Thanks, Mike, for addressing this multi-layered/perspectived (made up word...) tragedy. The impetus, the realizations, consequences we see in this moment are but a flash that blinds the shadows of understanding and deeper knowing. My heart goes out to these casualties, deaths loved ones, and their families. As well, to the 100+ school girls, teachers caught up in someone-else's-war on a Saturday during Ramadan. Accountability- now. Convene Congress. Grow some grit and Constitutional fealty... fast... to last.
Yet, we know very little about pedophilia. Pedophilia does not necessarily involve sexual abuse of children. Some men are attracted to children and merely acknowledge their attraction without acting on it. Scientists and medical researchers have not reached a consensus about the causes of this condition. The traditional debate about causation follows the nature versus nurture discussion. Some researchers are investigating genetic factors, while others are exploring social causes, such as family issues or past sexual assault.
As a psychologist, I tend to seek a broader perspective, and I try to understand all sexual identities and how we develop our personal identity, including our sexual orientation. I believe it is a mistake to focus on just one orientation and ignore others, especially when considering the scientist who suggested that genetics determines all our behavior, implying that nothing else matters in shaping who we are. This idea is difficult for me to accept because people are vastly different, and genes are specifically directed. I haven't found any studies that document a social orientation supporting the development of a particular sexual orientation.
Two observations by well-known scientists are particularly important to me: one concerns the reading readiness period in child development, and the other is Carlo Rovelli’s discussion of time as a theoretical physicist. Children aged 4 to 7 can easily learn languages and social skills, often acquiring two languages during this period. After this window closes, learning a second language typically requires more detailed instruction. The development of social skills during this time exceeds our understanding, as a child transitions from a blank slate to possessing remarkable abilities. I see this period as the intersection of two sources of development: one inherited through genes, and the other shaped by society. Consider a mother who was pregnant and moved to a different location, such as South America or Iceland, realizing her child would be different from what it would have been if she stayed in the original place. I think about the overwhelming number of factors influencing this child. Carlo Rovelli points out that time is not constant; it can be expansive or compressed, and it can flow faster or slower. For instance, in space travel, time moves more slowly than it does on Earth. Einstein articulated this idea through his theories of relativity.
Why are these two facts important to understanding sexual identity? What if there's a period in a child's development when time feels expansive, allowing the child to absorb large amounts of social stimulation or information? What if, during this time, sexual orientation is formed? I mean all types of orientation: male-female, male-male, female-female, male-child, or male-boy. Why do we try to identify the cause of a pedophile as being different from other sexual orientations? Are we thinking that our genetic coding, and nothing else, solely determines all behaviors? Can we consider that during this period, all sexual orientations develop? Until adolescence, we shape our personality based on our environment, family, neighborhood, and immediate friends—those connected by where we live and who we are. I ask people to reflect on their closest friends during adolescence and consider how these relationships impacted their personality development. Often, these relationships are like yin-yang—complementary parts of a whole—and they help shape each person's identity.
The discussion of a person's sexual identity must respect the complicated process of formation of each of us in our world, and with our genetic composition.
"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not an army. It is an economic empire with an army attached to it — construction contracts, energy infrastructure, smuggling networks, financial institutions, millions of people whose entire material existence is threaded through its apparatus. Those people did not become democrats when the Supreme Leader died. They became people with everything to lose. And people with everything to lose tend to fight."
I would add another level of determination which is that the Islamic Republic is a theocracy, and by attacking that we have involved ourselves in a religioious holy war of determined martyrdom. We have been here before in endless wars in the region and here we are again. The outcome is already predetermined. When will we ever learn...
Great, Mike. But I’m far more disheartened by the 100+ schoolchildren who were killed by an air strike. And the heartless bastards who will shrug this off as “what happens in war.”
So if I kill my neighbor’s child but declare that I am “at war” with them because they are not nice, that would not only be acceptable, but worthy of praise on the Sunday shows.
I don't understand how anything I wrote circumscribes anything you have said here, other than perhaps your sense that I should have emphasized different things. I didn't emphasize different things. I emphasized what I did. And I wouldn't change a word.
I like your essay, Mike, but I would like to say that I don't think the soldiers who get killed in whatever happens in the days ahead are our responsibility. Their deaths do not fall on the American people as a whole. If someone volunteers to join the U.S. military in the Trump era, they have to realize they have put their fate in the hands of someone who cares nothing about their lives. His attitude toward the lives of others has been plain for over a decade. If you still volunteer anyway despite that, I think the responsibility rests on you and your decision.
I simply disagree with you. This kind of virtuocratic thinking on the left is something, I must tell you, that I am not fond of. It permits no empathy. It creates impossible standards. It is puritanical. It is quite ironic that secular anti-religious types, in particular, stand opposed to the intolerance of institutionalized religion, built upon guilt and fear to drive conformity, are practiced in relation to secular virtues, so advanced. We simply do not view the world the same way.
The standard you're applying will find you eventually.
