Talk:Hellenism

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Hellenism article.
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[edit] Anon edits

An Anon changed the disambig to an article which is really about philhellenism which has a separate article. I've reverted back to the dismabig page.

From Anon: I was wondering what was happening there! I moved the philhellenism part to the end of the article, and linked to it. But to be clear, my definition of Hellenism (from Winckelmann onward) is separate from a definition of philhellenism. Hellenism is a brand of neoclassicism; philhellenism is a political advocacy grounded in contemporaneity. Apologies for the confusion. If you want to remove the article again, I won't re-replace it--but I'm writing a Ph.D dissertation on this topic (hence the bibliography of sources)--you can trust me!

Hellenism can refer to more than one thing or concept. That is why Hellenism is a disambiguation page so that those searching on the word Hellenism can be directed to the appropriate article. If the Hellenism you are writing about is truly separate from all the others, then you should start a new article witha qualifier in the title to distinguish it. For example, Hellenism (neoclassicism). You may also want to consider creating an account, so that other editors can more easily contact you. -- Whpq 13:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I should also caution you about original research, since you state that you are writing your PhD dissertation on this topic. Good luck on the disseration. -- Whpq 13:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough--I'll retitle the entry Hellenism (neoclassicism). But let me assure you, there's nothing controversial about what I'm saying in the entry--it's the standard definition of Hellenism you'd find in any of the books I've cited in my bibliography.

It's done--thank you for the tip--I'm new to Wikipedia. I created an account and added the entry Hellenism (neoclassicism)

For the sake of completeness we ought to note that "Hellenism" can also refer to the hellenizing movement in Hellenistic Judaism. Twospoonfuls 21:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Twospoonfuls: Of course it can refer to the Hellenization of Judaism, since it refers to Greek influence in any manner, especially during the period starting with Alexander's attacks on Byzantium up until the death of Hypatia. Even if one wants to confine Hellenism to Droysen's original usage, the whole point of the term (for him) was to speak about the vast and complex process by which the Greeks influenced cultures near and far. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrKamaila (talk • contribs) 19:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other meanings?

In seeking to disambiguate links pointing to this page, it appears that there are at least two uses of "Hellenism" that aren't accounted for. First, some sources (particularly modern Greek sources) seem to use the term as a synonym for Greek culture or Greek nationalism. Second, some articles seem to use the term in a historical context as a synonym for Greek mythology or "paganism" as practiced during the Hellenistic period, and use the word as if "Hellenism" were a religion like Christianity or Judaism. Not being an expert in this field, it isn't clear to me whether these should be listed as additional meanings on the disambiguation page, or whether the links should be edited to replace this term with more appropriate ones. Comments welcome. --Russ (talk) 21:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historical Usage

I added the section on historical usage because I can't see anywhere else to put it, and felt it was kinda relevant to any discussion of Hellenism. If anyone has any comments or can think of a better place to put it, please say. I also have (a lot) of references for the various usages but I'm not sure how to put them on as they're mainly names and dates rather than full book references - typical of the 17th century. Thanks. Tbarker 08:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely correct. The anonymous doctoral student (above) has the best grasp of what the term means in modern academic terms, and I wish their edits could be reinstituted. Is there a reason why this article keeps getting edited back to being about some other topic? However, the term is not merely used to talk about certain forms of advocacy (academic or otherwise) of Greek culture, but definitely to refer to cultural movements involving any aspect of Greek culture. This is particular true in archaeology. History is not the only field using the term, that's for sure. 69.108.139.110 (talk) 20:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)Dr. Kama'ila (November 22, 2007)

[edit] reorganization and foreign-language articles

I want to suggest something that I can't do myself, a) because I don't know the first thing about this subject (except for what I just learned from Wikipedia :-), and b) because I don't have the time.

There are quite a number of articles about Hellenism that partially overlap, and it's not quite clear which of them are really needed as separate articles and how their respective domains should be delimited:

(and perhaps further ones that I haven't come across). There is also an article on Hellenistic Greece, which is specifically about Hellenistic Greece (as the name implies), but which for some reason has been chosen as the source/target of the cross-links to/from the foreign-language articles on Hellenism / the Hellenistic period, of which the German, Spanish and French ones are featured and are indeed in many respects more informative than the four listed above.

