Talk:A Moral Reckoning

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Contents

[edit] NPOV

I don't believe the neutrality tag is warranted on this article. Should the article be without the substantial criticism that this book received? What about it is biased? How could it be remedied? Unless a justification for the tag is posited, I will remove it.Mamalujo (talk) 22:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the POV tag should be accompanied by talk page use but also agree that POV issues are apparent especially in the criticism section which seems filled with unencyclopedic accusations. It's fine to criticize, (or more correctly to include criticism), it's quite another to load up an article which itself acknowledges high marks from reviewers with the most WP:POINTY criticisms available. We can do better than this. Benjiboi 19:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BLP concerns

I am concerned at the weight being given to the critics of Goldhagen's books. Unless balanced, this represents a concern regarding the policies governing biographies of living persons, as well as a concern about pov. BLP indicates that "The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critic". --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the concerns can remedied with Goldhagen's and his supporters' responses to the criticism, some of which is already there. A large part of Goldhagen's and his works' notability is the clamor over the works, so I don't believe the criticisms are given undue weight.Mamalujo (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Eventualism does not apply to biographical material about living persons on Wikipedia. Partisan or poorly sourced contentious material must be removed. If the article is unbalanced to the critical, that cannot be left to the addition of potential remedies down the line. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I think we should be careful not to include specific allegations of misconduct, due to BLP. WP:WEIGHT would argue against the inclusion of an unbalanced amount of criticism, but unbalanced in this case is not referring to equal criticism and support but criticism and support equivalent to the real-world response. If most of the reaction is critical, then most of the article will contain criticism. I don't know necessarily if this is the case here, but it seems to be anyway (and in fact, I took a class for fun this past semester and the professor spent a whole 3 hour class tearing Goldhagen apart - luckily, this is after I'd worked on the article here so I could pretend to be very well read on the background). Avruchtalk 03:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that reflecting real world response is important. After all, if we had to find equal positive reactions to Adolph Hitler, we'd never have an article. :) Prior to today, I would have been unable to pretend familiarity with Goldhagen's work, never having heard of him before I came across reference to his article at WP:BLPN. I have no attachment to him or his work. The problem with balance seems to come in with the length & space dedicated to his critics. For instance, Bottum stating that "These errors of fact...root of all evil" may be notable and necessary, but the addition of personal opinion that the book is "positively embarrassing to read" is not and begins to make the article look partisan, given the absence of critics indicating how much they enjoyed it. Anyway, I've made an effort to revise it to eliminate some of the overuse of quotes and make it a bit more encyclopedic, but my Wikipedia time is winding down. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 03:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

<reset indent>I've done a bit more to it and hope that it currently accurately reflects the weight of critical response. There is still quite a bite of emphasis on Catholic reaction, but, given the nature of the material, that's undoubtedly appropriate, so long as we do not seem by the usage of the material we include to be taking sides. Obviously, when possible, it is better to reflect the controversy through neutral, uninvolved sources like The New York Times than relying on sources that are likely to be engaged personally in the conflict. It helps to contextualize those involved, I think. It seems like just about everybody who has commented on this book (for or against) has a personal axe to grind. We want to be really careful not to join them in that. :) I would love to incorporate more material about the commercial reception of the book, as suggested by Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article, but so far I haven't found any, and I really need to step away for now. I welcome feedback. Please let me know if you feel that this version is unbalanced. Or offers too many "asserted/indicated/opined"s to be readable. Ultimately, there's a whole lot of "he said/she said" in controversy like this. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cite to and Quote of Cornwell

I think the cite to and quote of Cornwell are problematic. There are reliability issues, particularly since he had recanted his position on Pius XII.69.105.28.73 (talk) 21:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If he recanted in whole or part of the quote/statement then we should include both the original and then add on what was recanted with information about the who, what, when, why and how of the recanting per WP:V and WP:RS. Benjiboi 09:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I see in Cornwell's articles (the bio & the book) a few citations, but they are rather sketchy. Do you by any chance have a link? Whether it validates inclusion in the article or a footnote akin to current note 13, contextualizing criticism by Dalin and Bottum, would probably depend on precisely what Cornwell had to say. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

