You should read the article I posted earlier on these parents. The kids won’t be going to kindergarten… The parents are “unschooling” their kids.[/quote]
I read most of it. Even if home schooled their is still interaction with competing ideas. Neighbors, friends, books, TV, internet… Even if those outside influences are blocked there is still puberty, which will shake things up. Plus the “genderless” baby is gonna figure a few things out for his/herself when potty training rolls around. Personally, I’m more skeptical of the home schooling than the “gender vs society” issues. Parents tend to teach subjects they are good at and the easy generic stuff, like geography, fairly well. Meanwhile they gloss over or completely botch the more difficult subjects like physics, chemistry, algebra, and calculus. It’s easy to teach out of a workbook when the question and answer are right there in black and white. Math, Science, interpretations of historical events and literary works are a bit more complicated.[/quote]
I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss homeschooling.
Depending on the geographical region, homeschoolers generally fare better on benchmark assessments and have a higher acceptance rate into colleges than public and private school students do. For example, in Pennsylvania (a state which is homeschool friendly), homeschool students score Proficient (which is just passing) or Advanced on all tested categories on the PSSA in higher percentages than their public school counterparts (in areas where public schools aren’t very strong, the percentages are much higher). However, according to my sister (who lived and worked in Louisiana as an Army wife for 3 years), most homeschooling parents in Louisiana simply didn’t want their kids to have to go to school. Hence, homeschoolers didn’t fare as well.
[/quote]
I’m not dismissing homeschooling. I believe that many parents out there are quite capable of educating their children to a degree that is competitive with high school or early collegiate levels. I know a few people that were completely home schooled and are doing well. I also know two kids that were home schooled to the 8th grade level and are now attending public high school. Home schooling is a very tempting option as public schools are continually seeing increased budget cuts, and are more severely judged based on assessment test scores. I was recently looking at my niece’s Kindergarten curriculum, and thought it was ridiculous. No wonder her parents didn’t enroll her until she was 6. Kindergarten is actual classes now. I thought it was just coloring and learning how not to glue your fingers together.
With that said, I do question the teaching ability of folks with far left/right or counterculture philosophies. I especially question the teaching abilities of “liberal arts major” type people. I wonder if they suffer from “more brains than sense” or “just no fucking sense” ailments.
You should read the article I posted earlier on these parents. The kids won’t be going to kindergarten… The parents are “unschooling” their kids.[/quote]
I read most of it. Even if home schooled their is still interaction with competing ideas. Neighbors, friends, books, TV, internet… Even if those outside influences are blocked there is still puberty, which will shake things up. Plus the “genderless” baby is gonna figure a few things out for his/herself when potty training rolls around. Personally, I’m more skeptical of the home schooling than the “gender vs society” issues. Parents tend to teach subjects they are good at and the easy generic stuff, like geography, fairly well. Meanwhile they gloss over or completely botch the more difficult subjects like physics, chemistry, algebra, and calculus. It’s easy to teach out of a workbook when the question and answer are right there in black and white. Math, Science, interpretations of historical events and literary works are a bit more complicated.[/quote]
I too am far more skeptical about the schooling aspect. But, its not “homeschooled” its “unschooled” as in the kids learn about whatever they want, not some sort of planed and organized curriculum.
I wouldn’t be worried about the kids “figuring things out”. More about how they will be treated when they’re teenagers and they go out in public in dresses. If they ever do go to a regular school they’re going to get eaten alive.[/quote]
“Homeschooled.” “Unschooled.” They are just buzz words. They mean the same thing. The parents are taking on the responsibility of educating their children instead of using a public or private establishment. I know a few people who are taking a similar route with their kids. It’s a “you walk the dog or the dog walks you” situation. The kids can dictate the direction of the class instead of he parents/teachers. The kids always seem to have fun, and they are learning in a general sense. Still the skill and knowledge base of the parents will be a deciding factor in how well the children are prepared for life outside the home. Eventually the kids will have to sit down and decide are they going to do something useful with their lives or are they going to be liberal arts majors. It would be sad if the kids were forced down the path of liberal arts major because their parents didn’t/couldn’t teach them anything useful.[/quote]
No they don’t mean the same thing. You should really read that article.
