Talk:Ronald Hutton

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Contents 1 Objectivity 2 Stations of the Sun 2001? 3 Link 3.1 Dashu Artcile should be nixed 3.2 Harvard Educated 4 History of Homosexuality in Paganism?

[edit] Objectivity

"Hutton also seems to have embraced many of the ideas he writes about and cannot be considered, from the academic point of view, to be entirely objective."

Could this be clarified? It's not very useful as written. —Ashley Y 01:40, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

I'm going to remove this otherwise. —Ashley Y 05:04, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)

Done. —Ashley Y 07:29, 2005 Jan 13 (UTC)

Honestly, I must admit that, knowing what I know of propper academic protocol, I cannoit term Hutton a very objective scholar by any stretch of the term! A variety of themes keep cropping up in his work that are deeply problematic. For example, when it was brought to his attention that Norman Cohn lied about Margaret Murray, he refused to qualify his endorsement of him in any way! Moreover, he even mischaracterized Carlo Ginzburg's literature in a manner that makes it seems as though Ginzburg is saying something else entirely-- JB Russell and Norman Cohn have also done this, probably because the conclusions Ginzburg reaches, that is basided upon physical and documented evidence, is not what British academia has reached. Many of his arguments are also rather feeble and fail to take into account very important qustions.

He is also overtly pedantic, to the point of audacity! Hungerian Prof. Eva Pocs has found (performing the largest study to date) that there's definately a shamanistic and folkloric antecedant to medieval witchcraft belief. A conclusion that Hutton thoughtlessly reject as inconsequential, because, he says, she uses the term "shamanistic" (a noted similie, rather than any sort of metaphor between Europe and Siberia/Arctic tribal belief!). Hutton argues, pedantically, that any term with the prefix "shaman-" in it is ONLY to be used when refering to beliefs in regions of the arctic north and Siberia, apparently despite the fact that no such metaphore or direct parallels were intended. C'mon, Ron! You're better than this!

His books are also full of intimidation tactics. As an example: he says, "no scholar with a real knowledge of the middle ages" would state that the Green Man foliate carvings were images of any beloved Deity, or pre-Christian. However, I can think of at least one medievalist that does: Samantha Riches in her monograph, St. George. Such statements are usually meant to silence any minority opinions within any given field. For example, he keeps saying, "most British schoalrs" this, or "scholars in Folklore believe" that! But, where are the reoutible scholars within any given academic field that believe differently than he? They are entirely missing from his books.

In fact, the most worriesome aspect of Hutton, as a scholar, is that his texts are works of polemics, rather than objective historiographies that are, in any way, BALANCED; he's keen on ONLY using the say-so of those scholars that agree with him.

In all honesty, the impression I got while reading his books, and seeing various public statement, is that British academia generally looks down its noise severely at American and European scholars, as though they're more "rigorous" than anyone else. In fact, I was surprised to note the differing methodology adopted by Britain as opposed to continental Europe-- unfortnately, it appears to me that British scholars (at least Hutton) view European scholars as inconsequential, especially when they relay supportive evidence that directly counters British reductionism.

I could go on, and on, re: the problematic nature of Ronald Hutton as a scholar. Especially when many modern readers accept his unsubstantiated material as though they were empiriucal facts. Often, one will also see Hutton failing to demarcate between what is fact, and what is his opinion merely guised as fact.

[edit] Stations of the Sun 2001?

Why does the article list Stations of the Sun (with two others) as being published in 2001? Were these ISBNs for paperbacks or reprints? I have the hardback in front of me, and it's from 1996. (ISBN 0-19-820570-8). The dustjacket for it puts Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles as 1991 and Rise and Fall of Merrie England as 1994. Telsa 14:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link

I removed the review link by Max Dashu. She is not a historial, she is a professional artist. She only fancies herself as a historian so people will take her extremist revisionist feminism seriously. --Toadsboon 08:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

From her website:

Independent scholar Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970. Since then, she has photographed over 14,000 slides and created ninety slideshows on international women's history, including Women's Power, Patriarchies, Female Rebels and Mavericks, Taming the Female Body, and Racism: History and Lies. She has presented hundreds of slide talks at universities, community centers, bookstores, schools, libraries, prisons, galleries, festivals and conferences around North America.

Dashu has guest-taught classes at John F. Kennedy University (Orinda, CA), California Institute of Integral Studies and New College (San Francisco), among others. She has acted as historical consultant for a variety of projects, including Donna Deitch's film, Woman to Woman (1973-4) and the San Francisco Women's Building mural project (1994).She has done extensive interdisciplinary research on the European witch hunts and folk traditions about witches.

