User talk:Ajz123

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Contents 1 Tell me what you think 2 OK 3 guideline 4 indeed, truth is stranger than fiction 5 arghh... 6 the pederasty nut 7 just a check 8 O'Reilly and GTMO

[edit] Tell me what you think

[edit] OK

looks a bit spartan, voila!

J. Crocker 15:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] guideline

"official" wikipedia policy: guideline for dispute resolution

J. Crocker 20:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] indeed, truth is stranger than fiction

You've got to be kidding me, enjoy!

can you say DOGMA

J. Crocker 20:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] arghh...

Great! Now I got Haiduc on my a$$. He doesn't like the NPOV tag I put on the Spartan Pederasty section. He's quite confrontational... good luck with him. :)

J. Crocker 02:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the pederasty nut

Yes, I see it as my task to de-heterosexualize whatever articles I encounter that have left out what I, and many others, consider to be an integral part of the historical record. Imagine, two thousand years from now, an encyclopaedia article about that lost civilization known as the USA which left out all mention of spectator sports, or television. It is just like that when you come across an article on, say, ancient Greek education which primly sidesteps any mention of pederasty.

I understand it is embarrassing to many people, and disturbing to many others. I understand it and do not understand it. Why are we not embarrassed and disturbed about violence and militarism, both in the past and in the present? The terrible, constant warfare of antiquity, the horror of having to live in walled towns, in lawless days (remember Melos?). I am sure I do not have to dwell upon that, you catch my drift. As for the present, this very beautiful nightmare we are living in, it is worse than the past.

If you wish to debate the objectivity of the article on Sparta, I will welcome the exchange. It can only make the article stronger, and the pederasty articles could certainly use some critical reviews. Unfortunately the topic is radioactive to many, and often the few that wander in do so under their own personal compulsion or religious programming and are anything but objective. Regards, Haiduc 01:52, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello Ajz123. You have raised many issues that are worth discussing, and while time forces me to be laconic I hope that I can still do them justice. The issue of intellectual honesty is perhaps the central one. I appreciate that it is your aim, as it is mine. The main accusation I have against much of the coverage given to male love in antiquity, as well as in many other topics which involve erotic relations between males, is precisely a lack of intellectual honesty. Subjectivity is the undoing of a lot of intellectual honesty, don't you think?

The issue of revisionism is also of interest. All history is revisionistic. If not for revisionism we would fire all historians and close the books, so to speak, on historical research and analysis. But there is revisionism and revisionism. Some is driven by honest research and other by political prerogatives.

Regarding Xenophon, we are in agreement. You, however, would seem to want to create a new category for the ancient Greeks, that of relations between men and boys which were loving and pedagogic but not pederastic because they were chaste. Such a category, to the best of my knowledge, did not exist. The various poleis developed each their own brand of pederasty, which itself was subject to evolution and change over time. Depending on time and place, the pederasty was more or less pedagogic, libidinal or chaste. I agree with you that the Spartan version was notable for its emphasis on utility and abnegation of personal pleasure. That, after all, was the pattern for everything in Sparta. But now to turn around and claim that, because the men while loving the boys did not sleep with them, it is not pederasty is simply not tenable. It was clearly a chaste form of pederasty, and recognized as such by the ancients.

We are also in agreement on the somewhat cavalier treatment that the moderns have given these claims of chastity. I was particularly put off by Percy, who in a recent paper, claims that "The coupling of young unmarried adult males with teenaged youths had to stimulate homosexuality, whatever "Lycurgus" decreed and Xenophon believed." As we both know, it was not Xenophon alone, but also, for example, Plutarch and Aelian who accepted this claim. There are probably many reasons why people sexualize Spartan pederasty, but whatever they may be I think it is a mistake. Not to say that there were no trespasses, but the main point is beyond debate, as I see it. I thought I had reflected that in the article on Spartan pederasty, let me know if you think it needs to be further emphasized.