Homeschooled kids have to study what their parents assign them. This is obviously subject to the biases of the parents, but that IMO is infinitely prefered to having the kids choose the focus of their studies. Its entirely possible these kids will never choose to learn simple arithmetic or any science… I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to study those topics when I was young. It would have all been history and gym.
Go back a re-read what I wrote, and pay attention this time.
I did read the article. I read about the “unschooling”, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen or read on the idea. “Unschooling” is nothing new. I remember a Dateline-20/20-60 Minutes episode about the same teaching style a couple years back. I find most children do like to learn, what they don’t like are classrooms. It’s not a teaching style I would use, but then again there is no law that spells out just exactly how kids are to be taught at home.
I also read about the parents and kids living with local families in Cuba. That’s a hell of an experience that can’t be measured in text books or standardized tests.
In the end, maybe it will all workout for the kids, and maybe it won’t. What those parents do today, may not be what they do 3 years from now. It’s quite possible the kids never learn any arithmetic beyond multiplication and division. It’s also possible they develop a life time love of Biology or Entomology. Or they might just wind up as homeless drag queens. I may not think highly of the parents, but that’s a long way from wanting to strip them of the rights to be parents or educate their kids as they see fit.
The theory was that most violent criminals had the XYY configuration. If I am not mistaken, someone wanted to use that theory to lock up all the guys with XYY configuration.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
What ‘misconceptions’? This one:
‘The backsides of Spartan boys were given a thorough pummelling by their older male mentors as part of a rite of passage to become men (literally male bonding)’[/quote]
So I’m not allowed to make a tongue-in-cheek remark now?
Your bias is pretty clear on this. The classical definitions of homosexuality and pederasty are not the same as modern ones. In fact, nobody knows quite how the ritual of paiderasteia operated, but it did exist.
The problem is that people (including you) are interpreting ‘pederast’ by its modern definition, and concluding that anybody who dares to suggest ancient Greeks indulged in pederasty are trying to promote a pro-gay agenda. It’s a little more complicated than that.
[quote]
Sorry, I forgot I’m supposed to carry these quotes around in my head and not do any research. I feel so foolish that I’ve given myself away. I must remind myself not to include the word ‘source’ followed by the place where I did my research. It gives the game away.[/quote]
Don’t be facetious. You gave a source after a definition. If you have to go away to research a topic on the hoof to win an argument maybe you shouldn’t be arguing in the first place… you certainly aren’t in a position to make condescending remarks like “I hope this clears up your misconceptions”, when you only just looked up the info yourself.
EDIT: If your sources classify satyrs as “evil, degenerate demons” then you should not be basing any kind of an argument on them. We can get into that in greater depth if you want. [/quote]
A satyr is a mythical creature associated with ‘subversive and dangerous’ behaviour. Is that better? Sounds close enough to demon to me.[/quote]
Satyrs were not demons. In ancient Greek society they represented hedonism and excess but to call them demons would imply they were evil or wicked - they were neither. A troop of satyrs would accompany the god Dionysus (deity of hedonism and abandon. Look up life and soul of the party in the dictionary and Dionysus would be there staring back at you). The Greeks also considered animals to be the intermediary between mortals and the divine (hence the burning of animals and animal entrails as a tribute to the gods). That’s why satyrs are half man, half human. They are a link between man and gods (notice how Zeus used to seduce and rape mortal women in animal form and how men were often plagued by half human / half beast creatures: Medusa, Harpies, Minotaur - none of these were ‘evil’).
The satanic (horns, cloven hooves, mischief to wickedness) connotations are a deliberate early Christian invention to help the conversion of pagans. Satyr = Satan. Do you see what they did with that?