Max Dashu is both an artist and a historian, and as far as I can make out, she's quite a decent one at that. I don't know where she was educated (someone else added that she is a Harvard scholar), but I've followed up some of her references and what she writes seems to be factually solid. I realise her review makes some pretty strong (and damning) conclusions, and that she stands out somewhat from other reviewers in this respect. However I have myself been working on a review of Hutton's Triumph of the Moon after I discovered a host of factual errors, misrepresentations and seeming biases in the book. I found Dashu's review while I was searching for anyone else who had found the errors I had. I included Dashu's review because so many people automatically treat everything he says as gospel, and in leu of my review this is a relatively good indication of the problems with his approach. I can't really submit my own review to wikipedia, and it's not finished yet. I still have quite a few more of Huttons references to read, having found him misrepresenting several of his sources already.

Anyway, my review aside, I have actually checked some of Dashu's assertions where I wasn't familiar with what she was saying, or where they sounded questionable. She checked out with flying colours. The fact that she's a feminist may influence some ignorant and opinionated critics to dismiss her work without actually checking it for factual accuracy. I note that Hutton in his response (on that Crooked Heath page) doesn't address even one of the factual errors she found. If she was full of rubbish, I'm sure he could have briefly given one or two examples and she would have been made to look like a fool.

I would like to restore her review here, especially since I don't want to be rushed with my own review - I want to make sure it's really sound before I publish it. We could also include Hutton's response, however I haven't managed to find it anywhere on the net other than on that rather awfully presented page (awfully presented opinion is endemic on that site; see what they say about Wiccans). Fuzzypeg 01:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

When/where can we see your corrections of Hutton's errors?

Septegram 17:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on it at the moment. Still not sure where it'll be published. Hopefully I can get it into a decent journal, or failing that, it'll appear on the internet somewhere. Unfortunately it's taking a while, because I'm having to track down and read a lot of his sources. Fuzzypeg☻ 05:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks like another editor has added the review back to the list. Fuzzypeg 03:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dashu Artcile should be nixed

Narsil27 here. Please, for the love of all things NPOV, delete the Dashu article. It seems highly suspicious to me (an should to anyone else) that the only two active external links are to artciles critical of Ronald Hutton, and which both display a decidedly pro-Wiccan bent. No suprise, given the author of the article, but since when has Wikipedia become a dumping ground for neo-pagan archeological/anthropological pseduotheories casting ancient Europe as an anachronistic left-wing paradise? Reading reams of POV Wikipedia articles (most of them left-leaning)on ancient European religion is a small price to pay for the privilege of having Wikipedia online, but everyone really needs to excercise a bit of ideological self-control. Fuzzypeg - do the right thing. Leave the Dashu link, but deactivate it, and link to an article praising Hutton at the expense of your compatriots. Truth be told, Gimbutas, Adler, and their faction has been sliding down the ladder of serious academia at an exponential rate for a least a decade. That should be made clearer in this article by the inclusion of more balanced external links. Narsil27 19:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Odd that you should imply that Wiccans would be critical of Hutton. I'm Wiccan, and have been very impressed by his work (although I'll be interested to see good criticism of it). Gimbutas' scholarship is not well-regarded in anthropological circles, and I have no problem with that; scholarship should stand on its merits. If by Adler you mean Margot Adler, I'm curious as to what of her work has been "sliding down the ladder of academia?" Surely you don't mean "Drawing Down the Moon?"

If you want more balanced links in the article, by the way, I'd say "Be Bold." Find them and add them.

Septegram 19:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I don't disagree with Septegram regarding finding some more articles praising (or at least putting a balanced spin on) Hutton's work. That I shall endeavor to do. What I did find laughably predictable about the article was the pattern of "active linking" (i.e., the only active links were to pro-Wiccan/anti-Hutton articles, and the author happened to be Wiccan). I just expected a little more detachment from my fellow Wikipedians.Narsil27 20:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Narsil27. The first thing to point out is that, while Wikipedia articles themselves strive to remain neutral, they can, and should reference authors who have their own point of view. In fact it's dangerous to treat any author (including Hutton, for instance) as unbiased; that's why we clearly reference who ideas come from in these articles, and attempt to provide multiple contrasting views. If Dashu were mentioned in the article body, we might say "Max Dashu is of the opinion that ..." for instance.

Regarding the fact that Gibbons and Dashu are online, while the others aren't, I don't see a good solution for that other than to find online reviews that you think are worthy and link them in here, or else quote sections of the reviews you appreciate in the body of the article. I don't think unlinking a review is a good option. We're trying to make information more accessible, not less.

Regarding Dashu's view on Wicca, I haven't ever read anything by her on the subject, and I wouldn't presume to guess.

