Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 March 2

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[edit] March 2

[edit] Effects of Late-19th Century Imperialism

Does anyone know of a certain country, maybe in Africa or Asia, where you can still clearly see the effects of late-19th century European imperialism?

-Julio

Well, you can arguably see it in practically every country in Africa or Asia. It really depends on what exactly you mean "the effects of late-19th century European imperialism" and what model of historical causality you are using. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 00:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm just looking for a country where you can still see, through pictures, the corruptness brought on my the Europeans in the late 19th century when they tried to "civilize" countries in Africa and Asia. Anyone else?

Our article on political corruption indicates that, excluding Europe, North America and Australia, it is widespread in all other areas. Whilst this includes former colonies in South America, Africa, the Near and Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and SE Asia, it also takes in Russia and China. Of course, these latter two have been expansionist empires in history.
I think, however, that the causes of corrupt systems and dysfunctional officials in a wide range of nations are more complex than you seem to indicate. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 02:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Julio, here is a modified form of an answer which I gave earlier, one which has some bearing on your question, so far as I understand it.

There is a colonial background to Kenya's present day crisis, which you may not be too surprised to learn. In a way it is a problem that repeats itself across colonial Africa, where the ruling powers favoured one local tribe or group over another. The worst example of what this can lead to is to be found in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. And just as the Belgians favoured the Tutsi over the Hutu, the British favoured the Kikuyu over all of the other indigenous tribes of Kenya. In building the railway line from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake Victoria in the late 1890s the colonial power established a key supply depot at Nairobi, immediately adjacent to Kikuyu land, later to become the colony's capital. This gave the tribe a crucial political advantage, both before and after independence. More schools were also established on Kikuyu territory than anywhere else in Kenya. So, the Kikuyu were well placed to become the dominant group in Kenya after independence. And as Kenya was a state before it became a nation a democracy was created on the basis of the politics of ethnicity, not plurality; a politics where the winner takes all and the winner holds all, or attempts to hold all. Clio the Muse (talk) 03:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The corruption was there even before imperialism. Imperialism tried to reduce corruption, because it was out to make a profit. What Clio said, the politics of ethnicity, is far more pertinent.AllenHansen (talk) 12:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmm? Corruption, as we understand it today, is the oppurtunistic syphoning off of goods and services from a complex state beaurocracy. Pre-colonial Africa didn't have complex state beaurocracies, they relied on small-scale communal resource distribution, which, by-and-large, worked quite well. The weakness of African states is just one side on this issue, the other side is the strength of African society. In the first world, it is well established that the state is the primary distributer - but outside the first world, the state is just one actor, who has to constantly compete for primacy. The majority of the wealth African states lose through 'corruption' often ends up in traditional kin-based distribution networks. Ninebucks (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] a resident gentleman in every parish, continued

I missed the boat by not responding before the day containing my previous question got archived. Than you to those who responded. I want to squeeze a little more understanding out of this. Assuming Coleridge was the first to state the idea of having a priest of the Church of England in every village, in what context was he writing? Was he making comparisons to other countries, or other epochs in England? What was the response to his essay? Did the Church relish this role? Did they ever formally relinquish it? Part of what I am trying to tease out is how a country got to the state at which its established church could be described as the Tories at prayer. There is this fundamental intertwining of church and state, religion and nation, at more than official levels, at psychological or even mythic levels. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

