Re: Popping in...

Thanks for your response! The point I was making about gender not being a restriction was that who we are is not normally felt as a restriction. For example, I don't regard my being male as a restriction. I simply see it as who I am. Now in some societies gender roles may be seen as restrictive. Equally well, they may not. The mere fact that there are such things as roles does not imply that they are a "restriction". To see every aspect of our social roles as a restriction is to assume a concept of the individual whose identity is in no way constituted by his social relationships, an atomic individual capable of making free choices in a social vacuum. Of course, this sort of thinking fits capitalist society like a glove, since capitalism, ever since the Industrial Revolution, has always "liberated" people from their social roles and relationships in order to make them into better producers and consumers. On the main point, well, I really have nothing to say about girls; that's for others. But the idea that there is no room in our society for pedagogic pederasty is, I think, belied by historical experience. And insofar as there is no room for pedagogic pederasty in contemporary society then this is an indictment of society. Think of what Norman Douglas did with his boys, for example. It would be difficult to maintain that boys like Eric and René did not benefit profoundly from Douglas' mentorship. You only have to read their letters (some of which are reproduced on the GLTTA site) to see that. The pedagogy is an education in mind, manners, morality and civilised values. It is not reducible to teaching a few "facts". It has arisen throughout the more enlightened epochs in human history again and again. To dismiss it on the ground that it doesn't fit in with modern society is to be a Prisoner of Presentism. We should rather reject modern society because it has no place for pedagogic pederasty. With regard to your last point, the examples you give are surely precisely examples of rejection of high technology, mass production, etc in favour of craft. In other words, it is precisely an example of the forgoing of technology that I was recommending as essential for humans to retain their humanity, and which Pharmakon seemed to be rejecting as reactionary (though maybe I do Pharmakon an injustice).