Your analogy with racism is itself poor. There is no intrinsic crime in pederasty, though aspects of it may well have been criminal, as in the rape of Chrysippus. I "charge" no one, I simply document erotic relations beteen men and boys without, hopefully, burdening the discussion with my personal emotional or judgemental baggage. I do not think pederasty, per se, is either good or bad. It has many forms, some better and some worse. No one single judgement can possibly be passed by anyone regarding such a complex and widespread human custom. Nor is it my place to judge it. I simply wish to document it, as accurately as possible.

I look forward to your comments. Regards, Haiduc 10:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure what exactly your eyes are being opened to, since pederasty ranges from completely legal to completely illegal. If you were living in London, rather than Chicago, you could be in a loving, erotic relationship with a sixteen year old boy and be completely law abiding. Your conflation of pedophilia, a compulsive affliction of disfunctional men who can only relate sexually to prepubertal children, with Greek pederasty, an elective relationship between a paragon of society with the adolescent son of another aristocrat, is so far off the mark as to be beyond any refutation. It is, as they say, not even wrong. I have no opinion about pedophilia - no more than I do about cancer or heart disease. Physical disfunction, mental disfunction, all afflictions are unfortunate and fit objects of our compassion. That you should compare an involuntary condition to a failure of morals and intelligence such as racism strikes me as self-serving and worthy of some serious exploration. Your jumping on the bandwagon of demonization of a few unfortunates is not a pretty sight, no more than street people in old England pelting men in the pillory with rotten vegetables or dead cats.

As for your contention that pederasty is necessarily sexual, good luck. It is not a view generally accepted in academia, nor by the ancients you proclaim to love so much. The sexualization of pederasty is an old trick, but it only works with the uninformed. As for the article on Sparta, it is completely in keeping with current historical thought. You are welcome to take a contrarian view, and to adduce evidence supporting your fringe contention. I for one would be interested to see it, and I am sure we can make a place in the Wikipedia for it, if properly referenced. Haiduc 20:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

My dear friend, your problem is not with the moderns, it is with the ancients. It is with Plato, who blames the Spartans for Greek pederasty, it is with Xenophon who talks about Spartan pederasty at length (I do not have the original handy to tell you what terms he uses). It is with Plutarch, and it is with Aelian. It so happens I do have Aelian's Varia Historia (3.10) handy. Here are the terms he uses: Of the love between the Spartan man and his boy, he calls it "eros." The man is repeatedly termed the "erastes" and the boy, his "paidika." This, I am sorry to have to tell you, is the terminology of Greek pederasty. I am quite confident that similar vocabulary is used by the other ancient sources. And, mind you, Aelian is one who praises Spartan pederasty for being chaste.

You use the term "amorous" in your condemnation of our hypothetical British lovers. You would be disgusted, you say. Fine. De gustibus, and all that. Though I see no need to make a big fuss over your preferences, or to use them as a soapbox. But what exactly do you think Cicero was talking about when he reported that the Spartans "allow embraces and a common couch to lovers"?! What is that if not amorous behavior? The fact that Spartan male couples did not make love, strictly speaking (and I do accept that to have been the rule) does not mean that tenderness and affection and passion were banned as well, on the contrary.

We have many things in common, you and I, despite of our many differences. Our love of classical culture is high on that list, as is our ease in speaking our minds. Spartan qualities both, don't you think? And in particular we both admire Spartan pederastic practices, this amorous but chaste pedagogy that they cultivated, this non-pederastic pederasty as you would have it, and that was such a great factor in their strength. That seems to be the point you miss, that they as men could feel passionate love for a boy without "lust in your heart." To paraphrase the singer, "What does sex have to do with it?" Let me further suggest to you that we are both the poorer for having been deprived of such a boon in our youth, and we in turn wrong the young around us in witholding our love, our decorous and chaste love, from them if withold is what we do. I don't care what you call it, chaste pederasty, or eros without pederasty. As long as the norms of the law and of one's personal sense of decency are followed, eros in such a relationship is the magic potion of the Greeks - including the Spartans - the distillation of their wisdom. How can you possibly love the Spartans and deny them their reality all in the same breath?