We'll need one or two of the ref desk's heavy hitters to step to the plate here for answers, but i don't think we're wrong to start with Coleridge's essay. According to Basil Willey it was a "distinctive blend of religion with politics and education which made Coleridge's teaching so influential," teaching which informed the writings of Thomas Arnold, Gladstone's The State in its Relation with the Church, the ideas of Frederick Maurice and the Christian Socialists, was both accepted and challenged in some measure by John Stuart Mill, and carried on to the 20th century in William Temple's Church and Nation (1915) and T. S. Elliot's The Idea of a Christian Society (1940).
Coleridge conceived On the Constitution of the Church and State in consideration of events since the Act of Union 1800. The full title is: On the Constitution of the Church and State, According to the Idea of Each: with aids towards a right judgement on the late Catholic Bill. The bill mentioned is the Catholic Relief Act 1829, the ultimate act of the Catholic Emancipation in Britain and Ireland. However, only a small portion of the work is toward that topic, and his only objection to the final form of the bill was that it contained no provisions which excluded the Roman Catholic Church from the 'Nationality' (financial support). This was necessary because of the influence of a foreign power, and because the vow of celibacy prevented the priests from becoming the persona exemplaris of progressive society as only married men and heads of a household could be.
The greater part of the essay, that part which influenced later thinkers, dealt with the 'Ideas' of Church and State. By 'Idea' Coleridge meant something along the lines of the ideal state of a thing. He was not "making comparisons to other countries, or other epochs in England," but rather describing "that conception of a thing, which is not abstracted from any particular state, form, or mode, in which the thing may happen to exist at this or that time, nor yet generalized from any number or succession of such forms or modes, but which is given by the knowledge of its ultimate aim." Indeed, later criticisms were that the 'Ideas' were ahistorical, were specific to a single nation, and that Coleridge failed to evaluate the then form of the Church of England in comparison.
I think there are some seminal concepts in Coleridge's essay which would necessarily be a part of answering your questions—e.g. the notion of Christianity as a "blessed accident"—but to place them in correct relation to the actual development and practice of the Church of England is beyond me.—eric 23:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, BB, I've rushed through On the Constitution of the Church and State, and looked at some background, enough, I think, to give you a partial answer. The context, in which Coleridge was writing, as I am sure you are probably aware, was that of Catholic emancipation. His chief concern is over the future well-being, the continuing relevance, if you prefer, of the Church of England. He promotes the role of a new class of men, the clerisy, educated and enlightened, ready to carry the message of the church to all corners of the land. Above all, he was in favour of preserving a direct link between the Church and the State, thus reversing the views he had held in his youth. More than this he sees a need for a balance or a partnership between the 'landed interest'-which represents permanence-and and the 'commercial interest', or the forces of progress. As I have already indicated, this is a thesis clearly shaped by the rapid changes taking place in England at the time, changes which threatened both the established order of society and the place of the Church in the life of the nation.

Coleridge is fully aware of the potential for conflict between 'feudalism' and 'capitalism', though, of course, he does not use these terms. And it is here that his new class of men, the clerisy, plays the most vital role in reconciling opposites. It is also this educated class that will give the Church a new and higher form of spirituality, making it a permanent and progressive part of the nation. The hidden message-for Coleridge is never explicit on this-is on the need for a reformed or a renewed Anglican Church, one in which the clergy-and the clerisy-are not necessarily bound by all of the 39 Articles. Above all it is a plea for a broad church. This is not in any sense 'the Tory Party at prayer', but a far more comprehensive and inclusive force, with a presence in every parish, and an impact on every mind. I return here to the theme of penetration or, better still, dissemination.

Coleridge's book was well received, though it was only after his death that the message was fully absorbed. In particular, it became a source of inspiration for the Broad Church movement, those who rejected the narrowness of High Anglicanism, on the one hand, and the anti-Catholic evangelism of the Low Church, on the other. The Broad Church Movement was to include such influential people as Dr. Thomas Arnold, the father of Matthew Arnold. Coleridge's thinking was also admired by John Stuart Mill, who saw him as one of the most significant representatives of nineteenth century thought.

Well, that's it, and I hope it makes sense! I'll also post this on the Humanities Desk, though I suspect that the thread has now been archived. Best wishes. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks again. I've just gone through and wikified this, so any future reader can click the links easily. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "On the rory"

What does it means when he say: "On the rory,on the rory"

What is a rory anyways,I thought it was a male name?

79.175.65.251 (talk) 05:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

According to The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English it is rhyming slang for "on the floor" in the sense of "being destitute". Rory is indeed a given name, that of legendary Irish rebel Rory (Roger) O'Moore, whose surname not only rhymes with "floor", but also with the alternative meanings "door" and "whore" (obsolete). ---Sluzzelin talk 11:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dates: what are CE and BCE?

