paper-machine comments on Holden's Objection 1: Friendliness is dangerous - LessWrong

11 Post author: PhilGoetz 18 May 2012 12:48AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 21 May 2012 08:18:36PM 2 points [-]

There's more historical data than you might think-- for example, the way the Catholic Church defined sexual sin in terms of actions rather certain sins being associated with types of people who were especially tempted to engage in them.

There's also some history of how sexual normality became more and more narrowly defined (Freud has a lot to answer for), and then the definitions shifted.

A good bit of the book is available for free at amazon, and I think that would be the best way for you to see whether Blank's approach is reasonable.

Comment author: [deleted] 21 May 2012 09:36:41PM *  6 points [-]

Oh, so her thesis is that in the west, orientation-as-identity dates back to 1860-ish. I can imagine that being defensible. That's way different from what you originally wrote, though.

You see, the first thing that came to mind was Aristophanes' speech in the Symposium, which explicitly recognizes orientation-as-identity and predates the Catholic Church by a couple centuries.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 21 May 2012 10:34:03PM 2 points [-]

Thanks for the cite.