How could that possibly be an "insult"? Sharia law was part of the "great civilization" you admire. Good for the emancipation of women and the promotion of liberal philosophy too .... :grin:

I think you are confusing the topic that we were discussing. — ssu

The topic is "Afghanistan, Islam and national success". Perhaps you have forgotten.

Pakistan was part of British India and that was where the Muslim League, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e Islami, and eventually, the Taliban started. No?

So, according to you Muslim Arabs never invaded the countries they invaded, conquered, enslaved and oppressed???

In that case, I wonder why there were so many uprisings against Arab rule?!

These uprisings already started during the Damascus-based Arab Caliphate of the Umayyads (661–751 AD).

694 AD Bashmurian Revolts, Egypt

718/722 Battle of Covadonga, Spain.

740 AD Berber Uprising in Morocco.

Berber Revolt - Wikipedia

750 AD Anti-Umayyad Revolution, Persia, resulting in the overthrow of Umayyad rule.

Rebellions against Arab domination and for religious freedom (including better treatment of women) continued during the early Abbasid era, e.g.:

Behafarid Revolt of Ustadh Sis (767 AD).

Khorramite Rebellion of Babak Khoramdin (816–837 AD).

Rebellion of Mazyar (833-839 AD).

Etc., etc.

But it looks like you prefer floggings, stoning, beheadings, limb amputations, forced conversions, and other progressive features of Islamic civilization. Maybe you should join the Taliban .... :grin:

British Empire? Yes, Egypt was a protectorate. Yet don't forget the French in the wider picture. But anyway, decolonization is a rather different matter. — ssu

Try to think a bit harder then. It is a well-known fact that there were major tensions between Hindus and Muslims in British India and that, for geostrategic (and cultural) reasons, the British have always sided with the Muslims.

As War Secretary Thomas Macaulay stated in the 1840’s “If our government does take a part [in the Muslim-Hindu conflict], there cannot be a doubt that Mahometanism is entitled to the preference”.

The All-India Muslim League was one of the instruments used by the British for their own purposes. The League started the Caliphate Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and the Jamaat-e Islami of Pakistan.

Along with the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, Jamaat-e-Islami was one of the original and most influential Islamist organisations, and the first of its kind to develop "an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam …. After the partition of India, the organisation became the spearhead of the movement to transform Pakistan from a Muslim homeland into an Islamic state. "

Jamaat-e-Islami – Wikipedia

Jamaat-e Islami belongs to the same Deobandi sect operating in Pakistan’s Pashtun belt that controls most of Pakistan’s Islamic seminaries funded by Saudi Arabia and from which the Taliban was recruited by US, UK, and Pakistan ….

Any Arab you happen to like? — Olivier5

It isn’t about liking or disliking anyone, it’s about seeing beyond propaganda.

If we look at the matter objectively, the following points become clear:

1. Cultural syncretism was started by Persia’s own rulers, the main center of it being at the city of Gundeshapur in Southwest Persia where under Persian King Khusraw I (531-579 AD), Christian, Pagan Greek, Persian Zoroastrian, Indian, and Chinese scholars came together to form an important seat of learning where research in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine was carried out.

Gundeshapur – Wikipedia

When the Arabs invaded and conquered Persia in 638 AD, their culture was not in any way superior to that of the Persians. Therefore, they made no contribution to the advancement of culture. On the contrary, as already stated, they were regarded as culturally inferior by the Persians.

The Abbasid Caliphate came into existence in 750 AD, following a revolution against the Arab Umayyad rulers. After the revolution, the Abbasids founded Baghdad as a seat of learning where they did no more than carry on what the Persians had started two centuries earlier.

2. The Arabs of Arabia had no architecture, arts, literature, science, medicine, philosophy, or anything else of note. No grand mosques, palaces, royal gardens and parks. They borrowed everything from the Byzantine Greeks and Persians. The earliest Arab Islamic monument, the Dome of the Rock that the Arabs built on Temple Mount in Jerusalem in 692, had its architecture and mosaic ornamentation copied from nearby Byzantine churches and palaces.