While reading about the Vedas, I came across the terms BCE and CE. What would be the 2nd century BCE and the 11th century CE? Sheetal.a25466 (talk) 07:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

  • They're equivalent to BC and AD, respectively. So the 2nd century BCE would be the years from 200 to 101 BCE (or BC), and the 11th century CE would be from 1001 to 1100 CE (or AD). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 08:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
See Common Era.--Shantavira|feed me 08:39, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The term BCE is an abbreviation for "Before the Common Era" and CE is for the "Common Era". They are used in place of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini - the year of our lord) by non-Christians who understandably could not use BC and AD. Simonschaim (talk) 09:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Anno domini means "in the year of the lord". It is only Christians who impose the traditional translation "in the year of our lord". The in the bit comes from the fact that anno is the ablative case of the word annus ("year"), which adds the sense of in.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 09:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Also note that "AD" makes no sense when talking about centuries or any other unites of time other than a year. "Second century AD" would translate as "second century in the year of the Lord". "Second century of the Common Era" sounds obviously much better. — Kpalion(talk) 11:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
However, the traditional construction is to say "1530 BC" and "AD 1530" (ie. 1530 years before Christ; the year of the (our) Lord, 1530). But as Malcolm says below, the translation/meaning is almost irrelevant; the abbreviations have evolved to mean something conventional rather than literal. -Gwinva (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
What's wrong with "second century annorum Domini", the second collection of a hundred such years? —Tamfang (talk) 21:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
In any case it is, at this point, just convention. The real practical difference is as far as I can see nonexistent. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 15:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I fail to see why renaming "AD" to "CE" makes the calendar any less Christian – it is still marking the passage of time from the birth of Christ, after all. Why don't those people who object to it so much, whoever they are, use Anno Urbis conditae or the Mosaic calendar, I wonder?
I'm not a Christian, but still use the terms "BC" and "AD"; "CE" and "BCE" are little more than worthless political correcticisms. Malcolm Starkey (talk) 17:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not just political correctness- it's more accurate. Jesus was not born on year 1- he was born several years after that (or before- I don't remember). Anyway, it obviously isn't correct to say 50 BC if Christ wasn't born on year 0. 70.162.25.53 (talk) 05:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
That's a very strange use of the word "accurate". A calendar which antedated the BC/AD crossover to the correct point (circa 4BC, I think) would be more accurate. This is exactly the same calendar, measuring from the same point in time.
Also, don't forget that there was no year 0. Malcolm Starkey (talk) 08:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
It would make eminent sense to use AUC for Roman history; I wonder why no one does. We rarely need to compare such dates exactly with the current calendar. —Tamfang (talk) 21:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Jews often use the Jewish (Hebrew/Mosaic) calendar year which is now 5768. However when dealing with the wide world, one cannot detach oneself from the universally utilised year of 2008.Simonschaim (talk) 19:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Noetica's point about "domini" meaning "of the lord" and not "of Our Lord" is correct from a translator's point of view. However, the "lord" referred to is the same person as "Our Lord", so the substitution is understandable. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
But if he's not your lord, the difference is significant. --Anon, 01:03 UTC, March 5.
Non-Christians don't acknowledge Jesus as their "lord" or anything else, but they still accept that he is the person to whom the term "Anno Domini" refers. I'm not saying it should be translated as "Year of Our Lord", just that I can see why many Christians - particularly those who've never studied Latin - might do so, and think they're correct. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] China will end one child policy

Hi, I'm a new user here and I don't know if I'm right asking here.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/china/article3451974.ece

China will end one child policy. What would we do. Edit 'one child policy' article and Demographics of China true? 190.49.121.130 (talk) 07:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "There’s a whole world beyond this field of dreams we’re all dancing in, and I want to see that world"

"There’s a whole world beyond this field of dreams we’re all dancing in, and I want to see that world" is a quote from a TV series called 'Skins'. It's stated to be a literary reference. To what literary works does it refer? (thanks) ----Seans Potato Business 14:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe this old quote: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet, Act I, scene v. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
There's the film Field of Dreams but, having never seen it, I've no idea if it's relevant. -Gwinva (talk) 20:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
That quote is not in the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams. Dismas|(talk) 21:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
It makes me think of Lord Dunsany's phrase "beyond the fields we know". —Tamfang (talk) 21:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It also comes up on a Google search as original writing in a blog dedicated to a young person who's passed away. See the left-hnd column here http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=305057739 80.0.101.168 (talk) 13:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Agreement or pact of so called "Congress of Vienna in 1939"

