Hi folks.
I'm curious about the relationship between historical NPOV and wikipedian NPOV.
If I understand Julie correctly, historians tend to refrain from making moral judgements about history, particularly when the people of that period had a significantly different world view. So it's not OK to say that "women were treated unfairly", but it is OK to say that "women were not able to vote or own property" - the former being a statement of morality and the latter being one of historical fact. Similarly, historians explain things in terms of the temporal context, so the Rape of the Sabines in Rome would be explained in terms of how the romans viewed women, sex, marriage, and the necessity of making lots of little Romans who would grow up to throw weird-shaped spears and feature in historical novels.
However, certain periods in history have been reinterpreted by later generations. The inquisition is a classic example, in that some neopagan religions have used as a quasi-historical basis. Also, (IIRC) later christian leaders have retrospectively apologised for the inquisition, so clearly they were judging the morality of the period against modern morality. The inquisition has been used as evidence for the claim that christianity and/or organised religion is amoral. Finally, the term "witch hunt" is an idiom for an irrational search for evil-doers that works similarly to the way the Salem trials and the Inquisition are supposed (in popular imagination) to have been conducted.
The historical NPOV would seem (if I read Julie right) to be to ignore these later moral judgements as fundamentally ahistorical, anachronistic, and irrelevant. My question is, is the wikipedian NPOV "wider" than the historical NPOV: should we include content that historians would judge inappropriate? If so, how can we include it so that the historical view is not damaged or confused by non-historical approaches?
Martin Harper
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002, martin.harper@speechmachines.com wrote:
The historical NPOV would seem (if I read Julie right) to be to ignore these later moral judgements as fundamentally ahistorical, anachronistic, and irrelevant. My question is, is the wikipedian NPOV "wider" than the historical NPOV: should we include content that historians would judge inappropriate? If so, how can we include it so that the historical view is not damaged or confused by non-historical approaches?
I think the answer to the first question is 'yes, the later moral judgements are valuable content for wikipedia'.
The second question is harder, but the rough approach should be the usual one, of attributing the later points of view to appropriate groups (even if the group is really almost all modern people).
The difficult cases will be ones where the presentation and emphasis when describing the historical facts is coloured by modern judgements. But this problem is basically the same as making other articles NPOV, particularly ones where most current editors share the same POV. Where people see problems, they can work to fix them.
-M-
on 12/14/02 6:40 AM, mattheww+wikipedia@chiark.greenend.org.uk at mattheww+wikipedia@chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002, martin.harper@speechmachines.com wrote:
The historical NPOV would seem (if I read Julie right) to be to ignore these later moral judgements as fundamentally ahistorical, anachronistic, and irrelevant. My question is, is the wikipedian NPOV "wider" than the historical NPOV: should we include content that historians would judge inappropriate? If so, how can we include it so that the historical view is not damaged or confused by non-historical approaches?
I think the answer to the first question is 'yes, the later moral judgements are valuable content for wikipedia'.
The second question is harder, but the rough approach should be the usual one, of attributing the later points of view to appropriate groups (even if the group is really almost all modern people).
The difficult cases will be ones where the presentation and emphasis when describing the historical facts is coloured by modern judgements. But this problem is basically the same as making other articles NPOV, particularly ones where most current editors share the same POV. Where people see problems, they can work to fix them.
-M-
I think it might be useful to divide such an article into several parts, one part a sophisticated survey of the subject (all with appropriate references, not just "Whoa! I teach medieval history") done to modern professional standards which attempts (so far as one is able) to reflect the spririt of the times (medieval times that is). Unless one is or chooses to become an expert, one might avoid trying to edit that section.
The other part of the article would be based more on general knowledge and incude such concepts as the dark ages and, of course, the viewpoint (and it is held) that it was the best of worlds. Our hypothetical professional (not so hypothetical in this case) should resign herself to inclusion of viewpoints from popular culture. That viewpoint necessarily involve a look back and judgements on how far we have come from those beknighted days, or how far we have fallen from the golden age of chivalry and Chistian community.
What is going on here is two levels of reality. One body of knowledge is the sophisticated best effort of professional historians; the other common sense, or what we all know.
Fred
Hi,
you're correct that this was one of my disagreements with Julie. I actually agree with Julie that a strictly historical article should not be laced with modern moral judgments (i.e. "women were treated unfairly, according to .."). It's perfectly OK to include these, in attributed form, in a designated section or separate article.
However, the major disagreement was whether certain *interpretations* of the facts, especially of causes/effects - not moral judgments - should be presented, or whether they should be regarded as "outdated" and discarded. For example, was the church anti-scientific to make sure that its own viewpoint was the only one that could prevail? Was it the cause of the irrationalism of the period? Or was it simply an institution that grew out of the chaos that followed the decline of the Roman empire, one that brought order into chaos and preserved knowledge that would otherwise have been lost? (A frequent relativistic/apologist interpretation.) These are both not moral judgments, although moral judgments could be derived from both.
I think that any interpretation that is properly attributed and verifiable has a place on Wikipedia. Otherwise, our only alternative is to use whatever is the "scientific consensus" (what is scientific? when is consensus reached? do we ban all previous interpretations? do we ban all non-scientific interpretations, e.g. creationism? does the English Wikipedia concern the American scientific consensus or the African one?). Not all interpretations have the same place, but IMHO it is especially the extreme fringe (e.g. the theory that 200 years of medieval history were invented) that should be condemned to the fringes of Wikipedia.
In general, I am against *deleting* attributed, verifiable information.
Regards,
Erik
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