Homosexuality-Nature-Nurture and what's wrong with Nurture?

Is homosexuality a category, or a is there a homosexuality-heterosexuality spectrum? I'd bend towards the latter, and not just for this but for all sorts of identities.
This question arises because I was reading an article on whether homosexuality is inbuilt or conditioned by external factors, and some studies seem to have shown the spectrum thing. The same can be true for the male-female thing too, i think. Rather than categories of males and females, a spectrum of males-female. Wonder if there've been studies on that.

But what I was really thinking bout is this: the Naz Foundation court proceedings transcripts I was reading, where Shah J. remarks that homosexuality is a natural, and not artificial etc. So I was thinking how come only something which is "natural" is deemed acceptable? Is it all coming from the philosophy of the celebration of nature and natural things, and/or the sanctity of work of God etc.? Therefore if a choice is "unnatural" it won't be acceptable? Yet again the argument comes that if the human mind is able to think of something, any choice content or any scenario, then by the mere reason that he is able to think of it, it must be "natural". Weird no?

Yet this argument- anything that the human mind thinks must be natural by him able able to think it, must be perhaps applied in a philosophical foundation which proposes that man is "not a special" creation etc. making him vastly different, for it to be true. Only then can anything "man-made" be natural. Yet the very dichotomy of natural-man-made exists only because everything is viewed from the framework of the man, so man in fact cannot help being a special creation, or positioned differently.

Though some say he's a special creation because of reason- consciousness...the ability to see and look for big questions, big questions, see himself as a part of the universe, which other creatures are not able to, (though how we are so sure of that I don't know, but let's assume that to be true for the time being.) He is special because he is able to create and modify the environment around him, which no other creature is able to. And that is why he is able to come up with choices, ideas...different pathways in the first place...the man-made. The artificial.
Hm, perhaps that makes some sense.

My question was: Why does something have to be natural to be accepted?

Maybe a lot of it depends on natural in which sense. Natural in the sense of things which nature (i.e. the universe minus humans) does, or natural in the sense of how closely human ideas, lifestyles, paths confirm to the way nature (i.e. universe minus humans) works?

Of course it means the latter, because the "something" in this question refers to human behaviour, doesn't it?

So yeah, why does human behaviour have to closely align to the way of working of the universe minus human to be acceptable? The other question is, can human mind really think beyond the way the [universe minus human] works? I mean take all "inventions" ever done by humans. None of them is more than replication of [universe minus humans] methods and processes and ways of working. None of it original in the sense of the very idea which it incorporates!

Ok, but saying that maybe...if, someday, the human mind is able to produce something really original...a mechanism never before seen in the universe, say...then would that be decried because it is unnatural? Would then homosexuality be decried if it is proved that it has nothing to do with genetics? But what is this philosophical need which makes us want to stick to natural things? Hm, I wonder.

Edit: We do want things to be natural when we say- we want spontaneity. Spontaneity is natural- doesn't rely on much thinking? Is based on something primal?

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

After years of research, I have finally managed to discover that the south Asian fascination for white skin comes from a longing for cleanliness. 

You see all those Harpic ads on TV right? What happens? There is a dirty "not white" loo, and then use use Harpic and then it is cleaned by now being rendered "sparkling white." The human skin is constructed in a similar fashion. When it is dirty, it's "not white". When it is clean, it is white.

So why not covet the clean things in life? I mean the white things? White skins, white armpits, white pussies, a whitey white world is all we need to solve all the health and hygiene problems of the problems of the world. It's simple logic really. Never mind the myriad rubbish heap which is the high street.

Ignorance of Cultural Relativism in Socratic Reason

This post is gonna be all about The Sophists and Socrates, and why Socratic thought does not strike to me as a darn good thing. It actually strikes me as an awful awful way to thing about things which is actually responsible for lots of shit up and about and miserable-ing us today.

Well, Socratic thought as described by Plato anyways.

Can't begin a discussion on Socrates without contextualising it against The Sophists, because Socrates' was basically a Sophist criticism.

High-and-mighty sophist: Look, we can have no knowledge of the "truth". Because there is no "truth." I have travelled far and wide and realised that people somewhere might hold a practice as the right practice, in another place, they might hold the same practice as disgusting. It all depends on the context in which their ideas have been developed.

