User talk:Brenda maverick

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[edit] Exceptional Newcomer

		The Exceptional Newcomer Award
		I award you, Brenda maverick with this award for your work on Symposium (Plato) and Satire. Keep up the good work! Dylan Lake 04:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply

I've been editing Wikipedia for a little more than a month (almost entirely minor stuff). I noticed your contributions had gone unappreciated. What kind of articles do you plan on editing? I recommend you join a WikiProject for a subject you are interested in contributing to. Nice to meet you. Dylan Lake 05:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dylan,

Thanks ! I plan to edit Plato pages for now and then look at other Greek classics pages. I know some classical and love the Iliad and the playwrights. You? Brenda maverick 16:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC) Later that day: I'm getting slammed. Care to join the discussion page?

Hi Mom,

Paragraphs do not start with spaces!!! - lars

Oh by the way, don't sign your edits to articles. Dylan Lake 04:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brazil film

Hi. I don't know if you've seen the film, or have any interest, but Brazil (film) could use a nice section on satire. —Viriditas | Talk 01:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] crito page

i would ask that you edit/shorten your additions to the crito page. some of your comments entertain certain interpretations of the text which i feel are wrong (for example, the equating of Socrates and his fictional character "the Laws"). at the very least, i believe you should stick to the basic facts of the text and avoid analysis. thank you.

[edit] Oedipus

I don't know, it reads like it is copied from Cliffs Notes or something. Did you make it up yourself or are these opinions widely held? Adam Bishop 07:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding sourcing

You seem to be adding a lot of valuable stuff, but for Wikipedia to be truly useful as a reference we need to cite sources. It protects you against accusations of original research as well. Nareek 01:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I would echo Nareek's comment that you need to cite sources for your edits. A lot of what you're adding appears to be based on your own reading of the primary sources, which qualifies as original research. Wikipedia doesn't publish original thought, so everything you add needs to be attributable to published, reliable sources. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Brenda, I saw your note on my user talk page. In addition to WP:OR and WP:RS (not to mention WP:V), you might want to take a look at WP:CITE, which indicates how references should be cited. Basically, we want footnotes or parenthetical citations. Not all articles have inline citations, but the best do--take a look at Joan of Arc for a good example. Adding books to the "references" section isn't enough, because that doesn't tell the WP reader where to go to verify particular facts in the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

There are various ways to source WP articles--I'd like to make a pitch for the <ref></ref> format, which strikes me as being both user friendly and elegant. The way I do it, anyway, is to have the individual footnotes be as brief as possible, with a fuller citation in a list of resources.

It's perfectly understandable that a newcomer would think that sourcing is not an important rule at Wikipedia, since it's neglected in I would say a large majority of articles. But I strongly believe that it's essential for making Wikipedia a useful reference work, because anonymous editors can never be treated as reliable sources on their own. Nareek 20:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Child Corruption

(copied from User talk:Akhilleus): If you thinks the Greeks would not have understood the concept of child corruption, you must not have had a look at Plato's Phaedrus. Check 241c,d. Socrates himslef recognizes that a bad lover can ruin not just the body of a boy, but his mind and spirit. And what difference do you see in pedo-philia and ped-erasty? They refer to the same business - "love" of boys, making boys into "lovers" respectively. Brenda maverick 15:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Brenda, the difference between pedophilia and Pederasty in ancient Greece is a matter of social constructs, not etymology. In the modern world, pedophilia is child abuse by definition; on the other hand, the Greeks usually saw pederasty in a positive light. If you write that the subject of the Phaedrus is pedophilia, you're basically saying it's about child abuse.

