Yesterday we saw Breitbart and Salon’s attempt at mainstreaming Satanism (each side argued for different sects). Today, a brief look at the mainstreaming of pedophilia.
The images are the top results in a search of the term “pedophile” on Salon’s site (click here to try it yourself). My particular favorite is “Meet pedophiles who mean well”, with “Redefining pedophilia with pedophiles’ help” running a close second. Yours?
Well, that’s Salon, you say, and their soul was long since lost; show me something new. Okay, something new. The Independent published “Not all paedophiles are bad people – we need to have a sense of proportion.”
Of course all pedophiles are bad people, because the desire to have sex with prepubescent children is evil. In the same way, the desire to commit any sin is evil, and so, since each of us has sinful desires, each of us are bad people, too. (if you quail at the word sin swap in crime). But there are degrees of badness, stemming from differences in evil. The desire to swipe a grape from a grocer’s shelf is less evil than the desire of grooming a six-year-old for your perverse pleasures. Likewise, a person who eats that grape is less bad than the one who despoils the child.
It’s only us enlightened moderns who believe the myth that people are “basically good”. A society built on that myth must fail when actual human nature meets reality—but that’s a story for another time. The temptation is not the sin, but the fantasy based on that temptation often is; and the act is always wrong. There is good reason (as I have pointed out before) the Lord’s prayer says lead us not into temptation, and that good reason is the knowledge we are bad people apt to act on temptation.
So much for the theology, which works, as I say, even without religion if you think in terms of crime and actual human nature. Now to practicalities.
You’re a drunk but have been off the bottle for some time. You need a new job; where do you apply? (A) A brewery, (B) A tavern, (C) As a wine taster, or (D) Any place far from booze.
If you said (D), you’ve failed the test, because a hidden assumption is that all people are “basically good.” Indeed, it’s best, say mainstreamers, if you surrounded yourself with the sauce so that you could turn your attitude into a “social good.”
Don’t believe it? According to The Independent’s author:
In my studies of the Paedophile Information Exchange in the 1980s, many members admitted sexual feelings for children which they had been able to contain or turn to social good. Some gravitated toward occupations such as schoolteacher or social worker, where they could enjoy the company of children without plotting abuse. This fitted with personality profiles indicating that they were gentle, rational and not disposed to harm anybody.
The old way of thinking equated putting pedophiles in charge of children with placing pyromaniacs in fireworks factories. But we now see this as cruel, because that way of thinking assumes people tend to act on their strong desires. Not all people and not at all times, true; but, well, all it takes is one lit match.
And then there’s this:
If not all paedophiles molest children, much child abuse (perhaps 80 per cent) is perpetrated by non-paedophiles, often family or friends. The UK legal age of consent of 16 is arbitrary. Many men admit attraction to underage girls, even if they would not consider taking advantage.
This strange paragraph combines the No True Pedophile fallacy (variants are common in all sexual activities which do not accord with actual reproduction) because of the notion that since pedophiles are often family members they are not true pedophiles, with the advocacy of pedophilia because of the hint the age of consent is too old, with the false notion that pedophilia is as common as apple pie.
This, then, is mainstreaming.
Incidentally, a useful service provided by The Independent is to call pedophilia a sexual “orientation”, a definition worth pondering when considering whether to support laws banning “discrimination” based on “orientation.”
Todd was convincing in article 1, but then turned right around (pun perhaps intended) and damned the “right wing” in the very same judgmental nasty tone he claims is used against him. He should have stopped while he was ahead.
Biblically, I don’t think there is a difference in the desire to steal the grape and the desire to have sex with a child. It’s all sin. Socially, there is a great deal of difference.
I disagree with the idea that fantasizing is equal to committing. I didn’t buy it when Jimmy Carter lusted in his heart and claim that somehow translated into actual evil lusting after a women. Desire is not same as action. Fantasy might be considered wrong if the person fantasizing believes the action is okay but is socially afraid to act on it. Otherwise, going to movies, watching television, etc all qualify as evil–you watch violence or sexual misconduct and are entertained. Do movies have to go? What about books exploring different religions? If we can’t explore and fantasize, aren’t we basically living in a very strict religious cult? (I wonder about the statement “lead us not into temptation” and its translation—God allowed the first temptation. Are you saying God was wrong?)
It is certainly insane to have pedophiles working around children and any that actually do not want to act on their desires would never put themselves in those situations. We don’t encourage alcoholics to work in bars (I hope not, anyway). As for age of consent, that is arbitrary–100%. And we let children have sex with children (is that where this starts? Sex with a ten year old as your first experience leads to the desire to return to that first time so you want sex with children?)
Common on, who did not see this coming? It’s been obvious for decades. People just stuck their heads in the sand. Remember how the APA tried to divide pedophilia into practicing and non-practicing, calling only the practicing a “disease”? Equal opportunity for all and a claim of being “born that way” guaranteed this outcome. People asked for it, they are getting it now. No complaints please from the “The heart wants what the heart wants” crowd.