Through that agreement should be confirmed the position of Bratislava as part of the new established Slowak Republic. What were the contracting parts of that congress. Was in the time of the Congress any military involvement of the Czech army against Slowak Republic ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.152.30.158 (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

212.152, there was no 'Congress of Vienna' in 1939. I rather suspect you may be confusing the famous 1815 Congress with Hitler's Vienna Awards. The First Vienna Award of November 1938 emerged as a consequence of the earlier Munich Agreement. Amongst other things this provided for the ceding of territory by the newly autonomous Slovakia to the Hungary of Miklos Horthy. The Czech state was in absolutely no position, militarily or otherwise, to raise any objections to the arrangement. This border later became that of the 'independent Slovak Republic of Josef Tiso, established in 1939. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dictatorship of the Proletariat

How did Marx arrive at this idea and how does it relate to the notion of the 'withering away of the state'?217.42.109.159 (talk) 17:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, 217, you have identified the two elements in Marxism that have had the effect of turning matters of politics and doctrine into articles of faith and belief! There was always going to be a problem here: for how could the extreme authoritarianism of dictatorship somehow be transformed into the extreme libertarianism of a stateless society? This contradiction, absurdity, if you prefer, is nowhere better illustrated than by Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, the 1962 official Soviet handbook, which said of communism that "the birth of this new, higher system is a matter of the not very distant future." And this when one of the most brutal acts of state repression had taken place in the not very distant past!
Anyway, on your specific questions, according to Eduard Bernstein, writing in the 1880s, Karl Marx's source of inspiration for the concept of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' was the work of Auguste Blanqui, a French revolutionary and thinker. It's possible, though Blanqui himself never used the term. What Marx almost certainly had in mind was the forms of dictatorship evident during the French Revolution, when the Committee of Public Safety established emergency rule during the Terror, invoking the earlier example of Roman dictatorship, supposedly a temporary expedient.
Where the second notion comes from-that of the 'withering away of the state’-is altogether more puzzling. You will be hard pressed to find any reference to it in Marx's published writings. It has to be traced through his earliest musings, back to those disreputable folk the 'utopian socialists', and through them to the work of Hugo Grotius, a seventeenth-century Dutch jurist and philosopher, who conjured up visions of a distant primal age, when the earth was open to all; a time of plenty and prosperity without coercion, property or the state-the timeless time, in other words, of the Garden of Eden! This 'age of gold', so the thesis continues, was only brought to an end as population grew and resources became scarcer, making agriculture and collective forms of labour necessary. And on the back of these came the state.
But then, several millennia down the line, came Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations, showing the great productive gains to be made by the unhampered division of labour. It only took the apocalypse of the French Revolution, and the energy unleashed by the Industrial Revolution, to show all was possible with the right political will. New prophets appeared, not least among whom was William Godwin and Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, predicting the end of scarcity and the emergence of a new golden age, in which the 'government of men would be replaced by the government of things', to use the phrase eventually favoured by Marx himself.
You see, 217.42, this idealism or, better said, 'utopian' phase of Marx's thought rose and fell with the Revolutions of 1848. Afterwards came new, altogether more hard-bitten notions, emphasising the need to defend the revolution against the counter-revolution. Now entered the dictatorship of the proletariat, with Lenin on one horizon and Stalin just beyond-dictators without a proletariat-, not a temporary expedient but a permanent condition, with the state at the most coercive phase of its history.. It was thus that Communism, with all its incoherence and all its contradictions, made its way painfully through the twentieth century. I can think of no better illustration of the absurdity of this than the words of Michael Kalecky when he returned to Poland just after the Second World War-"Yes, we have successfully established communism; all we have to do now is abolish feudalism." Clio the Muse (talk) 02:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What happened in Fall 1913?

According to a history textbook,

"The economic boom of the Laurier era cme to a crashing halt in the fall of 1913, when British investors suddenly withdrew much of their capital from Canada in anticipation of a major European war. By the spring of 1914, tens of thousands of Canadian workers were unemployed..."