←I've been doing more research, given the incomplete citation of any claim that Cornwell recanted at either of the above articles. Even Inside the Vatican did not describe Cornwell's statement as recanting, but merely a "partial" retraction. I have been able to read the first paragraph and a half or so of the book review which advances the quote, but the full text of the article is only available to subscribers. In full, Cornwell's alleged words are: "I would now argue...in the light of the debates and evidence following ‘Hitler's Pope', that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.” I have asserted the bald fact of Cornwell's evolution of opinion in a footnote, although I personally am not convinced it has value or purpose in this article and would have no objection to its removal. The actual text of the quoted Cornwell review, which was written in 2002, three years after the publication of the book he allegedly "recanted", suggests his opinion on the difficulties of judging Pius XII's motivation may have already evolved. In that review, Cornwell said, "The problem with Pius XII is that his acts of omission and commission during the war can be interpreted from opposing points of view. Did he fail to speak out against the round-up of Rome’s Jews because he did not care? Or did he feel that any gesture would send more Jews to the gas chambers? We have no way of entering his conscience." Speculating that because Cornwell changed his opinion on certain aspects of a book he had written before 1999, a review he wrote of somebody else's book in 2002 is invalid seems like original research to me. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is citing Cornwell for the a positive critique of a book which says Pius XII was morally culpable when subsequent to that review Corwell withdrew his opinion that we could fairly make that assessment. He is no longer a reliable source for the matter. A footnote is not sufficient. You've got an author who no longer thinks we can hold Pius morally culpable praising a book which says Pius is morally culpable. The author himself has called into doubt his own previous opinions on the matter. I don't think there is really in question here as to whether this matter should be deleted.Mamalujo (talk) 17:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
The Cornwell quote does not indicate whether or not Pius may be held morally culpable, but only that "it is impossible to judge the motives" of the pope. As this is consistent with language used in the current review, we have no reason to presume that Cornwell will have changed his opinion about anything he said in it. It is not our place to assess the accuracy of Cornwell's opinions, or their evolution, but merely to document it. Given your concerns, I have already added context in a separate footnote, just as I noted in footnote that some of the detractors of the book might be in conflict in their own evaluation. I believe it would be inappropriate to remove this material, as (evidently) does Benjiboi above. If other editors of this page do not choose to weigh in to help clarify consensus and you persist in feeling it is unreliable, we may wish to invite feedback elsewhere, such as at the talk page of WP:V. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm happy with the way that it is currently - it doesn't seem like we are using Cornwell to endorse the conclusion about the Pope, the quoted opinion is directed primarily at the description of the Pope by others. Even if Cornwell's opinions of the Pope himself have changed, we can't intuit that his view of others will have as well. Also, the evolution of his opinion on the subject matter have no bearing on whether he is a reliable source. Avruch T 17:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the evolution of his opinion goes directly to his reliability, especially when he lauds Goldhagen's "excellent job in exposing the propagandistic hagiography of recent defenders", when the very facts which the defenders have been presenting convinced him of the untenability of his and Goldhagen's opinion.Mamalujo (talk) 18:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
The conclusion that it convinced him of the untenability of Goldhagen's opinion is very definitely out of the scope of the source. Again, if anything, language within the review suggests that he had already reached the conclusion that Pius' motivations were impenetrable at the time he read Goldhagen's book. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Alleged" role of the Church

