Miss Taken wrote:And how the heck do you 'know' that Maklelan. The frequency, role and attitude towards pederasty in Ancient Greek Society has not been sewn up, packaged, and posted. The evidence is NOT conclusive for what you have just suggested. You are boxing the past. You CANNOT make those kind of statements without giving evidence pro and con. (and there IS evidence pro and con)
I'm convinced by the evidence in favor of it. If you feel the evidence is stronger in the opposite direction then, by all means, I'm willing to hear it.
Miss Taken wrote:What on earth are you talking about? Is this an overlap on your other thread about God being a monster?
You tried to assert that human nature is constant, inferring that my conclusions about a shift in moral framework is in error, which can only mean that you contend that those moral frameworks that encapsulate ideologies of war are constant in that eternal human nature. I have already posted published research to the very contrary. You did not engage it, so I recommended it to you. This last time I only referenced it, but that research is pretty clear in the fact that killing and war operated in a completely different ethical context in the ancient world. If you would like to argue otherwise please address that research.
Miss Taken wrote:If you really were serious about this, then you would have been just a little bit more specific.
If/then statements are also known as inferences, and I believe that this one is false. I was very specific. I even explained exactly what kind of economy they had.
Miss Taken wrote:Which area of the Levant?
All areas.
Miss Taken wrote:Which time period?
Up until the end of the autonomy of the Levant.
Miss Taken wrote:How do you 'KNOW' they (as in who is 'they') spent 'all' their time, 'killing' and 'plundering' 'everyone' they could?
Because we have the records of the governments, and they were always out conquesting. Alexander the Great left Macedonia to fight in one battle and never returned because he spent the rest of his life in active conquest.
Miss Taken wrote:And why do you conclude that it was a 'necessary result of the 'status' 'distributive economy'?
Because the ideology of kingship required a centralized power base that could not redistribute wealth back into the working classes without democratizing control of the economy to the point of undermining the legitimization of their rule. This is one of the things that caused the First Intermediate Period in Egypt.
Miss Taken wrote:If you conclude that pederasty was an 'ideal' in ancient Greece, then I have no reason to trust these assumptions either.
Because you know with perfect certainty that my conclusion is in error? Then why do you keep bracketing the word "know" when you question my understanding? Is your ability to [know] something superior to mine without having done any actual research? I've presented arguments. You've just refused to accept them
a priori. That's not the
modus operandi of anyone with even a decent understanding of historical methodology.
Miss Taken wrote:I agree.
Excellent.
Miss Taken wrote:and you know that how?
Because the antithesis of what I've represented (your argument, basically) is absolutely nowhere represented in the historical record, while my conclusions are consistently represented, and their growth and adaptation is easily tracked.
Miss Taken wrote:Your confidence in boxing up the past is breath-taking.
And your indignation at anything that challenges your
a priori guesses at how the past should have worked is the same.
Miss Taken wrote:Do you think then perhaps that the 'consistent pattern and adaptions' might suggest something about human nature throughout human environments past and present?
OF course, and it suggests (or rather requires) that morality and perception change.