Finally, let me add that pedophilia is not the ability to fall in love with the young. We all have that ability, unless we have been damaged somehow. It is the compulsion to act out that love sexually, coupled with the inability to form real relationships with people our own age. Don't flog the term unnecessarily, it is a very specific medical one. Haiduc 03:31, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I would contest that the onslaught is only fifty years old. Take a look at John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter, both of whom wrote on the subject a hundred years ago or more. As for the recent work, starting with Dover (now criticized as having a mechanistic and limited view) in the late seventies, it stands to reason that it is a reflection of a freer intellectual atmosphere. My explorations of the ancients are quite limited because my focus is sexual history rather than antiquity per se. However I find that it is possible to get pretty much anything from the Loeb Classical Library. The problem, as always, is that you have to rely on the intellectual integrity and ability of the translator unless you have Greek and Latin.

I disagree with your view of hugging, past and present. Even the non-erotic kind of physical display common in sports is rare to nonexistent elsewhere in modern American life, males are terrified of touching each other for fear of being thought gay. The kind of intimacy described by Cicero, which he claims stopped just short of intercourse, if engaged in with our hypothetical sixteen year old would land you in jail in the US. Yes, guys shower together naked, but not high school coaches with their players, nor do the coaches reflect admiringly on the physiques of the boys.

Can love exist apart from sexuality? Well yes, it can. My love for my dog is not erotic. Human beings, though? Do you know that line from Marlowe's Hero and Leander? "When both deliberate, the love is slight / Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" And what is first sight love if not erotic? Can a man love a youth without that erotic spark? Yes, of course. Is there a qualitative difference between the two kinds of love? What do you think? I too will go to great lengths for friends as well as for family, regardless of erotic feelings. But I hold erotic friendship (actualized or not) to be superior, in that it comes closer to dissolving the boundaries of ego, our fundamental selfishness and sense of self-importance. Perhaps soldiers in war reach the same place. But for us ordinary mortals such a situation is neither possible nor desirable, while erotic egolessness is within everyone's reach. Still, as the Greeks used to say, "Many are the thyrsus-bearers, few the mystics."

I think what trips us up in the discussion of Lycurgus' law is just semantics. I do not think that the lawgiver thought to ban erotic excitement but carnal craving. But I have neither Xenophon's text, nor sufficient knowledge of Greek to prove my point. Thanks for the book recommendation. Haiduc 03:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Other people's opinions of my alleged bias are just that. Let's restrict ourselves to the facts of the matter, rather than personalizing the debate. There are many definitions of pederasty because the word has been variously used. They are all "true." They are not all reflective of the academic use of the word in fields such as history, anthropology and sexology. Dictionary definitions in particular seem to have more in common with legal and ecclesiastical parlance. Interesting conjuncture, don't you think? If all the definitions of pederasty you have found restrict themselves to sexual mechanics then I would very seriously suggest to you that you have not immersed yourself properly in the subject. Perhaps you have no wish to do so, but then do not be surprised if those who have studied it more deeply hold views at odds with yours.

This novel suggestion your are now advancing, that gay scholars should be disqualified from discussions of same-sex relations, is certainly worthy of consideration. Should we further specify that "straight" researchers should abstain from study of relations between men and women and that only virgins should expound on sex?

Did I imply that team sports were hotbeds of sublimated homosexuality? I don't recall, and I am no psychologist. Anyway, I have no opinion on that. But we are talking about the Spartans here. Would you like to go on record as holding that the Spartan practice of athletic nudity, men and boys exercising together naked, had no erotic component? That their innovation of annointing tanned muscular bodies with pricey olive oil the better to glisten in the Mediterranean sun was unrelated to the appreciation of bodily beauty? That their custom of sacrificing to Eros before battle showed a disdain for the power of love, erotic love, not mere philia, to energize men to the point of disregarding death? That the naked boy dances, the Gymnopaedia, were innocent of awareness of the beauty of the boys? And that the synchronicity between the Spartan adoption of nude athletics and of open pederasty is purely coincidental?