Your equation of pedophilia and pederasty seems to indicate that you aren't familiar with the literature on Greek pederasty (good sources are given in the Pederasty in ancient Greece article). This is exactly the sort of thing that makes other editors suspect you're relying on your personal reading of the dialogues in your edits, which is original research. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Akhilleus): Mr. Achilles - I am very familiar with the literature, but I confess to spending way more time studying the original material (with some knowledge of Greek) rather than reading the critics. (I have read Dover's book more than once.) I believe etymologies are helpful, actually, especially if you study the original contexts of the words without prejudice. The passage in the Phaedrus to which I directed you is a case in point. Socrates himself admits here ( and elsewhere) that having an old lover is not "necessarily " a blessing for the youngster. Europe fell into a funk for 2,000 years partly on account of the denial of observation of evidence, and worship of authority. I do not seee myself doing what you disparage as "original research" so much as pointing out what is actually IN these texts - so that we can see what is there, and quit finding stuff that is not there. I do think these discussions are useful, by the by. Brenda maverick 16:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude, but several of the things you're saying indicate that you are engaging in original research, especially the idea that you're "pointing out what is actually IN these texts - so that we can see what is there, and quit finding stuff that is not there." This apparently means that most scholars are finding things that aren't there? Anyway, WP:OR says that "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source", so even claims that you think are uncontroversial--like the idea that the Phaedrus is about "child corruption"--need to be based on a secondary source. The point here is that we rely on published, expert opinion, not the interpretations of individual WP editors. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Akhilleus): I still do not see how looking at the evidence in the text constitutes "original research". As for this particular point about corruption of the young: in this speech, Socrates goes on and on about the miseries of the boy in the arms of an old ugly drunk, and the grief that comes to him from the old man's faithlessness, irritability, and jealousy. He says the old man has no goodwill towards the boy but is just satisfying his appetites (as the wolf "loves" - "agape" his food). Its after this that Socrates says that a boy in this situation is injured ("blaptw") in property, body and mind. So for you to say that the Greeks "did not/would not have understood the concept of child corruption" cannot possibly be right. Besides this, they were human beings, and very advanced people at that, so it is absurd from that point of view. Clearly, Socrates and his cronies were good with sex with boys, but so are some elements of our own culture - congress and the catholic church for examples. There is no monolith of opinion even today on the matter, and doubtless there was not then, either. So this business about concensus (for which you are praised on this talk page) inevitably misrepresents reality, then and now.

Brenda, I strongly advise you to read WP:OR, because it's one of the basic policies guiding Wikipedia's content. While you may think your interpretation of the Phaedrus is straightforward, what you're saying is at odds with how the work is generally interpreted by experts. Obviously, part of the dialogue concerns the damage a bad lover can do, but this is not the major subject of the dialogue. Whatever your opinion about academic consensus, WP articles are supposed to be based on expert opinion. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Brenda, here are the sentences I removed from Plato: "Two minor dialogues, Charmides and Lysis, are explicitly paedophilic, and are linked to the death of Socrates by the theme of child corruption: Socrates is pictured as befriending children whose guardians are either complicit with or indifferent to the older man's attempts to be convivial with them."

This bit of text is problematic for several reasons--the equation of pederasty with pedophilia, the idea that Socrates' interest in "children" is pedophilic, and the implication that the dialogues show Socrates corrupting "children"--perhaps you don't realize it, but the passage seems to say that Socrates was attempting to sexually abuse his interlocutors. As I've already explained, there's a big difference between pederasty and pedophilia, and the failure to properly distinguish between the two already means most Platonic scholars would find the quoted passage incorrect. Furthermore, the notion that the Charmides and Lysis portray "child corruption" appear to be your interpretation of what's going on in those dialogues. That's original research. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Akhilleus):Fine to leave it out, but not for the reason you give, that the idea of child sexual abuse (as we term it today) was foreign to the Greeks. Even if you don't think Socrates was guilty of it (and I personally think the historial facts concerning the life of Socrates are not only irrecoverable but also irrelevant to understanding Plato), the important thing is that Socrates himself explicitly discusses the problem. Do you deny even this?

I don't think the notion of "child sexual abuse" or "child corruption" is at stake in these dialogues. The definition of "child" is vague, but "child sexual abuse" often refers to sexual contact between adults and pre-pubescent boys or girls. On the other hand, in ancient Greek pederasty, the eromenos was a young male between the arrival of puberty and the growth of the full beard. In the ancient world, puberty probably arrived later than in the modern world, because of poorer nutrition. The eromenos could be as young as 14, perhaps, and could be as old as his early 20s. So I don't think that "child sexual abuse" is right here--it implies that Greek pederasty was the same thing as pedophilia, which is inaccurate.

Furthermore, in most of the evidence we have, the ancient Greeks think of pederasty as a good thing. In the Phaedrus, Socrates is saying that a pederastic relationship that is exclusively sexual, with no regard for the intellectual and spiritual development of the beloved, is a bad thing. But he also thinks that a pederastic relationship that focuses on the boy's improvement is a good thing. Saying that Socrates is talking about the "corruption" of the eromenos is at best an incomplete description of the passage. It's entirely possible for us to regard a pederastic relationship as abusive, and the ancient Greeks might have regarded particular relationships as abusive or corrupt, but as an institution, pederasty was seen in a positive light--not abuse at all.