Of course all pedophiles are bad people, because the desire to have sex with prepubescent children is evil.
Which is different than being attracted to someone not prepubescent under whatever the local legal age happens to be. Up until around 2005, the age of consent in Texas was 13. It was changed, not because of the sudden realization this was too young, but as a weapon to be used against the Branch Davidians.
Attraction to the prepubescent is right up there with attraction to tree trunks and VW Beetles — a genuine aberration — and probably quite rare. I suspect most of the self-proclaimed pedophiles at Salon do not fall into this category and thus are not True Pedophiles.
I meant to say groups like the Branch Davidians and not necessarily the Davidians themselves.
Sheri:
From Catholic prayers:
I have sinned through my own fault.
In my thoughts and in my words
in what I have done
and what I have failed to do.
Don’t think that thought sin is a born again protestant thing
Half of the Ten Commandments are “Thought Sins”
Which is why fundamentalists who claim our laws are/were based on the Ten Commandments are wrong.
(It’s interesting “who” criminalized “Thoughts” in the United States – Hint: It wasn’t Conservative Christians.)
This is one of the many areas that is dangerous to discuss. No matter what you say, someone will be able to twist it to be bad. Not stating a position on it can be twisted to be perverted. Stuffing your head in the sand may be the safest path. There is a reasonable chance that just reading this story and it comments has marked me.
There is a viral thread out there about Common Core math causing a teacher to mark 5 X 3 = 5+5+5 = 15 to be wrong. The correct answer is 5 X 3 = 5 sets of three = 3+3+3+3+3 = 15. The image I saw attached had further issues in drawing matrices of 1s to represent the multiplication. The student had swapped axes and they were all marked wrong.
The people commenting in favor of the methods all make exquisitely accurate points. 5 sets of 3 is 3+3+3+3+3. 3 sets of 5 is 5+5+5. The only thing wrong is that the number of students capable of handling the nuance of such discussions is small. The benefit the might be seen when they are introduced to matrices and matrix multiplication are lost to the fact that you just told them they were wrong when there is an easy way to see that they are right.
5 X 3 = 3 X 5.
We have 5th grade students still stumbling over multiplication tables and we are attempting to create a foundation for matrices and multivariate calculus? I am a fan of all of the expressions of math. Even though I don’t have to do integrals ever, I have benefitted from what I learned. I don’t know if I would have survived teachers teaching math this way.
I don’t need a god to tell me that pedophilia is wrong. The reference frames of individuals makes that clear to me. Encourage people to think down the reasonable paths. Don’t discourage them. Pedophiles are people. They go somewhere else though. A friend of mine was a ministers wife. She managed their volunteers. If a 40 something single man came in and asked to volunteer with the children, they were denied. It was arbitrary. The men may have been precise angels. Life ain’t fair.
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John B(): Maybe my distinction is lost here. If you truly want to commit and act and won’t because you’re likely to be caught, that would be a probable sin. If you are exploring an idea or would never ever commit the act in reality, I can’t see that as wrong. I don’t know if it’s a protestant thing or not–I didn’t learn anything along these lines.
The admonition against “coveting” I took to mean not to want to take your neighbor’s wife or things. It’s the pre-thought to actual stealing. Is it wrong to fantasize about your neighbor’s wife if you would never ever touch her? Is it wrong to wish you had what your neighbor has and work toward getting it?
I return to my question of is it wrong to go to movies that involve violence, aliens, and any other things that might be considered a sin? That is indulging a fantasy.
Brad
Excellent – Very good to equate the subject with math (especially common core) – a unique perspective which gets the point across without inflaming any but those that didn’t understand Math in the first place, although I agree about its necessity.
You’ll be happy to know that in Holland this kind of propaganda was circulated during the eighties, but that nowadays peadophiles are run out of town over here. Most people, almost everybody in fact,, do not buy it, especially after the Belgium Dutroux case in the nineties.
Desire is not same as action.
Nor is temptation the same as desire. A desire is a movement of the will toward the thing desired. This is the difference between admiring the young honey next door [temptation] versus thinking about how you’d like to jump the fence and possess her and imagining that she would welcome you if you did [desire]. Temptation can lead to desire, of course. Hence, we ask not to be led into it.
So we were taught not to “entertain temptations,” because in doing so we could talk ourselves into it.
So, same-sex attracted, youth attracted, child attracted, kleptomaniac, geophageous, et al. are examples of temptations. They become desires when we decide we would very much like to act on them. Like the man who is woman-attracted but who does not jump the fence, folks need not act upon these attractions. After all, the Earth is attracted toward the sun, but does not plummet into the fires because of it.