What happened in the fall of 1913 that foreshadowed World War I? --Bowlhover (talk) 19:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The Second Balkan War had just ended, and leaving Serbia bigger and stronger - and even in 1913 Russia jumped on board to support whatever Serbia did. This made Austria-Hungary uneasy, since Serbia had gained control of Macedonia and Kosovo and obviously wanted Bosnia back from Austria-Hungary, which had annexed it in 1908 (the "Bosnian crisis"). Germany supported Austria like Russia supported Serbia, so it was sort of a proxy argument between Germany and Russia. Britain was also allied with Russia and had been in a naval arms race with Germany for decades, which would explain the British anticipation of war. In the end, of course, a year later Serbs killed the Austrian archduke in Bosnia, sparking World War I. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I hope you won’t mind, Adam, if I offer one or two minor historical corrections to your submission here. Bosnia was never part of Serbia, well, not since the distant Middle-Ages, and I do not think there is any evidence that the Serbs wanted it back in 1913, Slav nationalism notwithstanding. Russia certainly saw itself as a protector of the Balkan Slavs, but this is a long way from saying that it was prepared to support the Serbs in all circumstances. Britain was not allied with Russia or any other Continental power. The Triple Entente of 1907 merely established an 'understanding' on issues of outstanding concern. Britain was in a naval race with Germany, though this had not being going on for 'decades'. Please forgive my pedantry!
In answer to your question, Bowlhover, investors are always nervous, and the situation in the Balkans may have been a cause of particular alarm; but as far as the wider picture is concerned I can detect nothing that would in any way suggest that a major European war was immanent in 1913. Indeed, when it finally came in the August of 1914 it still had the effect of taking all parties by surprise, the great powers most of all. I would suggest that the statement in your history text is worthy of further investigation. Unfortunately, some authors are in the lazy habit of using convenient explanations to explain complex events. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Forgiven! I'm afraid the Reference Desk has made me lazy - I am always willing to write off the top of my head, as if there is some pride in giving the first answer, assuming that you will come along with a better one! Adam Bishop (talk) 02:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Blushes! Clio the Muse (talk) 03:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crimean War

I read your article on this. There is one thing that is not very clear to me. Why did the war end as quickly as it did? None of the important issues seem to have been resolved. Victor Eee (talk) 19:10, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I read a very good article on this subject recently by Brian Jones, a specialist in military history (Allies in Disarray: The Messy End of the Crimean War, in History Today, March, 2008,pp. 24-31). The argument is that Britain and France, the principle powers at war with Russia, no longer had a common strategy for ending the conflict. Britain wanted to continue the struggle until all of the war aims were achieved, whereas France, satisfied by the capture of Sebastopol, no longer saw any reason to go on fighting. There was always the possibility for the British to continue on alone-and a major naval offensive was planned in the Baltic-but this opened fresh strategic concerns, and not, perhaps, those that are commonly perceived.
It should always be remembered that Britain and France were at this time only allies of occasion. The Napoleonic Wars were still within living memory at a time when another Napoleon sat on the throne of France. The government of Lord Palmerston was distrustful of French ambition, even to the point of considering the ally a greater danger than the enemy. Palmerston was aware of secret talks between France and Russia, talks that would have ended in a post-war alliance-with Britain excluded-aiming at the domination of the Continent. The fear grew that with the army and navy fully engaged in a war with Russia, the French would take the opportunity to launch a cross-Channel invasion, to avenge the defeats of Trafalgar and Waterloo. This is not quite as implausible as it sounds, because advances in naval technology meant that such an attack had better prospects of success in 1856 than in 1805, when the French were at the mercy of the wind and tides. So, unable to risk fighting on alone, the British agreed to the compromise peace. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
There was an invasion scare in Britain at the end of the 1850s. AllenHansen (talk) 12:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sexual Imagery in Gaskell's North and South

I'm reading Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South. According to the Victorian Web (a site operated by the National University of Singapore), there is explicit sexual imagery in chapter 10, Wrought Iron and Gold. The first part describes how Margaret Hale has a bracelet

"on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening-the fall....She handed [Mr Thornton] his cup of tea...and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs. Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter, and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two, unobserved, as they thought."

