Talk:Níð

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Contents

[edit] etymological relations

Even though naming all etymological relations I could find at the moment, I've tried to mostly stick to Anglo-Saxon forms, except for yrghi as even Anglo-Saxon earg seems to be closer to ergi even though yrghi is supposed to be the Anglo-Saxon form of ergi. If I'll find the time, I'll try to give English translations within the footnotes themselves for all the sources's names. For now, I'm particularly interested in someone more fluent in English and especially a basic English language grasp particularly at the matter in question to look over all my quotes in the article since I've translated them all myself. Furthermore, don't be surprised about the bottom section (Potential historical context of nith ), there'll be material to appear in there soon, just as the sections Nith in relation to biological sex, Nith, physical ailments, and illness, and especially Nith and witches will further grow. -TlatoSMD 03:09, 15 Mai 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Seid Merge

Resolved.

Why merge? Kim van der Linde at venus 01:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On the definition of "chastity"

Resolved.

By using the English term "chastity", I've tried to translate that traditional Indo-European notion or attitude referred to as Leibfeindlichkeit by Dr. Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg in German and that Dr. Hubert Kennedy translated as "hostility of the body" in his English translation of her work The paedophile impulse. --TlatoSMD 04:33, 11 August 2006 (CEST)

Talked to an erudite, germanophone American scholar about Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg's specific use of Leibfeindlichkeit now, and it seems like asceticism is a better choice for translation. --TlatoSMD 19:57, 10 March 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Persons

Resolved.

I am not clear whether people are called niding or some people considered themselves niding? --Error 17:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It was a clearly negatively connoted label. No person in their right mind would have identified themselves as a nithing because the very concept itself contained a moral obligation of doing away with them in most violent and hostile ways. --Tlatosmd 06:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moral turpitude

User:Aleta has removed my link to the main entry moral turpitude from the section Nith, seid, and criminality. Did you find it "not appropriate" because the pertaining article describes moral turpitude as being strictly an American legal term? I had added the term after finding it in Night of the Long Knives on Goebbels's and Hitler's justifications regarding Röhm's homosexuality, and how American is that? Furthermore, don't you see a striking, almost 1:1 resemblance between the misdemeanors and crimes listed under moral turpitude and those associated with nithings here?

Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, my main source for this article, expounds for hundreds of pages on the history of homophobia in the Western world since Kurganization. The nithing is the main concept she operates with because this Norse version of the mythological origins of homophobia is the least rationalized, thus most "purest" or original form available to cultural anthropology in Western history of Indo-European cultures, at least at these earliest stages of Norse culture still researchable. According to Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, these mythological roots of homophobia, as best-recognizable, most basic and typical in proto-historic Norse culture, are themselves the Western core concept of ethnocentric reactions of horror and hatred towards not only all deviant sexuality in general, but also of the idea of moral depravity in general, compare for instance Malakia (effeminacy) (formerly Classical definition of effeminacy) or the closely related Indo-European concept of imbecillitas, English imbecility (note Tacitus's term imbelles in this article on nithings!) on that.

Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg makes her way across Kurganization, Norse culture, monotheisms, Greece and Rome, Byzantine Emperor Justinian I's invention of the Sodom myth (that the Genesis account would have anything to do with carnal sins), Benedictus Levita's forged Charlemagnian capitularies in the Pseudo-Isidore prolonging the existence of the Sodom myth (see Sodomy on the latter two issues), the carnal sin laws from the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina and more recent developments. She thereby finds largely identical cultural notions even though reading most sources in their original languages and most thoroughly and exhaustingly avoiding purely ethnocentric or chronocentric interpretations in the spirit of our own times, and she witnesses increasingly pseudo-scientific rationalizations prolonging the old numinous, ethnocentric prejudices as history progresses. Finally, Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg uses the inherent, typically homophobic patterns in the justifications by Hitler and Goebbels for the Night of the Long Knives as evidence, among many other examples from modern history, on how little this numinous ethnocentric notion of sexual deviance, especially homosexuality, as the primary indicator and association of moral depravity, general unreliability, insidiousness, criminal tendency, weirdness, creepiness, and entire untrustworthiness has actually changed over the centuries from the mythological nithing fiend.

So, with this background and the fact the entry for Night of the Long Knives uses the term, wouldn't you agree that moral turpitude is quite a fitting main entry for that section, especially regarding the basically identical list of crimes and misdemeanors here as well as in the article for moral turpitude? --TlatoSMD (talk) 01:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of simply removing the link, I should have put it in a "see also" section. Without the connection being more explicit in the articles, no, I don't think it should be listed as a "main article" link though. Aleta (Sing) 02:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Per this discussion, I've just added moral turpitude to the "see also" section. Aleta (Sing) 02:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for responding so fast this time. I agree with your new decision. :) --TlatoSMD (talk) 02:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
You're welcome. BTW, with regards to the rating (for which I'm formulating my comments), you seem to have the impression that a B rating is negative. On the contrary, it's the highest rating an article can get without having been nominated and going through either the more formal good article or featured article process (which does imply, of course, that improvements could still be made). Aleta (Sing) 02:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I've removed a few more of your "main article" links. Basically, you should use that template when you have a section of your article summarizing a topic that is the subject of its own article - such as the section on ergi here. In the sections for, e.g. shamanism, you are discussing how this Nið and it relate, but not summarizing shamanism in general. So it is absolutely relevant to link, but shouldn't be a "main article" link. Does this make sense? Aleta (Sing) 03:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarity

Hi, the lede needs clarity clean-up. If you had only ten seconds, Níð is what? It sounds like its a mythological concept but I'm not sure. The various other spelling should probably be clumped into parenthesis (so readers more easily understand it's the same word in other languages). I think the second and third sentences should focus on it's implications followed by other forms of the word. That's just my quick feedback, don't be disheartened when folks only read the lede we're a low attention-span society after all. Benjiboi 04:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

In ten seconds? Then I'd say "evil", especially evil associated with lecherousness and sexual deviance. For the time span and culture this article particularly deals with, the most evil form of inherently evil sexual deviance were male same-sex activities and desire for them, but according to main source Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg this most prominent place among sexual deviances, as ethnocentrically defined as evil due to what particularly in Norse culture was called nith, has been replaced by certain other paraphilia increasingly since the Age of Enlightenment and especially so post-WWII.
As much as I remember this article once contained the word evil a few times but it was replaced by an editor with "malicious" or "malevolence" (of course malice, as in malevolent intent, was part of being a nithing as well) because they felt that modern science and philosophy would have debunked the very concept of "evil". One might argue of course that this article deals with a pre-scientific culture where people still believed in evil, and one might also argue that this societal and cultural notion has survived the rise of modern science quite well, especially in the case of sexual deviance. Keywords for Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg here are the remaining numinosity of certain irrational prejudices that are inherently mythological in origin, with pseudo-scientifically rationalized transcendental/supernatural connotations. Example: "Evil" and malevolence in homosexuals was re-defined by ideological pseudo-science as mental illness (the keyword being moral insanity) and selfishness. --TlatoSMD (talk) 12:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Lol. I'm way too short-attention span for in-depth articles at the moment but I've fluffed the lede a bit for clarity. I suggest working in "evil associated with lecherousness and sexual deviance" if you have a source that covers it - if you have a quote even better as folks seem to respect quotes a bit more. Benjiboi 16:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)