[quote]
Also, don’t give me any semantics bullshit or I’ll go and get Liddell and Scott and translate every fucking word with every conjugation and declension. Every quote I have given is clear as sunshine and Xenophon sent his own sons to Sparta to be raised.[/quote]
Translate away. I’m not playing semantics. I don’t have to. Like with satyrs, you are judging ancient values by your own moral and political outlook (and I can guess what your attitudes are by the ferociousness of some of your responses, chiefly your reply to my 300 comment which was intended as a light hearted remark). The ancient Greeks were not a bunch of faggots as you seem to think I’m implying. They did not look on this with the same eyes as you or I would. Women were not viewed the same, but it wasn’t sexist. Likewise, homosexuality and paiderasteia were not what we’d consider them to be.
Female relations were valued above all in ancient Greece. Men wanted heirs more than anything, but sexually, Greeks considered women to be ‘merely’ the vessels of the child. This wasn’t ‘sexist’; they had no concept of egg, sperm or sexism. They actually thought that ejaculate grew unaided into a baby and that it was a woman’s role to carry it until birth.
Essentially speaking they believed that men begot men.
No surprise: Greek society was big on viewing the external world - every aspect of life was judged by something ‘outside’ (a lot of their observations have lasted to this day), but not so much at looking at the internal world. What I’m telling you is that paiderasteia did not mean a Greek man was gay.
All those quotes you posted probably pertained to men who lusted after boys or men, but never married. This would have been a serious transgression against the gods. And the ancient greeks were pretty serious about balance and transgression. To transgress is to be “subversive and dangerous”. If paiderasteia was an affront to the gods, it would have been dealt with long before anybody had to philosophize about it, just as Sophocles warned against incest (and much more) through the Oedipus plays.
[quote]
Lastly, I didn’t mean to be condescending. Revisionist history is a pet hate of mine.[/quote]
Then please don’t try to “educate” me using a search engine as a substitute for a brain that thinks for itself instead of regurgitating facts. Trying to revise it too far in the opposite direction to set the record ‘straight’ (pun intended) is just as bad. Are we done yet?
Masculinity or femininity change with fashion. It was not so long ago that European men wore tights and powder wigs. Now they wear skinny jeans and product. Maybe not so much has changed after all?
[/quote]
I wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of skinny jeans.
I have the Liddell and Scott lexicon as well SexMachine. Good times.
Homosexuals are mentioned in greek literarture, but disparagingly (one Greek comedy, one guy who is too ‘hospitable’ is a ‘katapugon’ which roughly translates as poofter) but obviously that does not represent greek culture in its entirety and I’m sure some pederasty occurred. To what extent I couldn’t say.
Of all of the issues in this world to get all frothed up over, this WAAAAAAAAY down the list (assuming it even makes said ‘list’).
In time, the kid will probably start to gravitate towards more of a traditional male OR female gender role. I seriously doubt this kid is going to through his OR her entire life adamantly maintaining: ‘My parents raised me to be gender neutral/gender volitional, I’m not going to bow down to socially constructed categories og gender identity purely for the sake of fitting in’ etc…
Sure, the kid might take some stick at school…then again, most kids do take some shit one way or another anyways.
Also, if the kid had parents that were really, really pro traditional gender roles etc & were really opposed to anything that in any way deviated from this ideal/identity etc, if the kid turned out to be gay or had gender issues etc, I’d gladly wager that kind of upbringing would do far more emotional damage than what these folks are doing.
[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I’m trying to get past the whole “storm will decide what storm is” thing…um, the kid can’t decide to be a boy or a girl, biology already did that! It’s not like the kid can go “um, I have a penis, but I choose to be a girl!” It just doesn’t work that way. [/quote]
Well, with the advances in modern science, technology, and surgery that isn’t he truth it once was…[/quote]
GENETICALLY the child will always be xx or xy…no matter if it goes through a sex-change operation or not.
[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I’m trying to get past the whole “storm will decide what storm is” thing…um, the kid can’t decide to be a boy or a girl, biology already did that! It’s not like the kid can go “um, I have a penis, but I choose to be a girl!” It just doesn’t work that way. [/quote]
Well, with the advances in modern science, technology, and surgery that isn’t he truth it once was…[/quote]
GENETICALLY the child will always be xx or xy…no matter if it goes through a sex-change operation or not. [/quote]
As discussed earlier, there is more than XX and XY possibilities. A female can have a Y gene and males can have two (or more) X genes.