What about the role of the Church is being alleged in that section? It just says that he examined "the role of the Church" without making any contention about that role - are you saying that the Church had absolutely no role at all, and this is what is disputed? Or is the nature of the role of the Church disputed? If the latter, there is no reason to insert the word "alleged" because nothing is being alleged about the role. Additionaly... Before reinserting something that has been removed, its better to discuss it and find out more about the objection. Obviously if I removed it once, I'm not OK with you putting the exact same text back in the article without any further explanation. (Particularly because this is quite a good article, and GA nominee, and unnecessarily edit warring over the article jeopardizes recognition of the work that has been done here by others). Avruch T 19:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of March 31, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Yes
2. Factually accurate?: Problems
3. Broad in coverage?: Yes
4. Neutral point of view?: Problems
5. Article stability? Yes
6. Images?: Yes


Further comments on this article follow.

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. Relata refero (disp.) 18:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you be any more specific about what in the article is factually inaccurate or not written from a neutral point of view? Avruch T 18:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course. It was just taking a long time to put it down in readable order. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Detailed comments

  • There is certainly little wrong with the prose or the images. The question of article stability I leave to one side, as an article about a book discussing the RCC will obviously be subject to occasional disruption, and so should be held to the appropriate standard.
  • Full disclosure: I have met a few times (and liked) Daniel Goldhagen, though I think that hardly impairs my judgment. We don't work in the same field, but I know quite a bit about his first book, although I knew very little about this one, other than that it caused a similar stir.
  • I was initially impressed by this article; then, when I read further, I began to worry. My first instinct was to fail it, but I have second-guessed myself successfully here.
  • The reason is that I have considerable faith in the two principal editors, who I think are exemplary Wikipedians. If anyone can pull off what I think might be an impossible task, they can.
  • Here's why it might be impossible: NPOV and BLP are pulling us in two very different directions here. I'll return to this after taking some points one-by-one.
  • Why are there problems with "factual accuracy" - basically WP:V and also with WP:NPOV?
    • Well, look at the list of "favorable reviews", for one. Wheatcroft in the NYT is far from favourable, actually: he says the subject is worthy, and that this book hasn't done it justice. In fact, his concluding words are: "...an understanding of, or even atoning for, that time is not encouraged by misinterpreting the record, or by invoking it for any polemical or political end."
    • In the same section the Atlantic did not give it a favourable review; the reference is to the brief passage preceding an interview with Daniel, not an impartial review.
    • Rabbi Dalin wrote a rebuttal of Cornwell's book, and I think if he's quoted then that has to be mentioned.
    • How is it as a work of history? What do professional historians say? There isn't any of that in there. If there was, it would "unbalance" it further, I fear, as most of it seems even more negative than those mentioned.
      • Michael Burleigh in the Times was scathing, calling it a "cartoon strip".
      • Here's Christopher Clark in the TLS:

        "In a passage verging on defamation, Goldhagen describes the distinguished German scholars Hans Mommsen and Hans-Ulrich Wehler as “the Nazi historians’ faithful and most prominent students”; Wehler’s – actually rather balanced – critique of the first book is denounced as “anti-Semitic”. After a passage referring to the present-day conspiracy theories of “neo- Nazis and anti-Semites and their ideological sympathizers and de facto supporters”, the reader is directed to an end-note citing the work of Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering and one of the most trenchant critics of Hitler’s Willing Executioners . All those who have taken issue with Goldhagen, or whose views are simply uncongenial to him – from Hannah Arendt and Martin Broszat, to Christopher Browning and Raul Hilberg, to Mommsen and Wehler – are seen as acting from malevolent or morally dubious motives. I cannot recall ever encountering such venomous ranting in the pages of what purports to be a serious piece of historical writing."

  • Marc Saperstein, Director of the Program in Judaic Studies at GWU:

    "To suggest that the Church was as guilty of incitement to murder as was Julius Streicher, to imply that Hitler's role was only to provide the match that enabled Roman Catholics to kindle the straw that the Church placed around the houses of Jews, is not to `speak the truth,' as Goldhagen so frequently claims for himself. In addition to being counterproductive to the purpose he espouses, it is to wander into a conceptual and moral wilderness."