The Dome of the Rock’s structure and ornamentation are rooted in the Byzantine architectural tradition

- Dome of the Rock, History and Architecture – Britannica

Invading Persia and doing what the Persians had already been doing, does not constitute cultural improvement.

3. The only thing that remains is Arab language and script. But this was no improvement either as the Persians already had a language and script of their own! In fact, though forced to use Arabic in addition to Persian, the Persians have preserved their language to this day. And the script introduced by the Arabs was very similar to the existing Persian (Pahlavi) script, both of them having the same Aramaic origin.

4. Islamic rule in Arab-occupied territories was based on oppression and slavery:

In contrast to the earlier era, women in Abbasid society were absent from all arenas of the community's central affairs. Conquests had brought enormous wealth and large numbers of slaves to the Muslim elite. The majority of the slaves were women and children. In the wake of the conquests an elite man could potentially own a thousand slaves, and ordinary soldiers could have ten people serving them.
The marketing of human beings, particularly women, as objects for sexual use meant that elite men owned the vast majority of women they interacted with, and related to them as would masters to slaves …

- Abbasid Caliphate: Status of Women – Wikipedia

I don’t think the enslavement, rape, torture and murder of millions of innocent people should be romanticized and glorified.

Well, I DID attempt to answer this question in my previous post, but you obviously either didn’t notice I was answering, or just ignored it. — Leghorn

Well, I WAS going to say that your “answer” looks like Straussian hermeneutics to me but I resisted the temptation .... :smile:

But let’s try to simplify this. If I lived in 4th century BC Athens, where belief in afterlife was the prevalent position, and wanted to discuss the postmortem possibilities of (1) dreamless sleep (or “nothingness”) and (2) migration of the soul to another place, I would phrase it exactly as Socrates does. Wouldn’t you?

And, as already stated, we cannot ignore Socrates’ concluding remarks to the effect that God does not neglect a good man:

But you also, judges, must regard death hopefully and must bear in mind this one truth, that no evil can come to a good man either in life or after death, and God does not neglect him (41c-d).

IMO, this encapsulates Socrates’ belief in divine justice as expressed in Gorgias (526e), Republic (621c), Phaedo, etc.

My point as I made previously, is that only during the 18th century Enlightenment and beyond when Church control of learning disappeared that much of ancient philosophy, such as Epicureanism, which was an atheistic , materialistic philosophy revived. — Ross

Well, if atheism and materialism are your main concern, then it's a different story.

I think what tends to happen when someone converts to a new religion, is that they often start denigrating and even hating their old one.

However, if we think about it, Celtic religion no longer exists and we cannot realistically reconstruct it.

Also, from what is known about it, Celtic society was controlled by priests and kings, it involved human sacrifice, there were constant wars between different tribes, etc.

If you read the story of Cuchulainn, for example, it makes highly interesting reading but it doesn't sound like the ideal world you would like to live in. So, I think there is a danger of oversimplifying and over-romanticizing ancient cultures.

We must also bear in mind that Christianity in the British Isles was introduced peacefully, not by force. The natives converted of their own accord because they saw something of value in the new religion.

Similarly, in the Roman Empire, Romans were impressed by the exemplary ethical conduct of Christians, their faith, etc. Additionally, there already was a trend towards monotheism in Roman religion, especially among the educated classes, whereas popular religion had become a bit of a joke with superstitions and gods and goddesses for everything under the sun ....

I was referring to the Egyptian revolution of 1952. the military coup that topple king Farouk. Egypt had already been a kingdom during the era of the British protectorate. — ssu

I think you are not paying attention.

You keep forgetting a “small detail”, namely the British Empire, i.e. the largest empire in world history!

It is important to bear in mind two things:

1. How the British Empire worked.

2. That British policy in India, Mid East, Africa, etc. was controlled by the Fabian Socialists of the Fabian Society and Labour Party. Sidney Webb, co-founder of the Fabian Society and Labour Party, was Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Why do you think the British Empire became “British Commonwealth” under Labour rule?

Because the Fabian Socialists and their Liberal allies had always wanted to organize the world into a few economic and political blocs or “commonwealths” and later federate them into a world state. The idea of “world government” or “international government” was promoted by the Fabian Society and the Labour Party from the early 1900’s.

