[WikiEN-l] Anti-intellectualism

[Fred Bauder]

> Avoiding making this a de facto RFC on a given article...
>
> I've been getting into a fairly nasty feud on a popular culture
> article in which I added an "academic criticism" section, summarizing
> articles I could find on the subject.
>
> This seems to me well-supported by numerous policies. But it has
> proven inordinately contentious, and contentious in what seems to me
> particularly pernicious ways - the articles (from peer-reviewed
> journals) have been compared to blog posts and fancruft, declared non-
> notable (not that notability determines article content), and the
> sections have been accused of being jargon-filled (which, they are,
> yes, but we're dealing with criticism in the humanities. It's jargon-
> filled, and the jargon doesn't translate to everyday words easily, or
> else we wouldn't use the jargon).
>
> I'm very, very troubled by this, for a number of reasons. For one
> thing, it seems to me to cheapen Wikipedia, miring us in the everyday
> and the simple. I am unable to think of anyone who would seriously
> criticize an encyclopedia for excessively covering peer-reviewed,
> academic scholarship. Covering academic criticism of any subject
> should be a goal for us. It should be the goal for us.
>
> But apparently this position is not only not widely held, but an
> incredible minority position.
>
> Am I crazy? Did I just get a bad bunch of people conversing on the
> article, such that I should spill the article name and get the sanity
> brigade on it? Or are we really of the opinion that peer-reviewed
> academic criticism is a non-notable perspective on a subject?
>
> -Phil

You're right, but so are they. Scholarly works in this field are just
opinion, sophisticated opinion, but still, just opinion.

Fred