction base”, yes, for I don’t see any obvious indication anywhere in the ‘legal’ channels that the opposite is true. Do you?
But to re-emphasize the importance of my query: why, considered in the light of famously ‘gay (homosexual) abandon’ should we even be concerned with delineating lust from love? This may be considered a hypothetical question, but I believe it to be a very valid one..
I think part of the reason, at least, for some of the miscommunications between us result from a response that begins with anger or at least heated frustration, which in turn results in a degree of venting over the offending passages that precedes the honest discourse. It can be difficult not to respond in kind when a response begins with that tone, and it can leave things ripe for your interlocutor to inadvertently read some of your subsequent words out of context for the actual spirit in which they are intended. For my part, I will strain not to do that this time around.
“But I don’t think that “mere lust” was what Warbling was concerned about, since his concerns seemed to strongly suggest a large number of individuals who constitute a threat to younger people and who are barely held at bay by AoC laws………..”
Once again, Diss – I do NOT know WHERE you are getting this from.
I got that from the great degree of concern and emphasis on these individuals in your post, along with the heated fashion of your opening words, as noted above. I will take this is a misunderstanding on my part, as you were indeed successful in your attempt to be more precise this time around. And I thank you for that while apologizing for reading you wrong.
I have never, ever attempted at any point to guess, gauge or gainsay what sort of “threat” any of these online persons might or might not represent. My purpose all along has been but to ask how, come the day that ‘the public’ is at last confronted by and obliged to consider the claims of MAPs/Kinds/paedos in the light of their newfound legitimacy, we will deal with matters of..well, of association I guess!
Gotcha this time, I believe.
Will there be horrible amounts of difficulty in sorting out the lovers from the lusters? This is an unprecedented situation if we calmly accept that, with the “gay” chaps, unbridled, flaming homoSEXuality was always part and parcel of the overall package! ‘Twas only much, much later in the piece that the movement transformed from one wanting no place in the ‘bourgeois’ scheme-of-things to one wanting nothing less!
Okay, here is where I think the whole disparity between the lovers and the lusters is a problem due to society’s a priori negative view on MAPs. They presume it’s impossible for an adult to feel anything but selfish, disrespectful lust for young people, and since they also find the notion revolting from a cultural/aesthetic standpoint, they tend to think the absolute worst of adults who express attraction to kids — and thus the revulsion gets magnified a thousandfold if it’s expressed in a manner that is not respectful, nuanced, or arguably poetic as opposed to simply using common street language.
As a good analogy (so I believe): Most people in modern WEIRD society who are not religious zealots or man-hating SJWs are well aware that men posting “frat boy” style remarks on conventional porno sites, video channels featuring women models, meme sites containing imagery of women, etc., et al., are not likely to be inherently incapable of loving individual women or even womenkind as a whole, nor are they necessarily likely to treat women like mere objects in their personal, offline or even online dealings with them outside of these sites. The public more or less accepts and understands that men simply do not tend to express their romantic, poetic, and loving sides at places like this. They go there to “beat off” and express solely the lustful component of their attraction base to women without worrying about the rules of respectful conduct they usually observe with no problem elsewhere in their lives.
The same courtesy has now been extended to the similar sites catering to gay men (or women), and the posters making such remarks about the sexiness of the pics, vids, and memes of same gender models is not seen as necessarily indicating that this represents the whole of their attraction, but simply a certain narrow part of it that you can “let loose” in graphic fantasy-style at such cyberspace locales. Almost as if you are hanging with a crew of buddies with alcohol and joints in hand within the anonymity of each other’s company indoors.
MAPs, however, are not afforded this courtesy. You are correct to note that misbehavior from us is not reacted to with a simple rolling of the eyes and the “boys will be boys” scoffing. Such individuals are seen as selfish lusters at best, and pathologically defective sociopaths at worst, who are utterly incapable of feeling anything akin to love, respect, or benign/ethical appreciation of much younger people.
I do not think, however, that the equivalent behavior you have noted on the chans and other such cyber-locales can help us readily distinguish between genuine MAPs, ribald child fetishists, and trolls looking to play transgression games.
How do we prevent the MAPs from being associated with disrespectful child fetishists and outright pot-stirring trolls jumping on a transgression bandwagon? The only way we can do that right now, which I have argued many times before on GirlChat and elsewhere in public MAP fora, is that we need to keep our conduct on these public forums focused on every aspect of our attraction and not use them simply as “beat off” sites where we express only that side of ourselves. Politically, we are in no position to be acting that way in a public venue, as it does unfairly make the many public visitors presume the worst about us.
Obviously, child fetishists posting on public Kind forums have minimal interest in talking about anything other than lust–not necessarily because they are bad people, incapable of love in a general sense, or lack self-control in real life. It simply means they have little other than that to express in regards to younger people. Which is why child fetishists very often butt heads and do not get along with Kind posters possessing a full attraction base on these public forums dedicated to child love and appreciation as a whole. And trolls are only there to cause mischief and raise the hackles of other posters to satiate their own cravings for negative attention.
There are some genuine MAPs, however, who simply dislike activism and lack a belief that it’s possible for MAPs to improve their standing in society. So, such Kind folks reason, why not behave like frat boys on public forums? Why not express that side of ourselves in that way, because the public is gonna hate us anyway, right?
I believe at this delicate and still perilous point in our political evolution, we need to conduct ourselves as respectfully as possible on public MAP forums and take to task those who don’t. This is not a rejection of the sexual side of our attraction, as some have complained. Rather, it’s a refutation of a certain way of expressing it, and to recognize that we are not going to be judged by the same nuanced respect that teleiophiles who express the physical part of themselves with reckless disregard sans any semblance of decorum can usually expect.
This will result in some heated confrontations with MAPs who dislike activism and believe there is no hope for our community of ever being accepted, along with the child fetishists who attempted to make themselves at home on Kind forums.
“but where is this empirical evidence that they exist in “far greater numbers” than MAPs with a full attraction base? ”
You and your ’empirical’ evidence! Do you have a problem with merely noting website figures? The vast number of posters, chatters, the wealth of contributors? I am assuming this burgeoning ‘fanbase’ for super-sexy kids is greater than those with a (gasp) “full attraction base”, yes, for I don’t see any obvious indication anywhere in the ‘legal’ channels that the opposite is true. Do you?
No, I do not, and this is why, to reiterate what I noted before:
“As a good analogy (so I believe): Most people in modern WEIRD society who are not religious zealots or man-hating SJWs are well aware that men posting “frat boy” style remarks on conventional porno sites, video channels featuring women models, meme sites containing imagery of women, etc., et al., are not likely to be inherently incapable of loving individual women or even womenkind as a whole, nor are they necessarily likely to treat women like mere objects in their personal, offline or even online dealings with them outside of these sites. The public more or less accepts and understands that men simply do not tend to express their romantic, poetic, and loving sides at places like this. They go there to “beat off” and express solely the lustful component of their attraction base to women without worrying about the rules of respectful conduct they usually observe with no problem elsewhere in their lives.”
But to re-emphasize the importance of my query: why, considered in the light of famously ‘gay (homosexual) abandon’ should we even be concerned with delineating lust from love? This may be considered a hypothetical question, but I believe it to be a very valid one..
Because lust does not necessarily denote the presence of love and complete admiration, which encompasses respect for someone’s full personhood and an attraction to much more than just physical features or genitalia. The presence of lust does not necessarily imply an absence of the above, but it is attraction expressed solely upon a raw physical level without regarding the gentler and more respectful aspects of attraction. It is not bad in and of itself, but it can be used to make sometimes unfair assessments of a person’s overall character if they seem unable or unwilling to express a greater appreciation for a person than their looks or what physical pleasure we can derive from contact with them.
This is a response to Warbling Turpitude down below, since things are getting pretty thin down there.
*This sounds to me like you fully buy into the many unsubstantiated stories of horrific, abusive KP that is allegedly “all over the place”
Good God, Dissman – me? “Buy into” ANYTHING? I am as far out of the loops of received wisdom as it is possible to get!
Ah, irony! 🙂
Why on earth would you suggest such a thing, if not as your cue to launch a mini-lecture at me, as you have done? In fact, as I read, I thought – isn’t this guy almost windbagging it here?
Making points one does not want to hear very often comes off like a lecture and windbagging. And considering the length of your own post, if that was windbagging on my part, I think I am in good company here.
My (let’s call it ) assumption that purely lust-driven fellows far outweigh the erm.. ‘paedo-nobility’ (if you will)
My lack of a negative view of my community, and humanity in general, does not mean that I consider basically decent people who are capable of focusing their sexuality in positive ways to be akin to “nobility.” I am simply against overcompensation in dealing with any group of people as a solution to legitimate concerns. The majority of people who belong to all groups are capable of love (of the positive sort), respect, and ethical self-control.
is based on no less an “empirical” basis than any assumption I might draw from my participation and experience right here at Heretic TOC. By which I mean loads of time observing the action on chat rooms, chans, and communities within the Onion field.
These places being full of individuals who are trolls, focused on transgression for its own sake to get a rise out of others, and those who are happy to piss off the perceived thought police. Moreover, such places are where people of all sorts go to vent, let off some steam, act stupid, experiment with identity/avatars thanks to the anonymity afforded by the Net–not to cast legitimate identities. They are also not places where one goes to express their romantic or intellectual side, much as fully sane heterosexual men who visit conventional porno or fetish sights are NOT indicative of men who lack a romantic side or only lust after women, let alone play this side out in their real-life interactions with women.
Thus it is that I find there to very apparently exist out there, great numbers of persons for whom the ..niceties of it all mean very little.
Instead of getting bent out of shape every single time I disagree with you, Warbling, please consider what I said up above and please try to take it in the spirit for which it was legitimately intended. My main point, in summation, is this: MAPs as a group are no worse or out of control with their sexual side than any other group of people. Those who seek an outlet for expressing the “less nice” side of their sexuality should not be taken as empirical evidence that this is how even a fraction of them would act in real interactions with youths if not for the AoC laws, or that unbridled lust for youths is all they have to give, especially not in a society where kids were full citizens and strongly empowered socially and politically, with the entire community as a whole looking after them (and each other). Just as we can readily accept this is true of “vanilla” teleiophiles. And this notwithstanding the penchant for trolls and those who vent against society and its restrictions via dark humor and transgression via online memes and avatars who naturally gravitate to the chans, fetish chats, etc.
When you state the following with such confidence…
“As such, the vast assemblage of child abuse or child lust fetishists (call them whatever one might prefer) allegedly out there just waiting for the AoC laws to relax themselves every so slightly so they can pounce on their targeted prey like timber wolves on a deer are likely nothing more than boogeymen created via media and government”
.. I am amazed, because if the thousands of regularly expressed online sentiments are anything to ‘go by’, lust is indeed the operative, if not only motivation.
Note what I said above. I do not think that a huge portion of us are a bad lot who lack control or lack the ability to love or respect youths any more than this is true for the average teleiophile in regards to their gender or age preferences. And I do not think if society was truly filled to the brim with such depraved, out of control individuals that any type of law that says they will go to jail if they do this or that would be sufficient to keep them efficiently in check. The fact that stranger abduction of kids is such a rare crime (as horrible as it is and as sensationalized as it is in the media every time it does happen), the fact that you do not see such people congregating to the public MAP forums in large numbers and being accepted there, the fact that constantly claims about nefarious “pedophile rings” abusing kids (whether in the form of Satanic cultist, VIP politicians, Dark Web torture site entrepreneurs, sex traffickers, etc.) continually turn out t be false, and the well known statistics making it clear that non-Kind adults who have the greatest amount of power over younger people within the insular confines of the nuclear family home commit the greatest amount of actual abuse of all sorts (including sexual) to kids provides sufficient empirical evidence that the great majority of adults who are attracted to youths would not be a threat to kids in a youth liberated society.
I can have no idea whatsoever to what degree these are all but ‘wolves waiting to pounce’, for as I tried to say before, a powerful sense of self-awareness, irony and yes, oft-times terrific wit, runs through everything – most especially at the chans. The basic chatrooms suggest rather a series of blurtations cranked out by chaps who can barely stop pounding their peckers long enough to type. Elsewhere, in the more formal communities, expressions of great devotion abound.
Please note what I said above regarding the chans, fetish chat rooms, etc, and note my comparison to the porn & fetish sites etc. designed for teleiophiles.
By and by, noting the various website figures, one cannot avoid absorbing a sense of what an astonishing number of “child fetishists” there really are, their numbers moreover clearly growing every week!
Which is why I asked you to take what I noted above into perspective and not let these things send you into a state of panic that can throw the best of us into protectinist mode. This is not an insult of any kind, but a request for caution.
At no point did I give you ANY reason to believe that I have “bought into” anything. On the contrary, I was asking you to explain for me how this ‘horndog elite’ will be distinguished, or separated out from, the great philia underwriting Team Paedo (heh..) on that wondrous day when our movings and shakings begin to bear a little ..social fruit.
Fair enough, as I understood you much more clearly in this post (and I thank you for that). I believe the answer to that question is similar to how we learn to separate the wheat from the chafe, so to speak, in the teleiophile communities. Many of us disagree, for example, with the SJWs and other reactionary elements of the left that the majority of men have rapist inclinations or only think with their John Thomas (do they still call it that in the U.K., Tom? I last heard that slang term used for the phallus in a Monty Python movie from the 1980s).
For is this not an eminently reasonable, indeed unavoidable sort of question to ask, Dissman?
Yes, it is. And I hope I answered it fairly and sufficiently above.
>only think with their John Thomas (do they still call it that in the U.K., Tom?
I suspect the only person who ever used to refer to their John Thomas was Mellors, the fictional gamekeeper in the once controversial novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by DH Lawrence.
However, at the time when the book’s publishers were prosecuted for putting out an allegedly obscene publication, Lady Chatterley’s Lover became to most famous novel in the land. After the publishers won their case it became a huge best seller. Everyone at that time over the age of about 11 (and some much younger) very quickly came to know what a John Thomas was.
How many still remember? Not many millennials and post-millennials, perhaps. But like most sexual euphemisms the meaning is usually obvious enough in context.
Congratulations to all concerned , BTW, on maintaining courteous discourse during recent differences. Patience isn’t easy; but it’s worth the effort.
And I now remember the specific Monty Python movie in question! You will note the Monty Python crew referring to the male phallus as a “John Thomas” fairly frequently throughout their various skit-like sequences in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life 😛
.Looking back at an earlier post of mine, I can see now that I could have been more precise. I used the term ‘mere lust’, accusing Dissident of not recognising its widespread prevalence amongst MAPs. But we need to distinguish between two things:
(1) Lustful thoughts, words and activities that are indulged in for their own sake, but do not necessarily involve flouting moral constraints surrounding the treatment of others.
(2) Situations where individuals are so overcome with lust that they do flout such constraints.
I think (1) is pretty common amongst MAPs (though probably no more so than in other groups), but I would imagine that Dissident would acknowledge this. (2), though far from unknown, is significantly less common and may not represent the majority of cases in which MAPs indulge their desires (whether in thought, word or action).
That is indeed what I agree with and acknowledge, as you will note in my above response to Warbling. Thank you for this, and I am glad many miscommunications are being cleared up in this thread.
thankyou very much for this explanation, Dissident, which I do appreciate you making for me very much. In direct relation to it nonetheless I now have thoughts percolating a-plenty, which for this moment I might briefly summarize by invoking that strange reality you paint of men doing one thing online, but guaranteed to be quite another in ‘real-life’, verily as if there could be no hope of any rapprochement ever happening between the two… which…seems to ..suggest to me nothing less than some kind of ..hopeless schism between what is said to be love and what we understand to be actual desire?
A situation that I’m sure is not done any kind of ‘justice’ by your chief description of all these participanting fellows as so many “trolls” and vainglorious “transgressors”.. With our ever-expanding techgnosis, already capable of acutely rendering, by way of computational genius, representations of children transported in sexual ecstasy that leave even the real thing gasping in wonder, will this terrible schism not become ever wider by the day?
I’m thinking that the very least we can do is restrict our declarations of love to …promises of tenderness….? For is not this “love” we like to speak of so easily quite inseparable from a reciprocity – the exchanges of loving vows, symmetry founded in asymmetry and so on – whose ineluctable destination is full-blown, ‘bourgeois’ marriage and the production of progeny…?
like, I said..percolating..
thankyou very much for this explanation, Dissident, which I do appreciate you making for me very much. In direct relation to it nonetheless I now have thoughts percolating a-plenty,
You’re quite welcome.
which for this moment I might briefly summarize by invoking that strange reality you paint of men doing one thing online, but guaranteed to be quite another in ‘real-life’, verily as if there could be no hope of any rapprochement ever happening between the two… which…seems to ..suggest to me nothing less than some kind of ..hopeless schism between what is said to be love and what we understand to be actual desire?
I think it all boils down to where and among whom someone is doing the expressing.
A situation that I’m sure is not done any kind of ‘justice’ by your chief description of all these participanting fellows as so many “trolls” and vainglorious “transgressors”.. With our ever-expanding techgnosis, already capable of acutely rendering, by way of computational genius, representations of children transported in sexual ecstasy that leave even the real thing gasping in wonder, will this terrible schism not become ever wider by the day?
I think that is directly commensurate with greater understanding being afforded to MAPs and children in the future, i.e., that we are all full human beings with many sides to us that is far from one-dimensional or without many nuances and gray areas.
I’m thinking that the very least we can do is restrict our declarations of love to …promises of tenderness….? For is not this “love” we like to speak of so easily quite inseparable from a reciprocity – the exchanges of loving vows, symmetry founded in asymmetry and so on – whose ineluctable destination is full-blown, ‘bourgeois’ marriage and the production of progeny…?
I think simple declarations of respecting those we find attractive as full people with much to be attracted about other than their physical attributes alone are in order. And at the same time, I think MAPs should be afforded the same considerations as teleiophiles when it comes to expressing admiration for kids who are presented to us as models overtly flaunting those physical attributes as a feast for the eyes, as opposed to expressing all aspects of their personality via extended videos etc.
like, I said..percolating..
I expect a cup of coffee out of this, my friend 🙂
Tom as a mark of respect for this woman who’s clearly been through a terrible time i would like to share this post and hope u and other heretics can show your support for her in these dark times.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/teaching-assistant-caroline-berriman-who-10458072
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/109836101/take-it-from-me-yann-moix-youd-be-mad-to-date-a-20something
24-year-old girl says dating 20-something girls is nonsense and ridiculous. The right age is at least 30 and even better from 40 to up.
In the comments section: Most men agree and most sexually despise 20 year olds because are just inmature “kids” to them. They also seem to prefer women over 30s and even better those in their 40s. For some of them in their 50s are till ok and sexy too.
With less than 20yo doesn’t even enter the debate, absolutely nobody are even just a bit attracted and none even considered it. Literally NO comment EVER mentioned under 20s.
Hey thanks for this posting! Truly marvellous ain’t it how folks manage to convince themselves that the likes of Carla Bruni are “supernaturally beautiful”:. when in actual fact she looks more like she’s promoting Mysteries of the Endoskeleton; Cheekbones of Doom! It is children alone who possess a beauty that could well be described as ‘supernatural’, which is precisely why we’re all so afraid of them! In fact, we don’t even want to touch them, lest our ‘natural’ shadow obscures whatever it is that’s lighting them up!
Not calling you out specifically, but I have to wonder: is there a reason why many MAPs feel the need to make disparaging remarks about the appearance of adult women (and it’s basically always women) in their process of speaking of the beauty of children? Making derogatory remarks about the appearance of people that most little girls will grow up to be seems counterproductive and seems to imply that their value is tied into how attractive they appear or how sexually aroused they make someone. Perhaps the people in the comments don’t need “convincing,” the same way most MAPs don’t need “convincing” that the youth they see are attractive.
I see a need to heed the words of John Henry McKay: “In reaction to a persecution that had increased until it was unbearable, it has been sought to represent this love as special, as ‘nobler and better.’ It is not. This love is a love like any other love, not better, but also not worse, and, if it is truly love, results in blessings as rich as any love. The fight for it should never degenerate into a fight against another, for every love is entitled to its nature and the same source of life nourishes all.”
Good quote. Maybe more of us would do well to discover/rediscover McKay:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Mackay
>Not calling you out specifically, but I have to wonder: is there a reason why many MAPs feel the need to make disparaging remarks about the appearance of adult women (and it’s basically always
women) in their process of speaking of the beauty of children?
I’m a bit surprised you’d even ask the question, not to mention in quite a hostile way.
My guess would be that the many have a better understanding of utility than the women feeling entitled to their resources in some form.
Why, when the sexual marketplace is strongly biased in favor of females, do you think such women attack MAPs as dirty old men, creepy, or too retarded to handle women, not even permitting MAPs to suffer in silence?
Heyyy..consider me called out! And rightly so too! I can promise you though that I do admonish myself for this very failing, even as I indulge in it sometimes… My excuse in this case would be a certain nippy little petulance about the article in question, which seemed to require from me just a nip of petulance of mine own! And of course, the use of ‘supernatural(ly)’, which I happen to think is a term worth saving from the sad fate of say, ‘miracle’ or ‘miraculous’….but above all thankyou for this responsiveness of yours… response-ability even!
but now..the whole question of “love” (which I have framed between speech-marks not scare-quotes) after re-reading ..mo, this ill definitely require a separate, carefully-conidered post…
Yes, you answered crazy hyperbole with some crazy hyperbole of your own. Peace gave the measured response. You both lived up to your own names. Vive la difference!
I try to keep this in mind all the time. This is especially the case since my attraction extends to women into young and young-ish adulthood, even if generally not at an equal level to post-pubescent girls. However, that attraction does not usually extend to middle-aged women on any level, and I likewise try to avoid making disparaging remarks against women in that age group, as I fully understand there are many whose attraction base does indeed favor mature women. And such diversity is a good thing for society, I believe.
I think such disparagement exists because many MAPs feel “pushed” by society, and even outright demonized, for not having a preference for women (or men, as the case may be) in their own age group. And let’s be honest here… MAPs are not the sole guilty party for letting their frustration and bitterness over this situation result in tirades of derisive venting. Older women are often openly criticizing, demonizing, and morally judging middle-aged men who prefer much younger women, even those of legal age. And they likewise often refuse to accept that people do not choose their preferences and expectations along these lines, and that romantic pairings cannot be rigidly standardized on the basis of age any more than it can be via gender.