I suggest that someone with an overview of the subject make a proposal how best to reorganize these four articles into fewer (perhaps just one?) articles; then during the reorganization material from the featured foreign-language articles could be incorporated.

Joriki (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S.: I just noticed that there is already a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#Hellenistic World for reorganizing Hellenistic period and Hellenistic Greece. Perhaps this can be expanded to include Hellenism, Hellenization and Hellenistic civilization?

By the way, the fact that these articles belong to different projects in each case illustrates the disorder that results from the present setup.

Joriki (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I have now begun the reorganisation of Hellenistic articles.
  • Hellenism now re-directs straight to a disambiguation page.
  • Hellenism (Greek culture), replaces the old Hellenism article, and is listed on the disambiguation page, but now re-directs to Hellenization
  • Hellenization now gives a brief definition of the general use of the term, and points the reader to Hellenic civilization for an overview of the spread of Greek culture after Alexander.
  • Hellenistic civilization gives a description of the spread if Greek culture after Alexander
  • Hellenistic period gives a description of the events of the Hellenistic period
  • Hellenistic Greece specifically gives a description of the Greek peninsula during the Hellenistic period.
MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Further to edits by myself and Parsecboy, the disambiguation of Hellenism now occurs under the simple title of 'Hellenism'; users looking for Hellenism sensu Hellenization are now directed to 'Hellenization'. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 21:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mistakes

