Re: Not sure I understand... (ping Dante)

"Don't you find it bothersome that other cultures aren't more accepting of pedophilia? Not even when similar cultures of ages past had their own ways of accepting it? "

No. I'm not bothered by cultures varying from each other. And when they vary from those who are "similar," it means that they are different.

Now I'm not a cultural relativist. I don't believe that variance means that all cultural beliefs are equally valid.

But I recognize the difference between tolerance and endorsement. I would love to be endorsed as a GLer. But I expect that tolerance is more realistic.

Failure to endorse is not condemnation. And I really have found NO record of anti-Pedo attitudes among the Amish. Nor any pro ones either. But lack of endorsement is not the same as condemnation. They simply seem to be silent on the subject.

However, you are silent about the Laws of Lek, no matter how important they may be to others. I'm sure it upsets Albanian traditionalists that you don't concern yourselves with their kanon of law. But you don't share their culture. Why should you expect them to share yours?

The study of other cultures can teach us much about how parochial our own culture and our own time are. Indeed, they are often a source for good arguments against the "Universality" of the present cultural pathology.

But we can only learn from them if we allow them to be themselves. Looking to other times and other cultures with an expectation of endorsement of our views, or ( in their absence ) an assumption that the same forces which oppose us oppose them; blinds us to what information might actually be present to learn from.

Asking questions of others is fine when you don't know. But don't be so dismissive of the answers you get when they don't confirm a thesis made in the absence of the information you solicited. After all, why did you solicit it, if not to learn from it? And certainly you can't learn what you already know, right?

Dante