I can understand why both sides of the equation become flustered over this matter. MAPs are very frustrated over being subject to expectations they cannot meet, and mature women are often self-conscious over the perception that they are losing their desirability on the sexual market and can be very resentful towards younger women, girls, and men who prefer the latter two over the former as a result. But both MAPs and adult/older women need to resist the temptation towards mutual loathing because hatred is never productive.
This is a reply to Christian’s comment “Do a Google “All” search…”
).
Yes, I know – this (MGM performed on unanaesthetised babies in the USA) is terrible.
I think this is an opportunity to do a thumbnail calculation of world MGM rates:
Jews circumcised (population of Jews/2) – 8 million
Americans circumcised (328/2 x 54%) – 89 million
Moslems males circumcised (population of Moslems/2) – 850 million
(stats for the USA are unclear, I have seen 32%, but it seems 54% a more reliable stat)
The psychological consequences of MGM are not well documented. But we know from FGM, that survivors often exhibit long-term symptons of PTSD and sexual dysfunction (there’s some useful info on this infographic – – –
I suspect that this is the case for MGM survivors, with worse consequences depending on the age at which the procedure took place.
It seems that the younger the child the less the psychological damage – this might be because a child circumcised at, say, seven, will remember the procedure, whereas a child circumcised during early infancy won’t; and a child of seven will know the meaning of pain, have a complex sense of his/her own body, their sexuality, expectations of bodily integrity, their place in the world and community, and a sense of trust in their community and family – all of which can be violated, damaged and betrayed by the procedure.
Jew circumcise their sons on the 8th day after birth, and Americans who circumcise tend to do so when their sons are very young too.
The global mean age for Islamic MGM and FGM is estimated at being around seven.
Having said that I have also read research that detects symptoms of PTSD in babies, but the possibility seems to get very little attention.
Tom, I think I have something to add to the main topic of your blogpost – to the attack directed at your virtue ethics scholarly paper by Justin Lee and Rod Dreher, as well as the two “chosen commenters” whose opinion Dreher decided to add to his article.
All these people attack you from a very specific form of a religious / spiritual position – one that do not just
a) accept the actual existence of Deity and / or Divinity,
but also
b) interpret the Deity and / or Divinity as much as materialists interpret “the law of nature” – as the (source of) permanent and immutable, law-like “cosmic order”, imposing perpetual and inalterable rules and norms on humans, rather than as the source of primordial freedom and willfulness, as well as grace and ecstasy;
and, most importantly,
c) believe that the aforementioned global “cosmic order”, for some incomprehensible and improbable reason, reflects and supports, or even effectively identical with, the local, arbitrary and dubious (at best) prejudices of some very particular humans living in a very specific framework of the (post )modern Western culture – the prejudices that, by a sheer act of faith, are exalted to the level of the “absolute cosmic laws”.
There are different ways how one can try to refute such tripartite position. The first, reserved for atheists / antitheists, is to reject the statement a) – the actual existence of Deity and/or Divinity. This is how you responded to it, Tom, with your reference to Richard Dawkins. Yet, the atheistic / antithetic position has its own weaknesses, even in its rare immaterialist form (contrary to the popular stereotype, atheism / antitheism, as such, does not necessarily require ontological materialism – it is possible to be an atheist and yet also an immaterialist); and, being combined with the materialism (as it commonly happens), it becomes especially vulnerable to criticism, empirical (by parapsychology, transpersonal psychology and near-death studies) as well as rational (by immaterialist philosophy and theology).
The good news, however, are that the statements b) and c), that are quite overtly used as the basic assumptions in attacks on you, are themselves no less prone to refutation, by the empirical counterevidence and rational counterargument, than the hardcore Dawkins-style materialistic atheism. In fact, they, as I will show below, remain empirically and rationally indefensible even if one acknowledges the actual existence of Deity and / or Divinity, and thus non-atheistic refutation of them is also possible.
To refute the dubious preconditions that Justin Lee and his ilk use as the grounds for their attacks on you, Tom, one should simply to ask them: ON WHAT EMPIRICAL AND RATIONAL GROUNDS DO YOU ASSUME THAT THE (POST )MODERN WESTERN CONDEMNATION AND PROHIBITION OF THE INTERGENERATIONAL SEXUALITY REFLECTS SOME KIND OF PERMANENT, DIVINELY-ORDAINED COSMIC ORDER?
Here these people, if they can think in an empirically consistent and rationally coherent way, would find themselves in a difficult position, since their preconceptions, in fact, are not defensible by anything except the purely voluntaristic – while, simultaneously, totally irrational and completely unempirical – choice. They will have to acknowledge, that:
a) historically and cross-culturally, there was no ubiquitous, or even prevalent, social taboo on the child-adult sexuality – its current super-taboo status is a highly peculiar trait of the (post )modern Western society;
b) child-adult sexuality was not unanimously, or even predominantly, disapproved or forbidden by the textual religious sources – in fact, religious condemnations and prohibitions usually do not deal with it at all;
c) the religious and spiritual experiences, assessed cumulatively and comparatively across ages and cultures, also do not point to some kind of intrinsic vileness or maliciousness of the child-adult sexual contacts and relations.
So, having to face the hard facts of the great historical and cross-cultural diversity of the religious communities, ideas and experiences, and of the demonstrable absence of the condemnation and prohibition of the intergenerational sexuality by them, your critics, if being intellectually and morally honest, would have to accept that:
either
a) there is no universal and absolute religious / spiritual moral imperatives – every person or community that (possibly) encountered the Divine can (and does) choose his / her / their own ones;
or
b) even if one tries to detect and identify some commonalities and regularities in the moral imperatives proposed by the persons or communities that (possibly) encountered the Divine, in an attempt to formulate some kind of a perennial spiritual moral message, the condemnation and prohibition of the intergenerational sexuality is clearly not one of such commonalities and regularities, and thus not a part of such message.
One way or another, if Justin Lee and his types intend to remain honest to themselves, to you (as their opponent in debate) and to their current and potential readers, they would have to admit that their original insistence on the absolute, universal Divine condemnation and prohibition of child-adult sexuality is utterly indefensible on the empirical and rational grounds, being a purely voluntaristic decision.
And if they will refuse to admit their failure to justify their cause empirically and rationally, rather than only voluntaristically, they will effectively expose themselves to their readers as mere hypocrites and bigots, ready to baselessly proclaim their culturally and historically specific prejudices as trans-cultural and trans-historical moral absolutes, even as some kind of perennial Divine commandments, while, in fact, possessing nothing but their own fear, disgust, wrath and hatred – and their willful, voluntaristic choice to give up to them fully, rather than try to overcome them – as the poor substitute of the empirical evidence and rational argumentation.
In that moment, it would be quite obvious to anyone who follow the debate, if such person(s) does not share the initial hostility and prejudice of Justin Lee and his company, or is willing to question and modify his / her / their own ingrained views and responses in face of the empirical and rational refutation, that the desire to censor, defame and persecute others, so intensely active in most sadistic “anti-paedos” and so eagerly supported by many masochistic “anti-contacts”, is purely the result of their socially and culturally specific conditioning, not of the Divine revelation. Their persistent refusal to doubt and question their conditioned responses is caused by their own inability to maintain intellectual integrity in the face of negative conditioned emotional response, not by the Divine inspiration. And their decision to enact their wrath and hatred with acts of censorship, defamation and persecution is purely the act of their own will, devoid of any Divine ordinance.
And, therefore, if child-adult sexual contacts and relationships can be consensual and harmless – and, as we all here know, and can defend empirically and rationally, they can be such, and in most cases they are such – there is no empirically sound and rationally valid reason to condemn and forbid them, whether one accepts or rejects the actual existence of Deity and / or Divinity. No matter how deeply emotionally painful would it be both for the sadistic “anti-paedos” and the masochistic “anti-contacts” to acknowledge, there are entirely no empirically and rationally defensible grounds to assume that Deity and / or Divinity is on their side, or to maintain that Deity and / or Divinity has anything against child sexuality, paedosexuality and intergenerational sexuality.
Thanks for this thoughtful contribution, Explorer.
>One way or another, if Justin Lee and his types intend to remain honest to themselves
Judging by their abusive style, they are clearly not interested in honest and reasonable debate. As for Dawkins, I may come back to that theme at some point.
“As for Dawkins, I may come back to that theme at some point.”
As I recall, Tom, you had some plans to write a blogpost (or even two) about the evolutionary psychology perspective on the topics we discuss here, and contacted someone eminent (Pinker?) to ask a few relevant questions. Is it (still) true?
>and contacted someone eminent (Pinker?) to ask a few relevant questions
If I said something of that sort I’m afraid it has long since been consigned to the back burner and then forgotten. As you mentioned Pinker, I suppose I could have been thinking of his rejection of genetic “group selection”. His stance (in line with Dawkins) seems correct in terms of genetic replication but fails to take account of the profound implications of cultural replication.
Dawkins was onto something in that regard with his “memes”. The idea of memes as a cultural analog of biological genes as a unit of replication has been very interesting but the most productive research on gene-culture co-evolution has found little direct use for this concept.
two.. ‘almost mainstreaming’? links that I think should be all kinds of pertinent to people here…
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201812/the-age-four-transition-responsible-childhood
and
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/01/08/judith-rich-harris-against-nurture/
The Psychology Today article is particularly interesting, since it sets a new “magical age” of 4 for verbal thought and capacity for independent behaviour. This comes after the “age of reason” of 7, then the one of 10 posited by Herdt and McClintock for exiting childhood and entering into puberty.
Also of particular interest are the two links to hunter-gatherer societies (3rd paragraph), their view on raising children was the complete opposite of the current one, and it worked nevertheless.
“Many 12-year-olds today are not permitted the independence that 4-year-olds were permitted until just a few decades ago.”
Indeed they are… This is quite evident in Russia as well as anywhere else. I still recall how much freedom I, along with other kids, was allowed in the 1990s. In that old time, when children roamed the streets without parents getting crazy of fear and anxiety, I had my own big adventure: being about 5 years of age (if not 4…) I made a long journey across a big abandoned construction site. Of course, I was unauthorised by parents – even if these days of freedom, it was not deemed suitable for kids to enter these genuinely dangerous ruins – yet, since I, along with other kids of this age, was allowed to play outdoors without any adult supervision whatsoever, I went there and explored the place – and came back safe and sound.
Nowadays, I’m a bit surprised by myself: even in this early age, I was able to conduct myself quite safely in this generally not-too-safe place avoiding dangers like the open wells. In fact, today, as an adult, I would have been much more fearful, thinking about threats and potential negative consequences; while, as a kid, I was not afraid at all – just curious and excited about this exploratory experience, while in the same time far from reckless. In fact, there seemed to be a kind of natural, instinctive – and thus not fear-based – caution in my actions.
And when I returned home, there was no scandal – my parents explained to me that I should not enter such places alone, because this is dangerous. Yet I was not punished or resticted in any way, still allowed to play outdoors unsupervised.
And next time, I was in this construction site together with my mother and aunt!
Tom
>I find the BBC increasingly annoying on sex/gender issues, especially, but they must still be doing something right from my POV: Radio 4 is still my main news & current affairs/cultural broadcasting source, along with BBC 2 & BBC 4 TV.
When r u on these tv channels/radio programmes?
NEWS:
Radio 4: Today programme 6-9 AM daily except Sunday ) not all of it!); World at One; PM (5 PM)
BBC 2: Newsnight.
OTHER:
R4:
If the guests/topic especially interesting: Mon: Start the Week; Thurs: In Our Time.
Occasionally: The Life Scientific; More or Less; Desert Island Discs
BBC2:
9 PM documentary often quite good
BBC4: occasional documentaries
Other TV: Occasional documentaries, usually history, archaeology, science, possibly Channel 4 or even 5.
REGULAR NON BROADCAST MEDIA:
The Guardian, The Times and (for the best “scandal”) The Daily Mail
Spiked
The Spectator
Science
The New York Times
London Review of Books
Wikipedia
OCCASIONAL NON BROADCAST MEDIA:
Numerous sources to which I am regularly referred via Sexnet contacts e.g. The Atlantic, Quillette, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker
Anything important I am missing, Daniel (or anyone)? No doubt there are a million interesting and useful sources of useful info, to say nothing of entertainment. There are plenty of writers/thinkers these days, though, who prefer to cut out “the white noise. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, for instance, author of The Black Swan, doesn’t bother to keep up with the news on a day-to-day basis. But at a deep level he keeps himself extremely well informed.
Here are some more suggestions, though they are all partisan. The first three are available on Youtube.
Russia Today (RT) – Yes, it is propaganda serving the Russian state, but it is mostly not CRUDE propaganda and often provides an interesting perspective on things.
George Galloway on Talk Radio – He can be over-confident in his opinions, but he is entertaining and thought-provoking.
The Young Turks – for those interested in looking at U.S. politics from a progressive perspective. Very good on Trump’s idiocies, in particular. I wish we had some equivalent to TYT in the U.K.
For more conservative thinking, try The Spectator, which is often thoughtful and interesting, though (like most conservatives), they have a very monolithic view of ‘The Left’.
Despite my sharply negative attitude to the current Russian regime, I would also recommend Russia Today for the Western viewers. The reason: I’m sharply negative about current Western regimes as well, as well as any state regimes in general (I’m an anarchist, don’t you forget).
So, while RT is indeed a state propaganda channel, it is no more state propaganda than BBC, or Guardian, or New York Times, or Washington Post, or any other mainstream media. The importance of the RT for Westerners is the fact that for them, it is an ALTERNATIVE propaganda, which provides them with knowledge that was perceived as unsuitable by the Western mainstream and thus ignored, denied, spinned or twisted by its sources.
So, to summarise: both BBC and RT are half-truth sources, showing only the part of truth that are suitable for them and hiding (or distorting) the other one. Knowing them, and assessing them cumulatively and comparatively (as I do with religious and spiritual experiences, as I told elsewhere on this comment section…), one can start to construct a more-or-less adequate picture of the world.
Thanks, Explorer. It is useful to have that endorsement of my recommendation of RT from a Russian who is opposed to Putin. And I absolutely agree that we need to compare different sources in order to come up with as true a picture of what’s going on as we can (though of course some sources are more trustworthy than others).
Muhanmad our prophet (peace be upon him) had the exemplary kindness for his favorite wife Aisha. In GirlChat recently someone made a very nice description of Muhanmad (peace be upon him) and Aisha and their mutual and fully consensual and deep intellectual relationship.
Here’s the link
https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/727792.htm
Aisha and Muhammad
Looks like you may need some financial help, So put a link in so those of us that can can contribute. The BBC is not impartial, Just look at their coverage of Brexit published be the institute for economic affairs, gender pay gap BS etc.
> So put a link in so those of us that can can contribute. The BBC is not impartial,
Thanks for the thoughtful suggestion, Debauch. Depending on how things go (hoping for some legal feedback this week) I might well do that.
I find the BBC increasingly annoying on sex/gender issues, especially, but they must still be doing something right from my POV: Radio 4 is still my main news & current affairs/cultural broadcasting source, along with BBC 2 & BBC 4 TV.
I’ve been wondering whether or not to get into the discussion on LSM and his talk about genital mutilation and Islam, and I think I have decided to make some comments, but not within the context of an existing conversation.
Genital mutilation
I first became aware of this in the early 1990s when my first wife was dong a BA at Deakin University, with a double major in feminism. It was a large focus in feminism at the time, and I imagine it still is. The imperialism of feminism meets the imperialism of Western morality at this point, and the whole area of thinking is a mishmash of barely comprehensible moral theorising which is further mashed by the increasing Westernisation of various societies. The old is fighting with the new and the West is behind at least some of the new. The bigger the fight, the more extreme the old becomes.
I can completely understand LSM’s horror at genital mutilation, and I would argue against it, especially here in the West where the prime target is the male foreskin. In this, Our West, it is both a religious matter for the Jewish people, and a medical matter for others. But in wither case it is not a necessary operation.
But the real question is whether or not someone has the right to be upset and argue for change. I would and do say that he does have this right.
Islam
Another one of LSM’s bugbears is Islam—but it is impossible to have a coherent and sensible opinion about Islam as a whole. The Koran has both the nasty and the good in it. Extreme militant faith and extreme peaceful faith are found in it, just as they are in the Christian Bible. I remember talking to the Anglican Bishop of Perth about Christian fundamentalism many times, about the violence and anger which ferments in it and all too frequently finds expression, but in “smaller” ways than in Islam. We can argue for one form of Christianity, and one form of Islam, but we cannot argue for both. In this, I think LSM has focused on the extreme form, and some of its effects, without adequately noting that this is the minority. Let’s face it, Islamic people want peace and happiness as much as anyone else, even if they disagree about how to achieve it. But wait—we all disagree about that, and must choose our preferred version of how to achieve it. For many fundamentalist Christians, this means killing those with whom they disagree.
Does he have the right ot go on the ran-tan about Islam? Yes, but he also needs to consider all aspects of Islam, not merely one or two, else he runs the risk of being so entirely wrong that he can be disregarded.
Children and Marriage and sex.
This seems to be LSM’s biggest bugbear: forced child marriage. Well, we can agree that being forced into anything, and being abused physically and sexually as a result is wrong, and needs to be stopped. But, LSM appears to be extending this to include consensual relationships. And in this, he has a point, though it is not one I would necessarily argue for. The point is that even a happy consensual relationship can result in damage to the child in a society which treats adult-child sexual relationships as the worst possible thing in existence.
Me, I have nothing against child marriage if it is something wanted by both parties; I am not so sure about arranged child marriages, which tend, on evidence, to be pretty bad for the child.
But, should we extend this to all adult-child relationships, as the vipers in virped do?
I have read some of their writing, especially Todd Nickerson, but I find their arguments weak and incredibly biased morally. This is to say that their arguments are based on a very narrow morality which is used which justifies their failure to take into account knowledge and arguments which stand against their moral view. Hence they argue to maintain a status quo which punishes them for who they are.
I don’t know if LSM is going to go that far in his thinking, though I hope not, but he has chosen his moral viewpoint and is now arguing for it.
Perhaps the real question is whether or not this is the correct place to present his view? And are those who object to it going to entertain his ideas in an objective manner, despite his occasional failure in this area? (But let’s also face the fact that we all fail in objectivity at times.)
I don’t really know what LSM wants, but I will read his ideas and see where they lead me. I could tell you what I want in respect of paedophilia and adult-child relationships, but that would make an already long comment longer. If anyone wants to hear what I have to say about this, say so, and I will post in another comment
Ok, I wanted to say all this because a lot of the comments her about LSMs ideas, and comments by LSM himself, are tending towards the confrontational, and this does not benefit conversation, understanding, or anything else.
Sometimes LSM is correct, sometimes he is incorrect, but that is true of all of us.
Islam does not permit forced marriage. The parents and family can find a man introduce the girl to a man, but the marriage isnt valid unless she says yes. So under Islamic law and absent any modern AOC laws if you see a little girl playing outside you can ask a girl’s parents for her but she can reject you. As for modification of the clitoris, islam only permits ths very tip to be removed. The practice of removing the whole clitoris is an ancient Egyptian pharaoh practice and is banned in Islam.
Thank you for that information. I have not studied Islam in any detail (my interest was European witchcraft when I was studying religion, which was when I met and talked to the future prelate of the Anglican church in Australia), so I know little.
As for the clitoris: we in the West make a great deal of the clitoris, blindly ignoring the fact that the clitoris extends deep into the body (as does the penis), and is wrapped around the vagina, which provides pleasure on penetration and thrusting, especially if the penis is aimed differently with each thrust. (Blame the ancient Chinese, they made a detailed study of female sexual pleasure and the thrusting techniques which would increase it.)
There is no justification for any of the clitoris to be removed (absent some pressing medical need).
Agreed. What has any of us ever said to make anyone else think we are okay with that? Removal of the clitoris is designed, as I understand it, to stifle sexual pleasure, and that is certainly nothing the pro-choicers support, let alone the authoritarian laws that would be required to enable the practice! In fact, many (if not most) do not even agree with full penetration of pre-pubescent girls, which would render the whole accusation rather pointless.
Just because we do not obsessively focus on that one particular practice doesn’t mean we are not concerned about it. As youth liberationists, we oppose any type of coercive actions on kids, including the alteration of their bodies in such a way.
My bad, it was Galileo who pointed out the matter re: forced marriage under Islam.
[TOC adds: I was puzzled to hear this (and I don’t think I would be alone), having forgotten we have a contributor here called “galileo1439”. ]
Glad you noticed, it saved me the trouble of correcting the reference. 😀
Don’t worry, Dissy. I haven’t moved into the anti-choice camp! 🙂
BJ, As you have done me the courtesy of addressing my ideas rather than engaging in ad-hominems, I will return that courtesy by addressing the three issues you raise.
I try to base my stances on certain ethical principles, which it would take a lot of words to fully set out – but they involve:
1/ what I call ‘deep consent’. ‘Deep consent’ takes consent seriously, does treat it as a technical hurdle, not a ‘first past the post’ thing, not just ‘sign and be damned’, but something whose meaning is continuous and extends into the future,
2/ the idea that rightly-perceived ethics are objective truths – in the same way as mathematical statements are. And that some things are objectively more ethical than others (this is not ‘Moral Realism’ BTW, or at least not quite).
Mutilation
I am against both FGM and MGM. Both violate any meaningful consent a child or baby can give. And neither qualify for the kind of exemption that might legitimise a parent or adult over-riding their child’s consent decision (as in the case of medically justified operation).
My focus so far has been on FGM because:
1/ FGM is a sufficiently big field and I can barely cope with one thing at a time, let alone two.
2/ FGM and MGM are very different phenomena – with different aetiologies, pathologies, and incidences.
3/ FGM is the worse abuse of the two.
