Prisoners of Presentism (Reply to Pharmakon)

This is a reply to the thread linked below. I actually printed out your last post, Pharmy, so I could reread it and contemplate it at leisure when I didn't have my computer on. An hour ago, I believe I saw in a flash what was wrong with it, which I shall now attempt to expound. But before I begin, I want to say how grateful I am for your continued presentation of a theoretical perspective with which I somewhat (but not wholly) disagree. So, my dear old fruit, don't take my harsh criticisms personally. Obviously, you and Sick Rose are the two most consequential of the regular contributors here, and the dialectic between you is brilliant. I think that I now see that both the biological determinism of the 'Right' (for want of a better word) and what I shall try to show is your equal determinism of the 'Left', are both alike crude. I want to adumbrate a third path that avoids the extremes. Paradoxically, I will suggest that my approach actually gives us more hope for the distant future than either of the alternative perspectives can realistically support. Now you presented your stance as one that allowed for our agency, whereas the opposed view, you claimed, is pessimistic. Furthermore, you claimed that mentorship pederasty is outdated and cannot be revived. I will argue (1) that your claim that your view grants us agency is largely bogus, and (2) that your claim that mentorship pederasty is outdated unwarrantably eternalises certain contingent present day historical conditions. (1) You keep referring to “our activism”. I have to admit, whenever someone on this site refers to our “activism”, my first thought is “what activism?” All we're doing is talking to ourselves. Activism would consist in confronting others, and this, for us, is basically impossible. Making colourful designs for flags is not quite “activism” in my book. But what do you suggest for our activism? Basically, youth rights, the sexual agency of the young. Fine, but this is arguing for the liberation (if that's the term) of some group other than ourselves. And here I would ask how this can be accomplished except by the group in question, that is, youth. Gay people demanded rights for themselves, not for another group. If we go out and demand the sexual rights of the young, then mainstream society will see through our little ruse designed to permit us to have sex with their kiddies! Surely, that is a complete non-starter. Well, okay, so perhaps youngsters will begin demanding sexual rights for themselves. Well, maybe. Personally, I think that ship probably sailed in the 1960s/70s. But whether that's the case or not, the fact is that there is nothing that we can do about it. Either little kiddies will start demonstrating outside the Old Bailey with banners saying “An Orgasm a Day Keeps the Doctor Away” (which John Mortimer witnessed in 1971 according to his memoir Clinging to the Wreckage, Penguin Books, 1983, p. 11), or they will not. If it happens, it will be the result of vast social forces over which we will have no control whatever. You slide between “our liberation” and “youth liberation”; but if the first depends on the second then the second very much does not depend on us, and our involvement in it would only serve to discredit any nascent movement. So in fact there is nothing for us to do but twiddle out thumbs and wait for the youngsters to make the revolution. This approach leaves us as completely lacking in any agency. (2) You claim that mentorship pederasty can never be revived because “Contemporary capitalism treats the male and the female worker as fungible.” This, I would suggest, merely eternalises contemporary capitalism as an unalterable feature of the human condition. And note here too that you are denying human agency completely, as much as the 'Right', You're saying that a certain level of technology or economics determines how we must behave. Gender is socially constructed, you say, so - hurrah! - humans have agency! But then you tell us that society is determined by economics and technology, so it turns out we have no agency after all! You appear to offer collective human agency with one hand, but then snatch it back with the other. You reject the notion of our being Prisoners of Gender only to make us Prisoners of Economics. Well, you might say, surely I am not suggesting that humanity is likely to smash the machines and go back to primitivism. No indeed. But firstly, do not mistake western society for human society. Around the world right now there are societies at comparable levels of technological sophistication to the US and Europe, but which have a completely different culture. Arab societies, for example. Actually, there are many aspects of Arab society that I find very congenial. I have actually seen video footage of Arab men interacting with boys in ordinary situations, in a way that, to western eyes, seems extraordinarily tender and affectionate, and would have our moralists hyperventilating. Clearly gender roles are more meaningful in these societies than in our own, and certainly offer more opportunities for mentorship pederasty. But in any case, let us consider the broader future of humanity. Suppose that what you say is true, and that some technologies dictate a certain mode of life. Is it not possible that some day, when humanity controls economics rather than being controlled by economics, as is the case in present day capitalist societies, humans – or some of them, at any rate – might actually choose to live a fully human life, even if it means forgoing certain technologies? I believe that, if the human race manages to survive the next hundred or so years, then men and women might indeed decide that they want to live like human beings. They may prefer to live in smaller communities with a sense of belonging. They may decide that they want to experience again what modern westerners have largely lost, the simple pleasures of pure air, the presence of nature, status in a small community, and pride and responsibility in the performance of some socially useful task. And in such communities, why shouldn't mentorship pederasty revive? We may have a long way to go before this becomes possible. First, the rivalries between states must cease. But then without this, humans are doomed anyway. No, there's not much we can do about all this now. But then I have argued that, my dear old fruit, your alternative outlook doesn't really supply us with any program of action either. This doesn't mean our community is useless. We can keep the flame alive through these dark times, we can continue our research, we can catalogue the pederasty of the past that might one day become a shining beacon to the future. And most of all we can help others like us to live productive and meaningful lives – helping them to realise that it is this epoch, and not themselves, that is sick. So let us not eternalise the present, but recognise that, if humanity survives this century, then - just maybe - anything becomes possible. PHARMY'S POST: https://www.boychat.org/messages/1619133.htm (Boychat.org link) https://www.boychat.org/messages/1619133.htm