  • Unlike the first book, this found no support in Germany either: from Heinz Hürten on down, all the reviews I've found have been negative. According to one source I found, the only three reviews that were even marginally positive were in the Spectator, the LA Times one quoted in the article, and an article on Goldhagen in the Washington Post that wasn't even technically about the book.
  • According to the annotated bibliography by First Things' William Doino in Pius Wars, all the reviews out of Europe were harshly negative.
  • Istvan Deak in the NYRB is quoted in the article as praising the book, but he appears to have been as critical as Wheatcroft. At least Wheatcroft thinks so: see here.
  • So you see the problem. This book was panned practically universally. It was, it appears, the Battlefield Earth of history books. This is not to say that people didn't read it, and people - well, some people - didn't like it. That must have happened. But even laying aside those whose profession it is to be outraged - like William Donohue, whom I would think this article could do without, though that's a subjective opinion - among those who read it and reviewed it, the reaction was as nearly universally negative as I have ever come across. This is without going into what the more choleric reactions from Catholic sources said. I don't think anyone could have an objection to the size or content of that section.
  • So you see. Either we minimise the content of the reviews, as we did with the NYT and NYRB reviews and fail WP:V; or we minimise the extent of the reviews, and fail WP:NPOV; or we are accurate, and then have a potential WP:BLP nightmare on our hands.

I wouldn't know what to do in this case. Which is why I congratulate both of you on what you have already done with it; but I fear that in its current state it can't qualify as a genuine representative of our best content, and fails WP:GAC. In my mind, however, it qualifies as a genuine representative of some of our best and hardest work as Wikipedians - tragically those two things are not the same, sometimes.

I have left this on hold so I can get your comments, and perhaps those of some others. Perhaps there's something we can do in order to work around this; as I said, I believe User:Avruch and User:Moonriddengirl are capable of it, if anyone is.

Thank you again, and I hope you understand why I took a long time over this,

--Relata refero (disp.) 19:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed comments and your expression of faith. :D I'm just back in the country this evening (EST) and will try to look into your concerns in more depth tomorrow and see if I am able to address them in some manner without running afoul of either WP:V or BLP. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Detailed response to comments

Okay. Let's see.

First, thanks for taking the time to read, evaluate and report your findings. Whether the article makes GA or not, I welcome the feedback and the opportunity to help improve the article further. I've never sought out article review (though I did promote one once for DYK), and it's exciting enough just to know that somebody uninvolved is reading it! :D

I also need to note that I have never read this or any other book by Goldhagen and don't know that I had ever heard of him or it before being drawn here by a BLPN ticket. :) For that reason, I can only respond to those points that are addressed in online sources I can find. I have no personal familiarity with the man or his work. My main goal is to see the article well-sourced and compliant with BLP.

The largest concern I see you raise is a potential variance between V, NPOV & BLP. I don't believe that there must necessarily be a conflict here. BLP does not prevent our reporting on critical reception of the book, even if the reception is overwhelmingly (or universally) negative. By my interpretation of BLP, anyway, we need to (1) be sure that we are accurately reflecting the distribution of reputable critics (to avoid undue weight), (2) contextualizing those instances where critics may themselves be biased (as a number of these seem to be) and avoiding reliance on critics from biased sources, and, finally, (3) reporting in neutral and accurate language what those contextualized, reputable critics have said. If we do that, we will be presenting criticism "responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone", which is (of course) what BLP requires.

That said, it seems that you feel that positive response is exaggerated and negative criticism from reputable sources minimized. I have attempted to address that, though (slightly) conservatively pending response from others. I've left the note about "mixed" reception in the lead because I personally still think it applies. There are positive notes about the book out there. I've also added several more reviews & mentioned some professorial "peer" reviews in the additional reading.