The same people encouraged Arab Nationalism and Islamism as explained in my previous post.

The Persian were beaten by the student of Aristotle, and under Greek control for a while; so of course they assimilated Greek philosohers before the Arab... — Olivier5

Exactly. So it was the Persians that had Plato and Aristotle translated before the Arabs. The Arabs merely continued what the Persians had already started. And the same applies to architecture, arts, etc.

Islamic architecture was based on Byzantine and Persian models. Islamic art including “Arabesque” decorations was based on Roman, Byzantine, and Persian traditions. Islamic gardens were Persian and Greek. Islamic philosophy and medicine were Greek, etc. The main Arab contribution was language and script, and this is not enough to make an “Arab civilization”.

The synchretism of al Andalus was not Persian in any way. So what was it? Spanish? — Olivier5

Good question. Maybe we should try to find out.

By definition, “cultural syncretism” is a mixture of cultures. So, for starters, it was not “Arab”. The Spanish were (partly) under Arab rule but many were Christians who had their own culture and language.

All available evidence points to the fact that in this period [8th century] popular works of medicine, agriculture, astrology, and geography were translated from Latin into Arabic. Many of these texts must have been derived from the Etymologies of Isidore of Sevilla and from other Christian writers. In the 9th century the situation changed abruptly: the Andalusians, who traveled east in order to comply with the injunction to conduct a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes, took advantage of their stay in those regions to enhance their knowledge, which they then introduced into their native country.

Spain - Culture of Muslim Spain | Britannica

If the Arabs of Spain had such an advanced culture as you believe, why did they need to introduce knowledge from elsewhere? What they introduced, e.g. philosophy, was non-Arab. And non-Arab influence grew over time, so that at the height of the Islamic Golden Age, non-Arab influence was strongest and Arab influence weakest.

Take philosophy, for example.

There was no Arab philosophy until al-Kindi (9th century). And al-Kindi became a philosopher after being appointed to supervise the translation by Christian scholars of Greek philosophical works into Arabic.

Al-Kindi | Wikipedia

So, it took the Arabs 200 years to develop a philosophy, and only after coming into contact with Greek philosophy in Persia!

And in the 1950's Nasser and the military coup that overthrew the King of Egypt were basically nationalists and later socialists, not at all islamists. — ssu

I think you are mixing up your dates, and Arabs with Turks :smile:

The All-India Caliphate Committee was founded in 1919.

The All-India Muslim League that started the Caliphate Movement was backed by Lord Morley (Secretary of State for Indian Affairs), Lord Minto (Governor General of India), Mahatma Gandhi, Annie Besant, and other members of the Fabian Society.

And the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928.

Muslim revivalism and Islamism were well underway before Nasser. And it was encouraged by England's Fabian Socialists who wanted to break up the British Empire and transform it into a worldwide Socialist Commonwealth. The same Fabian Socialists encouraged Ireland's Republicans and Nationalists and other similar movements in Africa and elsewhere.

"Arab Nationalism" was not what you think, it was an instrument for the propagation of socialism ....

But unfortunately with the coming of Christianity all that ancient wisdom came to an end as Ancient Philosophical schools were closed by the Church in the 5th century AD. What survived of western philosophy was a Christianized Aristotle and Plato. Not until the 18th century did you get a revival of much ancient wisdom and then western colonial attitudes coupled with ignorance of Eastern thought continued until the 19th or even 20th centuries. It's all there explained much better than I can in Baginnis book. — Ross

I think this is a (West European) misconception. Plato’s Academy at Athens was closed in 529 AD because it was a Pagan school, but Classical philosophy continued to be taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria and at the University of Constantinople from 425 AD to 1453 AD (when the city fell to the Turks) and after that at Greek philosophy schools like Phanar College in Constantinople.

Plato's works were freely available from libraries and schools run by the Church or monasteries throughout the Greek-speaking world and as far as Armenia.

What the Church prohibited was not philosophy itself but the teaching of it as a non-Christian tradition (or as an alternative to Christianity). Philosophy in Greece has been taught without interruption from Plato and Aristotle down to the present!

