Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Niall Ferguson On John MaynardKeynes: WOW!

Ken,
Wasn't the female philosopher Diotima?
Hetty

On May 8, 2:21 pm, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
> pablo
> you must be thinking of sappho?
> as for all this range of love and same sex/hetero, etc, it seems an odd
> thing to me to attribute "same" or "opposite" to the billions of humans
> who must occupy an infinity of different positions on the map of sexual
> identity.
> we follow this need to categorize and organize, simplifying like
> children who need integers to add, whereas numbers can be real or
> imaginary. and what happens when you multiply two irrational numbers? or
> take e to the i pi?
>
> what would sappho say?
> here is her Hymn to Aphrodite
>     Iridescent-throned
>     <http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/vandiver.shtml#notes>
>     Aphrodite, deathless
>     Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I now implore you,
>     Don't--I beg you, Lady--with pains and torments
>     Crush down my spirit,
>
>     But before if ever you've heard my pleadings
>     Then return, as once when you left your father's
>     Golden <http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/vandiver.shtml#notes>
>     house; you yoked to your shining car your
>     Wing-whirring sparrows;
>
>     Skimming down the paths of the sky's bright ether
>     On they brought you over the earth's black bosom,
>     Swiftly--then you stood with a sudden brilliance,
>     Goddess, before me;
>
>     Deathless face alight with your smile, you asked me
>     What I suffered, who was my cause of anguish,
>     What would ease the pain of my frantic mind, and
>     Why had I called you
>
>     To my side: "And whom should Persuasion
>     <http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/vandiver.shtml#notes> summon
>     Here, to soothe the sting of your passion this time?
>     Who is now abusing you, Sappho? Who is
>     Treating you cruelly?
>
>     Now she <http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/vandiver.shtml#notes>
>     runs away, but she'll soon pursue you;
>     Gifts she now rejects--soon enough she'll give them;
>     Now she doesn't love you, but soon her heart will
>     Burn, though unwilling."
>
>     Come to me once more, and abate my torment;
>     Take the bitter care from my mind, and give me
>     All I long for; Lady, in all my battles
>     Fight as my comrade.
>
> ken
>
> On 5/8/13 11:32 PM, Pablo Idahosa wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Yes, Ken, but you don't need to invoke Foucault or Mugabe�s of Biya's
> > invention of compounded disciplining Victorian tradition. There are
> > many traditions for which homosexuality is haram, even when it is
> > tolerated outta sight, or tolerated only amongst certain groups.
>
> > On Socrates/Plato (and I will here defer to the Hellocentrists and
> > Euro-classicists�but they were not southern Baptists, for sure) whom I
> > studied many years ago as a neophyte double major in philosophy and
> > economics, I recall the symposium being about male bonding, in the
> > absence of women of course-- that was what symposiums were about, with
> > lots of boozing men (no doubt to probably diminish inhibition) and for
> > whom, women were to procreate with, but who were not their equals when
> > it came to �real� love (although I understand that erotic wisdom or
> > platonic love has its origins in a women philosopher, whose name
> > eludes me).  The apex of love/Eros, it�s most elevated expression, was
> > about beauty as a form, not necessarily in the individual and
> > therefore about sex; it was also about love and community, perhaps a
> > community of aristocratic men, who at that time had the ability to
> > constrain their desire, not always to give into it But then people
> > don't need Plato, or hired, money-seeking philosopher of the right
> > like Ferguson, to tell us why they are attracted to the same sex, do they?
>
> > On 2013-05-07, at 8:33 AM, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu
> > <mailto:har...@msu.edu>> wrote:
>
> >> dear ayo
> >> this is what i was trying to say (albeit not as elegantly as you put it)
> >> i would add that it isn't so much a question of judeo-christian
> >> morality as such, if foucault is right, but rather its incorporation
> >> into the "disciplining" of society with the rise of 18th c bourgeois
> >> morality. to be sure, that morality grounded itself in
> >> judeo-christian terms, but its application became institutionalized
> >> into penal codes that defined what was now to be punished,
> >> controlled, and condemned.
> >> that's why a ruler like biya or mugabe can evoke african traditions
> >> and use them to crush gay men or women.
> >> ken
>
> >> On 5/7/13 7:49 AM, Ayo Obe wrote:
> >>> Remember when the blockbuster film Alexander came out and the
> >>> filmmakers and US commentators were agonising over how to handle