I am sorry, this page, as well as its subdirectories, are full of mistakes or wrong definitions or interpretations and the main pages should be completely rewritten by an Hellenist. In addition, pages are corrupted by Greek or Macedonian politics and disputes. These include not only the discussion pages, that are full of personal opinions of non-professionals which are void or irrelevant, but also some main pages. Please make some efforts to restore a similar page that earlier existed at Wikipedia. Thank you.Draganparis (talk) 13:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC) User:Draganparis|Draganparis]] (talk) 08:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a disambiguation page. It does not have "sub-directories". It exists because the word 'Hellenism' has different meanings in the English language. This page helps to direct people to the article they are looking for. As for the page 'Hellenism' which I beleive you are referring to, this article was merged with the article 'Hellenization', because they described exactly the same thing. Since 'Hellenization' does not have other meanings in English, that title was kept to avoid confusion. If you have a problem with any article, you should make specific comments on the talk page of THAT article. A general statement like "[...] are full of mistakes or wrong definitions'" does not help anyone.
It is clear that there are some Greeks and Macedonians who edit Wikipedia with biased views; however, there are many more who try to write impartially. The nationality of someone does not prevent them from contributing. Furthermore, the fact that these people are "non-professionals" does not make their contributions "void or irrelevant". Wikipedia is mostly the work of amateurs; if you want professional writing, maybe you should try elsewhere! MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 18:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
This is a strange response. I am sorry, I am not used to such argumentation. Being incognito does not permit one to introduce quite unpleasant genre. I never received such an answer even after really bitter disputes with the colleagues who knew where the painful and very important disagreement was. Here we had just very general comment of mine which produced unusual response.
I do have a problem with many articles; in fact I have problems with almost all articles under this hading (including linked articles) which are just full of arbitrariness. It will be an endless work to try to comment on all what is simply wrong. I did some small corrections and they were immediately removed by some non-professionals (I will explain below what I mean). I certainly would not recommend to anybody to consider these pages as reliable references. They may be amusing but are inexact, and this begins with the so called “disambiguation” page.
More about your answer. Because contributions of some people are void and irrelevant I inferred that they are non-professionals, and NOT vice-versa, as you seam to have understood. Also, it is obvious that some interventions were inexact and void in a quite particular sense, and I inferred then that they must be biased, implying some narrow political interests. And first then they could suggest to me some national interests and not inverse, as you, I think NOW, quite purposefully implied: that I wrote that some, because belonging to particular nations, were producing void and inexact comments (!?). This is simply an unfair insinuation. My comment was so clear that I must also draw a conclusion that the response to my objections was in the same stile and equally "exact" as number of texts that I considered void and irrelevant. I just saw 5 minutes ago that you contributed to these pages - and this removed my remaining doubts... Therefore I must draw a quite unfortunate conclusion. I think that I made a mistake believing that the aim of these pages had anything to do with knowledge. Please do not assume more then I say. Knowledge does not mean professional knowledge, but just knowledge. Now, I regret to have to say that I can not recommend to anyone the pages that are offered here. For the time being. I am sorry.Draganparis (talk) 22:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Anything to offer in improvement of the relevant articles instead of vague criticism (I Hellenist, I good. you suck) and silly 'corrections' (are "Macedo(lol)-Bactrians" and "Indo-Macedonians" even standard usage?)? 3rdAlcove (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Let me make myself clearer. I am English. I do not have strong feelings towards either Greece or Macedonia. What I do have strong feelings towards is dreadful use of the English language, badly written articles, or articles filled with pedantic point-scoring. The fact that I am currently re-writing Hellenistic articles has nothing to do with my personal opinions, and everything to do with the awful state that those articles were in.
If I was only responding to your comment on this page, you would be right that my response was strange. However, I have seen your contributions and comments on other pages, and, to be frank, they are unhelpful. You accuse other people of inaccuracy or non-professional opinions. However, you are clearly trying to promote your own point of view over the generally accepted interpretation. An example (as mentioned by 3rdAlcove): "Macedo-Bactrians" - in English, the language of this version of Wikipedia, those people are universally known as Greco-Bactrians. So on the English wikipedia, they should be called that - if it is different in other languages, then feel free to edit those versions of Wikipedia to say so. Note that I do not accuse you of having a pro-Macedonian point of view - but you are certainly pushing your POV (whatever that is), against a generally accepted view. There are several editors out there who have had to undo your edits, who I am sure will agree with me.
I am sorry if I misinterpreted your comments about non-professionals and national bias. However, despite what you might believe ("my comment was so clear"), your meaning was far from comprehendable. I think you need to read more about Wikipedia and how it works. No-one really thinks that Wikipedia is a reliable source of information at this moment - but it is trying to be. Yes, there are many problems with it. Yes, there are many inaccuracies. If you want to help, then suggest changes, or suggest specific problems on the talk pages. Wait for a consensus to emerge before making big changes to the meaning of an article. Do not just make unjustifiable changes and leave vague comments about how bad the article is. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 13:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for answering to my comments. I obviously misunderstood the mission of Wikipedia. Indeed, I observed systematic replacement of “Macedonian” with “Greek” in almost all texts treating period after Alexander III. This is probably a result of genre mixing - which history writing really does not tolerate. This is not a terrible mistake though and could be corrected. Indeed, all genres are permitted, even history of mentalities may be given. However, these should be given in a relatively pure form and certainly should not be so violently mixed, as it is the case in the Wikipedia. If all who take part in crating pages would know this we would have less confrontations and disputes. Quite inversely, manipulation of an argument, and switching from genre to genre, although being obvious logical fallacy, may bring temporary success in dialogues. Indeed, the disputes about facts can be resolved neither by fallacious arguments nor by voting (democratically!) but thruough valid and sound arguments.
We may start from the beginning. I would suggest to you, if you would agree to pursue the method of “political history”, to consider qualifying Seleucid kingdoms as well as Ptolemaic Egypt - as Macedonian, since quite simply all kingdoms that succeeded Alexander were politically Macedonian (including Bactrian and Indian kingdoms). Culturally they were, no doubt, Hellenistic. If on the contrary, political atmosphere would prevail on these pages, then “democracy”, of course, will decide what “is” and what “is not”.Draganparis (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I definitely agree with you that politically, all the successor states were Macedonian by origin. But while the leaders were mostly, if not all, Macedonian surely a large proportion of the ruling elite in the successor states would have been from other parts of Greece? The existence of a Macedonian king does not by itself make the whole kingdom 'Macedonian'. I think this is why, in English, the more general term 'Greek' is used (i.e. Indo-Greek) - culturally these states were 'Greek', so Greek is more easily-used as a label for them (because it implies less strict criteria). In any case, since these terms are used be convention, they should be continued to used - even if they are, strictly-speaking, less accurate. Indo-Macedonian is confusing to anyone who may be familiar with the standard term. I also agree with you that disputes cannot simply be solved by the opinion of the majority - valid arguments must be used. However, the reverse is also true - there must be support, even if not a majority, for radical alterations to articles.
If you see an obviously incorrect fact, or misleading statement, then please do change it, immediately. But for more complex changes, please see if others agree first. Thanks MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I think we have a "concensus".Draganparis (talk) 11:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)