Kids usually start picking up gender cues around 2 to 3 years old. It does not mean they start to hold to one gender in all things (which is quite honestly a stupid idea, more is shared between the genders than is different) or do not experiment with different roles, but the kids will have a good idea of its gender affiliation before starting school. People who are transgendered speak of having gender identity issues before reaching school age.
About the topic of “unschooling”, I went to a Montessori school up until 6th grade (it was a Pre-K - 6th grade school), and it has a similar approach in theory. I thought it was incredibly successful. Every student in our classes could proficiently solve for an unknown during 4th grade (that was the first thing we learned in that grade) and was solving two unknowns not long afterwards. I had a friend taking high school geometry before he graduated from the school, and was taking AP Calculus for college credit in his freshman year of high school because he was so far advanced as result.
I can’t testify much to it’s worth in science or history subjects, as the only history I remember is from high school. We did go over some Greek and Roman history in class though, and I remember learning more then than I did in middle school afterwards. We didn’t breach on science too much, but we were required to know about x topics before leaving the school, and there were some scientific ones in there, and we were always encouraged to hold our own experiments if we wanted to. If I had gone to a Montessori school for middle or high school, I could probably evaluate that better. We were required to have at least one story and one research paper going on at any given time and it’s really put me ahead of most of my public school peers when it comes to writing ability.
Unschooling seems to be built on similar principles, therefore I can see it being successful as well. The core idea is that you take learning and stop making it work, and start making it a kind of exploration. Think about everything you’ve learned about the body and muscle development for the sake of lifting. I don’t know much, but compared to my friends I’m a fucking encyclopedia, and I learned it because I wanted to. It’s like that, but with every subject, and all the time.
As for raising a genderless child, they’re not forcing anything on the child. If the children want to reveal their genders that’s fine with the parents, but they’re waiting for the children to do that on their own first before telling others so that they aren’t treated differently based on gender roles. This really shouldn’t be such an outrage, I understand it’s unconventional and there are reasons to worry, but the parents seem loving and supportive and it’s not being forced on the kids or causing any stress at home. I don’t think this is going to fuck up the kids nearly as much as other shitty things “normal” bad parents do.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
What ‘misconceptions’? This one:
‘The backsides of Spartan boys were given a thorough pummelling by their older male mentors as part of a rite of passage to become men (literally male bonding)’[/quote]
So I’m not allowed to make a tongue-in-cheek remark now?
Your bias is pretty clear on this. The classical definitions of homosexuality and pederasty are not the same as modern ones. In fact, nobody knows quite how the ritual of paiderasteia operated, but it did exist.
The problem is that people (including you) are interpreting ‘pederast’ by its modern definition, and concluding that anybody who dares to suggest ancient Greeks indulged in pederasty are trying to promote a pro-gay agenda. It’s a little more complicated than that.
[quote]
Sorry, I forgot I’m supposed to carry these quotes around in my head and not do any research. I feel so foolish that I’ve given myself away. I must remind myself not to include the word ‘source’ followed by the place where I did my research. It gives the game away.[/quote]
Don’t be facetious. You gave a source after a definition. If you have to go away to research a topic on the hoof to win an argument maybe you shouldn’t be arguing in the first place… you certainly aren’t in a position to make condescending remarks like “I hope this clears up your misconceptions”, when you only just looked up the info yourself.
EDIT: If your sources classify satyrs as “evil, degenerate demons” then you should not be basing any kind of an argument on them. We can get into that in greater depth if you want. [/quote]
A satyr is a mythical creature associated with ‘subversive and dangerous’ behaviour. Is that better? Sounds close enough to demon to me.[/quote]
Satyrs were not demons. In ancient Greek society they represented hedonism and excess but to call them demons would imply they were evil or wicked - they were neither. A troop of satyrs would accompany the god Dionysus (deity of hedonism and abandon. Look up life and soul of the party in the dictionary and Dionysus would be there staring back at you). The Greeks also considered animals to be the intermediary between mortals and the divine (hence the burning of animals and animal entrails as a tribute to the gods). That’s why satyrs are half man, half human. They are a link between man and gods (notice how Zeus used to seduce and rape mortal women in animal form and how men were often plagued by half human / half beast creatures: Medusa, Harpies, Minotaur - none of these were ‘evil’).