I will briefly justify 3/:
The huge majority of FGM takes (or combines) one of three procedures: infibulation, excision, clitoridectomy. There is a form of FGM sometimes referred to as ‘Sunnah FGM’ which is the precise analogue of Judaic and Islamic MGM. Sunnah FGM involves the scraping away of the prepuce of the clitoris. I know only of ‘Sunnah circumcision’ being practised in Indonesia, and it makes up about 4% of Indonesian FGM i.e. it is, world-wide, very rare.
So, if we try to make an objective comparison of the severity of FGM and MGM the former is nearly always much more severe than the latter. The severity of FGM starts where that of MGM leaves off.
MGM also is a fixed practice, within the Abrahamic religions it has not varied in form significantly since the time of Abraham, being well-defined in Genesis.
FGM is poorly defined in the Hadith – the only guidance that exists is that there are some forms of FGM that Mohammed considered as excessive (Abu Dawud 41:5251). Hence there is plenty of ambiguity which allows for imaginative variations in how it is practised – all of which tend to wards gravity rather than mitigation.
MGM and FGM arise out of very different motivations – MGM represents the sealing of a covenant between the ‘god’ and the Jews – it’s value is symbolic, allowing it to be a practice that has remained constant over thousands of years.
FGM has its roots in extreme polygyny and sex-slavery, and to grossly oversimplify things FGM is a way of reducing the problems posed by girls’ and women’s’ sexuality (which is perceived by practitioners of FGM as being excessive by nature), both actually and symbolically. As such the severity of FGM will vary according to the extremity with which female sexuality is perceived as a problem – and ‘severity’ tends to be a one way street since the perception of chastity in competitive marriage markets will push families to maintain extreme forms as ostentatious displays of the family’s commitment to chastity and purity (much as in ‘sexual selection’).
MGM is much more common than FGM – all Moslem males (other than the tiny sect of Quranists) undergo FGM (making 850 million in the world today), the great majority of Jewish males (7 million) and many American males (there are so many different stats for this that I’m not going to risk quoting one).
There exist various estimates for the number of females who have undergone FGM – but these centre round the figure of 200 million – but this figure is, for various reasons, likely to be a gross under-estimation.
One can use the formula ‘harm x quantity’ to calculate which is the bigger problem, but ultimately I focus (for the moment) on FGM – maybe because I love, desire and admire little girls more than I do little boys. But I will stand with any boy-lover campaigning against MGM and support them as best I can.
Islam
In the context of this blog my opinion of Islam is only relevant insofar as it touches on paedophile and children’s issues. I have expressed my position on FGM above. And will express my opinion on child marriage below.
Other aspects of Islam that affect children and their sexuality are polygyny, veiling, ‘honour’ culture, sex-slavery, the permissibility of marital rape, the low status of females legally and institutionally under sharia law, dowries and gender segregation. Each of these deserves many thousand words, but I see nothing in any of these practices that merits anything other than rejection and condemnation.
Child Marriage
One principle of informed consent is that children can consent to activities whose consequences they can reasonably foresee – under Islam a marriage is for life (unless the husband decides to divorce you). I can not see how a child, especially a prepubescent child, can be expected to commit to one man, domesticity and his decisions for her, for the rest of her life.
Secondly child sexuality should remain a form of play – children are learning about themselves and others, consensually, whilst retaining control not just of the play, but its consequences. Play allows them to experiment and explore without having to commit themselves to any one person for ever, or to any permanent condition for ever.
Adult-child intimacy should be the adult participating in the child’s play – it is the child’s activity, primarily for the benefit and pleasure of the child, not the adult, and the child is ultimately in charge, and the adult has to adapt his or her actions to the child, not the other way round.
‘Marriage’, being binding and exclusive and isolating, annuls all these conditions of ‘play’.
>”I don’t really know what LSM wants,”
I want RadPed philosophy to be more serious and more rigorous.
And to stop taking our pipe-dreams so seriously that we treat them as ‘evidence’.
Do we really think that changing laws is all that it will take to bring about Paedotopia? Why would the huge majority of people (who are not paedos) want or accept such laws? There would be riots in the streets!
And if you grant that they WOULDN’T accept such reforms then we need to get serious about working out WHY they hate us, WHY they have a visceral disgust about what we want to do with their children?
And if your answer is a variant of ‘propaganda’ or ‘indoctrination’ or ‘hate’ then you simply have not thought about this question deeply enough to realise that your explanation is just the description of the symptoms recycled, and does not bring us a millimetre closer to an aetiology.
We may not like the answers that a serious consideration of such questions throws up – and some may want to remain in the comfort zone of dreams. Well, if that is the level of thinking people want Radical Paedophilia to operate on then I wish you sweet dreams, but when (or ‘if’) you wake up don’t be shocked that the world does not conform to your dreams.
And as to my becoming all ‘moral’ – well, what’s wrong with that?
I would argue that the ethical standards of paedophiles should be higher, MUCH higher, than those of any other sexual group in existence since the objects of our love are the most vulnerable, delicate, weak, credulous and innocent of any possible object of love.
We have a duty of care for the children we love and we should be taking that duty very, very seriously – not giving ourselves free passes when it suits our purposes, desires and lusts.
If we are to love children and have that love reciprocated, then maybe we should be thinking of what it means to merit and earn that love.
And to do so to a point that society maybe notices that at the heart of the Monsters it assumes we are, that there are to be found principles that actually do us credit.
So, yes, I am highly concerned with ethics, morals and, yes, Virtue, and I make no apology for that. This doesn’t mean that I am ‘judging’ anyone – the only person here I know well enough to judge is myself. ‘Get your own house in order before you start worrying about other people’s houses’ seems quite a good way of proceeding.
But ‘values’ are ‘judges’ and we either have values (with all the attendent contrains and rigours that entails), or we don’t.
But if we don’t have values then how do you expect to persuade anyone who is not a paedo to let you anywhere near to their child?
I find a lot to agree with in this. But not the following:
>all Moslem males (other than the tiny sect of Quranists) undergo FGM
If this is correct, there would appear to be more trans males in the Muslim population than I thought! 🙂
Haha – well spotted, Sherlock!
>I can not see how a child, especially a prepubescent child, can be expected to commit to one man, domesticity and his decisions for her, for the rest of her life.
Agreed. Come to think of it, it sounds a bit unreasonable for adults as well!
>Adult-child intimacy should be the adult participating in the child’s play – it is the child’s activity, primarily for the benefit and pleasure of the child, not the adult, and the child is ultimately in charge, and the adult has to adapt his or her actions to the child, not the other way round.
I think that is a pretty good model. But I wonder whether it is really necessary to add such strictures to what individuals are able to work out for themselves.
>Do we really think that changing laws is all that it will take to bring about Paedotopia?
Do you know of anybody in the radical community who thinks that?
>Why would the huge majority of people (who are not paedos) want or accept such laws? There would be riots in the streets!
I think we all know that. There needs to be a change within society itself, not just in the criminal law.
>And if you grant that they WOULDN’T accept such reforms then we need to get serious about working out WHY they hate us, WHY they have a visceral disgust about what we want to do with their children?
Is it so hard to figure out? The simplest explanation is that it is a combination of sex-negativity with excessive over-protectiveness, intensified by a good deal of misinformation. I’d go with the simplest explanation unless we find a good reason to prefer some other.
>” think that is a pretty good model. But I wonder whether it is really necessary to add such strictures to what individuals are able to work out for themselves.”
I’m not presenting it as a stricture (if by that you mean a ‘narrow command’), but more as a tool for ethical calculations – the question of child-marriage is an example of this – the idea that expressions of child sexuality should ideally occur as a form of play shows that child marriage is, at least in the aspect of sexuality, ethically problemmatic.
As to whether individuals can work this out for themselves… hopefully ‘gut instinct’ will tell us child marriage is (all other things being equal) not an ethical ‘good’. But I suspect that there is a tendency amongst RadPeds to slightly reflexively lean towards defending all forms of child-adult sexuality that are not clearly non-consensual – giving the benefit of the doubt to instances that are complex.
Just to say that I’m not absolutely condemning all child marriage – I can envisage many circumstances where it might be the best option for the child – but taken in the abstract, without mitigating circumstances, ‘child marriage’ presents grave ethical problems that the absence of child marriage does not.
>”Do you know of anybody in the radical community who thinks that?”
This seems to have been the goal and dream of the radical community for a long time.
>”The simplest explanation is that it is a combination of sex-negativity with excessive over-protectiveness, intensified by a good deal of misinformation.”
I really don’t think contemporary Western society is ‘sex negative’ in any other aspect than child-adult intimacy. Think of how attitudes have changed towards homosexuality at the very same time that they’ve hardened towards paedophilia; think of how sex is present everywhere in the media; think of how children are being sexualised into being consumers; think of how available and accessible porn is…
As to over-protectiveness – yes, I agree thatq this is a factor – children being more and more absent from the society of adult society – it’s all part of the social structure that follows on from consumer capitalism (I write about this here – https://consentinghumans.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/where-have-all-the-children-gone/ )
But in the end any explanation that roots the explanation of social phenomena in attitudes is still skating on the thin ice of the problem – the deep structures of society are the biggest influence on society’s attitudes because people who are happy and succeed tend to be those who are in harmony with the structures of society they live in.
>”But I suspect that there is a tendency amongst RadPeds to slightly reflexively lean towards defending all forms of child-adult sexuality that are not clearly non-consensual – giving the benefit of the doubt to instances that are complex.”
Well, by calling it a ‘tendency’ towards a ‘slight leaning’ whose existence you ‘suspect’, you’ve almost put it beyond the bounds of empirical confirmation. Of course not all RadPeds are the same. For example, I’d expect more sensitivity on these matters from our esteemed host than from, say, Amos Yee.
>”Do you know of anybody in the radical community who thinks that?
This seems to have been the goal and dream of the radical community for a long time.”
Your original rhetorical question was ‘Do we really think that changing laws is all that it will take to bring about Paedotopia?’ My response was ‘Do you know of anybody in the radical community who thinks that?’ My question still stands: Do you know of anybody in the radical community who thinks that changing laws is ALL it will take to bring about Paedotopia?
>”I really don’t think contemporary Western society is ‘sex negative’ in any other aspect than child-adult intimacy. Think of how attitudes have changed towards homosexuality at the very same time that they’ve hardened towards paedophilia; think of how sex is present everywhere in the media; think of how children are being sexualised into being consumers; think of how available and accessible porn is…”
Despite the very real changes you mention, I do think Western society is still pretty sex-negative. As far as my own experience is concerned, I can’t have a normal conversation about sex with most people (I’m not just talking about minor attraction) in the way that I can about any other everyday activity. I can’t say, for example, ‘I just had a good wank. How about you?’ I can’t be open about my use of porn. (Just to clarify: I only use legal porn.) Sex is just somehow treated differently and it’s not a positive kind of ‘differently’.
>I can’t say, for example, ‘I just had a good wank. How about you?’
Most of us are indeed very inhibited in this regard.
Comedians are an interesting exception. Their courage has to be admired! Audiences love to hear them talk about all sorts of things most of us would be too embarrassed to discuss, even though their laughter may be nervous and they might reflexively find themselves covering their faces with their hands, taking proxy shame on board.
Sexual inhibition is certainly socialised into us in childhood. Little kids are utterly shameless. I think we can be confident that if parents and others were to consciously avoid giving body-negative messages to kids in infancy and beyond, we would have less sexually neurotic adults.
But this just pushes the fundamental questions back by one stage. We also need to ask why, as a culture, we have chosen to give such messages in the first place. This goes much deeper, I think, than blaming St Paul, or St Augustine, for their attitudes to the body and sexuality.
This is not to say things cannot and should not change. But it does mean — and here I agree with LSM — that we need to consider deep social structures and the kind(s) of culture(s) best suited to modern living.
>”This goes much deeper, I think, than blaming St Paul, or St Augustine, for their attitudes to the body and sexuality.”
I didn’t mean to imply that attitudes are the terminus of the explanation. Obviously attitudes have causes just like everything else. I think someone once suggested that the key lies in the (biologically accidental) close proximity of the organs of reproduction to those of urination/defacation. Thinking of the latter as ‘dirty’ helps to protect us from disease, but this feeling tends to get transferred to the former. This is speculative of course, but it chimes with my own memories of early childhood, when anything to do with that area was treated as ‘rude’ and we of course did not know about the reproductive aspect – only the toilet-related one.
Despite the very real changes you mention, I do think Western society is still pretty sex-negative. As far as my own experience is concerned, I can’t have a normal conversation about sex with most people (I’m not just talking about minor attraction) in the way that I can about any other everyday activity. I can’t say, for example, ‘I just had a good wank. How about you?’ I can’t be open about my use of porn. (Just to clarify: I only use legal porn.) Sex is just somehow treated differently and it’s not a positive kind of ‘differently’.
I concur. Honestly, I think it’s ridiculous for anyone to say contemporary WEIRD culture is only sex-negative in regards to all manifestations of child/young teen sexuality (including and particularly intergenerational sexual contact). Is not slut-shaming of women still rampant alongside all the rhetoric saying it’s emotionally healthy for women to have and desire a sex life? How about all the continued misandric attacks on male sexuality, claiming men have to literally be taught not to be rapists? Or, how women are expected to jump through numerous hoops before proving that they fully consented to sexual contact with a man? A powerful fear of sexuality, particularly male and child sexuality, are all over WEIRD culture, making it clear it has a powerful love-hate relationship with it. Children are forced into a form of asexual “innocence” so that adults can experience purity vicariously, and younger adolescents are forced into the same paradigm due to the legal situation they share with children.
And seriously, why does Lensman continue spouting at us about forced man/girl marriage when I do not see a single one of us supporting lifelong pairings of that sort even for adults? And when youth liberationists are fully against any type of coercion regarding youths? Where is he getting all of this? Not from anything we have said, that is for certain. There are some pro-choice MAPs over on GC who have been supportive of any system allowing for child marriage as being “enlightened” regarding intergenerational relationships, but this has been opposed by the majority of pro-choicers there as being a foolish and impulsive conclusion to jump to. The pro-choice community is not free of some wrong-headed ideas, but they are far from the majority, who are routinely very strong on freedom of choice and full personhood for youths, quick to censure some of the bad ideas coming out of a minority in the pro-choice camp, and are not fond of the idea of lifelong monogamous marriage for youths, either with each other or with adults. And as BM pointed out today, there is no modern culture or government in the Middle East that literally forces child marriage on girls over a widespread basis. This is simply a horror story that gives moral crusaders something to play “hero” in their own minds by attacking any boogeyman that equates children, adults, and anything to do with sexuality together in the same thought. And when anti-choicers/non-contact Virpeds see one or two pro-choicers making statements like this, they are quick to pigeonhole the entire camp as feeling that way, while ignoring the great majority who loudly disagree with the few who make such comments of support.
Correction: It was Galileo who made that confirmation about child marriage in Islamic nations, but “BM” (BjMurihead).
“the idea that rightly-perceived ethics are objective truths – in the same way as mathematical statements are.”
First, claiming that mathematical statements are objective truths is Platonism. In the formalist approach, adopted by most mathematicians, mathematical theories are just formal systems required to be non-contradictory, like chess playing, and the “truth” of a statement exists only in an interpretation of the theory in a model. For instance, it is easily shown that the collection of integers is an infinity that is smaller than the infinity of the collection of real numbers (numbers with infinitely many digits after the dot). Whether there is an infinity between the two is undecidable, there are models of mathematical objects without such intermediate infinity, and there are models with such an intermediate infinity. There are similarly undecidable statements in integer arithmetic, and whether they are true or not depends on whether you consider as integers only the usual ones (0, 1, 2, …), or if you add to them some “virtual” ones.
Ethical principles as objective truths is a legacy of Kantian philosophy. Underlying that idea is the conservative opinion that the existing society is based on the best principles. In reality, ethics evolve with society. At the time of Plato and Aristotle, slavery was considered as unavoidable. As soon as capitalism with its “free labour” developed, slavery and serfdom were declared immoral and against human rights. Asbestos became a scandal when substitutes were invented. New ideas arise when they can be implemented.
“I would argue that the ethical standards of paedophiles should be higher, MUCH higher, than those of any other sexual group in existence since the objects of our love are the most vulnerable, delicate, weak, credulous and innocent of any possible object of love.”
Why don’t you require such a high standard of ethics from teleoiphilic parents and step-parents, either gay or straight, who exert their authority on children every day? The most brutal child abuse happens mostly in families, rarely with extra-familiar MAPs.
I think of ethics as the game of chess – an ‘invention’ but an invention that, given certain axioms, can generate an infinite amount of facts, patterns, absolute truths, and probabalistic truths. What are those axioms? Well, I think ‘the avoidance of unecessary suffering’ and ‘the maximisation of flourishing’ seem to have under-pinned all ethical advances so far.
I think that to say that ethics evolves with the evolution of society is to slightly misdescribe the process: it is the DISCOVERY of ethics that evolves with society.
Societies have tended to improve ethically because they have gradually integrated ethical discoveries into their functioning, opening up ground for new ethical discoveries. Slavery was always wrong, but it took the right circumstances and some hard ethical thinking for humanity to properly discover its wrongness. I’m interested in the idea that an (isolated) society can not properly perceive the ethical right or wrong of any practice that is fundamental to its existence and it is only when that practice becomes in some way inessential that the society can start applying to it ethical thinking and doubt. Your example of capitalism and slavery is a good example of this – once slavery became inessential to the economy, it freed up the West’s ethical mind to see that its ills were not necessary ones.
An contemporary example of this is that it is now widely perceived that eating animals is unethical, but we don’t yet know what to do with this ethical fact – this is largely because vegetarianism can now be a choice (in the past it may have been necessary for many through poverty – but ‘necessity’ does not trigger the need for ethical reflection since ethics meaningful only when we are faced with choices).
I’d argue that the prohibition of child-adult intimacy is something that is still too essential to the functioning of modern industrial societies for those societies to be able evaluate dispassionately – hence its ‘unethical’ status is not available for doubt or questioning.
>”Why don’t you require such a high standard of ethics from teleoiphilic parents and step-parents, either gay or straight, who exert their authority on children every day? The most brutal child abuse happens mostly in families, rarely with extra-familiar MAPs.”
I do.
Where did you get the idea that I thought or did otherwise?
Dear Lenny,
Let me begin with the observation that I am not going to reply to the majority—well, any—of your points. There is no possibility of our agreeing on these issues, as will become clear after my next observation:
You talk at me in your reply as though I am a paedophile. Let me remind you: I am not a paedophile. I understand that you expect a community of paedophiles to read your reply to me, but in as much as it was a reply, it should take into account my own position. Moreover, how dare you presume to know what I want in respect of paedophilia and paedophiles. I have not, to my knowledge, made any statements as to my goal, my aims, my “ideals” in respect of the paedophilia of anyone here, or anywhere else. But, perhaps I have, and have forgotten—
So, let me be very fucking clear: My goal is to understand paedophilia, to understand paedophilia and paedophiles as ordinary normal people, which is what the vast majority of people are. Do you understand? In my view, paedophiles are ordinary normal people who have desires and experiences that I don’t, but from which I can learn. I would like other, non-paedophilic people to take this approach, perchance to learn that adult-child sex is not the end of life as we know it. I would like people generally, in other words, to treat other people as people, not imaginary monsters. This has been the foundation of my scribbles about paedophilia, and my apologies of this offends.
Now, perhaps you would like to know why I am on this particular blog, talking to you all? The answer is: the overwhelmingly intelligent conversation; I have learnt a lot about a multitude of areas of life simply be being here and partaking in the reading and the conversation, things that I doubt I would have learnt had I not been here.
Now, to the only comments I am going to make about issues in your reply:
And how will you achieve this, Time Lord? Moreover, why would you want to extend the notion of consent? “Informed” consent already is impossible in practical terms. (I wonder if either of my wives gave deeeeep consent? Or did they just enjoy the root? Must ask—)
Yes, Plato must be feeling quite lonely after all this time, .However, fundamentally, there are no objective truths, and every truth we have which does not come from our own direct experience is testimony provided by another, and so in anecdotal.
Ok, all sarcasm aside, (and there is a little bit here in my reply, but nowhere near as much as is bubbling within), At this point we have nothing to say to each other.
Whatever “morality” or “ethics” are, they certainly are not objective. Please, put one under a microscope for me. (Not that sort of objective? Then perhaps the word is incorrectly applied? But it is ok, I don’t think matter exists either.)
In any case, I am not interested in pursuing discussion based on such radically different beliefs; you will not believe me, and I will disregard your … beliefs. Of course, you may still be able to teach me something, and I look forward to it, even though I won’t entertain this stuff about which you now ramble.
PS: I’ve passed a little over an hour trying to decide whether or not post this missive, whether or not to take issue with more of what has been said by our LSM. I have made it a little politer, but I am just pissed off, especially at the tone of the reply. Yes sir no sir, I am a little intellectual child sir. Even if LSM didn’t mean it, that was the way I found it, a patient lecture to a recalcitrant child. Now, sadly, I understand some of Dissident’s issues.
I’m relishing the articulation of almost everything you have to say here, LSM, but find myself stumbling over, if not completely scandalized by (haha the Gk. skadzein DOES mean stumbling-block, after all) by this little bit:
“I would argue that the ethical standards of paedophiles should be higher, MUCH higher, than those of any other sexual group in existence since the objects of our love are the most vulnerable, delicate, weak, credulous and innocent of any possible object of love.”
I would argue that these terms you’re choosing here to describe the foremost attributes of a child may not be the best ones! Is it not pretty obvious that a child can also possess the kind of pure resilience that can only come from what is, seen from another closely-related angle, a maximally youthful ‘plasticity’? One in which quite shameless mimesis is the major, uppermost feature? To go wherever the model or rival for its current desire leads? Are not these terms “vulnerable, delicate, weak, credulous and innocent” ten times more absolute and ‘terminal’ than they ought to be? Do they not have as much to do with the discourse of “no” that comes down on and envelops a child like how many thunderclouds at once, as anything in the whole shitstorm that is the present clinical (non)play-book? From which a thousand and one victims will continue to surely flow?
You observe elsewhere that the ethical is largely discovered, ‘situationally’ as we go, and I’m certainly with you there, so how does such a realization comport with the idea of having “standards” which somehow pre-exist all situations? Isn’t that comparable to the worst sort of half-baked notion that we all walk around packing something called ‘morals’, that we whip out, load and arm in any and all possible circumstances?
