Re: Or none at all.

First of all, since this is my first reply to one of your posts since your recent reappearance, can I say how delighted I am that you are back. Apart from that, I'm asking for clarification of what your distaste for antiquity is about. There are two things I don't understand. First, what do you mean by "that model of pederastic relationships"? I think one can posit certain things that the practise of pederasty in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, pre-Meiji Japan, Renaissance Florence and pre-modern Islam had in common, things I admit I would think probably key to its having worked well, but within this common frame, I can hardly think of practices more different than the Greek or Roman. Nor am I at all confident what you have in mind as the model for either. Particularly in Greece, I'd say there were wide variations. If you are thinking of Plato, just because his thinking is often presented as an ideal model, I would have thought it fair to describe it as uncharacteristic. I am even more confused by your condemnation of the ancient world for "just too much compulsion." In fact, I find it mind-blowing that any pre-modern society should be condemned for compulsion compared with the 21st century. To be sure there were waves of repressive action, as there very much are still today, but these rarely had a deep impact on most people's lives. Where were the police in antiquity, where the huge prisons to hold millions of people, where the bureaucrats to issue your ID card and deport you if you didn't have the right papers or, perhaps more pertinent on this forum, enforce with whom you could have sex or even just flirt with? The inherent problem with modern politics was pointed out by Lord Palmerston in the 1860s. Permanent legislative bodies are lost for things to do if they don't keep inventing new oppressive and unnecessary laws. www.amazon.com/dp/1481222112