The notion that the Charmides and the Lysis depict Socrates as preying on young boys, which is what your text implied, is completely wrong. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(Copied from User talk:Akhilleus): In the Charmides, Socrates gets excited at the sight of the inwards of a child's cloak and quizzes him about sophrosne (self-control). Charmides is in the company of his "epitrophos" - a surrogate parent, caretaker (we'd say "childsitter")...

A young male remained under his father's control until the age of eighteen, at least, and could have a guardian with him until then (see Skinner, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture, p. 13). Of course, in this case, the guardian is Charmides' cousin, Critias--in a culture where your public reputation means everything, it's not surprising that a prominent young man would be under the watch of his relatives at all times.

Do you have any evidence that Charmides is pre-pubescent, other than your own speculation? This, too, appears to be original research; and it's not true to the Greek text, which supplies many indications of Charmides' age. Note the following (155a): "But why not call the young man (τὸν νεανίαν) here and show him to me? For surely, even if he were younger still (εἰ ἔτι ἐτύγχανε νεώτερος ὤν), there could be no discredit in our having a talk with him before you, who are at once his guardian and his cousin." --Akhilleus (talk) 19:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Theaetetus

Brenda, sorry for the misunderstanding. My comment was directed at the anonymous user 141.222.114.224, not you--I thought his/her comment was attacking you, and I thought his/her comments were unjustified. I was actually trying to defend you! Sorry that it came across otherwise--I've reworded the comment, hopefully it's clearer now. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Akhilleus) How can you say that the Theaetetus is PLATO'S theory of knowledge? Isn't this like saying that Hamlet speaks Shakespeare's "theory" of the uselessness of living? What's the difference? Seems like sloppy thinking to paste the writer and his character together as if there were no difference between them. THIS is excatly the sort of thing you are constantly criticizing me for: unverifiable claims. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brenda maverick (talk • contribs).

Plato's authorship of this dialogue has never been seriously questioned, and Francis Cornford published a translation under the title of Plato's Theory of Knowledge. Something interesting is happening with Eucleides and the framing of the dialogue, but if the article is going to discuss that, it needs to be based on secondary scholarship, rather than the logical inferences of WP editors. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not doubt for one instant that Plato wrote the dialog. It bears all the marks of his brilliance. All I am saying is that Plato playfully disavows it (he writes here like Soren kierkegaard, under a kind of "pseudonymity"). My only point is that we ignore Plato's details at our peril. Is this OK with you? Brenda maverick 18:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, Brenda, but that didn't appear to be what you were saying. Part of the text that you wrote said "Plato denies having written it," which certainly sounds like you doubted his authorship. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Akhilleus) So you've granted me this: that Plato is a gamester? or won't you go this far? Brenda maverick 21:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course; irony and playfulness are prominent features of the dialogues. But the point is, again, that edits have to adhere to the no original research policy--any statements about the frame narrative's importance for the interpretation of the dialogue need to be based on secondary sources, no matter how obvious the points may seem to you or any other WP editor. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Phaedo

Brenda, please participate in the discussion at Talk:Phaedo before reverting the article. While it's understandable that you disagree with the decision to go back to a version of the article from October 2006, this decision was based on the consensus of several editors. Reverting without participating in the discussion will not be productive. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Achilles, the article is not good. If you can improve on mine in specific ways, I do not object. But I think even you have to admit that as it stands, it is not particularly interesting or pleasant to read. There are not enough divisions either. I wish to make Plate seem as wonderful in English as he is in Greek, and to attract people to his work, and not turn them away from philosophy. Experts do not come to these pages, it is more newcomers, I imagine, and young people, for whom Plato should be presented in the best possible light. No? Brenda maverick 01:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Once again, Brenda, please participate in the discussion on the talk page before reverting the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Brenda, I think there is a consensus--please look at Talk:Phaedo, and note that another editor has also reverted your latest edit and asked you to participate on the talk page.

Also, mēnis means "rage", not "pride". --Akhilleus (talk) 03:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't assume that I have any attachment to the current version of Phaedo. What I do think is that the changes that were made over the last few months weren't taking the article in the right direction, and that the version from October gives us a better starting point for improvement. If you disagree, the best thing to do is participate in the discussion at Talk:Phaedo.

Also, since you have reverted the page twice today, I want to make sure that you're aware of the three-revert rule--more than three reverts on a page in a 24-hour period is prohibited, and in general edit warring is discouraged. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)