I fear that he believes that there is an objective ethical and moral standard “out there” which we discover as we go, that he is not referring to situational ethics in any way shape or form. I stand to be corrected, but…
>”I’m relishing the articulation of almost everything you have to say here, LSM”
Thank-you Warb, it’s nice to know there’s someone who isn’t determined to interpret my every word in the worst possible light.
>“vulnerable, delicate, weak, credulous and innocent”
Yes, I know what you mean – children are tough little cookies. And I think you are right – these are NOT the ‘foremost attributes’ of the child – but maybe they should be the attributes that should be foremost in our minds when thinking about ethics. After all ethics boils down to two things – ‘avoidance of harm’ and ‘maximisation of good’. And, I would argue, that the first takes priority over the second. ‘Do no harm’ is more accessible, it offers ‘lower hanging’ fruit than ‘do good’: ‘do no harm’ requires only inaction, a binary choice, whereas ‘do good’ involves action, multiple choices, and can get horrifically complicated and too often paves a road to Hell.
>”You observe elsewhere that the ethical is largely discovered, ‘situationally’ as we go, and I’m certainly with you there, so how does such a realization comport with the idea of having “standards” which somehow pre-exist all situations?”
It’s analogous to Science – a scientific truth, such as the heliocentric solar system, has always been ‘true’ – but it required certain conditions, and a certain levels of knowledge, for mankind to be able to discover it. I think Ethics progresses in a similar way. Ethics are ‘discovered’ rather than ‘invented’ but gradually – and often with as much heat as light (think of the ethics of animal rights and meat-eating!).
(a hypothesis that might be interesting to explore is that ethical discoveries happen at the fraying edges of our society and our minds – where things are not working, where things are breaking down and contentious…).
I will respond here politely, Lensman, but I want to make one thing clear: Responding to you with a degree of frustration and anger does not mean I am attacking you personally. When it comes to ad hominems, please understand how we are supposed to take it when you make statements alleging that people on the pro-choice camp do not care about the safety of kids simply because we do not insist or agree that kids are inherently vulnerable or because we do not fixate on the sexual aspects of problems kids have to deal with as opposed to the entire spectrum of oppressions. If you believe that kids have it good in modern society other than those few areas of sexual morality have you focused on, then yes, we will disagree with you, and we will be disappointed that you decided moving in this direction. Saying that you have been seduced by the emotionally charged nature of the common moralistic arguments that come with the narrative is not intended as a personal attack, it as an honest attempt to explain why I think you have made such a drastic change. And being a long-time follower and supporter of your blog, I disagree with you that this change you have espoused is minor and not worth making a fuss about. Please try to see things from both sides.
And as to my becoming all ‘moral’ – well, what’s wrong with that?
There is a difference, Lensman, between morality and moralism, and I think you are starting to cross the line. Moralism is the foundation of hatred towards members of a certain group simply for being members of a certain group, for focusing obsessively on the sexual aspects or other of the most emotionally charged aspects of society over that of the many others that can have even more profound effects on a person or group’s well-being (e.g., poverty, neglect, emotional abuse, authoritarianism in general), and often results in disproportionately extreme reactions or legislation to problems that can more readily be solved by democratic freedoms than draconian absolutist laws.
I would argue that the ethical standards of paedophiles should be higher, MUCH higher, than those of any other sexual group in existence since the objects of our love are the most vulnerable, delicate, weak, credulous and innocent of any possible object of love.
One of the reasons some of us have gotten so angry at you with this change in direction of yours, Lensman, is what we perceive–I think correctly–in your overruse of sentimentality to condescend to kids by treating them as fragile china dolls, when much of their fragility is the result of the enforced ignorance they are required to live under, not to mention forced dependence on adults. Those who have been youth liberationists for a long time are well aware of examples of what kids are capable of in many instances outside of simply sexual contact of any sort. This is what I mean by overcompensation, which is also too often used to libel pro-choicers as not being concerned enough about kids simply because we treat kids as little human beings rather than little china dolls. This is what the Virpeds and anti-choicers do all the time, which is why it is disheartening to see you make similar statements despite your insistence that “I am not a VP.” You may not quite be that, but I honestly see you progressively getting there, Lensman, and the concern, frustration, and yes, anger over seeing you of all people fall into that emotional trap has resulted in my heated reactions to you recently. You say I am misrepresenting what you say in certain instances, but as I noted before, whenever I start considering that out of respect for all you have done for the community, you make statements like the one above. But it’s hard to tell you things like this without coming off as making personal attacks.
We have a duty of care for the children we love and we should be taking that duty very, very seriously – not giving ourselves free passes when it suits our purposes, desires and lusts.
Geez. Lensman, how do you not see this as being indicative of very personal attacks against us, not to mention misrepresenting huge swaths of comments and text from the pro-choice side we know you have read over the years. This is a textbook example of overcompensation while presenting it as noble concern.
It is not a personal attack; it is the considering of actual good evidence to say you are going too far with your emotions, which is causing you to willfully ignore much of what we have said in the past, which has always been to consider the choices of younger people, to give them full access to support resources, to empower them politically to resist all forms of abuse and coercion (whether sexual or not), as well as our many discussions of the emotional and social aspects of our attraction base and how we do fall in love with younger people and would desire mutually consensual relationships, not just lustful encounters!
When you do this, Lensman, you are not only destroying your credibility since we are well aware you have read all of the above in the past, but you are taking an extremely adversarial role towards anything to do with intergeneraional sexual desire, and viewing everything through the lens of adults wanting to impose themselves sexually on kids in a violent, authoritarian, selfish way. When you know quite well that is the antitheses of youth liberation.
And you seriously insist that when you and other former strident pro-choice activists perform a 180 and adopt this view it’s a minor little thing that is nothing to get into a fuss over, not insulting to us on many levels with the insinuations you must now necessarily make, and not disingenuous in the least considering how well you know many of us as people and how much you have read all we have had to say on the youth liberationist front in the past? These are not ideas so much as feelings, and if you feel this way about me, how am I supposed to take it? This is why I say you are showing every indication of being seduced by the emotional pummeling of society with its rampant horror stories and morphing from a dedicated activist to a moral crusader who is more concerned about how you feel than any degree of objectivity and a powerful personal bias against anyone who doesn’t view kids in line with the common narrative.
If we are to love children and have that love reciprocated, then maybe we should be thinking of what it means to merit and earn that love.
And how does respecting kids as people, valuing whatever merits they display as individuals, respecting their choices and their desires, and campaigning for their freedom to state said desires and have their voice be considered in all aspects of society not doing that, Lensman? Where, exactly, do you suddenly see all this selfish expression of lust and lack of consideration for the well-being of kids from us? I mean, seriously, man?
And to do so to a point that society maybe notices that at the heart of the Monsters it assumes we are, that there are to be found principles that actually do us credit.
And considering what I just stated above, and considering the multitude of times I and many other pro-choicers have said that, do you see us lacking in principles? What type of principles are you talking about here that we are not espousing? Are you certain it is us who is misrepresenting you, and not the other way around because you are so subsumed by all of this out-of-control emotion that you can only “see” what validates these accusations? Please stop interpreting these critiques as personal attacks and try to understand how you come off when you say things like this about people who you are supposed to see as friends and allies, and whom you want to continue seeing you as the same.
So, yes, I am highly concerned with ethics, morals and, yes, Virtue,
Whoop, there it is! So, I totally have you wrong by saying what I think you are morphing into and where you are going with this? You seriously continue to see that as a personal attack rather than an objective (if admittedly heated) analysis of what your words and rhetoric are honestly making clear?
And again, where is our lack of concern for ethics and morals–as opposed to moralism and ethics based in the common narratives? I’m sorry, Lensman, but these insinuations are very personal and very insulting, and they are clear signs of what direction you are heading–which is not the Lensman I grew to befriend and respect so much. And again, we will have to strongly agree to disagree if you believe this is no big deal.
and I make no apology for that.
Nor do I, old friend, about seeing the liberation of youth and treating them as full human beings with the freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and freedom of access to information, education, and support groups that will enable each of them to make the best decisions for themselves as individuals and not be subject to any type of authoritarian coercion–whether it be of a sexual nature or an anti-sexual nature. And yes, I believe the two are comparable evils, not the latter being a lesser evil than the former.
This doesn’t mean that I am ‘judging’ anyone – the only person here I know well enough to judge is myself.
Insinuating that pro-choicers are only motivated by selfish lust and that we do not care about the well-being of kids puts this into question, Lensman. And if you say you are not saying this, then why are you being so forceful with giving us moralizing (not “moral”) lectures about our conduct and canonizing the common narrative of childhood, as if we need to be convinced of this when we have good reason to disagree? Being motivated by ethics is very different from being motivated by sentiment and emotion, and it is as important to distinguish these things than it is to understand the difference between justice and revenge, etc.
‘Get your own house in order before you start worrying about other people’s houses’ seems quite a good way of proceeding.
And I think we have always been striving to do that, albeit not in the fashion by those obsessed with “virtue” as a sentimental value which they mistake for a system of principled ethics and values. This why those of us not directed primarily by our emotions are constantly butting heads with those who are, the latter of whom make up the vast majority of society when it comes to this (and other) topics at the present time.
But ‘values’ are ‘judges’ and we either have values (with all the attendent contrains and rigours that entails), or we don’t.
And it seems we must agree to disagree on whether or not we don’t.
But if we don’t have values then how do you expect to persuade anyone who is not a paedo to let you anywhere near to their child?
I hope your continued supporters read these statements of yours loud and clear, Lensman, for the next time you accuse me or anyone else of misrepresenting your views, or when you suggest that I am the one getting overly personal. Hence, I leave you with another rhetorical question: Where are you getting this idea that we pro-choicers have no values or ethics? Answer: we do, and you know we do, but they are not of the sort you have now embraced: sentimental values as opposed to those based on notions of liberty, historical precedent, and empowerment.
I apologize in advance for thickening the plot beyond a supposed ‘necessity’, or perhaps trying to count them chickens before they’ve even hatched, but what struck me as I read your words Dissman (a new handle for you that seeks to dissolve the Diss within Lensman/Lensident and the Lens within Dissident, or something like that!), is the question of just how you would go about defining, go about situating, or otherwise socially (I would say scenically) identifying the ‘pro-choice’ Kind community as such?
I ask this because as a GA-man I try to understand “community” in the most minimal sense, which is to say as a group of freshly-fledged desiring-individuals that is now above all and nevertheless *present to itself*, present to itself as a collectively-felt, centrally-focused whole, one which has thus learned for the first time to recognize/discover an ethical problem when it sees one.
Keeping this firmly in mind, what on earth can we say about those – those whom for the purposes of brevity I’ll refer to for the moment as the (much) broader “MOAR” community, whose presence-to-itself is dogged and cursed at every point by objectives that forever fly far, far beyond its reach, but due to the blessings of pornography (I would rather say after David Solway the blessings of “reprographic certification”) enable a ferociously self-conscious generation of perpetually salivating irony revolving around the central, imperishably signifying paradox, which springs from none other than this (wait for it)… “repeatedly aborted act of appropriation”.
Now, before you get to hectoring me about my “fancy verbiage” or anything, I’d like to ask if you have any conception of how many thousands upon thousands of these..erm..shall we say ‘elitist horndogs’ there are out there, these chaps who have long ago realized that within that which is hallowed from head to toe in the aura of the absolutely forbidden, resides an al-kimiyac wealth of erotic capital that makes the day-to-day mockeries of garden variety porn look like so much gruesome landfill…..
Come the revolution (or perhaps, just sufficient collective-disrespect for the law to make Gay Inc. wake up and take respectful notice???), how will we, presumably identified as the ones for whom it is relationships that are first and foremost at stake, represent ourselves in the wider context, I guess, of our doubtlessly much more numerous brethren who, in their ‘own way’ are ALSO only waiting for their intergenerational moment to arrive………………………………………….?
When you say that adult individuals only or primarily motivated by lust for youths and not seeing the latter’s full personhood are “doubtlessly more numerous” than actual MAPs who have a fully realized romantic attraction, then I ask you why you think this is the case? This sounds to me like you fully buy into the many unsubstantiated stories of horrific, abusive KP that is allegedly “all over the place” as LEOs insist upon–but never actually allow anyone in the public sphere, including objective journalists, to verify said stories. As such, the vast assemblage of child abuse or child lust fetishists (call them whatever one might prefer) allegedly out there just waiting for the AoC laws to relax themselves every so slightly so they can pounce on their targeted prey like timber wolves on a deer are likely nothing more than boogeymen created via media and government fear-mongering that is helped along by the darkly overactive civilian imagination that has a deep-seated need to believe in such things so as to rationalize their protectionist attitudes and policies. Much like the Satanic ritual abuser, the government VIP abuser/torturer, the coercive groom of child brides, the sex trafficker, the “Dark Web” youth torture site purveyors, etc., et al., take your pick of readily available sectarian or secular memes and threats. Along with actual threats like the stranger abductor who, contrary to popular belief, are rare aberrations of humanity who are not represented by the MAP community at large.
This type of paranoia and fear-mongering has sustained the latest round of societal panic mongering over the past few decades, with youth freedom and the demonizing of Kind people representing the most obvious collateral damage even as WEIRD civilization in general heads ever closer to a borderline police state and surveillance society as a result (long with the “terrorist” panic promoted alongside it over the past two decades). Which, by virtue of such societies’ military and economic superiority to most other nations outside of that sphere are effectively bullying the entire global system of government to similarly adopt if they are willing to avoid sanctions of various sorts.
These “threats” are the modern panic-monger’s version of the Jewish child killers and white slave traders of the more distant past, and have no more substantive basis in reality. However, they have capture the emotional imagination and fears of everyone who needs and/or wants to believe that such threats are out there, barely held at bay by the diligent work of careerists in the LEAs and NGOs and always operating one step ahead of each of them to explain why actual substantive evidence is never provided–only copious newspaper articles and fabricated or exaggerated “reports” saying they must exist. Many of them written by the evangelists, careerists, and moral crusaders (both sectarian and secular) who feed off the belief for personal validation and lucrative career advancement (sometimes both; sometimes just one or the other).
Hence, I think a youth-liberated Green society will be a great improvement over the one we have now, with no boogeymen running around in vast numbers to terrorize “vulnerable” youths free of effective opposition.
*This sounds to me like you fully buy into the many unsubstantiated stories of horrific, abusive KP that is allegedly “all over the place”
Good God, Dissman – me? “Buy into” ANYTHING? I am as far out of the loops of received wisdom as it is possible to get! Why on earth would you suggest such a thing, if not as your cue to launch a mini-lecture at me, as you have done? In fact, as I read, I thought – isn’t this guy almost windbagging it here?
My (let’s call it ) assumption that purely lust-driven fellows far outweigh the erm.. ‘paedo-nobility’ (if you will) is based on no less an “empirical” basis than any assumption I might draw from my participation and experience right here at Heretic TOC. By which I mean loads of time observing the action on chat rooms, chans, and communities within the Onion field.
Thus it is that I find there to very apparently exist out there, great numbers of persons for whom the ..niceties of it all mean very little.
When you state the following with such confidence…
“As such, the vast assemblage of child abuse or child lust fetishists (call them whatever one might prefer) allegedly out there just waiting for the AoC laws to relax themselves every so slightly so they can pounce on their targeted prey like timber wolves on a deer are likely nothing more than boogeymen created via media and government”
.. I am amazed, because if the thousands of regularly expressed online sentiments are anything to ‘go by’, lust is indeed the operative, if not only motivation. I can have no idea whatsoever to what degree these are all but ‘wolves waiting to pounce’, for as I tried to say before, a powerful sense of self-awareness, irony and yes, oft-times terrific wit, runs through everything – most especially at the chans. The basic chatrooms suggest rather a series of blurtations cranked out by chaps who can barely stop pounding their peckers long enough to type. Elsewhere, in the more formal communities, expressions of great devotion abound.
By and by, noting the various website figures, one cannot avoid absorbing a sense of what an astonishing number of “child fetishists” there really are, their numbers moreover clearly growing every week!
At no point did I give you ANY reason to believe that I have “bought into” anything. On the contrary, I was asking you to explain for me how this ‘horndog elite’ will be distinguished, or separated out from, the great philia underwriting Team Paedo (heh..) on that wondrous day when our movings and shakings begin to bear a little ..social fruit.
For is this not an eminently reasonable, indeed unavoidable sort of question to ask, Dissman?
Well said, Mr. Turpitude. I confess I sometimes find your comments a bit obscurely worded, but this one was very clear as well as being, in my view, both true and entertainingly put across.
Dissident is reluctant to accept empirical evidence for the wide prevalence of ‘mere lust’ amongst the minor-attracted, often dismissing recognition of it as ‘cynicism’. I think he needs to be more objective. It may help to acknowledge that nobody here (I think) would suggest that MAPs are significantly worse in this regard than any other group.
But I don’t think that “mere lust” was what Warbling was concerned about, since his concerns seemed to strongly suggest a large number of individuals who constitute a threat to younger people and who are barely held at bay by AoC laws, thus implying that discussions of social control and continued paternalistic laws need to be considered. This also suggests that MAPs who experience “mere lust” are far less able to control themselves or act in a principled fashion compared to every other group. Hence, I do not think he was talking about, or I was addressing, what you are talking about here: the presence of depraved individuals in massive numbers who are more or less slaves to their sexual impulses when interacting with youths in real life.
As for lust, i.e., sexual attraction, yes that is one component of the MAP attraction base I have never denied. It is simply not the only one, and one heavily over-emphasized by society due to their lurid excitability and imaginations. Are there individuals who have a sexual, fetishized attraction to kids that does not have a full romantic aspect? Yes, of course, but where is this empirical evidence that they exist in “far greater numbers” than MAPs with a full attraction base? Some area of the Dark Web that they congregate by the thousands? Because they certainly do not congregate by the thousands in our online communities, where one would think at least several hundred of them would be drawn.
Finally, saying that human beings by and large cannot be trusted to focus their sexual desires in principled ways, especially when it comes to adults interacting with youths in a fully youth liberated and empowered society, is an example of cynicism and even misanthropy with a hefty dose of paternalistic, pedo-centric negativity. So, again, I do not think I was addressing what you think I was addressing.
“But I don’t think that “mere lust” was what Warbling was concerned about, since his concerns seemed to strongly suggest a large number of individuals who constitute a threat to younger people and who are barely held at bay by AoC laws………..”
Once again, Diss – I do NOT know WHERE you are getting this from.
I have never, ever attempted at any point to guess, gauge or gainsay what sort of “threat” any of these online persons might or might not represent. My purpose all along has been but to ask how, come the day that ‘the public’ is at last confronted by and obliged to consider the claims of MAPs/Kinds/paedos in the light of their newfound legitimacy, we will deal with matters of..well, of association I guess!
Will there be horrible amounts of difficulty in sorting out the lovers from the lusters? This is an unprecedented situation if we calmly accept that, with the “gay” chaps, unbridled, flaming homoSEXuality was always part and parcel of the overall package! ‘Twas only much, much later in the piece that the movement transformed from one wanting no place in the ‘bourgeois’ scheme-of-things to one wanting nothing less!
As for what I was “implying”, that is simply nonsense,
Now:
“but where is this empirical evidence that they exist in “far greater numbers” than MAPs with a full attraction base? ”
You and your ’empirical’ evidence! Do you have a problem with merely noting website figures? The vast number of posters, chatters, the wealth of contributors? I am assuming this burgeoning ‘fanbase’ for super-sexy kids is greater than those with a (gasp) “full attraction base”, yes, for I don’t see any obvious indication anywhere in the ‘legal’ channels that the opposite is true. Do you?
But to re-emphasize the importance of my query: why, considered in the light of famously ‘gay (homosexual) abandon’ should we even be concerned with delineating lust from love? This may be considered a hypothetical question, but I believe it to be a very valid one..
hey BJ, if I may deploy a popular meme ..I wish to object /In the strongest possible terms, to bits like these in your..your address to LSM..
“For many fundamentalist Christians, this means killing those with whom they disagree.”
IT DOES? IT DOES? That’s what it means?? GAK! Which fundagelicals are those, and where may we find them? Aside from some very, very hot-headed people in the dreaded depths of say, Central African Republic, who appear to operate with the brand of ‘Christian’, can you please point us to an obviously Christian body of souls who prescribe the execution of those with whom they disagree? Can you please do this for me ASAP?
“Does he have the right to go on the ran-tan about Islam? Yes, but he also needs to consider all aspects of Islam, not merely one or two, else he runs the risk of being so entirely wrong that he can be disregarded.”
Can you really call the thought of a man who has gone so far as to examine at closest range and painstaking detail the parallels between how Muslims are perceived by all us essentially Protestant johnnies and how ‘paedophiles” are perceived, no more than that of a rascal on the ran-tan? (Never heard “ran-tan” before, I assume its a blending of rant and tantrum?) ? Indeed BJ, is it not you who have foundered right here on “one or two” aspects of Islam (such as that there do exist many peace-desiring souls under its ummabrella) and not the whole cultural/ideological collision of well..ancient & modern that is very probably at stake here? The final conflict even?
Yes, I should have had the sense not to involve myself in this matter.
But, I will maintain that there are many Islamic people who do simply want to live their lives in peace, and want everyone else to do the same.
And with that comment, I will bow out of this conversation, with the observation that my primary objection to Lenny’s view is his view that there is an objective morality which he will support and try to promote, which he uses to support his other views.
I mean, really??!!?? Show me an objective moral rule or principle, and I will show you a prejudice, at which point serious thinking ceases.
But now, I bow out, gracelessly.
I’m far from sure what the proper etiquette is when one’s interlocutor insists that he’s “bowing out of” further discussion even as he sneakily introduces the notion or “observation” that LSM has been propagating this bizarre thing called an “objective morality”
For is that not itself a very moral judgement of how LSM has erred???
BJ: “And with that comment, I will bow out of this conversation, with the observation that my primary objection to Lenny’s view is his view that there is an objective morality which he will support and try to promote, which he uses to support his other views.
