On 5/19/07, Christopher Hagar cmhagar@gmail.com wrote:
Part of the issue is a tendency to consider recent things more important in general, not directly linked to American importance. Although, nuclear weapons and worldwide military power and communication do skew traditional notions of importance. The United States is, after all, more important to the Chinese than the Roman Empire ever was.
On 5/19/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 5/19/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Fri, 18 May 2007, K P wrote:
>>Charlotte, in my view you'd be wrong. Paderewski was hugely and >>internationally famous as a pianist, whereas his fame as a Prime >>Minister of Poland is largely limited to Poland ... >> >> >'''Ronald Wilson Reagan''' ... > > The United States is bigger and much more important in international politics than Poland, and being president of it is much more
notable. President of
the US and Prime Minister of Poland just don't produce equal amounts
of fame.
If you look at the article for Grace Kelly, being an academy award
winning
actress is mentioned before being princess of Monaco.
Right on. After all, size is all that matters,
Size isn't all that matters, but it's one thing that matters. (Or
more
precisely, importance, which is often related to size.)
and only the last few hundred years of history have any meaning.
I believe that Paderewski was a pianist and a Prime Minister during
the
same historical time period. The same for Grace Kelly being an
actress
and
princess of Monaco.
I know a little bit about grammar and sometimes putting something at
the
end
of a sentence is supposed to draw attention to it, so mentioning
something
first doesn't neccesarily mean it's more important. I don't deny the US
is
important in world politics today, but that fails to take into account anything that happened before the US even existed or any nationally important stuff from other countries. Their influence doesn't matter.
All
countries are notable and should be treated equally independantly of
size
or
influence.
It's difficult for me to resist someone's fatuous comments about the last few hundred years of history. Perhaps he has never heard that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. The lessons have been there for a long time as evidenced by the [[Classic of History]]. Over the years others too havemade keen observations about issues, and it is amazing how much influence Aristotle and Plato still retain over modern political thought. Perhaps the less said about the role of the US in today's world the better. It suffices to say that there is a sharp contrast between such attitudes within and without the United States about the importance of the United States. Most experienced Wikipedians from both camps are acutely aware of the distinction, and are willing to moderate their views in the intrest of NPOV.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
The problem is also speaking of the past in the present tense. The world was, gasp, a different world in 1914 than it is in 2007. I'm just aghast at the lack of an historical perspective that comes across in so many Wikipedia articles. When I see statements like the above about all American prime minsters being more famous than Polish ones it really makes me wonder about the type of thinking that even went into the statement--the world of international relations does not exist in a vacuum, and Poland is not Monaco. Not even close.
KP