Specific notes:

  • I've looked online for Michael Burleigh's Times review, but I'm afraid that all I can find is an uncontextualized quote in probably biased sources. Likewise, all I find on Christopher Clark is on a website that is likely a copyright violation and lacks sufficient information for a full citation. I have, as I said, added several new reviews that I can access in reputable sources in the hopes that these will compensate.
  • There are at the moment references to three positive reviews in the article. I have re-read Kirkus, and it still reads positive to me. I have not read the other two reviews. I have for now marked the characterization of Istvan Deak's review as favorable "dubious". I can only access the first paragraph (here), but I'm not sure that Wheatcroft's statement that Deak criticized the same element necessarily indicates that the review is not favorable in balance. Without looking at the article's history, I don't know who first mentioned it as a favorable review. Avruch, have you access to it? If it can't be addressed, the reference to it as favorable should, of course, be eliminated.
  • Rabbi Dalin's book was referenced in footnote 14, but I have revised to incorporate it into the body. (Unless there's another book of which I'm unaware in addition to that one.) I haven't seen anything to indicate that it is explicitly a rebuttal of this work, though I haven't looked that deeply. Given its subtitle, I would think that it might be a more general than specific rebuttal?

I'm going to poke around a little bit more to see what else I may be able to find. Then I'll take off the "inuse" tag and wait further input. :) Again, whether this goes GA or not, I do appreciate the feedback. My current work has me editing and writing in collaboration with others, but not academically, and I miss the ivory tower! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I've gone on ahead and removed the challenged description of Deak as positive since I've found a number of other positive reviews that are verifiable. Meanwhile, I'm off to unpack. Cheers. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • NPOV & Balance: I think the reception by newspaper and magazine reviewers is accurately described as mixed. Perhaps what we are missing is more reaction in the vein of the Marc Saperstein quote above - something that demonstrates the reaction of the academic community specifically, and labels the reviewer with a professional affiliation to make it clear? The spectrum of negative reactions is clearly there in the article - the issue is more one of weight, then, and whether we are accurately portraying the response of the academic community of which Goldhagen is (or was) a part. On the other hand, there is an issue of over-representing a group that may not be the intended audience - normally this type of work would clearly be aimed at academics, but given the mass appeal of HWE that is plausibly not the case with AMR.
  • Accuracy: The mislabeling of the NYTimes review was significant error - I'm glad Relata took the the time to perform a review of enough depth that it was caught. It looks like the reviews are all more clearly characterized at this point, thank you Moonriddengirl. I took out the mention at the beginning of the "critical reception" section of a favorable Los Angeles Times review because I wasn't able to source that directly (it was previously sourced from the Atlantic interview/review, but the article doesn't appear on a search of the LA Times website).

Avruch T 18:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I support the LA Times removal, as reference to it as being positive is second-hand. Though I removed Deak, I didn't want to remove both, as I hadn't put them there and wasn't sure that perhaps whoever had could cite a print copy. There are enough positive reviews that can be accessed that we don't need to rely on hearsay for the sake of balance. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Avruch, you've put your finger on my concerns about the academic reception. I think its important to state somewhere that the academic reception wasn't really mixed. Also, I think we can reword the last line of the lead so it doesn't actually make the "mixed" thing, which I continue to be deeply uncomfortable with. But other than that, while I still think that this article is not ideal, its the best that anyone could do given the restrictions of our policies. I'm promoting it to GA half in the hope people will come here and actually read how these things should be handled. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dalin is redundant

As I indicated in the edit summary, Dalin's statement that the book "fails to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship" is already quoted two paragraphs above the one where it is being inserted. (And in that former section, it includes full citation information with link.) I find it a bit perplexing to consider that there's an "extensive section on positive criticism" in this article, since I don't see a single positive review quoted in the critical reception section of the article that is not also qualified by criticism. Perhaps you could point it out? If you feel that Dalin's views are underrepresented, then some alterations to the section already discussing his review might be appropriate, but including it twice is probably not the solution. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)