Socrates: Haha, enough enough! Listen. Not everything is so different. Because hey dude, reason! People have the ability to reason and with their reason they can discover what is right and what is wrong.

High-and-mighty sophist: Okay let's say we take your model to be true. A person can reason what is right and what is wrong, using well, his reason. His reason, for example, will tell him that doing A is right, B is wrong. Why do people still choose to do B then?

Socrates: Problem here mate, is that they are not actually using their reason. They just go on doing something without applying their mind to judge whether it is right and wrong. So in most cases, they don't know that B is wrong. Hence, they do it.


High-and-mighty sophist: Okay what about when they do know that B is wrong but still do B?

Socrates: Then they are still not using their reason fully. If they used their reason alright, they would know they should not do the thing they have identified as wrong, or they will be filled with guilt. So if they used their reason fully they would not be doing what they know is wrong.

High-and-mighty sophist: And tell me this...what exactly is this reason?

Socrates: Reason is something innate, inborn. A faculty that people have inside themselves, irrelevant of where they live, to make sense of the universe.

High-and-mighty sophist: But isn't reason itself shaped by social contexts? For example, a person's reason will say that she must wear clothes which fully cover her body while in a public space so that her body is not objectified. Another person may reason that is an expression of her freedom.

Socrates: Well one of them has to be wrong? Which means one of them is not using reason?

thus Socrates probably provided the groundwork for ethics by explaining reason as a faculty transcending cultural differences and other subjective contexts like gender etc. in a way also laying the foundation for liberal philosophy. The problem is this.
All of this is very patronising and also a precursor to The White Man's Burden and like theories. With Socrates, ONE idea of reason- THE UNIVERSAL REASON, the reason innate and inborn and uniform in everyone, prevails. Let's take an example of how this would work in a colonial context.

Coloniser 1: Ooh, natives burn their dead.
Coloniser 2: That's because they don't know any better. They are not using their reason. Let's educate them.

NOTE: Education, or the development of THE REASON (the only possible one universal form of reason) was an important Socratic project.

This, undoubtedly has also led to some what-most-of-us-would-deem good developments:

Coloniser 1: Ooh, natives burn women after their husbands have died.
Coloniser 2: That's because they don't know any better. They are not using their reason. But we are. Let's put a stop to this. Let's abolish Sati + Let's educate them.

But on the other hand, it led to many questionable and highly debated violent enforcements which translates into all these cultural/"development" conflicts in the contemporary scenario:

Government cat 1: Ooh, these indigenous people are not willing to sell their land. They think it will cause them harm.
Government cat 2: That's because they don't know any better. They are not using their reason. But we are. We know sale of land will bring them benefits. It will spark an entire era of development for them, kick them out of the forests where they live like wild creatures wearing nothing. Let's push for compulsory land acquisition with relevant compensations and let's educate them.

Or the burqa debates:


Government cat 1: Ooh, these Muslim women are not willing to move without their burqas in public. They think it will lead to the objectification of their bodies.
Government cat 2: That's because they don't know any better. They are not using their reason. But we are. We know doing away with burqa will bring them benefits. It is freedom, for God's sake! Their choice to dress in whatever they fuckin want! Let's push for burqa ban and let's educate them.

NOTE: their choice to dress in whatever they want MINUS a burqa.
COUNTERNOTE: they only pick up the burqa choice because they are not thinking reasonably.

Thing is...most people don't see any issue with the above examples, for them the picture here is very black and white: right and wrong clearly defined with the use of the reason. Government cats are well-meaning (undoubtedly, but SO STUCK IN THE ONE UNIVERSAL REASON FUNDA!) and heavily supported by the audible democratic voice in these scenarios.

DISCLAIMER:  Socrates was many cool things too: I totally stick by his method. That is he never thought that this reason was to be externally imposed by those who were using the reason on the other people those who were not using it. Those who do not use reason must be realised the use of it, through debate and discussion and not any dictatorial method. So he would have totally disagreed with colonialists and other white man burden-ers that way. This is a very very important point to remember. The method of implementation of the same substance has the ability to produce a chasm of difference.

To smile

"It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 muscles to frown. That is why you should always smile."
"What stupid logic. That's like going to the mall and buying stuff just because there is a 50% off."