It was the Christian State (Eastern Roman Empire a.k.a. Byzantine Empire) that preserved all the original manuscripts of Plato, Aristotle, the poets, etc. And it was Christian scholars who translated all that into Persian, Syriac, and Arabic. Arab rulers then translated some of it into Latin and this is how it reached Western Europe. In the Eastern part of the Roman Empire it was never lost and it was brought from there by Greek philosophy teachers to Italy where it played a central role in the Renaissance movement.

But I agree that there are some interesting parallels between Ancient Greek and Indian philosophical traditions. The Shape of Ancient Thought by Thomas McEvilley (recommended to me by Wayfarer) is an excellent study of this subject.

although Metta is meant to apply to all living things that obviously is not going to impact the behavior of Tiger you mentioned in your example. But the value of the Buddhist teaching here lies in the fact that it changes our attitude towards the whole of creation. — Ross

You are probably right there.

But I wouldn't blame Christianity for the destruction of the environment. People have always cut down forests to grow crops, build houses and ships, for fuel, etc. Large-scale deforestation, etc. only came with the growth of populations. The rest was the work of industrialization and commercialization of society. I don't see this as being connected with any particular philosophical or religious system.

So in my opinion Buddhist philosophy not only contains the value of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom drawn from observing REAL people in REAL life situations but it makes practical sense for someone in pursuit of happiness. — Ross

Correct. However, the concept of ethical conduct as conducive to happiness both in the individual and in society, was already central to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and subsequently passed into the Christian tradition along with other elements of Hellenistic philosophy.

So, it does not seem to be exclusively a feature of Buddhism.

that synchretism was made possible by an Arab language shared by most and under an Arab aristocracy. — Olivier5

The syncretism was Persian and had started during the Second Golden Era (498–622) of the Sasanian Empire, i.e. long before Islam:

The Sasanian kings were patrons of letters and philosophy. Khosrau I had the works of Plato and Aristotle, translated into Pahlavi, taught at Gundishapur, and read them himself.

Under Khosrau I, the Academy of Gundishapur, which had been founded in the 5th century, became "the greatest intellectual center of the time", drawing students and teachers from every quarter of the known world. Nestorian Christians were received there, and brought Syriac translations of Greek works in medicine and philosophy. The medical lore of India, Persia, Syria and Greece mingled there to produce a flourishing school of therapy.

Artistically, the Sasanian period witnessed some of the highest achievements of Iranian civilization. Much of what later became known as Muslim culture, including architecture and writing, was originally drawn from Persian culture. At its peak, the Sasanian Empire stretched from western Anatolia to northwest India (today Pakistan), but its influence was felt far beyond these political boundaries. Sasanian motifs found their way into the art of Central Asia and China, the Byzantine Empire, and even Merovingian France. Islamic art however, was the true heir to Sasanian art, whose concepts it was to assimilate while at the same time instilling fresh life and renewed vigor into it.

Sasanian Empire - Wikipedia

Give to Mohamad what belongs to Mohamad. — Olivier5

I agree. Give him Islam. :smile:

What you are talking about is called "the Golden Age of Islam", not "great Arab civilization". As already explained, there is a very good reason for this.

Nothing to do with "erasing" anything.

Do you mean that Socrates’ frequent—I almost said “reminders”—repetitions of different phrases meaning that what was being said was only spoken of might be characterized by other phrases or words? Instead of “reminders”, might we call them “admonitions”? how about, “accidents”, or “glosses”, or “incidental comments”, or “insignificant utterances”, etc. You can call them a host of things, but if you agree they are there in the text in the frequency in which they are extant, you can’t merely dismiss them without cause. — Leghorn

Well, if you ask me, when I relate what is being said, I normally use phrases like "They say that ..." etc. and I know of no other way of putting it in everyday language. "They say that", "as they say", etc. simply indicates that something is being affirmed. It by no means signifies that what is being said is a mere "story".

Hence my question to you (which I have asked multiple times):

How does one speak of things said without using phrases like “as they say”, “according to things said”, etc. — Apollodorus

This, for some unknown reason, you have declined to say.