Thanks, Mike, for addressing this multi-layered/perspectived (made up word...) tragedy. The impetus, the realizations, consequences we see in this moment are but a flash that blinds the shadows of understanding and deeper knowing. My heart goes out to these casualties, deaths loved ones, and their families. As well, to the 100+ school girls, teachers caught up in someone-else's-war on a Saturday during Ramadan. Accountability- now. Convene Congress. Grow some grit and Constitutional fealty... fast... to last.
Perhaps these three volunteered long ago, and trusted that the constitution would be upheld. This is indeed, on all of us
Such a powerful essay!
Nobody mourns a tyrant.
https://bsky.app/profile/cristianfarias.com/post/3mbjlwkmb6c24
In the news, we are talking about pedophilia.
Yet, we know very little about pedophilia. Pedophilia does not necessarily involve sexual abuse of children. Some men are attracted to children and merely acknowledge their attraction without acting on it. Scientists and medical researchers have not reached a consensus about the causes of this condition. The traditional debate about causation follows the nature versus nurture discussion. Some researchers are investigating genetic factors, while others are exploring social causes, such as family issues or past sexual assault.
As a psychologist, I tend to seek a broader perspective, and I try to understand all sexual identities and how we develop our personal identity, including our sexual orientation. I believe it is a mistake to focus on just one orientation and ignore others, especially when considering the scientist who suggested that genetics determines all our behavior, implying that nothing else matters in shaping who we are. This idea is difficult for me to accept because people are vastly different, and genes are specifically directed. I haven't found any studies that document a social orientation supporting the development of a particular sexual orientation.
Two observations by well-known scientists are particularly important to me: one concerns the reading readiness period in child development, and the other is Carlo Rovelli’s discussion of time as a theoretical physicist. Children aged 4 to 7 can easily learn languages and social skills, often acquiring two languages during this period. After this window closes, learning a second language typically requires more detailed instruction. The development of social skills during this time exceeds our understanding, as a child transitions from a blank slate to possessing remarkable abilities. I see this period as the intersection of two sources of development: one inherited through genes, and the other shaped by society. Consider a mother who was pregnant and moved to a different location, such as South America or Iceland, realizing her child would be different from what it would have been if she stayed in the original place. I think about the overwhelming number of factors influencing this child. Carlo Rovelli points out that time is not constant; it can be expansive or compressed, and it can flow faster or slower. For instance, in space travel, time moves more slowly than it does on Earth. Einstein articulated this idea through his theories of relativity.
Why are these two facts important to understanding sexual identity? What if there's a period in a child's development when time feels expansive, allowing the child to absorb large amounts of social stimulation or information? What if, during this time, sexual orientation is formed? I mean all types of orientation: male-female, male-male, female-female, male-child, or male-boy. Why do we try to identify the cause of a pedophile as being different from other sexual orientations? Are we thinking that our genetic coding, and nothing else, solely determines all behaviors? Can we consider that during this period, all sexual orientations develop? Until adolescence, we shape our personality based on our environment, family, neighborhood, and immediate friends—those connected by where we live and who we are. I ask people to reflect on their closest friends during adolescence and consider how these relationships impacted their personality development. Often, these relationships are like yin-yang—complementary parts of a whole—and they help shape each person's identity.
The discussion of a person's sexual identity must respect the complicated process of formation of each of us in our world, and with our genetic composition.
"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not an army. It is an economic empire with an army attached to it — construction contracts, energy infrastructure, smuggling networks, financial institutions, millions of people whose entire material existence is threaded through its apparatus. Those people did not become democrats when the Supreme Leader died. They became people with everything to lose. And people with everything to lose tend to fight."
I would add another level of determination which is that the Islamic Republic is a theocracy, and by attacking that we have involved ourselves in a religioious holy war of determined martyrdom. We have been here before in endless wars in the region and here we are again. The outcome is already predetermined. When will we ever learn...
Great, Mike. But I’m far more disheartened by the 100+ schoolchildren who were killed by an air strike. And the heartless bastards who will shrug this off as “what happens in war.”
So if I kill my neighbor’s child but declare that I am “at war” with them because they are not nice, that would not only be acceptable, but worthy of praise on the Sunday shows.
I don't understand how anything I wrote circumscribes anything you have said here, other than perhaps your sense that I should have emphasized different things. I didn't emphasize different things. I emphasized what I did. And I wouldn't change a word.
I like your essay, Mike, but I would like to say that I don't think the soldiers who get killed in whatever happens in the days ahead are our responsibility. Their deaths do not fall on the American people as a whole. If someone volunteers to join the U.S. military in the Trump era, they have to realize they have put their fate in the hands of someone who cares nothing about their lives. His attitude toward the lives of others has been plain for over a decade. If you still volunteer anyway despite that, I think the responsibility rests on you and your decision.
I simply disagree with you. This kind of virtuocratic thinking on the left is something, I must tell you, that I am not fond of. It permits no empathy. It creates impossible standards. It is puritanical. It is quite ironic that secular anti-religious types, in particular, stand opposed to the intolerance of institutionalized religion, built upon guilt and fear to drive conformity, are practiced in relation to secular virtues, so advanced. We simply do not view the world the same way.
The standard you're applying will find you eventually.