The first is obviously a metaphor for intercourse, but the second? There is some level of masculine domination here, but I'm confused on the what the imagery truly implies. Any help would be appreciated as always. :) Zidel333 (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is clearly not "explicit sexual imagery". It would be fairer for the NUS to describe the chapter as containing coded sexual references. So the puzzlement of the modern reader is not surprising! Yes, I think you are right, it is a play on domination. Note the contrast between the word "compelled" and her pleasurable acquiescence to his use of her body. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, Zidel, I think there is a constant-and unfortunate-tendency to reinterpret the works of the past in the light of contemporary obsessions. Knowing Elizabeth Gaskell, knowing her work and her life as I do, I think she would have been quite shocked by your suggestion! The passage is indeed about sexual attraction, but in an altogether more innocent and subtle way. I also completely fail to see any play on 'domination', the finger tongs notwithstanding! It's a simple gesture of familiarity, of affection between father and daughter, an intimacy that Thornton wishes he was in a position to share. Alas, poor Clio: my mental world is most decidedly BF (Before Freud). Clio the Muse (talk) 00:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Properly chastised Clio. I was just led astray from the website I linked above. Perhaps if you read the article, you could give me your interpretation. Thanks. :) Zidel333 (talk) 00:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I, in turn, am quite shocked to learn that Clio is a very, very old woman. Knowing Gaskell's life and works is all very well, any decent scholar can do that, but knowing her, wow, that's quite something. Clio, you poor old dear, put your feet up and I'll make you a nice cuppa.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 00:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Clio is substantially older than that. Algebraist 01:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
She is immortal; you should know that, Jack. But thanks for the cuppa, just as long as it's a good strong brew of nectar and ambrosia! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Don't be chastised, Zidel; it was an interesting and provocative reading. I'll post my thoughts on the article in question on your talk page tomorrow. Clio is now about to go up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

As my sister would say - I think that says more about the people who wrote the article than it does about 'Mrs Gaskell' - sounds like they won't be able to read many books without being stimulated into a pornographic metaphorical literary sexual frenzy..87.102.93.158 (talk) 11:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The imagery doesn't 'imply' anything (to be absolutely correct) It's not some sort of code to be cracked.87.102.93.158 (talk) 13:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC) Don't read this: if you really want full analysis of the second part - you can assume it to read that Mr. Thornton wished he had as big a penis as Margaret Hale's Father; who had a very big penis and a lot of control over his daughter.. It also suggests that Margaret Hale was aware that she had originated in her Fathers bollocks (note thus use of sugar cubes here). 87.102.93.158 (talk) 13:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding 'racist' I put forward the view that 'asians' tend to over-analyse 'english literature' in general, as well as having problems with grammar. Probably because they don't actually have full command of the language.87.102.93.158 (talk) 13:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This reminds me of a similar passage in another book:

Mr. Brown enter the hall and noticed the maid was polishing the banister. Her hand moved swiftly up and down the baluster shaft and periodically she would spit on it. He couldn't help thinking he wished he was a staircase. "Can I help you with your balls?" she enquired. Mr. Brown handed her his bag, he had had a good game of croquet that morning and only a small breakfast, they felt heavy in his hand." etc etc

It continues..87.102.93.158 (talk) 13:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Ahh. What a unique response to my question. At least it was humorous....Btw, I look forward to your critique Clio. Zidel333 (talk) 15:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The said critique is to be found on Zidel's talk page! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
For the mindset you might be interested in Censorship in Singapore. Julia Rossi (talk) 03:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kapp Putsch

Your article on the Kapp Putsch says it failed because of opposition of the working class. But working class hostility had done nothing to stop the Freikorps in the past. Is that, then, the only explanation?81.129.82.113 (talk) 21:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Kapp piece is not one of Wikipedia's better articles. The reason for the failure of the attempted coup, beyond the general strike called by the unions, was simple enough: Wolfgang Kapp was a political nonentity, unknown to most Germans, unknown even to many of his armed supporters; and the Freikorps, full of violent energy as they were, lacked purpose and direction; anything that could in any way be described as a coherent political programme. There is little doubt that if Kapp had ordered his Freikorp units to suppress the strike they would have acted with their usual brutal efficiency, because they looked for violence above all things. But the 'Chancellor' hesitated, reluctant to force a showdown with the unions. In essence the whole thing simply died of boredom. Ernst von Salomon, a leading Freikorps commander, was later to write of the movement's lack of purpose "It was no inspired controversial political idea that spurred us to protest. The actual cause lay in despair, which is never articulate." Clio the Muse (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Tips for a Beginner'

Is anyone availible for tips for myself to master the ear-playing technique on the piano? I find sheet music being just too hard and frankly irriating as when you have to keep flipping pages when you've come to the end of a line. And with a downgraded testimonies to sheet music, not all the artists publish their music and you can't add spice and play around to and on it as if were strong full-chord piece without a melody. You must simply read from what you see on the staffs. Where as I see otherwise. I'm an average beginner and I am familiar with remembering the exact sound of the keys. It's almost like I'm trying to multiply two-decimals together when I call forth a note I'm either hearing on the radio or just trying to lower it on half step.

