[WikiEN-l] Phrase, fable, popular culture

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>I glanced yesterday at a recent dictionary 'of phrase and fable',
>>>>which had a Pokemon article.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>It's amazing how pop culture articles make people squirm so much.  I
>>don't really do anything with them, but they have never bothered me.
>>Pop culture is as important a part of culture as history or science.
>>Naturally, we want to make sure that fictional characters aren't put
>>forth as something more real than they are,   If we confine  
>>ourselves to
>>"scholarly treatment" it strikes me as though we would be putting  
>>on the
>>same pompous airs of superiority that are often attrivbuted to  
>>ivory towers.
>>    
>>
>1) A "dictionary of phrase and fable" sounds like a _perfectly_ good  
>source for Wikipedia material.
>
Absolutely.  Perhaps I misread something to think that Charles was 
promoting the idea of a separate wiki for such things and pop culture.

>2) I think that by definition an "encyclopedia" does _and must_ carry  
>a bit of what might be spun as "the same pompous airs of superiority  
>that are often attributed to ivory towers." Just as there are such  
>things as journalistic standards, we have a commitment to accuracy  
>that goes beyond what is required of USENET postings and web forums.  
>Any dedication to standards seems pompous to those who do not share it.
>
Even if I place myself clearly in the inclusionist end of the spectrum 
that does not mean that I support an abandonment of all standards.  What 
we include and the means by which we establish verifiability of what we 
include are two different questions.  The degree of verifiability also 
needs to vary with the subject.  For obvious reasons it needs to be very 
strict when we write biographical material about living persons.  Many 
pop culture items are at the other end of the scale.  What is in a comic 
strip, a TV program, a video game, a murder mystery, etc. is evidence 
for no more nor no less than what is in there, and we need to be careful 
before we draw further conclusions.

I am fully aware that USENET, web fora and blogs are remarkable for 
their lack of standards, and any use of these as evidence needs to be 
done with extreme caution.  The pomposity arises more in the refusal of 
some (but not all) academics to accept that ideas which have grown 
outside of academia may be valid.  There is an inherent conservatism of 
thought in academia, and, as in any professional environment, an 
inherent received wisdom that is not easily challenged.  It would, of 
course, be an extremist view to say that an idea developed outside of 
academia is always valid.  Standards need enough flexibility to accept 
that possibility.

>3) What makes me squirm about pop culture articles is their general  
>low quality, lack of references, and air of inexperience. I think a  
>good deal of them are being written from personal expertise. The edit  
>wars I see on some of them convince me that these self-appointed  
>experts have quite different opinions about the supposed content of  
>the supposed canon, and the reader has no way to know which is  
>correct. When people argue about the canon known as the Bible, they  
>customarily cite chapter and verse. So, for that matter, do  
>Holmesians. So should... what should I call them? Pokemonitors?
>
Pokemaniacs!

There is much to what you say about the pop culture articles, but I 
would much prefer their having edit wars and learning about 
collaboration there than on articles that "matter".  Perhaps we have 
spent too much time debating about whether we want them at all 
insteadrather than considering what we want them to do.  What the 
characters in a TV program said or did is a question of fact that is 
verifiable by reference to the program itself, though I admit that the 
complement of out-takes sold with DVDs does not make things any easier.  
When editors start adding opinion it is a completely different issue.

I wouldn't be complacent abour what is canonical in either the Bible or 
Holmes.  The Bible has its apocrypha like the Gospel of Thomas, and 
Holmes stories have been written by other authors than Arthur Conan 
Doyle.  Who's to say whether Holmes movies are true to the original 
stories.  The curved pipe popularly smoked by Holmes was not a part of 
Doyle's original concept

>4) I do think that the "distanced" tone with which, say, Homeric  
>mythology, and folklore are conveyed, is very misleading. (It doesn't  
>help that a lot of it was filtered through Victorian English  
>translations).
>
Chapman's Homer was published during the reign of James I, after whom is 
named the King James Bible.  Keats wrote about it during the reign of 
George III.  Be that as it may, the filter was more broadly one of 
Protestant Christian mythology.

>I think a lot of this stuff was pop culture in its time. I suspect  
>the ancients regarded Mars or Apollo in a way that is much closer to  
>the way we regard Superman or Batman than to the way we regard the  
>characters of Wagner's operas.
>
Building temples in someone's honour and for their worship suggests that 
they played a far more important role in that society.  Do we dare 
compare them to the Temple Complex to The Mouse and Duck in Anaheim?  
Wagner's operas are a German thing that rests on yet another set of 
mythologies.

>Homer was a superstar performer, and he probably riffed on his lyre  
>like Bruce Springsteen. I've always heard that educated Greeks did  
>not believe the gods and goddesses were real. I suspect the less  
>educated ones may have had a degree of belief that was like the  
>degree of belief that fans of professional wrestling have in their  
>sport.
>
General literacy was not the norm in Homer's time.  Homer was a 
compiler, not an originator.  The problem with literate people is they 
often don't believe what they're told.  Perhaps Homer was more like a 
Billy Graham or a medieval troubador than a Bruce Springsteen.  After 
all, the guitar/lyre is only a prop for the message.  There were 
certainly important Greeks that were questioning the gods, but there 
were others such as the playwrights who were willing to exploit them.  
Roman leaders did a much better job of exploiting the gods to promote 
their own vested interests.

>I assume I'm not the only person who, as an adolescent, discovered a  
>passage in the Odyssey, which, for some reason was not part of our  
>assigned reading in class. The one about how Hephaestus catches Ares  
>and Aphrodite making love. Literally catches them at it. Traps them.  
>Nude. In a contraption of metal chains. Then calls all the gods and  
>goddess to come and see them. Who stand around admiring Aphrodite and  
>making coarse jokes. I'll bet I'm not the only adolescent that  
>thought that was pretty hot. Did I mention that they were chained up  
>nude, in the act, and exhibited to a crowd of acquaintances? Nude?
>
You can't expect the schools to be teaching about lolicon.  Try to 
explain Deuteronomy 23:1 in a Sunday School.  The porter's speech is 
often exceised from "correct" versions of Macbeth.  What I love about 
the Trickster in native lore of North America is his habit of stepping 
in when people are taking things too seriously.

Ec