I mean, really??!!?? Show me an objective moral rule or principle, and I will show you a prejudice, at which point serious thinking ceases.”
What if we just said something like:
Our resentful reaction to inequality automatically reveals our belief in the moral model–an ostensive belief like the foxhole belief in God.
Wouldn’t that put us in the picture far more effectively than trying to determine what is”objective” or “not objective:”?
BJ?
>”Our resentful reaction to inequality automatically reveals our belief in the moral model”
Exactly, Turp! Moral Relativism seems to imply that ethics are free floating, with no connection to ineluctable facts – such a pain, death, birth, hunger, happiness, love and hate. That there are good things and bad things – and that all life seeks to maximise the former and minimise the latter.
That is why ethics (the study of right action) is grounded in hard, objective facts.
I would ask the Moral Relativists:
By what criteria do they judge the legalisation of consensual, caring child-adult intimacy as preferable to forbidding it?
I suspect that any answer given in good faith boils down to considerations of promoting ‘well-being’ (of individuals, communities, societies, humanity…) or the avoidance of unnecessary suffering.
On those two axioms ‘objective’ (if not ‘real’) ethical calculations and evaluations can be and are made.
I am happy to accept that these are ‘axioms’ and not ‘real’ – just as science is based on axioms, yet has produced vaccines, antibiotics, computers etc
The fact that humanity often get these calculations wrong is no disproof of this, just as the fact that scientists have gotten (and will get) things wrong is a disproof of the value of the scientific method.
>”I will maintain that there are many Islamic people who do simply want to live their lives in peace, and want everyone else to do the same.”
I agree with your statement.
What concerns me is that you seem to be presenting this statement as a disagreement with my position.
This indicates how profoundly you (and others) misunderstand my position on Islamism and Islamisation.
But I won’t go into my views of Islamism and Islamisation here as I don’t see how any of this is relevant to the issues raised in Tom’s article or RadPed issues in general.
I have watched the exchanges here concerning me, and been by turns intrigued, amused and horrified to see how misunderstandings of my words (which I suspect are to some extent deliberate) are fed into one end of the machine and, fuelled by bad faith, get amplified, distorted and inverted, passed back and forth, and come out the other end bearing no relationship to anything I actually believe or defend.
This to the point of what comes close to an accusation of (I paraphrase) ‘promoting in all seriousness the idea that paedophiles should be killed’.
Where the fuck did that come from? It is the diametric opposite of anything I’ve ever felt or thought, and you should be disturbed at the fact that you could come to so believe this insanity as to dare publish and share it.
Being a paedophile I should not be surprised at this, knowing well how explosively hysteria, bad faith and ignorance interact.
But I am slightly shocked at how easily this process is triggered, especially amongst people whom I till recently considered allies, some even friends. I guess like so many movements, Radical Paedophilia eats its own…and the first to get eaten are those who commit the heresy of wanting a discussion sufficiently nuanced for comforting assumptions to be brought into question.
But I do speculate as to the motivations of those who have chosen to open this can of worms.
Yeah, Leonard, my comment was aimed squarely at a comment by Turps, and I never had the notion that you thought this, i.e., that all Muslims are evil and so on.
You have called me back to thinking, however. I do, unfortunately, have the tendency to jump and rage when under a lot of pressure (which I am now), so I am going to go back, take a good look at what you have said, and will make a more considered statement later.
I see in some comments which I had previously missed, that you have a caveat or two about “objective” morals/ethics. Will consider these and reply with a little more thought behind my words.
There is some modest consolation to be found, though, in the fact that I was invited to a reception at the House of Lords earlier this month by one of their lordships.
glad you got into the House of Lords,and I hope you had a good time.
The normalization of pedophilia is coming.
I agree, but when it does it will come under the ruse of “marginalized communities” because really, who’s more marginalized than a pedophile?
The concept of “consent” will be the biggest hurdle to get over. The left has fetishized consent; so long as consent is involved, any and all sexual practices are permitted – indeed, to be celebrated! But who can give consent?
How is it the LGBT left holds that pre-teens can consent to, say, taking hormones or binding their breasts, or whatever measures precede transition surgery – but those pre-teens can’t consent to sex? How can they consent to one but not the other; how can they have full agency regarding the first – but not the second?
if the attraction is normalised then I have to admit that it will be very similar to how a lot of mixed races live in my opinion,
That is where the matter stands. There has been no reply so far from the BBC’s Legal Department. In the event that I do not receive a satisfactory response within the first week of January I will be consulting one of the country’s leading firms of libel lawyers with a view to bringing a court action.
I hope you get your complaint sorted out, me i would lose my temper with the lying cunts they sound like a few people i know.
>me i would lose my temper with the lying cunts
Confucius, he say: “Don’t get mad, get even”. 🙂
Good luck, Tom!
Not that it matters, but I’m pretty certain I also sent a link to that American Conservative hatchet piece, last month…shortly after it was posted.
…I think something wrong happened, when I clicked on the Post Comment button…So, I wasn’t sure if it actually went through.
…Glad it made it’s way to you, anyway…As glad as one can be, over such a piece. 😉
What do I think?…
…I think if standing up for what is right and true is “evil”…then I’m happy to be that kind of “evil”.
>I’m pretty certain I also sent a link to that American Conservative hatchet piece
Many thanks for that!
>…I think if standing up for what is right and true is “evil”…then I’m happy to be that kind of “evil”.
Well said, Steve!
Despite the condemnatory veneer of those “update” comments you quoted, they makes it clear that academics and intellectuals have indeed noticed the contradictory and selective nature of contemporary liberalism. Not to mention the nagging suspicion that their continued illogical suppression of youth sexuality is all about moralism, maintaining adult hegemony over society, and forcing children to personify a paradigm of innocence and purity that makes no sense from an objective scientific or philosophical standpoint.
Liberals of today believe that continuing to vilify adult attraction to youths and the idea of kids being sexual beings at all is required for political relevancy and survival on the contemporary political minefield. This forces them to do their best to rationalize all of their contradictions and put a platonic mask on youth gender dysphoria, in the hope they can fully de-sexualize it as a mere identity demarcation much as they have de-sexualized youth in general. Of course, their conservative opponents are quick to use these contradictions against them, even as liberals get offended and scramble all the harder to denounce “pedophilia” and anything remotely resembling support of youth sexual expression, insisting that gender expression of youths is a wholly unconnected animal. It’s silly, but attitudes and policies based on emotion and moralism are designed to validate one’s feelings, not to make any kind of logical sense.
A very interesting blog by a radical child liberationist woman:
http://theyouthrightsblog.blogspot.com/
Worth reading.
On the other hand, it seems somewhat bizarre … I quote from that blog:
“Andrea Dworkin (one of my favorite feminist philosophers and a woman that I believe had deep youth liberationist sympathies as well)”
“radical feminist theorists such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon” … “feminists, youth liberationists, and everyone else should take a view of sexual politics that seriously grapples with the observations of sex critical radical feminism”
In my mind, Dworkin and MacKinnon are not youth liberationists, but against sex, and “radical feminism” is a sectarian movement foreign to youth liberation.
Yes, I did noted this Dworkin comment, too.
Well, no one is perfect.
Yet, if you read her further, you’ll find a lot of quite interesting and valid stuff.
Thanks for mentioning me here, Tom! Unfortunately, in the 2018 I didn’t made that much as I did earlier.
Well, one my activity remained invisible – I tried to return the intergenerational sexuality topic on the Skeptiko forum, now in the private, closed-section debate with the site’s moderator and owner.
Debate lead nowhere – I ended by enraging them, and had to shut up before they felt the temtptation to reverse their decision to let me remain on their forum, despite my radical position of the child-adult sex.
So, no hope there.
Of Lee you write: his style is neither objectively philosophical nor, indeed, very Christian.
With gems like this “(your) paper is bloated as a river-sodden corpse” I see what you mean!
Here’s a slightly off-topic (but rather amusing) commentary on gender pluralism, for those of us still slightly too hungover for serious argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR4uyMjUnDI
Oh, right, now I see what you mean. But the first version made sense to me if to no one else!
THAT CAME OUT A BIT WRONG, HANG ON A BIT 🙂
Too late! Didn’t see anything wrong.
Of Lee you write:
With gems like this “(your) paper is bloated as a river-sodden corpse” I see what you mean!
Here’s a slightly off-topic (but rather amusing) commentary on gender pluralism, for those of us still slightly too hungover for serious argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR4uyMjUnDI
>bloated as a river-sodden corpse
It’s a very vivid image, so credit where it’s due!
And, yes, I found the video clip hilarious, even if it did come from the AFD.
I smuggled AFD and RT past you! Twice! 🙂
RT as well? Shocking! Listen up, everyone, Gantier99 is clearly on Putin’s payroll !!l! 🙂
Great post, Tom. Far more eloquent than I could ever be!
Cheers! 🙂
I find it really funny that a Christian would argue that paedophilia is against God lol… To my knowledge there is not a single reference in the bible that suggests it is wrong. Indeed, many historians argue that the Virgin Mary was almost undoubtedly about 13 at the time – as any older and it would have been remarked upon, since it would be unusual for a girl to be knocked up who is older than 13 back then. So we can conclude it is likely that God knocked up a 13 year old. Furthermore, isn’t it odd, that given that everyone was engaging in paedophilia back then – which is apparently pure evil – no where in the bible does it say that it is wrong? Surely if such a thing was sinful and so common, the bible would have mentioned it! Yet nothing. Zilch. And the reason is because God supports paedophilia.
Honestly with the teachings of people like Jordan Peterson I’ve come to realise that Christianity actually isn’t *such* a bad religion but what has happened is that it has become cucked and distorted by certain people who are either too PC to interpret the bible accurately, or willfully trying to re-interpret it, or people who are just lazy and couldn’t give a shit. As a result the whole church has crumbled because it’s become a joke, Feminism has become a much more powerful and dominant religion than Christianity, indeed, Christianity now seems to bow down to Feminism. So under such a scenario, why should anyone care about Christianity?
I will now discuss the forecast by reactionaries that acceptance of transgender children will lead to the “normalisation” of paedophilia. First “gay kids” were accepted, but here “homosexuality” has always been considered as an identity rather than a sexuality; the corresponding homoeroticism remained platonic, it was rather considered as homo-romanticism, falling in love with peers of the same sex. Underage sexual activity, whether gay or straight, has remained taboo and considered as inherently harmful.
Now transgenderism becomes accepted, including for prepubertal children, but it remains an identity strictly separated from real sexuality. Veterans of the radical gay movement, such as Thorstadt and Lauritsen, have complained about the multiplication of gender or sexual identities separated from real sexuality. On the other hand, Money complained that in modern puritanism, eroticism becomes restricted to above the belt. Is gender completely separated from sex and sexuality, does it become an abstract thing?
On H-TOC, the two articles on childhood transgenderism by Tom and the third one by ‘A’ remained quite cautious compared to the positions of extreme proponents of childhood gender freedom (the most extreme ones, in Heart Progress, advocated the freedom of kids to choose sex reassignment surgery). Indeed, refusal of gender roles, such as tomboy-ism or sissiness, can be confused with adoption of the opposite gender identity, and puberty can change a lot of what children feel about their identity ad sexuality. While cross-dressing is rather harmless, it cannot be denied that hormonal treatment to prevent puberty can have far-reaching consequences, some of them irreversible, since hormones are involved in more than sexuality and gender identity, they also impact the development of the body and the brain, in particular during adolescence. Therefore, the only possible argument for those who advocate freedom of children to choose their gender while denying them freedom of choosing sexual activity, must be that for children sex must be much worse than hormonal imbalance or the social consequences of gender change.
Finally note that the right to choose to be euthanised in case of terminal illness or when suffering is too great, is being granted to adults in several countries. But Belgium, which has the most liberal law in this respect, extended that right to children, without setting a minimum age (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_euthanasia#Belgium for the legal conditions). Indeed, two children, aged 9 and 11, chose to have a lethal injection (see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/07/belgium-authorised-euthanasia-terminally-nine-11-year-old-youngest/). So, if children have enough maturity to be able to choose death, why are they unable to choose to have sex?
Said LSM: “‘Paedophobia’ may be a necessary condition for living in civilised, advanced societies.”
This is a new avatar of Freud’s claim that civilisation requires the repression of sexuality. But, in view of the failure of “civilisation” to repress sexual behaviour between adults, it now finds a last refuge in the repression of childhood sexuality and intergenerational relations.
From a strictly psychoanalytical point of view, Freudian theory was heavily criticised by Ian D. Sutie, the ancestor of the object-relation approach, in his book The Origins of Love and Hate. He claimed that Freudian theory is patriarchal and hateful, and that patriarchy relies on violent repression. He opposed to it a “matriarchal” view of human relations, based on mutual love, rather than sex and power, where anti-social behaviour is non-violently suppressed. This school of psychology accompanied in fact the social reforms in the UK after WWII, such as social security and the public policy supporting maternity. Indeed, theories about psychology and sexuality accompany various forms of organisation of society.
The question is whether our WEIRD “civilisation” (or social organisation) is the best one possible. Our modernity, arising with the crumbling of feudalism and serfdom, witnessed the expulsion of Muslims from Spain and the creation of State anti-Semitism, the burning of heretics and witches, the persecution of non-reproductive forms of sexual behaviour, wars between Catholics and Protestants, and finally the triangular slave trade with the accompanying doctrine of pseudo-scientific racism. We had there officially sanctioned forms of hate, some of which survived in the 20th century, for instance racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia. Are such phenomena intrinsically necessary for “civilised, advanced societies?” Or are they just related to the particular type of “civilisation” that we have?
We cannot avoid witnessing that the current paedophobia is a moral panic like the masturbation scare, and a hatred like homophobia and anti-Semitism. Are successive moral panics and hatreds necessary to “civilisation?”
Is it simply a question of kinship structure? Within our actual kinship structure, the nuclear family, there have been changes with respect to the role of children. In the 19th century children participated to labour and earning the income of family; today this is considered as abhorrent, because now children are required to learn skills at school. And how do you explain the relative toleration of paedophilia between 1968 and 1976 (cf. the comment by Warbling Turpitude)?
Said LSM: “it strikes me that gender roles are much more a consequence of biology than of society.”
First one must be aware that nature manifests diversity, so biological determinism is expressed in averages, for instance there are men and women of various sizes, but on average men are taller than women. Similarly for psychological gender features, you have differences in average between boys and girls, but there can be “tomboy” girls and “sissy” boys. One cannot impose a “Procrustean bed” for human size, and the modern finding is that one cannot impose it for gender expression.
Second, human beings are the most flexible and adaptable animals, were instincts are the most reduced, while education and culture play a crucial role in behaviour. So “gender roles” are to a large part the effect of education and social norms. Moreover, cultural norms repeated through thousands of generations can by natural selection influence human biology. For instance, some researchers hint that in human vision, on average men perceive motion at lower thresholds while women have a finer gamut of colour perception; this could be a result of a long prehistoric period of specialisation of men as hunters and women as gatherers. Another example: on average, men play better than women at darts; is it a consequence of a long prehistoric specialisation of men throwing spears on game?
Finally, I am not astonished by the conservative turn of the former radical LSM. In June 2017 I noticed his post “Who Are the REAL Virtuous Paedophiles?” Such an invocation of “virtue” could not avoid to upset a “decadent” like me. Before that I had witnessed his growing obsession with the evils of Islam, equated to jihadism and FGM.
His suggestion of the necessity of paedophobia is accompanied by the remark “but civilisation is a fragile thing – planned economies run on ideological bases tend to fail,” and in another comment he says “I believed that a Green Society based on Universal Income might deliver this, but I’m having doubts…” In plain language: the Stalinist bureaucracies failed to build “socialism,” so now LSM abandons any prospect of socialism, including its “green” variant, and adheres to capitalism and class society. But when you have a society divided into classes, in order to preserve “civilisation” (i.e., the existing order), the ones above must repress the ones below, including children, and sexuality must be regimented.
I expect soon a new charge by Dissident (Dissy, why don’t you write me?).
Great post, Christian. Many deep points! I wouldn’t be too hard on LSM, though. He continues to be very thoughtful and I think we should welcome that.
Just for the record, Tom, know that it’s with a very heavy heart that I, and I would imagine Christian, have been so “hard” on LSM lately. His move towards conservatism and the abandonment of his previous excellent and well-thought out assessments of our situation and that of youths was extremely unsettling and impossible to just overlook. This is yet another example of the same change that overtook Todd Nickerson over time and caused much animosity between him and many of the rest of the pro-choice camp who looked up to him and admired him as a courageous, heretical social activist. Honestly, how would the gay community of decades past have felt if Harry Hay had repudiated the radical and revolutionary principles he encouraged in so many others and turned to conservatism once the emotional pressures of the conservative backlash of the 1980s struck him?
It’s not a simple matter of someone changing their opinions on the basis of intense objective analysis of the available data over the course of time. It’s about noticing a gradual war of attrition within him between objective assessment of data and his feelings, i.e., susceptibility to emotionally charged and draining claims that cause them to forego logic in favor of uncontrolled “gut” instincts. This is the very same emotional state that causes people to believe that all Muslims are extremists like Wahhabi belief, that forced child marriage is rampant across the globe, that its secular versions like sex trafficking and real torture sites all over the dreaded dark web a reality despite all the evidence to the contrary, etc. These bizarre, emotionally fueled beliefs that are not backed up by the slightest bit of evidence are the progenitor of the moral crusaders, individuals who lead the Nanny State for emotional self-validation disguised as altruism. The moral crusader will justify any type of draconian legislature in the name of their self-stated protectionist agenda. Also note the accompanying fetishizing of cynicism and mistrust over their fellow humans that leads them to support all manner of extremist legal positions in the alleged name of opposing other forms of extremism, and this is why it can be hard to bare to see such a regressive de-volution of a once-revered and admired comrade and friend.
It was horribly painful to see LSM gradually give into these emotional temptations as he heard and swallowed more and more stories about the sex trafficking “epidemic,” child marriage, the alleged universal extremism of Sharia law in the modern world, “Pizzagate,” the dark web scares, etc. I don’t want to be so hard and angry at him, but then I read another of his current posts, and I cannot help contrasting the person he is now with the person I remember.
>Honestly, how would the gay community of decades past have felt if Harry Hay had repudiated the radical and revolutionary principles he encouraged in so many others and turned to conservatism once the emotional pressures of the conservative backlash of the 1980s struck him?
Yes, Dissy, I do think you are absolutely right to say “…turned to conservatism once the emotional pressures of the conservative backlash of the 1980s struck him”.
Can emotional pressure bring about a collapse of balanced, evidence-based, judgement? I’m afraid so. In general I prefer not to be personal, as you know, and I’d rather not pass judgement on LSM. I still entertain hopes that we will see further good work from him. In saying that, however, I may be succumbing to irrationality of a different kind: delusional over-optimism!
…an agora. If you coped with Nickerson’s change of mind as well as you are coping with my mild questioning of the sometimes comforting narratives we too easily lapse into, then I’m not surprised things went badly between you. Maybe if you’d respectfully and attentively listened to him you could have disagreed with each other in a way that minimised bad feelings. But if you address only caricatures of your interlocutor’s position then, yes, inevitably things will deteriorate, since to misrepresent your interlocutor is to show them disrespect.
If you want to disagree with what I say, fine, ‘good’ even – I like intelligent and coherent challenges – but disagree with what I say, not what your own biases lead you to imagine I am saying.
Speaking of caricatures, why tar pedophiles supporting long-term relationships as sex-crazed and unethical? Why consider a caricature of Western society, when it’s obvious free speech is nonexistent and even natural science is under attack?
The gains of the 1% and special interest groups are not ours. It is their Utopia you’re prepared to defend at any cost to the rest, including kids and pedophiles.
Why should pedophiles even consider supporting a society where they, and those they love, are treated as at most second class citizens over any other society (including those manufacturing different CPUs) allowing them more freedom?
As many of us are highly educated, we could contribute to any society, and the contributions would likely greatly increase when we’re given sufficient freedom.
…an agora. If you coped with Nickerson’s change of mind as well as you are coping with my mild questioning of the sometimes comforting narratives we too easily lapse into,
First off, let’s be honest here, Lensman. This is not a “mild” change, as I have read many posts from the “new” you, including within just the last few comment sections of Tom’s blog. You show all the same signs as Mr. Nickerson and others who have caved under emotional pressure for validation and the emotionally jarring horror stories fed to us regularly by the media to rationalize draconian legislation and the continuation of moral panics and crusades: insulting comments and accusations against the pro-choice camp (e.g., that we do not care about kids outside of simply jumping in bed with them), deliberate misreading of our statements & ignoring the numerous things we say every single day to contradict said accusations, belief in frankly bizarre claims of rampant threats to youths that there is no evidence to substantiate, and a new ideology based on flagrant cynicism and mistrust of your fellow human beings (particularly of the MAP variety). Please stop making a molehill out of a mountain, or insisting the elephant in the room is simply a mouse.
then I’m not surprised things went badly between you.
You mean, badly between him and many others who felt understandably betrayed by the sudden (though more gradual, in your case) repudiation of heretical principles he eloquently stated so often, that enabled so many of us to admire and look up to him. Followed by quickly getting sick and tired of the constant slew of insults/accusations, erratic behavior, and irrational emotionally-charged beliefs that always accompany such a move to the conservative side.
Maybe if you’d respectfully and attentively listened to him you could have disagreed with each other in a way that minimised bad feelings.
You are assuming I did not, Lensmen. You are assuming we didn’t try to be conciliatory and continue to be supportive over personal matters. We did, but he — like you — continued to “rebel” against the rebels and spew all sorts of noxious accusations, remarks, and shove his change of ideology in our faces as much as possible, frequently lecturing us about our alleged character improprieties Todd once accused me and other pro-choicers of being wannabe child molesters who only fail to viciously ravage kids because we fear the all-important laws — no biggie and easy to reconcile with a little patience and understanding, right, Lensman? Not to mention the erratic behavior in general that come with such emotional break-downs. The point is, we have seen this happen to too many great and brilliant heretics, and contrary to what you are arguing now, it is a big deal, not the minor thing you are trying to make it out to be. Considering all the experience I have, both directly and via research, dealing with and observing such people, respectively, I can only shudder at the thought of what we can next expect from you… unless you step in and choose to put a cap in it.
