Joanna
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>On 8/28/07, Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>"Older men, through their erotic engagement with beautiful
>>>young men, aspired to be one with Truth, and young men,
>>>in turn, were to be philosophically instructed by their older
>>>male admirers. "
>>>
>>>
>>I think you meant "aspired to be one with Beauty". Who would
>>ever think a young man had any connection to wisdom? Plato
>>certainly doesnt portray them that way.
>>
>>
>
>What was the pedagogical profit of pederasty? For a young man, it was
>an opportunity to learn to live up to the way of life of a free man of
>a free state. to prefer to die honorably defending his country than to
>live dishonorably in subjection to a tyrant.* For the lover of a
>young man, the object was to embark upon the path of attaining the
>knowledge of divine essence of beauty through a philosophical process
>that begins with the love of earthly beauties, especially of fair
>youths.**
>
>* <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71sy/symposium.html>
>
>For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning
>life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For
>the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly
>live—that principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth,
>nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I
>speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither
>states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that
>a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting
>through cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by another, will
>be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by
>his father, or by his companions, or by any one else. The beloved too,
>when he is found in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling
>about his lover. And if there were only some way of contriving that a
>state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves (compare
>Rep.), they would be the very best governors of their own city,
>abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour;
>and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they
>would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be
>seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his
>post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand
>deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or
>fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an
>inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would
>inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into
>the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the
>lover.
>
>** <http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71sy/symposium.html>
>And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of
>love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the
>sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one
>going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms
>to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from
>fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last
>knows what the essence of beauty is.
>
>
>