I'm open for any suggestions both on my talk page: User Talk: Writer Cartoonist or autographed user comments in reference to the topic. Thanks! --Writer Cartoonist (talk) 22:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Until more comes this way, you might like to go to Learning music by ear and improvisation. But from what I've heard (mmm) of people who only play by ear, at one level it's impressive, at another it's limiting. So I guess it has it's uses - have fun and good luck, Julia Rossi (talk) 23:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Bear in mind, you don't have to simply read what is on the stave if you play from sheet music. You should certainly be playing around at least a little, not playing it straight like a machine. And, as with playing by ear, you can do what you like with the music once you've started. The purpose of the written music is to record the music, much as you record what you've heard in your head. It tells you where to start, but there's no reason you couldn't play with it as much as you like, just as you don't have to play back exactly what you've heard. 130.88.140.49 (talk) 13:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hitler statues

Were there many Hitler statues during the Nazi's reign? I don't think I've ever seen a picture of one; contrast this with the innumerable Lenin and Stalin statues.128.163.224.222 (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

There were none, so far as I am aware. I have a feeling that the Soviet statues were all erected after the death of the subject in question. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
There were, at least, some small ones. The poet Philip Larkin's father, an admirer of Hitler, had a small statue of the Führer on his chimneypiece. At the touch of a button, it gave the Nazi salute. (from James Fenton's The Strength of Poetry, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 49) Xn4 01:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Larkin's father was an admirer of Hitler?! This would serve to explain much. After all, They fuck you up, your mum and dad...! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Surely that was a joke - did the statue really exist?87.102.93.158 (talk) 10:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
If it was a joke, then John Banville (New York Review of Books, 2006), Hugh Bonneville (The Daily Telegraph, 2003), and Allan Massie (The Independent, 2005) fell for it. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Anyone got a picture of one of these?87.102.93.158 (talk) 11:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't find anything on eBay. Google's image search on "Hitler" + "Toy" was interesting. The only miniature with movable arms from the 1930s I found is this one, manufactured from something similar to elastolin by the company Lineol (exact date unknown). ---Sluzzelin talk 11:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, it looks like Kurt Schmid-Ehmen, who also created the Feldherrnhalle's monument for the "victims" of the Beer Hall Putsch and a 9 m tall bronze Reichsadler for the World Expo's German pavilion in 1937, sculpted some bronze statues of Hitler as well. Allegedly, some of them are for sale at the usual suspect Nazi-glorification-memorabilia sites to which I won't link you. I still found no large and public Third Reich statues of Hitler, and I think I'm done with this question now. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The only Hitler statue I ever saw in Germany was Cattelan's kneeling wax sculpture titled "Him". ---Sluzzelin talk 09:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Sluzzelin, is that figure life-size? It seems an odd thing to say, but I find it strangely moving. 'He' looks so vulnerable; like a penitent, or even like a frightened little boy. And I never thought I would ever say anything like this about 'Him'! I’m reminded of a comment I once read by a Jewish writer-I forget which-that he hoped Hitler's tortured soul had at last found peace. Amen to that. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Spot on! The statue is life-sized ... the size of a little boy. Big head, little body. Spectators should react the way you did, and then perhaps proceed to find their own reaction disturbing, or not! Maurizio, the old mischief-maker, strikes again! ---Sluzzelin talk 02:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Brilliant; quite brilliant! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Strange, my reaction is more of an uncanny valley response, perhaps accentuated slightly by who he was. --S.dedalus (talk) 23:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
In his magnificent film "M", Fritz Lang has used a similarly disturbing dichotomy in the character of the pedophile murderer, played by the then widely unknown Peter Lorre. In a key scene this evil and despised serial killer of children bares his hunted Ego to those who are about to lynch him and shouts "Who knows what it is like to be me ?"
Despite the intervening years - I watched the movie when I was somewhere in high school - I still remember this scene and the sudden compassion it created for a suddenly pitiful victim. As pointed out by Clio and Sluzzelin, this pity does then generate a moral backlash in the minds of the audience.
You may be aware that "M" is regarded by some to be a sort of parabola on the situation of Germany in the face of rising national Sozialism. Fritz Lang left Germany two or so years after completing the film in 1933.
For pre-Freudian C_the_Moose I have linked Ego. The surgery in the Berggasse is but a few tram stops away from my home. And after all, the man also wrote a treatise on the Uncanny. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pork in the Bible