> >>> "the gay thing".  It sounded so anachronistic because it is in fact
> >>> an anachronism to apply the concept of being gay as we understand
> >>> (or do not understand) it today to a world where there had been no
> >>> moral issue /per se/ about men having sex with men, nor did it carry
> >>> any additional baggage of weakness.
>
> >>> It's almost impossible for us in some parts of today's world to step
> >>> back into a time not permeated by Judaeo-Christian morality.  As
> >>> someone said (discussing "Rome" the HBO series), "They are so
> >>> similar to us, yet so different!"
>
> >>> But meanwhile, back - via Socrates - to John Maynard Keynes ...
>
> >>> Ayo
> >>> I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama
>
> >>> On 7 May 2013, at 05:04, "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)"
> >>> <emeagw...@mail.ccsu.edu <mailto:emeagw...@mail.ccsu.edu>
> >>> <mailto:emeagw...@mail.ccsu.edu>> wrote:
>
> >>>> "....but i wouldn't call them gay in a current sense of the term,
> >>>> which implies sexual
> >>>> orientation based on desire"
>
> >>>> Why not Ken? What was their sexual orientation based on?
>
> >>>> Include also Alexander the Great expansionist.
>
> >>>> GE
>
> >>>> ________________________________
> >>>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of kenneth
> >>>> harrow [har...@msu.edu <mailto:har...@msu.edu> <mailto:har...@msu.edu>]
> >>>> Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 2:29 PM
> >>>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Niall Ferguson On John
> >>>> MaynardKeynes: WOW!
>
> >>>> we need a classicist to give the definitive answer. my
> >>>> recollection, from long ago, is that he was corrupting them by
> >>>> drawing them toward philosophy rather than support of the state. i
> >>>> think older men-younger boys relations were common enough, but i
> >>>> wouldn't call them gay in a current sense of the term, which
> >>>> implies sexual orientation based on desire; maybe there was a bi
> >>>> culture, but i think foucault had it right when he said that it
> >>>> wasn't until the 18th c, and its policings, that what gay meant in
> >>>> the modern sense was developed.
> >>>> ken
> >>>> On 5/6/13 10:47 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:
>
> >>>> �Even though this  homoerotic culture in ancient Greece is well
> >>>> known to scholarship, it seems to have been filtered out of the
> >>>> general image of the superlative achievement represented by ancient
> >>>> Greece.
>
> >>>> Oluwatoyin
>
> >>>> Interesting perspective. Socrates is believed to have been accused
> >>>> of impiety, worshipping new gods, corrupting the young, among
> >>>> others, tried; found guilty, and killed. Might it have been that
> >>>> the charge of �corrupting the young� was not unconnected with his
> >>>> homosexuality?
>
> >>>> oa
>
> >>>> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com><mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> >>>> <http://googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Oluwatoyin Adepoju
> >>>> Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 4:59 AM
> >>>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> <mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com><mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> >>>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Niall Ferguson On John
> >>>> MaynardKeynes: WOW!
>
> >>>> The Wikipedia article on
> >>>> Keynes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes> sums up
> >>>> his bisexuality under 'Personal Life'.
>
> >>>> Keynes attended Eton, an all male school then and now, a private
> >>>> school in England at a time when such schools were wholly or
> >>>> largely male. He also went to Cambridge at a time when it was
> >>>> wholly male, I think.
>
> >>>> These contexts, involving placing pre-pubescent and pubescent boys
> >>>> and men in all male environments at critical stages in the
> >>>> development of their sexual identities may  have been central to
> >>>> the development of a homosexual culture among the students of these
> >>>> institutions, a culture which some took forward after graduation.
>
> >>>> This nexus of schooling and a  male centred sexual culture seems to
> >>>> have been a part of English upper and middle class culture for
> >>>> centuries but does not seem to have gained the kind of sociological
> >>>> exposure it deserves.
>
> >>>> This culture might also have been influenced by gay/bisexual
> >>>> culture in ancient Greece, in which  according to one account, in a
> >>>> period or periods of their history, the combination of physically
> >>>> erotic, affective and mental conjugation between men was a norm.
>
> >>>> In that context, sexual and larger cognitive relationship between
> >>>> an older and younger man were seen as valuable firms of mentorship.
>
> ...
>
> read more »

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