Pederasty in an Intergenerational Three-Piece and A Defense of Reason

Chronicle of Higher Education writer David Glenn today notes that "Haworth Press announced last week that it had canceled the publication of an edited volume on homosexuality in classical antiquity. " This none-too-careful or timely decision by Haworth occurred after another web site attacked one chapter of that book as a "Defense of Pederasty": those opposed to publication, writes Glenn, " had complained that one of the book's chapters -- an essay by Bruce L. Rind, an adjunct instructor in psychology at Temple University -- amounted to a defense of present-day sexual relationships between men and adolescent boys. "

Rind has been in deep water before and as a result has probably attracted a shadow that is uncomfortable for his preferred academic cover or stance. Writes Glenn, " Six years ago, he and two colleagues were denounced by Congress for writing a paper that, in its critics' eyes, soft-pedaled the long-term traumatic effects on children of sexual abuse. "

The book chapter in question -- "...Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West -- had been scheduled for publication in November by Harrington Park Press, an imprint of Haworth. The same material was to have been released simultaneously as a special issue of The Journal of Homosexuality, which is also published by Haworth.

The Chronicle article "Scholarly Press Cancels Book After Web Site Attacks It as a Defense of Pederasty" is available online for five days. The Chronicle notes that the Glenn article is always available to Chronicle subscribers at this address.

No doubt all such presses ought to use care when choosing both who will edit the materials to be published but also the standing in the academic community of who will be the author/s, including the moral character of each such person. It is my view that little boys ought to be off-limits to adults of all ages, and those who choose to take the opposing stand ought to be able to speak up so that the rest of us know both who they are and their arguments, first, so that we might revisit those arguments (e.g., "...to educate...") and expose them to the bright light that argues on the other side (e.g., "...is exploitation of the innocent...").

Secondly, a real problem arises, nonetheless: that the wider population is unlikely to encounter airing of opinions and research upon which the academic community grazes and which it nurtures, thus pushing the general run of productive youth, adults, and families farther and farther out of the light where public discourse allegedly takes place. The farther out they are, the less able they are to participate, the more their opinions are alienated from favored discourse and publication, and the more readily they and their arguments are made to seem ridiculous. The more foolish they appear, the less reason there is to air their voices, to print their words.

I am all for free speech but I do think the time is long past when the ability of those favored by circumstance and thereby enabled to mold extreme views as "mainstream" ought to be either promoted or ignored. Ideas are powerful. Ideas are wonderful. Ideas are dangerous. Personal integrity and charcter, social cohesion, personal ambition and societal industry, cultural substance and direction are all dependent upon the free flow and measure of ideas; and when that free flow and especially that discrimination between sound ideas and chaos falls apart, a society and a nation can easily corrupt and disintegrate.

When, then, those measures are not in place, it may well be neither a) unreasonable to deny publication or b) an incongruity to argue for free speech:

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