I don’t have him around to ask about it. So if you say he tells me that I have a prenatal memory, the only one I have to question is you. — Leghorn

Sure. However, as I am merely relaying what Socrates states in the dialogues, I can only advise you to read the dialogues. :smile:

Metta" isn't 'love', and "loving-kindness" is an awkward translation. — baker

Pali metta is the equivalent of Sanskrit maitri which seems to be more like friendliness, goodwill, or benevolence, the opposite being ill-will.

In the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, maitri is supposed to be practiced together with other attitudes like compassion (karuna), happiness (mudita), and indifference (upeksanam).

It is debatable how to best apply this in practice, though. For example, when coming across a tiger in the forest. I think the idea is that when practiced properly, the object of your metta, in this case the tiger, will be moved to respond in kind and be nice to you instead of having you for breakfast or lunch. But I don't know how many Buddhists have developed their metta to the degree that it would work out as intended.

On the other hand, if the ultimate objective of metta is to eradicate selfishness, then perhaps offering yourself as food to the tiger may be the quickest way to achieve it.

In the Jataka Stories, the Buddha in a previous life met a starving tigress that was about to eat her own cubs, and offered himself to her as food out of metta and karuna (Āryaśūra's Jātakamālā, Vyāghrī-jātaka).

This would seem to have thoroughly eradicated his selfishness as he later attained nirvana. So, there may be some truth in it ....

None of you came back to this.

Curious. Why not? — Banno

Well, as far as I am concerned, I did suggest to @Athena to be a bit more specific:

Anyway, what is your vision for America and the western world? What kind of matriarchy or patriarchy would you like to have? Could you compile a short list of policies you would like to see implemented? — Apollodorus

Otherwise it's just a free-for-all and we won't get very far IMO.

Also, I don't know how many participants here are female, but I think it may be useful to have a balanced representation from both sides.

And were brought down by Muslims, who's state actually still exists even today. — ssu

Not exactly by Muslims. With the exception of Spain, the West remained mostly under Germanic control. It was the Visigoths that initiated anti-Islamic resistance in Spain. Unfortunately, Franks and other Germanic warlords decided to sack Constantinople in 1204 and the Eastern Roman Empire never fully recovered. It still lasted another two centuries before it fell to the Turks, though.

I think that without help from the West, the East would have fallen to the Turks anyway, whether Muslims or not. The West woke up to reality when the Turks later camped outside Vienna but by then the East was lost.

I think the obsession on things "Arab" is a far more modern issue and likely grew out of Pan-Arabism, which has it's origins in the 19th Century and was ever so popular during the 1950's and 1960's during Nasser's rule. I bet the Abbassids didn't think of themselves as Arabic. — ssu

Well, England's Fabian Socialists (the Fabian Society and the Labour Party) had this great idea of converting the Arabs to socialism in order to defeat capitalism. The result was Arab Socialism and Nationalism.

Of course, the Abbasid Caliphate was more Persian than Arab and after 934 when the Persian Buyid rulers took over, the Arab caliphs were mere figureheads. This is why I'm saying that the Abbasid Caliphate was only part-Arab and later non-Arab, hence the "great Arab civilization" is really just a myth. It is more modern political construct than historical fact.

And, yes, Turkey likes to imagine itself as the leader of the Islamic world. It was Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who held the title of Caliph, who instigated the Muslim revivalist movement in British India that later spawned the Caliphate Movement, Islamism, Jihadism, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistan's Islamic Party (Jamaat-e Islami) and, eventually (with US-UK assistance) al-Qaeda and Taliban.

As a matter of fact, Turkey after WW2 was on its way out. Unfortunately, the Rockefellers and their front man Kissinger decided to rebuild Turkey in order to put pressure on the Soviets and expand their worldwide petroleum and banking empire.

It was Kissinger who introduced the idea of a "Turkish world from the Adriatic to North China" and this was picked up by Erdogan who saw that now was the chance to rebuild the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate with himself as Sultan and Caliph:

From the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China – TEPAV

I doubt Plato or Socrates would ever say such a thing, at least they wouldn't mean it in the general sense that your sentence suggests. — baker

But, Baker, if we bear in mind that in Platonism the true individual is the nous, etc. as explained above, then I think there should be less doubt about it.