But if you address only caricatures of your interlocutor’s position then, yes, inevitably things will deteriorate, since to misrepresent your interlocutor is to show them disrespect.
Considering what I have read from you and these bizarre beliefs you are now swallowing to rationalize your emotional downslide, and the comments you routinely make against us, I think this is a textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black, Lensman.
If you want to disagree with what I say, fine, ‘good’ even – I like intelligent and coherent challenges – but disagree with what I say, not what your own biases lead you to imagine I am saying.
I think I read you loud and clear, Lensman. And you know it. Please consider doing the same the next time you accuse pro-choicers of only caring about “one thing.” And please look back on the excellent blogs and posts you once made, before you let all the bogus horror stories and “doubts” beat you down emotionally.
Thank you for your balanced statements, Tom. Possibly, I have taken it a bit too personal with Lensman. But it’s difficult not to do that with the constant slew of insults and accusations regarding what the pro-choice camp must “really” be interested in, and the promotion of irrational beliefs–whether in sectarian form (the Satanic ritual abuser, the Muslim child marriage-monger) or a secular incarnation (the sex trafficker, the “dark web” torturer, the insidious VP politician child sex abuser and murderer) and then basing their ideological changes on this unsubstantiated, uber-cynical, panic-stricken world view… well, it becomes difficult not to take it as a personal affront. If you adopt an ideology that makes you feel obliged to regularly impugn the imagined character or motives of those who you once supported and stood behind and still want as friends and supporters… well, it’s very difficult not to offend those people and have them take it as a personal affront. Trust me, anyone who knows of my history on GC is well aware that I tried to be very patient with Todd (as an example), and I still have a lot of affection for him on a personal level, but my patience was quickly worn thin on many occasions with that continued behavior. I also tried to be patient with Lensman as this ideological change was progressing and I could see him being gradually “beaten down” by all the horror stories of Muslims allegedly making it a common policy to force little girls to marry them, the sex traffickers making a killing all over the globe with forced child prostitution, the alleged reality of insidious psychopaths making a killing selling access to real pics of real kids being tortured… and I urged him caution on numerous occasions, even making a two-part guest blog about this matter right here on TOC Heretic, only to see nothing less than a continued progression.
It’s frustrating, it’s disheartening, and I fully admit, my patience is severely challenged by numerous instances of this over the years, including having to see society at large routinely go bat-shit over things like this. I have to deal with many friends outside the MAP community who believe of all of this and routinely make anti-pedo comments in front of me or mention how horrible they think the sex trafficking “epidemic” run by “pedophile rings” are, despite how many of them are well aware that I am a MAP. To see this same phenomenon subsume some of my closest friends and allies within the MAP community itself, especially those who once stood beside me opposing this with admirable courage and conviction and whom I came to admire and look up to as a result can sometimes be way too much for me to handle in cordial fashion. Yes, I admit that I do not react well to it, and am likely less patient now than I was in the past as a result.
This is especially true when I am forced to imagine what might have been if you, Tom, had bought all of those horror stories you heard throughout the past few decades yourself, became inclined to ignore their earlier precedents throughout history, and caved into sympathy for the fantasists like “Darren” and “Nick” rather than seeing through the emotionally-charged charade.
Dissident, if what you have said is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, then I have severely misunderstood LSM’s position, which I had thought to be much more moderate. It also means that I probably have not read some of his comments, and/or have failed to understand their implications.
What horrifies me about the manner in which people talk about paedophilia and paedophiles, is the manner in which the comments so often are accompanied by exhortations to kill all paedophiles. This horrifies me, especially as I have listened to our own Hetty laugh at and praise the death of paedophiles.
If indeed LSM has taken this view and is promoting it in all seriousness, then he has become a part of the problem, by which I mean, one of those who want to remove the freedom of others for reasons that do not always make sense. Enough.
My apologies if my defence of him has caused upset to you, or any other who reads it.
I guess I just have to go back and re-read his comments, looking for things I have missed through bad reading practices.
>What horrifies me about the manner in which people talk about paedophilia and paedophiles, is the manner in which the comments so often are accompanied by exhortations to kill all paedophiles…If indeed LSM has taken this view and is promoting it in all seriousness, then he has become a part of the problem
He is not, and I do not recall Dissy coming anywhere near to suggesting this. Dissy can answer for himself but in view of the extreme nature of this suggestion I feel I should make my point immediately.
Tom, I’m really glad to hear that, if only because it means I have not misjudged LSM. He has always struck me as a very clear, worth reading thinker, so this is important to me. Thanks.
Thank you for your responses, Bj. For the record, neither Lensman nor Todd has ever said that pedos should be exterminated, or anything like that. Todd has made a year-long attempt to have himself “cured”, however, and has suggested that the rest of us should try to so as well. He seems to have abandoned those attempts, however, when they proved fruitless. What both he and Lenny (I believe) are arguing for are continued social control of MAPs and continued parental control of kids, as well as insinuating that pro-choicers are only interested in their selfish lust and do not have a system of “morals” by conflating morality with moralism.
Lenny does not seem to have gone full-blown Virped yet, but I do believe there is good evidence he is heading in that direction, and he has implied most of the above rather than stating it directly (as Todd has) while insisting I am mis-representing his views when I point this out. For instance, saying he is indeed about “Virtue” (including his capitalizing the word for emphasis), saying that Todd showed “courage” by changing his views, making all the typical accusations/insinuations that Virpeds do (noted above), and making the statement “… if any parents are to let you near their kids,” which I believe is clearly suggesting that parents should retain control (despite the fact that most forms of actual abuse occur inside the insular nuclear household, something Lenny is more than aware of since he has argued against it in the past prior to the start of this incremental change–but which sentiment for the sanctity of “the family” does not allow the mainstream narrative to acknowledge when forming policy). I do not believe I am making personal attacks or misrepresenting what he is “actually” trying to say here, nor am I being “hard” on him by saying this. I think the proverbial writing is all on the wall that this is the direction he is heading, ideologically speaking. I really, really hope he doesn’t go all the way in that direction, but I have seen this incremental slide too many times before 🙁
Thanks, and not a problem. I say again that I had not noticed it until now, but his claim that there is an objective morality that is revealed throughout history both stunned and horrified me. He has read enough to know that
this is nonsense. Sadly, he seems to be using this as a philosophic basis for his views.
Still, I wait for his next blog post, and hope he thinks it all through again.
I honestly have to LAUGH about the likes of this, Dissident, I really, really do, I can’t really figure out quite what else I could do, when I read:
“It’s not a simple matter of someone changing their opinions on the basis of intense objective analysis of the available data over the course of time. It’s about noticing a gradual war of attrition within him between objective assessment of data and his feelings, i.e., susceptibility to emotionally charged and draining claims that cause them to forego logic in favor of uncontrolled “gut” instincts”
You have set up there a ruinously dichotomous absolutism that could only ever be represented in reality by a Robot vs a Squirming Sack of Viscera. In such an ‘understanding’ what you call “logic” is little more than the deus ex machina of which we are so famously non-fond…
If you honestly BELIEVE that the figure of the child, and the current part it plays in the ceaseless, quite illimitable circulation of erotic capital, is something we can only approach with sterile gloves on, hoping against all odds that the “objective assessment of data” will hold still for long enough for us to plant our flag of Empirico Jima, then the Kind ‘movement’ is in even more trouble than I thought it was…….
WAY more.
I honestly have to LAUGH about the likes of this, Dissident, I really, really do, I can’t really figure out quite what else I could do, when I read:
That’s okay, Warbling. I laugh at many of your statements and assessments too–when I can understand them after plowing through all the fancy verbiage, that is.
You have set up there a ruinously dichotomous absolutism that could only ever be represented in reality by a Robot vs a Squirming Sack of Viscera. In such an ‘understanding’ what you call “logic” is little more than the deus ex machina of which we are so famously non-fond…
Um, you accuse a pro-choicer who has indeed looked at the objective data that contradicts the dogmatic narrative, and you say that it’s those like me, rather than the moral crusaders, that focus on absolutism? You clearly give too much credence to their non-existent objectively or sense of “balance.”
If you honestly BELIEVE that the figure of the child, and the current part it plays in the ceaseless, quite illimitable circulation of erotic capital, is something we can only approach with sterile gloves on,
Objectivity, freedom of speech, and freedom of choice, are hardly approaching something with “sterile gloves.” If you approach it with a dogmatic protectionist stance under the pretense of “protecting” a certain group, well, history shows us it ultimately leads to the freedom of no one. Sorry, but I a determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past rather than embrace in the hope they turn out different just this one time–or because they make me feel better about myself on the inside.
hoping against all odds that the “objective assessment of data” will hold still for long enough for us to plant our flag of Empirico Jima, then the Kind ‘movement’ is in even more trouble than I thought it was…….
WAY more.
So, the alternative is to ignore the data (which you seem to have scoffed at anyway) and simply go along with the moral crusaders and rumor-mongers, because that is the more socially acceptable thing to do? Society in general needs to be “rescued” much more than the kids in particular. I am glad the Kind movement (which you also scoff at by placing it in quotation marks) is taking the difficult path, but ultimately the right one. Taking the easy, expedient route, which is what the conservatives, cynics, and anti-choicers has been indicted by history numerous times.
After reading your comment I feel like the man who, after taking a shit, looks into the toilet, is surprised to find sweetcorn there (not having eaten any in months), and concludes that he’s probably looking at someone else’s shit.
Yours is ‘Thinking by Caricature’: you take complex, contingent and difficult speculations; you consign them to nearest one of a handful of Caricatures by which your categorise and represent all ideas and persons whom you perceive as disagreeing with you; you then proceed to respond NOT to what the person actually said, but rather to what the caricature you assigned him to might say or think.
The fact that you could publicly attribute to me an opinion about ‘Pizzagate’ shows how confident and ingrained you are in this process. I have only the vaguest idea of (or interest in) what ‘pizzagate’ might be (I invite you to search my blog for the word and see how much interest I have shown in ‘Pizzagate’).
An error that requires only ten words to state often needs a thousand to correct and I’m not going to address the mis-representions and errors you put in my mouth other than to say that no opinion you attribute to me in your comment correctly represents my thinking.
However, I’m always keen to address criticisms of my thinking, but only criticisms that are based on an at least vaguely correct understanding of my position.
I plan to publish a post on my blog in the near future which picks up on the points of controversy I inadvertently sparked-off here, and you will be most welcome to share your responses there.
On the Nickerson question – I’m no VP but I respect Nickerson BECAUSE he had the courage and integrity to change his mind. And it strikes me that some want RadPedery to be a ‘club’ not an ‘agora’. m
Jan 05, 2019 @ 13:12:01
After reading your comment I feel like the man who, after taking a shit, looks into the toilet, is surprised to find sweetcorn there (not having eaten any in months), and concludes that he’s probably looking at someone else’s shit.
Apropos imagery to conjure up, considering the beliefs you have adopted over the past few years.
Yours is ‘Thinking by Caricature’: you take complex, contingent and difficult speculations; you consign them to nearest one of a handful of Caricatures by which your categorise and represent all ideas and persons whom you perceive as disagreeing with you; you then proceed to respond NOT to what the person actually said, but rather to what the caricature you assigned him to might say or think.
As opposed to the caricaturing of the pro-choice camp by insisting we do not care about kids simply because we believe freedom of choice on their part, freedom to participate in the formulating of rules in society, freedom of information and support, and all other freedoms enjoyed by common citizens and callously misinterpreting that as a desire for simple and crude “freedom to molest with impunity” on our part? I think I read you quite clear, Lensman, just as I have always done… including before you decided to get beaten down and take this expedient path.
The fact that you could publicly attribute to me an opinion about ‘Pizzagate’ shows how confident and ingrained you are in this process. I have only the vaguest idea of (or interest in) what ‘pizzagate’ might be (I invite you to search my blog for the word and see how much interest I have shown in ‘Pizzagate’).
It was a general comparison, Lensman, based upon where irrational beliefs in rampant forced child marriage, sex trafficking, and “deep web” torture sights invariably lead. That was the point I was trying to make. One set of irrational beliefs can lead to the likes of “Pizzagate” quite easily.
An error that requires only ten words to state often needs a thousand to correct and I’m not going to address the mis-representions and errors you put in my mouth other than to say that no opinion you attribute to me in your comment correctly represents my thinking.
I think you are the one doing the misreading, Lensman, because the “Pizzagate” comparison was just that… a comparison to where many of the beliefs you have supported can lead. As in, if he can swallow that, can we expect this from him next?
However, I’m always keen to address criticisms of my thinking, but only criticisms that are based on an at least vaguely correct understanding of my position.
Again, the assumption that I am not reading you clearly when I have read such rhetoric numerous times before, including the various coded and euphemistic versions of it.
I plan to publish a post on my blog in the near future which picks up on the points of controversy I inadvertently sparked-off here, and you will be most welcome to share your responses there.
Then make your position very clear when you do, and I will respond fairly. I want to be wrong about many things, trust me.
On the Nickerson question – I’m no VP but I respect Nickerson BECAUSE he had the courage and integrity to change his mind.
That wasn’t courage, Lensman. Courage is standing behind what you believe even if it isn’t popular, even if it goes against the crowd, and even if it costs you a lot of personal and professional flack. Adopting a heavily mainstream view that you hope the bulk of society outside the small confines of the MAP community will come to accept and like you for is not courage. A desperate desire for validation and acceptance from the greater society whose ideology has beat you down and tried to depict you as a monster, is not courage… it is feel-good acquiescence. That from a man who once insisted that he wanted to take a year in an institution to “cure” his pedophilia because it was “not acceptable to societal norms.” Does that sound like courage or capitulation from a broken person to any objective eyes? You say I have misunderstood you in many ways, and I honestly want you to be right–but then I read passages like this from you.
And it strikes me that some want RadPedery to be a ‘club’ not an ‘agora’.
I want it to be what it always has been, and always should be: a set of revolutionary principles whose ultimate goal and stance is that you can only have freedom for everyone is everyone is free, and freedom is always a better choice than security at all costs. If an ideology has no structural principles and can be anything that anyone wants it to be, then it’s all “talk” and no substance.
I will here defend Dissident against the accusation of caricaturing opponents. Dissident’s caricatures are mild compared to the ones LSM himself used in his blog, especially in the comments section. He amalgamated Islam as a religion with jihadist terrorism, and even said ‘Isislam’. On ‘What I think, Part 2’, I made a comment to give some scholarly references on CGM, by the ethics researcher Brian D Earp, on the USA/UNO double standard of fighting FGM but supporting MGM, and the Western hypocrisy concerning ‘aesthetic labiaplasty’, which is a cultural form of FGM. I also challenged his identification of FGM countries with Muslim ones. LSM’s reply was:
“Has islamophilia so made you lose your moral compass that you can make excuses for razors being taken to the genitals of unaesthetised unconsenting little girls in order to neuter their sexuality and mark and literally seal them as the possession of their future husband?”
Despite my request to remove such a libellous sentence, he did not. Since then I have stopped commenting on his blog.
>” ‘aesthetic labiaplasty’,”
I think you’ll find that Western ‘aesthetic labiaplasty’ is generally not forced on non-consenting unanaesthetised children.
And where do you have evidence that little girls in Islamic nations are routinely held down and forced to endure this procedure, kicking and screaming all the way because no anesthetic is used? I question it because it frankly sounds like yet another horror story that all the sentimentalists buy into hook, line, and sinker.
Tom, you may be unhappy approving some of the content I link to in this comment. I fully understand if you come to that decision – I would hesitate to approve of it on my own blog.
However, Dissident has asked a question which can be best answered by actual footage of FGM in practice. As I think you know, I am not focused not on the blood and death aspects of FGM, but on its aetiology – I don’t make a habit of watching this kind of thing or of seeking out survivors’ stories.
If you decide edit out those links – could you leave a sentence of two to give Dissident, and any other readers, an idea of what the footage shows – it would be more genuine coming from you rather than me.
I also absolutely fully understand if you choose not to watch them. In fact I’d ask you not to watch them if you are squeamish.
>”where do you have evidence that little girls in Islamic nations are routinely held down and forced to endure this procedure, kicking and screaming all the way because no anesthetic is used?”
From survivor accounts. There are hundreds out there, here a few books I have found interesting and useful and which contain accounts of FGM:
‘Infidel’ by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
‘Female Genital Mutilation’ Ed. Comfort Momoh
‘The Female Circumcision Controversy’ by Ellen Gruenbaum
‘Desert Flower’ by Waris Dirie
‘Prisoners of Ritual’ by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein
‘Female Genital Mutilation’ by Emmanuel Ebah
‘La pratique rituelle de la MGF chez les Malinke d’Odienne” by Bourahima Bakayoko
I’m not a great one for reading accounts of FGM – watching two or three footage of it being performed and a few accounts have sufficed to convince me that it’s not, of itself, a good thing. And my interest in FGM has been more in the causes of it than in the mechanics of it.
But a Duckduckgoing something like ‘FGM survivor account’ will give you plenty of material which describes what it’s like to submit to this procedure.
To save you the trouble I’ll link to a few:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11390949/FGM-survivor-The-pain-was-so-bad-I-prayed-to-God-to-take-me-then-and-there.html
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/advice/a6504/female-genital-mutilation-survivor-stories/
[TOC: YOUTUBE LINKS DELETED.]
There is footage out there, but the footage on youtube is largely edited and filmed to be more ‘viewable’ – usually for TV documentaries and information films – I have more graphic footage on my hard drive from the darkweb, but if you want to see that you’ll have to ask me as I’ll have to try to work out where I got it from. One of the following is quite graphic though:
[TOC: YOUTUBE LINKS DELETED.]
I would also add that I know that if, at the age of seven, someone had started trimming away parts of my genitals without anaesthetic – I would have kicked and screamed.
And even as a somewhat pain-inured adult, I would struggle, kick and scream.
[TOC: I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY OF THE VIDEO LINKS, NOR HAVE I (YET) READ THE TEXT LINKS. HOWEVER, I AM CONFIDENT THEY WILL SUFFICIENTLY MAKE YOUR POINT THAT THE PROCEDURES IN QUESTION DO TAKE PLACE, LSM. HOW PREVALENT OR INEVITABLE THEY ARE WITHIN ISLAM ARE QUESTIONS FOR ANOTHER TIME.]
I am not making this as a polemical point against LSM, as he has already said that he is against MGM as well as FGM, but I will just mention that I have a video of a baby boy being circumcised without anaesthetic and as you can imagine, it is very distressing. I only have it on an old-style video cassette, so even to talk about linking to it would be a category mistake.
Do a Google “All” search on “circumcision without anesthesia” and you will find that the majority of US doctors performing circumcision of infant boys do it without anesthesia. You can get videos by doing a “Videos” search.
>”The question is whether our WEIRD “civilisation” (or social organisation) is the best one possible.”
I don’t think I said it was the best civilisation “possible”. But I would say it’s the best “yet”.
Name a civilisation in which child-adult intimacy is/was allowed where you would wish to spend the rest of your life. And, more to the point, you would wish a little girl you love to spend her life.
Which of the discoveries, developments and creations of the West are you happy for yourself and her to forgo? – the abolition of slavery? Computers? anaesthetics? vaccines? freedom of speech? Democracy? freedom of belief and freedom from belief?
And I suggest you think about what practices many of the societies you might choose impose on children, especially little girls – for example Sung and Ming dynasty China allowed child-adult marriage – but your little friend would have to endure footbinding – a procedure that makes infibulation seem veritably benign.
>”how do you explain the relative toleration of paedophilia between 1968 and 1976 (cf. the comment by Warbling Turpitude)?”
I’ve posted a reply to Turp’s comment which includes my explanation.
>”One cannot impose a “Procrustean bed” for human size, and the modern finding is that one cannot impose it for gender expression.”
I never suggested that one could or should. You’ve read ‘prescription’ where what I intended was ‘description’.
>”So “gender roles” are to a large part the effect of education and social norms.”
I don’t deny that gender roles can or should change or adapt when necessary. But they should do so in response to challenges and needs, not as a result of ideology. Such fundamental changes must take place through empirically evaluated evolution, not revolution.
>”In plain language: the Stalinist bureaucracies failed to build “socialism,” so now LSM abandons any prospect of socialism, including its “green” variant, and adheres to capitalism and class society.”
Nothing I wrote suggests I have abandoned my belief in the necessity of a Green society.
A Green society is desirable whether it produces a greater tolerance of paedophilia or not.
I suggest you stop at this point for the moment, LSM, before testy weariness takes over. This would be more than excusable given the “Space Invaders” factor you mentioned.
Also, it seems to me your admirably diligent immersion in the details of truly ghastly practices has come at a price. In particular, it appears to have come at the expense of being left with too little “bandwidth” to properly consider the utterly game-changing studies of small band hunter gatherers that have been undertaken in recent years.
It now looks as though life in deep pre-history may have been more just and happy than has been the case with all the benefits (and grotesque cruelties) of civilization.
This is not to say we can put the clock back to when we had no clocks. Nor does it mean that hunter gatherer cultures are all sweetness and light. Much depends on factors such as population pressure.
Forgive me if we have been over this ground before and I have simply forgotten, but have you read Ryan & Jetha’s Sex at Dawn? It is hardly the last word on the subject (there is the counter-blast of Lynn Saxon’s Sex at Dusk for a start) but I do feel it is essential reading, and that is something I rarely say.
I’ll just respond to Peter Herman’s post (if I may) and then I’ll go off and get some much needed beauty-sleep. I guess this should have all taken place over at my blog – maybe I’ll post something there and shift the fight into my backyard away from yours. Apologies for hogging the comments section…I’ll look at the books you recommend.
>Apologies for hogging the comments section
No problem: some great comments in there.
For a better “civilisation”, why should I look at the past, when we have a future? Studying past societies is interesting because it shows that many things that seem to us normal and natural did not exist then, hence they may disappear in the future.
Our present “civilization” is the best existing one, compared to others, in terms of labour productivity and the development of science, technology and medicine. But for the harmony of human relations, it performs poorly. And for environment, it is catastrophic.
