Talk:Alessandro Valignano

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Contents 1 Neutrality Discussion 2 Additions? 3 Article creator plagerized? --Nope! 4 Featured Article 5 Racist

[edit] Neutrality Discussion

This article should be cleaned up in an effort to remove biased opinions. While many people may question the actions of Valignano, the article itself should endeavor to present an objective account of his life - no guesses as to Valignano's motives, beliefs, or racism are necessary or helpful. --TheTriumvir 20:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additions?

I could really use some help with this page. I know quite a bit about this guy, but I'm something of a Wiki newb. Please add images and some more background text and we can bring this up to featured article status in no time! --circuitloss 21:26, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

More specifically, this article could really use images of the seminaries (if anyone can find them) or old paintings/drawings of the port of Nagasaki. --circuitloss 18:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article creator plagerized? --Nope!

I've tried not to delete too much of the origional text out of respect for other Wikipedians. However, the first version of this page was a cut and paste job from http://alessandro-valignano.biography.ms/

Is this plagerism? I don't really know, but I have removed much of the first version. The only extant line should be the first lead-in paragraph. I can rewrite this too if neccessary. --circuitloss 18:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The page you are mentioning actually takes its content from Wikipedia (please read at the bottom of that page "Content from Wikipedia under GDFL"). Anybody is free to re-use Wikipedia content. So you certainly don't have to delete the original content in this article (please) :-) Regards PHG 22:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, sorry about that. I didn't know which came from which. I think that we've come to a pretty good balance with this article. I'd like more about what he did before he came to Japan and in between his visits. (I think he visited other missions and was an administrator in Macao) I mainly know about thej Japanese mission. --circuitloss 23:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article

I'd like to bring this article up to "featured" status. Please make any edits or make suggestions that you think would help improve this piece to that point. I can do an RFC as soon as any contributors are satisfied that this is close to perfect. Should we footnote everything? --circuitloss 02:51, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Racist

The following sentence is wrong.

Valignano paved the way for a closer relationship between Asian and European peoples by advocating equal treatment of all human beings.

He was, like most missionaries, a racist to our modern eyes. In fact, he was a white supremacist. He just classified the Chinese and Japanese into "White." He clearly discriminated against the "Colored" (Indians) and New Christians. He was even cautious about letting Indian-born "pure" Portuguese join the Society of Jesus because they grew up in the "vicious land." --Nanshu 21:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Nanshu, considering the time period we are talking about (the 1500s) he was a reformer without precedent. He advocated the creation of a native Japanese clergy, something which no Europeans even understood at the time, and he took measures to reform the harsh treatment of Japanese individuals by European clergy. Valignano was a great reformer of Catholic doctrine and teaching. You simply can't judge him by 21st century standards. Judge him by the standards of the 15th, and he is incredibly progressive. --circuitloss 02:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

You dodged my point. That's not what I am talking about. Did he treat all human beings equally? Definitely no. The article contains wrong information and it should be corrected. That's all.

And I'm fully aware of the danger of judging history by the modern standard. But we should take into account the fact that Wikipedia users live in the 21th century, not the 15th. This article gives us the wrong impression that he was not a racist, even to our modern eyes. --Nanshu 23:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, if your point is that Valignano reclassified the Japanese as "white" rather than being truly egalitarian I think there is evidence to support this. Make whatever corrections you think are necessary to clarify his beliefs, but I think that using your litmus test EVERYONE is racist to some degree or another. (Everyone probably is...) But what makes Valignano stand out is the way that he reformed the abuses of Cabral. Ordaining non-Europeans as Jesuits was an incredibly progressive and era-changing thing to advocate. --circuitloss 21:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As for his racist remarks on Indians, see Joseph Wicki ed., Documenta Indica, XIII, Rome, 1957, pp.259, 260. (I heard it at second hand.) My edits heavily rely on Takase Koichirō 高瀬弘一郎's works. Currently I'm reading his Kirishitan jidai no bunka to shosō キリシタン時代の文化と諸相.

Now I start editing the article. Leaving aside factual errors (Hideyoshi never became shogun; What we call Sakoku was done by Tokugawa Iemitsu, not Ieyasu; and...), it is not easy to npov the article. It is written from Valignano's point of view, and I think the situation was not so simple as you depicted.

There was a bad guy and he did bad things. Then a good man came. He changed bad things to good things and everyone went happy.... No. It is rather accurate to say there were two opinions and Valignano represented one minority view. The other opinion remained dominant before, during and after Valignano's term. And we should not easily label them good or bad. --Nanshu 23:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well said. Much of what I've been reading comes from C.R. Boxer and focuses on the reforms put in place by Valignano, especially as far as the seminaries were concerned. This may account for the slant in favor of him. Considering that Valignano was the ultimate authority and eventually forced Cabral to resign, how is this opinion not "dominant," at least vis a vis the Jesuit hierarchy in Japan? --circuitloss 01:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)