Unless you have a better suggestion ....

We are animals with a high rate of infidelity I would struggle to believe we are indeed as monogamous as culture and romcoms would dictate — Benj96

You could be right that we are less monogamous than we are told we are or than we would like to be. But I think life and nature itself imposes some restrictions on the number of partners we have, apart from culture.

And love is not necessarily incompatible with having more than one partner. I don't see why it should be impossible to love one partner at a time or multiple partners at the same time. Also, we may love them in different ways and to different degrees, etc.

Native Americans have a tradition of handling social problems without authority over the people and more in line with the correction of our correction system that is not just and is not correcting! — Athena

That's a very interesting perspective and perhaps worth looking into. However, do Native Americans all have a unified settlement pattern, social stratification, economic and legal system, etc.?

I believe that most of the North American tribes used to be constantly at war with one another. And if we look at more advanced Native American systems like those of the Mayas and Aztecs, it does not look like they were the most peaceful people on the planet.

What you are saying seems to apply to some Native Americans only. And then there is the question of whether it can or should be implemented everywhere in western society.

Apollodorus, think about what you are saying very carefully. The USSR "liberated" women long before the US did. This is an economic thing that we have adopted. First, you tax people's income. Second, you promote the notion that all adults must be productive members of society and earn a living, and third, the state will raise the children. That is not the democracy we defended in two world wars. — Athena

I agree, it looks like I must think very carefully about what I say and maybe better say nothing at all lest I get mistaken for someone from Texas .... :grin:

But I agree that we have been betrayed and sold down the river time and time again by corporate interests and their political accomplices. "Democracy" used to have some meaning or at least people thought so. Unfortunately, it has become a bait to catch the ignorant, the gullible, and the unthinking, when in reality it is all about the military industrial complex, big bucks, and big tech.

And no, I don't think the state should raise all our children. What happened in the Communist Bloc was appalling. They had these state-run orphanages where no one cared, the children were totally neglected if not abused, and ended up damaged for life. Maybe in the West things would be run differently to communist states that were not accountable to anyone.

But I think the state should provide some form of financial assistance to its own citizens when it obviously has trillions to throw away. And the same applies to big corporations. They extract billions from society so they should give some of that back to the people for the people to use as they see fit.

Anyway, what is your vision for America and the western world? What kind of matriarchy or patriarchy would you like to have? Could you compile a short list of policies you would like to see implemented?

I think the main problem is that we have no example of matriarchal society to make an informed judgement with regard to possible benefits of matriarchy.

Moreover, if we take state institutions like police, judiciary, civil service, and political leadership to be "oppressive" because they are mostly run by men, at what point can we say that they cease to be oppressive and become non-oppressive?

Is it:

1. When they are run 50-50 by men and women?

2. When they are 75% run by women?

3. When they are 100% run by women?

Most of America's cultural features are not American, if you go that way. — Olivier5

Correct. America is a mixture of cultures. That's why no one calls it "great English civilization".

The same applies to the supposed "great Arab civilization". The Abbasid Caliphate was a mixture of Greek, Persian, and Arab elements. Islamic philosophy, for example, was based on Classical Greek philosophy. There were attempts to combine Greek philosophy with Islamic teachings, but that did not make it "Arab".

The other thing is that Islam spread through military invasion and conquest which involved killing, raping, pillaging, enslaving, exploiting and suppressing the conquered populations.

This is why there were numerous uprisings against Arab rule from Spain to Egypt and Persia.

Moreover, Arabs were in fact regarded as backward and uncivilized people by the populations under Arab occupation. For example, in Persia, there was an extensive local literature deriding Arabs for eating snakes, mice, and lizards.

IRANIAN IDENTITY iii. MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PERIOD – Encyclopaedia Iranica

IMHO I think it is important to take a more objective view of the facts and not get carried away by legends and political propaganda.

Maybe such people are born for real who are irresistibly beautiful and who do not need the help of agents and PR to attract admirers. I think these characters are more fictional vehicles than real. — Bitter Crank

Exactly. Besides, attraction isn't just about beauty. And, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Moreover, I think Ancient Greeks were prone to exaggeration and drama. After all, they invented theater.

