Dark hole of civlization

I think it's not about gay or straight. In fact, if you study guru devotion, you will know that a Guru-Disciple relationship is the most intimate and intricate one among all type of relationship. By the way, we're giving away this book

you are right Shin. In the case of Socrates, we know he had male lovers...there is nothing like that that I know of in reports of Confucian. It wouldn't be very Confucian, those activities!

Shin wrote: "I think it's not about gay or straight." ~ What~ is not about gay or straight?

I meant to highlight the point about the intimacy of a teacher-student relationship, considering what Prof James said that it's possible for Confucius to be gay because of he loved his disciple more than his own son.

I have the good fortune to live in Malaysia, where I am exposed to the Chinese and Indian culture, as well as Islamic philosophy/ religion. In Confucianism, this teacher-student relationship is modelled after the father-son relationship. This modelling can be gleaned in the Chinese term for a venerated teacher, shi fu, or teacher-father. In Islamic tradition also teacher-student relationship is comparable to the parent-child relationship. An eminent Islamic Jurisprudent Professor Dr. Sano Koutoub Moustapha of International Islamic University, Malaysia said, " The teacher should treat the students as his or her own children, and the students should consider the teacher as their own parent." Also in Indian culture, a person without an Acharya (guru) was once looked down on as an orphan.

I read that in Plato's main work, The State, Socrates rejects all kinds of physical contact as some sort of unbridled behavior, and that a good lover treats his beloved one as a father treats his son. Hmm, may be they don't practice what they preach? :p

It seems a bit more complicated than I presented it Shin, though I had this idea firmly in mind, knowing Plato disdained physicality. This is from the web on "Greek homosexuality" for what it is worth: click here

"The answer is the philosophy of the Athenian Plato. He has painted a very remarkable picture of his teacher Socrates, who is shown -in Plato's own words- as boy crazy. When Socrates was in the company of beautiful boys, he lost his senses. Some sort of mania (divine madness) took possession of him and he was almost unable to resist it. "

I have been wondering about the difference between oligarchy and aristocracy. Aristocracy became the capital-based family after civilization was invented by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (in the West). But none of them were family men.

This though, was the idea I had from the old BA philosophy days: Alcibiades and Socrates were lovers...then I checked the Symposium and it seems...you are in the end right about him Shin: Here goes a key passage: Socrates is the only man who has ever made Alcibiades feel shame (216b). Yet all this is the least of it (216c)- he is crazy about beautiful boys, following them around in a daze (216d). Most people, he continues, don't know what Socrates is like on the inside...Socrates responded that if he did have this power to make Alcibiades a better man, why would he exchange his true (inner) beauty for the image of beauty that Alcibiades would provide; and furthermore, Alcibiades might be wrong, and Socrates may be of no use to him (218e-219a). He then slipped under Socrates' cloak and spent the night beside him; yet, to the deep humiliation of Alcibiades, Socrates made no sexual attempt (219b-d).

Adam Smith! If he had a "Platonic" relationship with the Montague boys (who played a key role is Scottish Clearances), then ...

Thanks for the comments, very valuable to me as newly phenomenologist. I just want to add that we finally got same-sex marriage in NY State -- which in this context looks like the Socratic elite that is apparently gay and dominates religion (esp cath) has succumbed to not just GLBTG but all people, who (are supposed to be) democratic, and not oligarchic. This is really important because it shows predictable societal phenomena, and that the elite will act as a violent dominating force without regard for its own identity -- the elite does not have identity, sexual or otherwise -- why sadism is asexual, despite what sadists say. (PS, my psych masters grade: 3.9)