From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri Jul 26 2002 - 13:19:53 MDT
On 26 Jul 2002 at 12:21, Hermit wrote:
>
> [Joe Dees] I fully agree with this conclusion. All in all a closely reasoned article, which I heartily recommend
>
> [Hermit] Actually, on a number of issues I am sure about, the article was
horribly incorrect and in any case, much of the reasoning appeared to
me
to be demonstrably faulty.
>
> [Hermit] "Pedophilia means the excessive (sexual) love of children" - No
it doesn't!
>
> [Hermit] The word is derived from two Greek stems. In Greek, "pedo"
means foot (and "paedo" means "child"). "Philia" means an (intellectual)
love or attraction towards. If sex had been implied, the word used would
have been derived from "eros" or sexual love. So in fact "Pedophilia
means a loving attraction towards feet" and has nothing to do with
either
children or sex.
>
I'm sure that the 'a' was dropped somewhere in the intervening two
millennia.
>
> [Hermit] When an author can't even define their subject correctly, I don't
expect their writings to be particularly insightful. And this was certainly
the
case here. In my opinion, this was not so much a researched and
reasoned
article as a case of tossing together a salad of generally held public
misapprehensions, prejudices and biases with an unhealthy topping of
whipped emotion.
>
Examples, please. Unsupported ad hominems mean about as much as
an appeal to authority, in which I would be engaging if I mentioned that
the author of the article, Dr. Thomas Szasz, is a libertarian icon of
psychological criticism, best known for his work "The Myth of Mental
Illness" ;~)
>
> [Hermit] It seemed to me, that like most people commenting on this field,
it spoke from a deep sea of ignorance. How else could it be? The issue
is
so loaded with emotion that legitimate research in the field is taboo.
Any
results questioning or contradicting the beliefs of society are discarded
and their authors and their institutions assaulted. A pity, because, if I
recall
correctly, 85% of US females and 70% of US males experienced sexual
predation to a greater or lesser extent in their childhood.
>
Such difficulties were indeed mentioned in the article. I consider his
critique of psychology's purported tendency to indulge in greek-root
obfuscation/warping of ethics into psychopathology to be quite
interesting.
>
> [Hermit] The author(s?) of this report demonstrate exactly this bias by
condemning unread (or deliberately misreporting) the only modern
peer-
reviewed work on the impact on the victims of sexual predation of
children.
>
And that would be....?
>
> [Hermit] I’d suggest that this is an example of unreasoning closed minds
approving writings which appeal to their preconceptions – and not
“close
reasoning” at all. I heartily recommend placing it in the trashcan of
articles
better not written.
>
In other words, you would prefer his poiny of view and his logical
support of it to be dismissed out of hand and not even considered. So
would NAMBLA.
http://www.nambla1.de/
>
> Regards
>
> Hermit
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25803>
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