So, I'm beginning to think that it could be just a Greek myth .... :smile:

I believe that Narcissus wasn't necessarily insecure. I mean, who isn't insecure nowadays? My understanding is that Narcissus was simply expressing self-love to a greater extent than route aggrandizement or excessive self-esteem. What do you think? — Shawn

Well, apparently, there are different versions of the story so it's hard to tell how we are to read it.

You could perhaps say that he was in a way selfish or even self-obsessed. But if others fell in love with him I don't see how this was his fault. I think it would be silly to expect someone to love people back just because they fall in love with him. It would be like a kind of blackmail. And what if more than one person falls in love with you?

In any case, if narcissism involves "grandiosity" and "excessive need for attention and admiration", then I don't see how this applies to Narcissus who seems to have been interested only in his own attention for himself and did not demand anything else. I think the "excessive need for attention and admiration" is easier to attribute to those who fell in love with him. So, it's all a bit of a puzzle to be honest ....

.and the part played by the Taliban remains unexplained. — Banno

Correct. I can think of no explanation as to why western governments would pump trillions into Afghanistan and arm the Taliban instead of using the money to help their own citizens when in need.

You suggested money used for abortions be used for adoptions or raising kids by the state; not to support mothers. — Banno

I don't think so. By "raised by the state" I meant raised at the state's expense, i.e. either by paying the mother or paying carers.

Money paid for abortions would not be sufficient to pay for the children to be raised. This is precisely why I am saying that the state should make itself useful and help its own citizens when in need instead of squandering trillions on other projects.

What about celebs and influencers who keep posting selfies of themselves in the social media? Could they draw any lessons from the story?

That was my original suggestion.

Paying a mother is paying a carer. — Banno

Exactly. So the state pays .... :smile:

Paying mothers to stay home is the state raising children. Well, no. The mother is the one raising the child. — Banno

...unless, say, there was a basic income payed to carers. — Banno

If the mother is paid by the state to stay home and raise children, then why would the state need to pay a basic income to carers?

Either way, the state pays for the child being raised. Which sounds better than paying and arming the Taliban.

So if someone in the USA is arrested by a female police officer and tried by a female judge are they oppressed by women or by men?

According to the web, 87% of police officers are men. As of 2017, 66% of US Federal District Court judges were men... — T Clark

In that case, I'm assuming that the remainder are women. 34% of Federal District Court judges is not negligible. How many are there under the Taliban?

..unless, say, there was a basic income payed to carers. — Banno

Which amounts to the state raising the children ....

If all those babies were saved and given up for adoption or raised by the state — Apollodorus

I raised the topic because @Athena mentioned women having to leave children in a daycare center and working like men to support the family, which obviously does not liberate women.

The only alternative to that is to have no children, including involuntary abortions.

On the other hand, if useless and fraudulent governments helped women instead of pouring trillions into Afghanistan and arming Taliban criminals to suppress women, then things might be a bit better for everyone ....

No one was talking about Texas. I was talking about the whole western world and about women who might make different choices if useless governments helped them instead of pumping trillions into Afghanistan and arming the Taliban to suppress women. I think that is crazy and sick. But each with their own opinion.

And it should refrain from restricting women's choices concerning their own health — Banno

I think a woman who feels she has no choice, e.g. for economic reasons, does not have a choice. Helping her financially would give her a choice IMO.

So, you think the state shouldn't make itself useful and do something for the people? Some people have abortions because they feel they have no choice. Why shouldn't the state help out? Western governments have trillions of $$$ for Afghanistan and other places but nothing for their own people. How is that right?

I think traditional family values are important to our liberty and that is why I started this thread. I don't think having to leave children in a daycare center and working like men to support the family is liberating women. — Athena

Good point. I think there isn't much point having family values if no one wants to raise a family.

Just think of the thousands of abortions being performed throughout the Western world. If all those babies were saved and given up for adoption or raised by the state, you would have the population of a whole country. But we complain that there is a shortage of workforce and prefer to import people from other places to make up for it. Crazy or what?