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I recently heard an episode of the radio drama Dragnet on Sirius in which a man was hunted (and caught, of course) because he had run off with a child. In the end, the narrator told us, “the girl was returned to her parents.” What made the episode intriguing to Late Modern ears was that the girl was 19 years old.
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I always figured 5 x 3 = 15, full stop. If the kiddies learn that this is “really” 3+3+3+3+3, what on earth will they make of 5? x 3?? We had this debate once with a prof in the education department when I was in grad school and it was called “the New Math.” You can’t abstract until you have concrete things to abstract from. It’s like teaching themodynamics of internal combustion engines in driving school. Beside, the teachers did not understand it, either. The prof responded that a teacher did not have to understand math, only how to teach it.
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YOS,
“After all, the Earth is attracted toward the sun, but does not plummet into the fires because of it.”
You are saying that to avoid acting on temptation we must have sufficient angular momentum. Walk away my son, just walk away.
“5? x 3??” Your notation has thrown me for a loop.
“The prof responded that a teacher did not have to understand math, only how to teach it.”
The prime directive of schools of education. I like Barzun’s comment that they should be called schools of pedagogy since education is what the other departments do (math, physics, chemistry, etc).
That was supposed to be 5-2/3 times 3-5/8. I guess the site doesn’t recognize Character Map.
“”
“That was supposed to be 5-2/3 times 3-5/8.”
The new math would probably reduce that to 17/3 * 29/8 = (29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29+29)/(8+8+8)= 493/24 = 20 13/24
Which is, by the way, the correct answer.
YOS: You did a much better job of explaining than I did. It’s not a temptation if you would never actually act on it.
“New math” will be the death of us all. “New math” is as bad as teaching reading by whole word recognition and phonics.
Sheri,
You mean new-new math, also called fuzzy math. New math was a brief fad of the sixties that I avoided by one year. It was phased in one year at a time. It was inspired by mathematicians who thought set theory was the way to go and was followed by a back to basics movement in the seventies.
Scotian, the math people I knew were highly skeptical. Set theory was all well and good, but too abstract at that level.
Scotian: Yes, fuzzy math. That’s a perfect term for it.
And so we slouch,
on and on,
to that
sure and fixed condition.
I never cared for Original Sin. I never cared much for the term “evil” either. These concepts, really, have no value.
JMJ
JMJ @ “evil” and “original sin” may have too many connotations for some folks, in which case they are welcome to employ substitute terms. But they will need substitute terms, since “evil” and “original sin” are part of the natural order of things. Evil just means undeserved harm, of which there is plenty in this world, call it what you will. Original sin just means the well-attested human willingness to inflict undeserved harm and spread disorder. It describes the notable lapses in benevolence to which humans are subject, and which no amount of environmental modification has been able to expunge.
Technically, “evil” means defectus boni, a deficit or lacking in a good. (And a good is a perfection: hence, a ‘good’ doctor is one who maintains or restores his patients’ well-being.) “Sin” is an act of will pertaining to an evil, that is, a deliberate turning away from a good. There are sometimes circumstances in which we must choose the lesser of two evils; such as incarcerating a thief: the deprivation of liberty, a natural right of the thief, is outweighed by the deprivation of property, also a natural right, of numerous victims of the thief.
“Original” sin is,as the name implies, the “origin” or source of sin; viz., a human nature all-too-attracted to intemperance and cowardice. This is traceable to the first human: Since it is inherent in human nature, it is inherited by all humans. The Buddha and Thomas Aquinas both equated this with selfishness.
JMJ: I’m sure the million of slaughtered Jews would disagree, as would the victims of ISIS, if they weren’t all dead, killed by evil beings.
(Not caring for concepts doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I don’t care for the idea of progressives, yet there they are, sobbing about “unfairness”—a concept I don’t care for. JMSmith and YOS point out quite correctly that we have to call the two concepts something. I do hope, however, that you never have the misfortune of seeing evil face to face. I would not wish that on anyone. Your living in unbelieving bliss is preferable.)
Sheri: “I do hope, however, that you never have the misfortune of seeing evil face to face.”
I had a childhood friend killed by a pedophile a few years ago. The pedo had kidnapped a girl of 15, taken her to another state and later married her. Much later, my friend, a Christian, helped the woman get away from this creep. The pedo was then a drug addict and he repaid my friend by sticking a rifle through his shop window and firing away at him and his employees, killing him as he tried to shield an employee. The creep of course tried to get off by insanity.
Evil exists. Live with it. Protect yourself.
James: My comment was directed at JMJ who said he did not care for the term “evil”. Perhaps I should have repeated the “JMJ:” in the paratheses to make that clear. I am fully aware that evil exists, which was why I hoped JMJ continued to live in unbelieving bliss. What happened to your friend was definately evil., whether or not we call it evil, complete lack of humanity, or any other term. Changing the name or not caring for the term doesn’t change what it was.
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