It says in the Bible that you are not supposed to eat pork. Why do so many Christians eat it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Because of a vision Paul had in which the Lord said it was now OK to eat pork, also found in the bible, in the Book of Acts. Wrad (talk) 23:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I believe it was Peter. See Acts chapter 10. GreatManTheory (talk) 00:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Ooops. Yep, that's the guy. Wrad (talk) 01:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
A prohibition on eating pork is also conspicuously not listed as a requirement of Christian behavior in Acts 15:28-29 (see Council of Jerusalem, Noahide). AnonMoos (talk) 05:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The rational answer is that early Christians wanted to convert the the whole Roman empire (and beyond) and to able to do that many of the rules of the Old Testament had to be canceled and declared null and void (not eating pork, not eating shellfish, circumcision). The "guy above" agreed and sent an appropriate vision to his representative (that is if you believe in such a omnipotent figure). Flamarande (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you peruse the book of Acts, you'll see that not all the early church leaders were enthusiastic about the idea of accepting non-Jews (who did not follow Jewish customs and laws) as Christians. The decision of the "council of Jerusalem" was that such conversions were allowed, but there seems to have remained a certain balance between the Jewish and non-Jewish wings of Christianity (with the Jewish Christian leadership in Jerusalem retaining some kind of seniority) until the Jewish Christian community in Judea-Galilee was completely disrupted by the First Jewish Revolt. -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
There's a view mentioned for example by Steven Pinker in How the Mind Works that dietary laws in general serve the sociological purpose of marking out the particular religious or cultural group as different. (I think this view is relatively uncontroversial, but he goes further and suggests that because most people's view of what is and isn't palatable is formed early in life, dietary laws allow a community to restrict the contacts of its young, and presumably most impressionable, members, since they can't even eat with another tribe. I have not met this argument anywhere else). If there is any truth to this argument, then Christian acceptance of pork (and indeed, substitution of a completely different set of dietary laws), can be seen simply as a mechanism for differentiating them from the Jews. --ColinFine (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm, some weren't very happy about converting Romans (and Greeks, and Germanics, etc) in the beginning but they changed their minds quickly enough. I wish to point out to Colinfine that such religious rules mainly serve hygenic purposes: there are lots of diseases which pork meat (or shellfish) can pass on to humans in a dry and arid climate. Leave such a problem in a largely ignorant society without modern freezers or medicine for a couple of generations and you will end with the rule: "You shall not eat pork because it is displeasing in the eyes of the Lord." However it would be much more harder to sell this excuse/reason/rule to the Romans and Germanics (etc) who simply liked to eat pork and lived in a better climate. This is also true in the issue of circumcision (shudder). Flamarande (talk) 00:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Were they perhaps onto Trichinosis when it was decided pork was unclean? It's uncited here[1] but I've heard about it. Not a problem these days though. Julia Rossi (talk) 04:59, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
The official line in Judaism is that we refrain from eating non-kosher animals because God says so, not because of trichinosis or any other earthly reason. Therefore, the development of refrigeration and modern slaughtering practices has no bearing on the commandment to only eat kosher meat. While the Bible doesn't give a reason why certain animals are not kosher, it's notable that God tells the Israelites those animals are "unclean for you." God draws a distinction between what is OK for the Jews and what is OK for the Gentiles. It clearly appears to serve the purpose of differentiating the Jews from their neighbors. Archaeologists can tell ancient Jewish settlements from Canaanite or Philistine ones by their lack of pig bones. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
A nice article describes the issue quite well: Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork. Flamarande (talk) 20:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)