That quote of Xenophon, it must be noted, is about the love of boys - "paidikôn erôtôn" as he states it, in his own words. And what does he say, if you read it closely? He presents two extremes - cities where men make love to boys more or less freely, and cities where such relations are forbidden altogether. Which category do you think Sparta falls in? Wrong! Sparta is in a category of its own - it is a place where boy love is encouraged, yet sexual relations are excluded. But boy love it is, and a literal interpretation of Xenophon's claim that it is only the soul of the boy that must attract the lover would be a lot more plausible if those Spartans only kept a tunic on those kids, and refrained from rubbing fine oil onto their lithe bodies.

In conclusion, you are right - it is a mistake to see pederastic desire everywhere. But it is a bigger, and sadder, mistake, to deny its existence where everyone but you acknowledges it. Haiduc 04:05, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I find myself obliged to draw some boundaries in this discussion. First of all I object to your repeated attempts to personalize what needs to be an academic discussion. The sexuality of scholars, my personal contacts with the homonymous press and other researchers in the field, whether or not my mind is unchangeable, none of these topics are any of our business here. I regret my own part in this digression, such as having indulged you with my attempt to treat humorously your reference to the sexuality of historians writing on homosexuality. What we are discussing is the factuality of a series of articles. Furthermore, within the scope of this discussion I would prefer that we stick to the topic, rather than jumping all over the place.

You have not responded to my rebuttal of your contention regarding Xenophon and the Spartans. Please do so or concede the point.

You have issued repeated demands for a "definition" of pederasty. What's the point? Has not the topic been sufficiently described in the articles to which I have contributed? I am largely in agreement with those definitions - and there have to be many since the practice as well as the use of the word have been in flux for the past three thousand years.

As I mentioned before, I welcome your questioning of the facts and premises of these articles, and will continue to collaboarate with you and any others who are interested in improving them. But I do not have the time or interest for anything else - I lead a very busy life, especially now at the end of the school year, and I give more than enough of my time to the Wikipedia. Haiduc 12:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

There is an argument going on in the article Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. Perhaps you would like to express your opinion.Cretanpride 22:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] just a check

do you still login to wp?

J. Crocker 01:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Kinda. For the last 3 weeks my computer was down. I had to completely reinstall windows for the second time. All that is fixed now. My opinion of wikipedia has certainly changed for the worse however. The level of bias on anything regarding people, history, or controversial subjects is out of hand. So much so that I don't think Wikipedia is worth its existence. That probably is too harsh, but I find it very frustrating. Ajz123 00:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

If you've ever read, say, a 1930s Amercian encyclopedia, you'll find plenty of biased articles with outrageous tone. Consider the entry for Japan or Germany. With today's standards I'm sure we'd call each of those articles "racist" and obviously biased to ramp-up hatred for each nation. I think wikipedia preserves this bias, what I'd call a temporal bias, where the articles reflect the zeitgeist of the time in which they were written.

List some of the ones you've found on here that are the worst... I want to read them. And after all, if it drives you that crazy, take the time to start a new section of an article that reflects your viewpoint, come back 4 days later and see if and how it has been altered. I hope you don't run into more Haiducs out there, these people that watch articles like a hawk. Just try to change George W. Bush's entry, and it gets reverted in 5 seconds!

J. Crocker 04:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] O'Reilly and GTMO

The problem was that O'Reilly went there and said everything was peachy, when evidently it wasn't. I don't think anyone suggested that his visit was connected with the suicides... it's that he maybe overlooked something in his analysis of Guantanamo, and as outspoken as he has been about that situation, he kind of got hoist on his own petard, thanks in part to some bad timing. That's why I think it's worth mentioning in the criticisms or wherever, although I was not the one who posted it there originally. Wahkeenah 01:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• The news media connected the dots on it. If you don't think it's important, then zap it. Wahkeenah 02:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)