I don’t think I said it was the best civilisation “possible”. But I would say it’s the best “yet”.
With its moral panics that result in people being imprisoned for years just for looking at pictures, rampant poverty in a world of plenty, the end of the free-ranging kids you once championed (remember that?), constant wars and accompanying mindset that thinks drone planes dropping bombs on kids is less immoral than an adult sharing mutually desired intimacy with one… well, that’s not saying much about it, Lensman.
Name a civilisation in which child-adult intimacy is/was allowed where you would wish to spend the rest of your life. And, more to the point, you would wish a little girl you love to spend her life.
As Christian said, this is why we look to create a better world order in the future rather than settling for the one we have as the “best possible.” Cynicism is a barrier towards not only progress, but the very belief that progress is possible.
Which of the discoveries, developments and creations of the West are you happy for yourself and her to forgo? – the abolition of slavery? Computers? anaesthetics? vaccines?
If we could have all of the above sans paying the price of losing the very right to be ourselves and the right of my hypothetical girl to be considered a full citizen with all of her civil rights… then again, as much as I appreciate and hope to retain all of the above inventions, I refuse to believe that we have to lose as much as we gain.
freedom of speech?
Um, seriously, Lensman–have you stopped being a MAP recently? Have you suddenly seen huge numbers of youths being allowed to openly express themselves sexually? Or, worse, have you become convinced that they are indeed allowed to but simply have no interest?
Democracy?
Don’t you mean plutocracy disguised as democracy? Last I saw, younger people are still not allowed to participate in the voting system, and politicians still tend to win depending upon how much money they can spend.
freedom of belief and freedom from belief?
Again, have you forgotten what it’s like to be both a MAP and a legally underaged youth? Because you are describing a world considerably more rosy than the one we live in.
And I suggest you think about what practices many of the societies you might choose impose on children,
“Impose”? Have you missed our many discussions of youth liberation and allowing youths to have a vote and voice in how society is run on all levels? Or, as I suspect, when you said your interest shifted to “children’s rights” are you actually talking about imposing protectionist measures on them that actually result in and depend upon various moral panics to continue rationalizing? Yet, you just accused us of doing the imposing.
especially little girls – for example Sung and Ming dynasty China allowed child-adult marriage – but your little friend would have to endure footbinding – a procedure that makes infibulation seem veritably benign.
Seriously get a grip, Lensman! Nobody on the pro-choice camp is in favor of that, and a youth liberated society would allow kids to actively refuse such practices!
I don’t deny that gender roles can or should change or adapt when necessary. But they should do so in response to challenges and needs, not as a result of ideology. Such fundamental changes must take place through empirically evaluated evolution, not revolution.
“Revolution is the culmination of evolution,” my friend.
Nothing I wrote suggests I have abandoned my belief in the necessity of a Green society.
Your recent adoption of protectionist rhetoric demands a plethora of draconian legislation that is inimical to the democratic principles inherent in a Green society.
A Green society is desirable whether it produces a greater tolerance of paedophilia or not.
If it continued to promote youth oppression (i.e., denying them full citizenship, a vote, and labor rights), continued to impose adult authority over them, and continued to foster moral panics to justify all sorts of draconian legislation, then we are not going to truly have a Green society, if by that you mean one based on higher democratic principles that allows social advances to catch up to technological advances. Because a system with such authoritarian laws in place could not be a true democracy, as moral panics and draconian legislation do not result in enlightened attitudes and policies. And repression of youth sexuality and their forced confinement to adult authority, with all of the accompanying draconian legislation that comes with it, are necessary if society is to maintain an intolerance towards pedophilia and hebephilia.
I shall write you soon. A lot going on with me lately not related to my time with the Kind community. More details to you and Tom off the board, though.
Yes, this is interesting, and in some ways I think the answer lies in a fear of sex being greater than a fear of a dress or a pair of trousers. Added to this must be the observation that “consent” all too often refers primarily to sex, that is, our notion of consent has been sexualised and turned into a very legalistic notion. We know it is legalistic when a simple yes is not enough but must be accompanied by a variety of other things, such as a full and explicit knowledge of sex, its dangers, possible outcomes, and all that jazz; knowledge and insight which we mere mortals rarely have or encounter. (Just look at Catherine McKinnon’s work in this area.)
But in the end, it comes down to the child itself.
Nine and going on twenty. Many years ago, I was told about a girl, about nine, who started kissing adults open mouthed, and doing all she could do entertain her growing sexuality. Being very bright, she entered an institution of higher learning (no names now), where she was discovered at 12 in a store room naked and in flagrante delicto with a much older man, who managed to avoid legal trouble because the girl announced with great passion that she had seduced him, and apparently enjoyed herself enormously. (And, of course, the parents, whom I knew through the man who told me the story, wanted to avoid their daughter proclaiming this from the witness box—what a hussy she was!) Consent was the very last thing on her mind, and I dare say she would have thought it nonsense in the light of her desire.
But I’ll be thirteen next year! said one friend of one of my stepson’s as she complained bitterly about the fact that she couldn’t have sex, ending her complaint with words to the effect of why won’t they just let us fuck! And within a year, that’s just exactly what she was doing, or so my very moralistic and deeply disapproving stepson told me.
Those who wish to get it on with someone will tend to ignore the rules and consent because desire drives their actions.
But to return to the quote above. I knew a boy who decided he was a girl at around the age of ten; he continues to identify and dress as a girl, and went to school as a girl. For him, he was and continues to present as what he thinks he is. He was fortunate, in that he had parents who permitted him to decide this for him/herself.
It is unclear what the mother would have said about it had s/he wanted sex at a very young age, or an operation to finalise the decision. Although entirely “straight” now, Mother herself had been on the streets as having sex well before the age of consent, and had many many problems, none of which she associated with her early sex, but…
This was a feeling he had within himself, which led to the desire to identify and present himself as a girl. The real question is whether or not sex is just the same, and I suspect that it is. Phenomenologically, the desire to have sex (for me) begins with a feeling within myself, and the desire comes after, if at all. (That there is no one with whom sex is possible, entails that the feeling remains unfulfilled, and often curtailed prior to becoming anything like a desire.)
If we apply this to sex (with the caveat that the desire to be a girl may be sexual in itself) it is entirely possible that the feeling within them that becomes/leads to sexual desire is phenomenologically equivalent to the feeling that leads to a boy’s desire to be a girl. If so, then the situations are morally equivalent, and should be dealt with accordingly.
(But are they not innocent? Are they not incapable of sexual acts? Are they not just pretending to be girls or boys? —Surely prejudice will win, sadly.)
Very interesting.
>“consent” all too often refers primarily to sex, that is, our notion of consent has been sexualised and turned into a very legalistic notion.
The new insight here, and I think it is a very important one, is that “consent has been sexualised”, in the sense that the sexual aspect of consent dominates public discourse now, even though other aspects, such as consent to surgical procedures, remain important — but only to the medical profession or potential surgical patients.
But consent is a very old word, coming from the Latin for “with knowledge” and I suspect it has always been used legalistically.
>Phenomenologically, the desire to have sex (for me) begins with a feeling within myself, and the desire comes after, if at all.
How would you distinguish this “feeling within myself” from desire?
>…the desire to be a girl may be sexual in itself
Psychologist J Michael Bailey discerns two different types of male to female (MtF) transsexual, the “autogynophilic” type being motivated by sexual desire. His belief that there is a sexual motive for at least some MtF trans people has made him a hate figure to many in the trans community. But he insists there is compelling research on his side.
Yes, consent is one of those awfully funny concepts which we only talk about when there has been sex which one party claims they did not want at a later point. Prior to that, consent is a non-issue for most of us. Let’s face it, most people have had non-consensual sex if what we are thinking about is sexual performance when we would rather be sleeping, or drinking coffee, or… But that is a difficult matter, where the feministas have taken it farther than necessary. Was I raped when one of my wives (either, really) got me to perform when I didn’t want to? Most feminists would say so (if I were a woman at least), and then there would be a deep and detailed analysis of why it was rape. But note well: I am not taking about situations where one or the other party uses violence and threats of violence. I am talking about a little bit of (coercion?) coddling…so that one does what one does not feel like doing at that time. (I stop now; I have confused myself—again.)
So, I have had sex to which I did not consent, and which I was not interested in at the time. But so what? It did not harm me… but regret is the key, isn’t it?
I am going to leave this conundrum and turn to your question about feeling like sex. But I am going to have to think about it some more so I can work out how to describe it. (Where is a stray philosopher when you need a chat to illuminate the beginnings of an idea?)
I think what I am trying to edge toward is a sense within oneself that one is a sexual/sensual creature, a sense that is not entirely physical and which comes over one in a generalised way, without the aim that would make it desire for… If what I am trying to describe (badly) makes sense, then it is a sexual feeling, but not a desire for sex, even though it (may) lead to the desire…
For me, it is a very general mental-physical feeling of being sexual, of being present within my body as a sexed body which can experience sexual pleasure. What I am suggesting is a general feeling contra the specific goal of sexual desire.
Not sure that this makes sense, but it is where my thinking about this is going at the moment, and I am resisting the locutions of French & German phenomenology.
Well, I think Mike Bailey is correct.What would the other side be? Perhaps to be loved as a woman, or more correctly, as one perceives a woman to be loved?
>I am resisting the locutions of French & German phenomenology.
Good! 🙂
DAWKINS: The grand High Priest of Material Reductionism speaks, and the children quiver legs in fear for their actual experience being denied them by another metaphysics, one promoted by the Masters of life!
The difficulties with material reductionism are many, let us mention but a few.
It is based firmly in eighteenth century British materialism (as is much of that grand illusion, psychology), and fails to take into account any small matter which appears to question Discovered Truth. It’s metaphysics and ontology entertain only that which can be tested empirically, and in the least generous of fashions: all else is reduced to mere matter, which, of course, we now know not to exist (thank you, priests of the quantum realm!).
Thus consciousness is merely two pieces of chemical matter colliding with each other (wonderful how ancient Greek science returns to us, ain’t it?) But, to turn to a psychologist:
Thusly William James pokes a hole in materialism, which has not yet been filled by a Dutch boy’s finger.
Now, I am not rejecting the “scientific method” but questioning its metaphysics when other areas of science have shown that the Church of Reductionism Materialism speaketh nonsense.
We have discovered, some time ago in fact, that memories are not stored in any particular part of the brain, but that the neural activity associated with memory, and thought, is spread across the entire device called brain. Whence, then, does consciousness reside? Or is it the case that those darlings of quantum physics are correct when they propose that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality, and one with which the mateialists cannot come to grips with, and so ignore.
There is even a whole series of books investigating various aspects of this problem, and I refer all who aren’t tainted by the Church of Material Reductionism to them: http://www.springer.com/series/10195
Sad to say, I have read little of these books, but I work my way through them slowly (and trust that they do not found a competing church!).
Perhaps all I am really saying is that there is science which shows materialist reductionism may well be a pot of pure bullshit, and it truly annoys me that Priests such as Dawkins do not consider this competing evidence. But that is his job, mayhap, as the Grand High Priest?
O but I enjoyed that! Evil theist and believer in the non-matter behind all matter that I am!
I’m not sure if you have read the article “Choosing for Children”, by Lavin, in the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexuality. The book isn’t favorable to our cause, but yes, it downright says that some children can consent and withdraw consent to some medical procedures, that adults and physicians not always know what is in the best interest of the child, and that the child, specially if not very young anymore, should be instructed and heard. In a few moments throgout the book, other authors (the book is a compilation) have mentioned, briefly, that what makes a sexual expression acceptable or not is the cultural climate. Age of consent varies around the globe. And I have seen people before commenting that children can already consent to sex, if they can consent to a life-changing treatment that could very result in disappointment later. They didn’t say that because they support us, but because, indeed, a lot of people at the right see that transgender kids are one step of a serious slippery slope. They do see that just a little push is needed (then again, they thought so several times in the past). The blog Return of the Kings, for example, has an article called “We Are Only Three Little Steps Away From Legalizing Pedophilia” and one of such steps is the widening of children’s sexual rights, which could start with the right to choose a gender to belong. I don’t think they are completely wrong.
>I’m not sure if you have read the article “Choosing for Children”, by Lavin, in the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexuality.
Thanks for mentioning this chapter, which I have now read. I am not sure I agree with all that Michael Lavin says but it is certainly a well written and philosophically informed piece.
>”Never mind that these readers are hostile to us, there are profound insights here, it seems to me. What do you think? I would be interested to hear what other heretics make of these thoughts.”
)
I had the same thought as I read those comments: they are interesting and challenging. The following thoughts don’t amount to a coherent position, but they amount to my 2d’s worth.
First of all – it is a mistake to confuse ‘consent for transitioning’ with ‘consent for intimacy’.
Children can’t give properly informed consent to ‘transitioning’ because the effects 1/ go beyond the capacity of anyone (let alone a child) to foresee 2/ are likely to be significantly disruptive (both in positive and negative ways) 3/ and are (to all intents and purposes) irreversible.
Children can consent to certain (and only ‘certain’) forms of intimacy provided that 1/ there are no consequences that are irreversible (or hard to reverse), 2/ that any consequences are foreseeable by the child, and 3/ the child can and does maintain control over their participation whilst the intimacy takes place (ongoing consent).
Of course there are times when parents (or others) have to override a child’s consent (going to school, medical procedures for real illnesses) but I can’t envisage a scenario when this would be the case with ‘transitioning’.
I’m as worried by the determined proliferation of sexes (aer, ze, zie etc ad nauseam) and the undermining of gender roles promoted by post-modernism as are kgasmart and Xenie. It is normal and healthy for children to explore and experiment with sex and gender, but that exploration should remain as ‘play’ and thus be reversible, of minimal consequence, and under the child’s control. Fossilising this play through medical means, or just through the imposition of confused and inaccurate notions about gender (‘boys can have periods too’ – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boys-can-have-periods-too-primary-pupils-are-taught-hg5lb85mp) is not a good idea.
As to whether this could be the slippery slope to the normalisation of paedophilia… well, I hope not.
I’m reminded of the light-work by the artist Jenny Holzer which spells out the phrase ‘protect me from what I want’ (
There are ways of ‘normalising’ paedophilia that are so harmful and ethically compromising that everyone (I would argue) is better off with the status quo of paedophobia.
Let’s be honest – there are a lot worse things for both paedophiles and children than being forbidden intimacy with one-another, both have needs that go well beyond their sexuality, and a society that allows paedophile interactions but is bad at ‘everything else’ is not desirable.
Children not being allowed to choose adults as their sexual partners may suck for us paedophiles (and some children) but Society is not modular. Paedophobia arises out of kinship structures, and you can’t radically change a basic institutions such as kinship whilst maintaining everything else unchanged.
‘Paedophobia’ may be a necessary condition for living in civilised, advanced societies. This may not be good news – but civilisation is a fragile thing – planned economies run on ideological bases tend to fail – is there any reason to think that reconfiguring the sexual and kinship structure of a society on ideological basis can be done any more successfully?
‘Paedotopia at any Cost’ is no longer my motto.
>’Paedophobia’ may be a necessary condition for living in civilised, advanced societies.
My Sexuality & Culture article amounts to being an argument against this pessimistic conclusion. I cannot say with any certainty that you are wrong though, LSM. If you are more or less right, however, then hostility to paedophilia would be “a necessary condition for living in, at best, RELATIVELY civilised, advanced societies”. I do not see how the permanent (and necessarily ruthless) suppression of anyone’s sexuality can be considered compatible with what most of us would call civilised values.
“Paedophobia’ may be a necessary condition for living in civilised, advanced societies.”
Perhaps you may be correct if and only if you are referring only to contemporary Western civilisation.I say this on the basis that there have been many civilisations which stand highly in terms of everything but the type of technology used, especially, perhaps, the technology of social control, at which our is so very very good. “Civilisation” is a deeply moral concept, and it’s application always is moral. Consider the destruction of the Australian Aboriginal civilisation when the British invaded. This was justified morally, because Aboriginal’s lived in a “primitive” and “uncivilised” manner. Consider also the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations, about which there is so much that is not the case in our own civilisation.
I am not picking on these two for any particular reason, and certainly not because I am claiming any particular standing for adult-child relations in these civilisations; rather I have chosen them because it is easy to make the claim that these were uncivilised civilisations. So: Paedophobia may be a necessary condition of hiving in this particular civilisation, but this is not to say that this civilisation cannot and will not change over time; it has, after all, done just that. Indeed, when we come to talk about sex generally, it is true to say that:
“[…] sex is not, except in a trivial and uninteresting sense, a natural fact. Anthropologists, historians, and other students of culture (rather than of nature) are sharply aware that almost any imaginable configuration of pleasure can be institutionalized as conventional and perceived by its participants as natural.”
(John J. Winkler, 1990, The Constraints of Desire, Routledge)
If we accept this, and I certainly do, then your claim is a nonsense: culture is a wondrous ever-changing manner of living, and always already is changing. This, not truly very advanced culture (note the moral judgement that I cannot resist making) has changed remarkably since I was born, and continues to do so. Moreover, Tom, and every person who comes here, are members of that culture, and everything we say has the ability to change that culture, merely by saying it. I would even go so far as to suggest that the more people rage against Tom’s work, the more his is affecting the culture, even though it may not seem to be a very large effect. Indeed, your talking about genital mutilation and arguing against it is very much a part of this culture and you are attempting to change it.
I don’t know whether adult-child sex ever will be accepted in this particular civilisation, but I know that it is possible, because civilisation and culture change, inevitable, and in manners which we cannot know until such time as it has changed.
(Note: I equivocated civilisation and culture, largely because I believe they are much the same.)
>civilisation and culture change… and in manners which we cannot know until such time as it has changed.
Very true! We all love to be futurologists but I don’t know anyone who is any good at it!
Dear BJM… i am doing my damndest to hold fast to my studies even as we speak, and am never less than proud to know that my ‘fellow paedos’ ( if you will) are persons given above all to never flinching from the steepness of the learning curve before them.. but I’d like to weigh in for a mo’ here because, when i saw you admit to brazenly conflating civilization and culture, I thought phew, this boy is definitely on the wrong track there…
When one considers in its fullness the meaning of ‘culture’, I think you’ve got to realize that this can only mean cultures conceived as wholes, whole cultures, wholly enclosed in and upon themselves to an extent where they only come to be ‘recognized’ AS “cultures’ at that point that the ‘culture-crushing’ Christian west now becomes anthropological in its ambit, and moves out into the world to try and understand what it is not.
Civilization is another sort of thing altogether, and carries within it impulses and forces that “cultures” as such could never even (literally) dream of. I’m trying very hard to be brief here, so what I’d say characterizes those ‘forces’ above all is a constitutive hypocrisy. That’s known to us most vividly of course through our still comparatively intimate knowledge of romanticism, and its very resistance to the expanding market paradoxically making that market even stronger, but it goes even deeper.
Divisions of labor are the first steps towards civilization: one group hunts, another group cooks, then all eat. The chain continues to grow: one group raises the livestock, another slaughters it, another distributes it, others cook it, etc. And we know how it ends up: with a market society, in which no one knows what anybody else is doing, how the food got on your plate, how the clothes got into the store, how the transistors got into your iphone, and so on.
And all of this in a word depends at every step on ever furthering the ways in which a civilizing community learns to defer conflict and yes – its violence. BEYOND ritual scapegoating etc etc etc……….
I’ll leave it right there for now but just say that LSM’s post , following on Tom’s, gives us much to be munching on. Even as our thoughts travel far from the munched itself (the appetitive object, ye ken). As for Dawkins, the dude is a monomaniac before he is a thinker, who believes the centuries of mind-boggling human experience that preceded Charlie Darwin are as NOTHING. For him they might as well be a Mexican hill of beans.
Think of a “culture” as a compact society, in which both the ritual & economic form as it were a ‘self-completing circle’, its activities comprising the only really admissible ‘information’ that is understood to sustain it at all costs…
But isn’t this just a description of culture from a different point of view?
It seems to me that civilisation and culture are largely co-extensive, and that what is at issue in this distinction is a matter of grammar, as Wittgenstein would have it.
No, not “co-extensive” at all.
For the whole point of that paragraph you appear to have cut right off at its most important conclusion, to wit “..And we know how it ends up: with a market society, in which no one knows what anybody else is doing, how the food got on your plate, how the clothes got into the store, how the transistors got into your iphone, and so on”, is that culture – culture being in the minimally presuppositional sense that set-of-representations by which a community of humans recognizes and interprets itself, is not enough to generate a thing as event-ually complex, evermore expansive and ‘all-consuming’ as civilization. Not enough to allow ever larger communities and, crucially, connections BETWEEN communities, and where the ‘chain’ that links all these up becomes progressively obscured, as a matter of ethical necessity…
Civilization is fantastically curious in the way it’s characterized by forever managing to conceal its real infrastructure, while simultaneously (and paradoxically) generating a ceaseless thirst to reveal it…
A culture – per se – merely attempts to ritually, aesthetically & economically recall or reproduce the events that gave it its birth.
Of course, one can attach the term ‘culture’ to anything now, this culture, that culture, everything else culture, but isn’t it vitally important to understand the terrific differences in those principles incarnated in the realities of social organization, most especially when it comes to understanding the great one of *fusion* that underwrites our own civilization?
WHY would you want to just lump the two together at all? That’s what I’d like to know, BJ
For the same reason that anyone else would: intellectual laziness and convenience. With apologies, and the sudden realisation that I am often wrong. eeeeek!!!! (Sorry, teasing now…)
Might I put it to you this brief way, BJ: when you behold, or even just see an image of, a woman enshrouded in a big black bag – yea a burka by any other name, do you think to yourself ‘why, there goeth before me co-extensive culture & civilization in a nutshell’? Or do you, as a lot of us often do, perceive something like the very shadow of ‘culture’ falling across the broader sunlight of civilization?
I’m really hoping you’ll step up to the plate on this one…
Alas, I won’t be rising to it today. Just about to drive many hundreds of kilometres—there and back, so to speak—and have no time, and probably no energy tonight, if I get back today.
But, I didn’t say they were totally coextensive, just largely, and there always will be counter-examples which question any grammatical matter, which I believe this to be. I refer you to Wittgenstien again, for elucidation on the grammatical matter.