Regarding "pseduotheories casting ancient Europe as an anachronistic left-wing paradise": have you actually read any of Gibbons' or Dashu's writing? Neither of them have suggested anything like this. In fact the scenario you're trying to put into their mouths is the "straw doll" that Dashu very explicitly disowns, in her article Knocking down Straw Dolls: A critique of Cynthia Eller's The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future. What she actually discusses is much closer to the realms of respectable archaeology than you might think. I suggest you read a little bit of her critique of Hutton and see what it's based on. Her arguments are on simple factual grounds, and they hold weight. I've followed up several of her claims and found them to be accurate.

Hutton, on the other hand, I have found to be often quite inaccurate, particularly in making vast over-generalisations which make him sound like he has an exhaustive knowledge of a particular area, but which are (presumably) based on a poor knowledge, since they simply aren't true. While I could write a long essay on this (and I am), a couple of concrete examples will have to suffice for the moment.

1. Hutton paints Leland as a crank and a forger, claiming that Aradia (Herodias) is clearly a figure from Christian not pagan theology and that no other Italian folklorist has found evidence for the Vangel. At this critical point in assassinating Leland's character, he neglects to mention that the eminent Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg famously identified the Benandanti, a cult with more than passing resemblance to the beliefs Leland recorded. Ginzburg also clearly demonstrated the non-Christian origin of the name Herodias ("Hera-Diana", which was normalised by the Church to "Herodias"). Despite Hutton purporting to critique Ginzburg's work elsewhere in TotM, he is either unaware of the main contents of Ginzburg's work, or he purposely ignores it. Other, more detailed scholarly analyses of Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches since have arrived at much more balanced conclusions (see the article). (Note that I'm not claiming there is a link between the Benandanti and Leland's strega, just that Hutton has misrepresented the facts.)
2. One of Hutton's most pivotal claims in TotM is that modern pagan witchcraft cannot be historically-based, because there was no witchcraft, or even any form of pagan religion on which witchcraft could be based, still existing by the early modern era. Apparently not a single person persecuted was a practitioner of a pagan religion. His main support of this is simply citing seven of his creme-de-la-creme of modern scholars, with very little supporting discussion. Some of these are in foreign language, but of those in English, at least two directly contradict Hutton, freely talking about the influences of old pagan religious practices. A particularly juicy chapter is in the cited book by Monter (I think it was Monter, not Midelfort, I don't have any of this in front of me), about white witchcraft, which evaluates the beliefs of witches in France and England, and describes how the "green devils" in the woods were probably old pagan gods and the saints' shrines to which ill people were sent were probably actually dedicated to old pagan gods with a Christian veneer. Of the other books he cites (that are in a language I can read) none make the claim that Hutton does. They demonstrate that most accused "witches" were normal Christians, but they certainly don't go as far as saying "not a single person accused...". A moderate familiarity with the current academic work on the witch-trial period actually reveals Hutton's position as extreme and atypical. (Note that this is not support for a widespread organised witch-cult in Europe, such as Margaret Murray proposed, just another instance of extreme oversimplification and misrepresentation of other authors.)

These are two examples of extreme over-generalisation and oversimplification, a lack of balance, a bias or a POV if you will. I can't comment on Hutton's motives, but I've found similar fallacies and misrepresentations scattered through his work. Dashu, despite being labelled as a "feminist", has so far seemed remarkably balanced, and is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, solidly grounded in fact.

I'm more interested in truth than in any invented history. And to find the truth I think we have to put labels and preconceptions aside, and evaluate these works on their factual accuracy. Fuzzypeg☻ 06:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Harvard Educated

It doesn't matter where this Dashu was educated and certainly should not be included in a reference.

Yeah. I agree. This was substantially a revert to a version just before the reference had been deleted. The "harvard" bit wasn't mine, but it didn't really concern me one way or the other. Fuzzypeg 22:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Homosexuality in Paganism?

83.204.23.239, can you be more specific with the rumors about Prof. Hutton's fictitious work on Homosexuality in Paganism? I removed the earlier (incorrect) information about his future work, and you've put an ammended version back in about 24 hours. Not that I wouldn't buy such a book by Prof. Hutton if it existed, but where are these rumors coming from? Wouldn't it be more useful to e-mail Prof. Hutton and ask him what his next project *is*, instead of listing what he *isn't* working on? John Burridge 22:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Er, that would fall afoul of our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. I think that I'll take out any references to what Hutton isn't working on that are in the article, until we get some explanation of what this might be about. Jkelly 22:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Right. Mea Culpa. John Burridge 22:56, 4 May 2006 (UTC)