The satanic (horns, cloven hooves, mischief to wickedness) connotations are a deliberate early Christian invention to help the conversion of pagans. Satyr = Satan. Do you see what they did with that?
[quote]
Also, don’t give me any semantics bullshit or I’ll go and get Liddell and Scott and translate every fucking word with every conjugation and declension. Every quote I have given is clear as sunshine and Xenophon sent his own sons to Sparta to be raised.[/quote]
Translate away. I’m not playing semantics. I don’t have to. Like with satyrs, you are judging ancient values by your own moral and political outlook (and I can guess what your attitudes are by the ferociousness of some of your responses, chiefly your reply to my 300 comment which was intended as a light hearted remark). The ancient Greeks were not a bunch of faggots as you seem to think I’m implying. They did not look on this with the same eyes as you or I would. Women were not viewed the same, but it wasn’t sexist. Likewise, homosexuality and paiderasteia were not what we’d consider them to be.
Female relations were valued above all in ancient Greece. Men wanted heirs more than anything, but sexually, Greeks considered women to be ‘merely’ the vessels of the child. This wasn’t ‘sexist’; they had no concept of egg, sperm or sexism. They actually thought that ejaculate grew unaided into a baby and that it was a woman’s role to carry it until birth.
Essentially speaking they believed that men begot men.
No surprise: Greek society was big on viewing the external world - every aspect of life was judged by something ‘outside’ (a lot of their observations have lasted to this day), but not so much at looking at the internal world. What I’m telling you is that paiderasteia did not mean a Greek man was gay.
All those quotes you posted probably pertained to men who lusted after boys or men, but never married. This would have been a serious transgression against the gods. And the ancient greeks were pretty serious about balance and transgression. To transgress is to be “subversive and dangerous”. If paiderasteia was an affront to the gods, it would have been dealt with long before anybody had to philosophize about it, just as Sophocles warned against incest (and much more) through the Oedipus plays.
[quote]
Lastly, I didn’t mean to be condescending. Revisionist history is a pet hate of mine.[/quote]
Then please don’t try to “educate” me using a search engine as a substitute for a brain that thinks for itself instead of regurgitating facts. Trying to revise it too far in the opposite direction to set the record ‘straight’ (pun intended) is just as bad. Are we done yet?[/quote]
‘The problem is that people (including you) are interpreting ‘pederast’ by its modern definition, and concluding that anybody who dares to suggest ancient Greeks indulged in pederasty are trying to promote a pro-gay agenda’
Dude, you obviously didn’t even take in what I was saying. I’m not denying the pederasty tradition. I’m proving with contempary sources that it was considered a ‘Platonic’, ‘father and son’ type relationship.
You might want to look at the wikipedia entry on the word ‘demon’:
Note the words ‘satyr-like creatures’ and the definition of the word demon. Now, we’re done.
[quote]Bambi wrote:
I have the Liddell and Scott lexicon as well SexMachine. Good times.
Homosexuals are mentioned in greek literarture, but disparagingly (one Greek comedy, one guy who is too ‘hospitable’ is a ‘katapugon’ which roughly translates as poofter) but obviously that does not represent greek culture in its entirety and I’m sure some pederasty occurred. To what extent I couldn’t say.
Anyway back on top, fucked up.[/quote]
Yes, the Athenian playwrights portrayed homosexuals as pathetic creatures and ridiculed them. This was just reflecting the generally held perception of them in Athenian society.
Katapugon:
‘It must be recognized that translation is essential, not only in and of itself, but also on account of the fact that any form of critical interpretation is flawed without a proper understanding of the textual sources. A most striking example of such a case has recently been revealed in Davidson’s work on classical Greece, which notes that Foucault’s misunderstanding of the Greek terms katapugon and kinaidos resulted in his well-known interpretation of a phallocentric culture, as well as the attendant penetration-power schema that shaped his work on ethical systems and power relations. Foucault’s views, based on his faulty Greek, still play a powerful role in all the disciplines of the academy’