As the broad mass of right thinkin’ folks line up to make their very next discharge at the *Paedo* Pissing-Pot of the World, how many of them would be purely astonished to learn that, deep within the actual forest Where the Wild Paedos Are, those beings are wrangling over a point of Wittgensteinian Grammar, no less? Who knew? Who woulda thunk it?
Well, as you make your way along the Lord’s Highway there BJ, I thought these comments of mine might amuse you..
wovon man nicht sprechen kann, EXERCISE YOUR MOST CIVIL SMILE YET! (this was sort of the basis of another, much more elaborate response to you, which Tom-in-his-wisdom appears to have suspended in moderated limbo…)
>which Tom-in-his-wisdom appears to have suspended in moderated limbo…
Not deliberately Turp. Just haven’t seen it yet.
Ah Master Turpitude, you are wondrously amusing, and I love your style, but surely you left off darüber muß man schweigen?
I am perfectly happy to continue this specific conversation privately, with the caveat that I truly do believe it is a grammatical matter, in as much as the two terms are easily changed to the other in so many contexts. But, of course, I am a lover of John Wisdom, especially his magisterial essay Gods, so I may well be stuck and ensconced in the most ordinary of language. Wisdom, after all, defeated Alfred Ayer and the logical positivists in one lovely essay. (Wink wink, nudge nudge.)
>defeated Alfred Ayer and the logical positivists in one lovely essay
We can say without much fear of contradiction that King Harold was defeated at the Battle of Hastings and Napoleon lost at Waterloo, but defeat and victory are not the most objective of categories where philosophy is concerned.
However, I do have a vague recollection of “Freddie” Ayer admitting on British television that his own position had been defeated. This was in an interview with Bryan Magee.
Actually, thinking about it, I have a book on my shelves, Magee’s “Men of Ideas”. It includes the interview transcript.
Yes, found it! Page 131:
MAGEE: But [Logical Positivism] must have had real defects. What do you now, in retrospect, think the main ones were?
AYER: Well, I suppose the most important of the defects was that nearly all of it was false.
Now there’s candour for you! Magee adds:
MAGEE: I think you need to say a little more about that.
Those were the days – over 30 years ago – when the British were still good at “British understatement”, Magee’s mild response to such a bombshell being a good example. Ayer, of course, continued as requested.
As for Wisdom, what better name for a philosopher!
Such honesty is rare, even among philosophers.
And, needless to say, one of my few regrets is that I didn’t write to Wisdom before he died, but ah well. I suppose another is that I didn’t go up and talk to Patrick White when I saw him walking in the park in Sydney, but I didn’t feel courageous enough on that particular day. (Got to laugh at myself.)
I take your point BJ. But the point I’m making is more precise than I think you’re reading it. I’m simply saying that societies are not modular – you can’t just change something as basic as kinship structures without taking into account that kinship is complexly embedded in every other aspect of society, and that any alteration to kinship implies an alteration to the rest of society. The question then becomes are the foreseeable and unforeseeable (yes!) alterations attendant on imposing an alien kinship structure on our society desirable or undesirable?
We can answer this question to a limited extent by looking at the paedo-friendly societies that have existed and asking if one would honestly choose for oneself and one’s loved-ones to live in such societies instead?
If we focus exclusively on the sexual side of those societies the answer is probably an enthusiastic ‘yes’. But, I’m hope we all aspire to flourish (and avoid misery) in other aspects of our life than sexuality. To aspire to live as the Marquesans once did simply because it would allow us to be intimate with children is to enjoy the berries for their taste whilst paying no attention to whether it is belladonna or blackcurrant that we are enjoying.
Which touches on the question of what makes one society/culture/civilisation preferable to another. I think this can be theoretically addressed by defining what are the ends of civilisation; and/or by looking at the choices we make – Civilisations can be evaluated according to the benefits they furnish and the ills they forestall – human flourishing and the avoidance of misery are quantifiable – pain, life-span, knowledge, creativity, interconnectivity are all measurable. When we don’t forgo anaesthetic before an operation, or when we use a computer – we are choosing the civilisation that invented anaesthesia and computers over a civilisation that didn’t. You may feel ‘obliged’ to choose, but that is simply because the pros so heavily outweigh the cons that there effectively appears to be no choice.
Marquesan kinship structures in the 16th Century allowed unstigmatised child-adult intimacy. Importing those kinship structures into our current social structure might (I suspect ‘briefly’) result in a society where child-adult intimacy was legal, but it’s a pipe-dream unless you can take into account how that alteration (assuming it lasted) would affect industry, the economy, the environment, education, infrastructure, knowledge, research, the arts and humanities, the law, the economy. The large diffuse families that permit children to be conceived of as ‘sexual’ can only exist in societies that are smal,l static and isolated (war and the risk of war creates mobility and therefore reduces kinship structures) – could the Western social structure be reduced to such a scale? and would it improve civilisation? or otherwise? Maybe it would – I believed that a Green Society based on Universal Income might deliver this, but I’m having doubts…
I’m not saying this is a good thing – but it is, I believe, the reality we have to face and deal with. This observation also better explains why paedophobia exists better than does the ‘indoctrination’ or ‘hate’ model. Paedophobia is not simply ‘ignorant hateful people not liking paedophies’ – it is Society understanding that child-adult sexual relationships are profoundly disruptive to the most fundamental institutions that allow that society to function well. Paedophobia is a defensive mechanism of society to protect itself – as are so many taboos. It is as reflexive and logical a reaction as someone flinching at the idea of a needle being inserted into their eyeball. If ‘normies’ look at their beloved children and are disgusted by the idea of some adult being intimate with them, it is because such intimacy would violate their, and society’s, idea of ‘the child’. And that idea is not arbitrary or random, but arises from a disharmony with the model of our society we all carry within us.
>”Indeed, your talking about genital mutilation and arguing against it is very much a part of this culture and you are attempting to change it.”
We’re talking about challenges of a different nature – it’s one thing to debate, discuss, maybe bring about incremental change, but to change a whole social system from scratch – and based on ideology (and that is what you do when you change kinship structures) – we have Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Islamic State to show us what that leads to.
Social change is best done incrementally and empirically – like a child playing, or the roots of a tree searching for water (yes, I guess I am a small-c conservative at heart). It’s one thing to aspire to teach a dolphin to balance a ball on its nose, it’s another thing to aspire to teach that same dolphin to fly. Both need to be done incrementally, but the limitations imposed by nature will make themselves known regardless.
So the question, as far as I’m concerned, is: what do we do with this knowledge, this observation?
Stop dreaming? No. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, but we need to tailor our dreams to the way things are, not the way we wish things were.
>we need to tailor our dreams to the way things are, not the way we wish things were.
Yes, much wisdom here. We should study other times and places not with a view to restoring and replicating the past but for ideas and inspiration. The women’s movement has come a long way in recent decades; mostly for the good, I think, in terms of leading to more equal gender relations that are better suited to modern economic life than the old breadwinner/home maker division of labour between the sexes.
Like us, the women’s movement also had to go in search of inspiration. They too looked to other times and places. They too have been accused of trying to resurrect a mythical pre-patriarchal golden age. They may have been wrong about the goldenness of that age but they thrived on exploring and debating the myth – a myth that now turns out to have included some scientifically supported elements.
Good point about the women’s movement. I think a lot of people feared that women having careers would cause modern civilization to crumble. And true, it has changed modern Western family structure a bit, though civilization is still more or less intact 😉 Besides, Western civilization isn’t the only “modern” civilization in the world, and other modern civilizations have different family structures and definitions of family.
Thanks, Hikari.
Just a reminder: Hikari has an excellent blog:
https://hikarisblog.wordpress.com/
Doesn’t your “disruptive'”need quite a lot of qualification here, LSM?
“Affect(ing) industry, the economy, the environment, education, infrastructure, knowledge, research, the arts and humanities, the law, the economy.”?
I mean, if we speak of a big/small person intimate relation “per se”, that can hardly be ‘disruptive’ in the same way that (reproductively) crossing the kinship barrier, with all its *biological* consequences, would be, right? Isn’t it important to at least distinguish our analyses of these things in terms of, respectively, a pre- and a post-contraceptive world?
With what you write you appear to feel that both can be blended together, when it seems obvious to me – especially when one speaks in terms of of such wholly present-day phenomena as “paedophiles’ and “paedophobia”, which as your own explorations at ConsentingHumans have touched upon, are very much the ‘end product’ of liberal democracy and all that moves and churns within it…in a sense,the ‘child’ hungrily wants to ‘consume’ adulthood’, even as the adult, reciprocally and retrospectively, wants to consume ‘innocence’ – even if the broad mass of persons does not think of it in quite that way!
I would love to know if your studies of the Marquesans (Oh, enviable Herman!!!) revealed to you any inkling of the point at which expansion beyond this relative *cultural enclave” encounters the kind of stigma that we could compare in some way to today’s truly terrifying, all-pervasive TABOO (never let us forget where we got that word from!), a taboo made all the more maddening given our society’s perpetual promotion of unblemished youth as the primary, maximally desirable and ideal good?
Ha, I would go on, but I’ve now stumbled over your concluding line, in which you say our “dreams” ought to tailor themselves to “how things are”! I suppose that, when men dreamed of flight, they did indeed have to ‘tailor’ that dream to gravity, but can we say at any time in culturo-political life that such-and-such is the “way things ARE”?
(Heading for a revisit of your parallels between homosexuality and paedophilia now…)
>I suppose that, when men dreamed of flight, they did indeed have to ‘tailor’ that dream to gravity
Well put, Mr Turp!
Let me begin by saying that I know sweet bugger all about the Marquesas Islands and the culture there; for that matter, anthropology isn’t an area I’ve read a lot if. But:
Are you talking about possessiveness? What little I have read suggests that our cultural tradition places great emphasis on the child as a possession that needs to be “protected” due to the benefits it can bring. Even if it is sexual, it isn’t allowed to be sexual, for fear of all sorts of things. As I remember, this was the foundation of the child rights movement of the 60s and early 70s
More importantly, I am not sure that children are regarded as asexual in all of contemporary society. An anecdote for you: M, over a cup of coffee, answered my question as to how her son was by saying words to the effect of I don’t know what to think, I walked into his room this morning and he was masturbating like a beauty. I guess I have to knock now. He was about 7 at the time.
Many parents are aware of their sexuality in just this way: they walk in on it. What they fear is potential harm from sexual contact with adults, based on their mistaken belief that children do not possess agency.
Can this belief be changed? Surely it can, and without upsetting kinship groupings or society as a whole.
I’m confused as to how consent for transitioning is all that different from consent to intimacy in your statements, especially considering that children (and some teenagers) specifically cannot start hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) and therefore make physical and physiological changes to themselves – all changes made will be social and appearance related. Consequences for transition are generally foreseeable (both with and without HRT), as they are laid out by medical professionals, some school workers, and support groups for trans children and their parents. Consequences from transition may be disruptive, but gender dysphoria is also very disruptive, and normal puberty for cis children also tends to be disruptive to some degree. In children who are not going through HRT, all consequences are reversible, and even with HRT there are things you can do to reverse the process. So in the end I’m not quite sure how your objection to transitioning holds up when with your allowance of consensual intimacy.
I’m also intrigued as to why you’re against the undermining of gender roles, especially when you mention that you want all exploration to be “under the child’s control” – strict gender roles enforced by family and society are often what forces children to be unable to freely explore gender, gender identity, and gender expression.
>” strict gender roles enforced by family and society are often what forces children to be unable to freely explore gender, gender identity, and gender expression”
I know that this now amounts to ‘heresy’ (I hope that this is permissible here in the home for the ultimate heretics…) but it strikes me that gender roles are much more a consequence of biology than of society. Moreover, though my knowledge of anthropology is limited, my impression is that male and female roles have been pretty constant throughout human history: man, the provider of goods and security – woman, the child-rearer and home-maker.
I’d go further and note that the behaviour of especially social mammals is gender differentiated – the allocation of tasks according to capability is a good way of facing the challenges of existence.
I would also argue that this is part of what has allowed humanity to survive and prosper over the past few hundred thousand years.
This is not to say we should be trapped by these roles, especially in societies which have solved the most pressing challenges of survival and existence.
I just think that social experimentation with a fundamental aspect of what has allowed us to survive as a species should occur empirically, not ideologically – in other words we should advance with caution, and not aspire to break the system – Society is a delicate thing and like Douglas Adam’s proverbial cat – If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.
>my impression is that male and female roles have been pretty constant throughout human history
But most of our “history” is prehistoric. Back in the countless millennia before the invention of agriculture and bread, the “breadwinners” were often women as well as men, and indeed girls as well as boys.
There would have been much variability according to local circumstances though. Our lengthy tropical origins gave us a lot of low hanging fruit in the most literal sense: the “breadwinner” of these pickings could perfectly well have been children, and often are, as modern hunter gatherer studies demonstrate. Kids can hunt small animals efficiently too.
We only need look at the evolved muscle-power of men compared to women and children, though, to understand that specialised male strength has been needed for a very long time. So, yes, you have a point: but variability and adaptability are crucial.
>Society is a delicate thing and like Douglas Adam’s proverbial cat – If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.
Not to worry, LSM! If the cat is going to be taken apart it will not be by us. It is not as though we will be invading parliament (except by invitation!) and sparking off a bloody revolution. Your newfound Burkean (or Adamsesque) caution is very responsible but I rather think the revolutionary excesses will be coming from elsewhere if they come at all.
What about the pronoun coup though? And the “restroom” revolt? Arguably these take the cat apart more thoroughly than the French Revolution ever did but perhaps not with consequences as awful as the clashes produced over and over again by assertive traditional masculinity.
I really have to jump clean out of my catsuit at this, LSM
“but it strikes me that gender roles are much more a consequence of biology than of society”
I have one question to ask you and it is this: how do you think any “society” would ever have been able to conceive of such concepts as “biology” in the very first place, if there wasn’t a sacrality putting in place those fierce interdictions that irrevocably interrupted indiscriminate breeding?
I want to say much more but must leave my ‘fleshing out’ til later.
But LSM, you seems to be well aware that so-called “paedophobia” is at the deepest level the result of “kinship structures”, but what do we then say of the inconceivably great gobs of time preceding the advent of persecution of ‘paedos’ circa 1975? Are we to say that the “child” was never really an object of real DESIRE prior to this? Did the incest prohibition (which is what you have in mind i’m sure) extend so wide as to preclude in most places the very formation of desires pertaining to small, more or less perfectly-formed beings? To the best of our knowledge witches were not persecuted before the 15th century, so what happened there? What *event* was it that set that thing in motion?
Outta here afore i go BOOM
I was planning on bowing out with my last comment – the criticism of my remarks are coming like space-invaders, at every greater density, and I’m running out of time and disposition to address them all…but I can’t resist the temptation you have dangled before my rheumy eyes (and roomy trousers…)
>”great gobs of time preceding the advent of persecution of ‘paedos’ circa 1975″
Kinship structures (or maybe I should say ‘the family’ – I may have been using ‘kinship structure’ where ‘family structure’ may have been more accurate…) changed around that 1975. Before that the most relevant changes being with industrialisation in the 17th and 18th centuries, which made the nuclear family predominant and gave the ‘innocent child’ archetype (till then the archetype had much to do with Original Sin), and then in the 1970s with the change from industrial capitalism to consumer capitalism which (it’s my theory anyway) introduced a competing archetype of the child into the culture – the child was no longer just the ‘innocent child’ but was also ‘the consumer child’. The latter, because marketing knows that the most powerful incentive to consumption is sexuality, has been increasingly sexualised (and with a very ‘adult’ type of sexuality) in the media (see the rise of the teenager, then the tweens, and children’s current and absolute submersion in pop culture). So there exist two archetypes – the innocent child and the sexualised consumer child. These confused and contradictory archetypes create anxiety in parents, and the culture in general, vis a vis the sexual status of children – and the ‘paedophile’ is the most potent lightning-rod for that fear.
Another factor which intensifies this is that children have come to spend virtually all their time either in the family or in equivalents of the family (school, sports clubs – where adults are there in loco parentis) – thus depriving children of relationships and contexts where their sexuality can be legitimately expressed.
That is my potted summary of how kinship structures, plus other factors – have led to contemporary paedophobia. The child’s identity and isolation within the nuclear family is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for contemporary paedophobia, the family being an institution in which there exists no relationship which wouldn’t violate the incest taboo at its most intense, if it became sexual.
>”Did the incest prohibition (which is what you have in mind i’m sure) extend so wide as to preclude in most places the very formation of desires pertaining to small, more or less perfectly-formed beings? ”
I understand that incest taboos are universal but I would keep Incest taboo and the prohibition on child-adult intimacy quite separate as concepts. Incest taboos may apply to ‘offspring’ but not ‘children’. It only does when the child’s place within the kinship structure (it’s primary identity) does not allow for legitimate expressions of sexuality. I think there is evidence of this in legal systems that arose in times where the kinship structures were wider and which have been fossilized – Sharia law, is a ‘perfectly amber-preserved specimen’ of the norms and laws of 7th Century Arabia – Mohammed’s Koran (4:23) forbids incest as far as, but not including, cousins. It however allows child marriage and intercourse with (married) prepubescent girls. From my reading of the Hadith kinship structures in Mohammed’s tribe (the Qarazya) were very wide and all encompasing, and flexible – a lot of fostering etc (or at least in the polytheist tribes that preceded Mohammed’s reign) – this would mean that children . Other tribes have the incest taboo but do not forbid child sexuality.
I suspect that before children were ‘imprisoned’ in the family and family-type institutions, the fact that children could range freely and have unsupervised friendships – also allowed society to conceive of them as sexual. I suspect that in the pre-70s this was the case – I seem to remember judges saying things to the effect that such and such little girl was a bit of a sex-pot and that she was as much to blame for what happened as the paedophile’, and this being accepted as a reasonable point to make. The fact that children had a space to be legitimately sexual in allowed society to conveive of children as sexual beings.
I am not at all confident that gender roles are as strict as what seems to be suggested here. A role, after all, is a role, not granite.
What of people who are not paedosexual, but who have sexual relations “opportunistically” once (let’s say just once). Have they passed from one role to another?
So the question is: is teleiophila a role and paedosexuality another? Between which we can pass when the situation occurs for such a change of role? But let’s make it more difficult: a heterosexual (gynephilic, if you prefer) teleiophile has sexual relations with a boy of 10…
Roles as they are presented conceptually, say in the media, are not roles as lived, and surely any lived role depends on circumstances, as much as anything, and may alter in different circumstances.
Just a thought.
>‘Paedophobia’ may be a necessary condition for living in civilised, advanced societies. This may not be good news – but civilisation is a fragile thing – planned economies run on ideological bases tend to fail – is there any reason to think that reconfiguring the sexual and kinship structure of a society on ideological basis can be done any more successfully?
I presume from your spelling you are British and therefor not fully aware of the immense incarceration rate for SO’s in the US. It was not so, not that long ago. Civilization did quite well when intergenerational relationships, albeit in the shadows, were not demonized to the extent they are today. Do you suppose that this extreme demonization is necessary for the existence of a civilized society?
>”Do you suppose that this extreme demonization is necessary for the existence of a civilized society?”
Almost certainly not. There are (or have been) less virulently ‘paedophobic’ modern Western societies. But I suggest that the extremity of the demonisation may be connected to how society conceives of ‘the child’, and how threatened that conception currently is (or seems).
But I think you are mistaking the nature of my assertion:
I’m NOT saying that paedophobia is a GOOD THING because it may be necessary for the existence of civilised society.
What I AM saying that paedophobia may be necessary for the existence of civilised society.
If I had to make a value judgement on this observation, it would NOT be that it is a good thing – I would love to believe that licit adult-child intimacy was compatible with the society I live in and love, but Life has taught me that what I want is rarely what I get…
I am ready to defend my reasons for thinking this, but that doesn’t mean I HAPPY about this conclusion. Nor does it mean that we shouldn’t do everything to diminish paedophobia, hysteria and ignorance surrounding paedophilia, and do everything to protect children too from paedophobic hysteria.
I’m just saying that this could be something we have to take into consideration in our thinking. I would also argue that the theory behind this conclusion explains a hell of a lot more of the observable facts about society’s response to paedophilia, and to children and their sexuality than the ‘people hate us because they are ignorant and hateful’ hypothesis of paedophobia.
But I might be wrong, and would be happy to be persuaded that I am wrong as mine is not a cheering observation.
However, whether it’s cheering or not has no effect on its validity or truth.
‘Paedotopia at any Cost’ is no longer my motto.
Nor has it ever been the motto of the pro-choice camp, at least not among the majority who supports youth liberation and insists young people should be allowed to become active participants in formulating the rules of society and of their own treatment within it. You know this, Lensman, and you have always known this, as the glory days of your blog often made clear. However, you are forced to pretend you are “dense” about this matter in order to remotely rationalize your emotionalistic repudiation of these principles and your embracing of the type of cynicism and misanthropy that the protectionist and savior mindset demands. Talking to us like we are that stupid and as if we are as unaware of your knowledge of what the pro-choice camp actually stands for as you are pretending to be yourself is, frankly, condescending to those who once admired you so much and suggests a decline in honesty to accompany your decline in commitment to principles of universal emancipation.
There is a lot to chew on in your latest post, but I could not help but focus on your invitation to a reception at the House of Lords. I have seen every episode of “keeping Up Appearances” and not once was such an invitation the subject of envy by Hyacinth Bucket. Her vistas were limited to seeking invitations to the mayor’s masked ball. You have certainly reached much higher peaks. Not to be outdone by you, I was once invited to a royal garden reception as have been hordes of others over the years. But then I had none of the baggage you carry. In this respect, you certainly outdid me. Perhaps the both of us could one day do a revival of Patricia Routledge’s hilarious TV series.
>I had none of the baggage you carry.
The baggage was safely stowed elsewhere for the duration of this event. 🙂
Tom, I did not find the Lee and Dreher articles myself. As I told you by email, I found about them in the post by Pro-Pedo Front.
Yes, but you took the trouble to tell me. Thanks for that! And well done Pro-Pedo Front for being so quick off the mark.