Talk:Early infanticidal childrearing/Archive 2

References and controversial templates
-- Paul foord 11:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Whilst the article mentions many academic anthropologists, etc, there are no citations.
 * This stuff would appear to have contemporary relevance given to reference to contemporary cultural groups, it also deems to have been hidden away, a scan of the discussion shows it is controversial.
 * It would be helpful if people used ==Headings== to 1/ create a table of contents and 2/ help readers navigate the discussion.


 * All done to help readers navigate the discussion. But the talk page is still confusing since some editors didn’t sign. —Cesar Tort 16:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Copyedits
I have made many copyedits and divided the article in sections.

Also I sourced it and therefore removed the tag. —Cesar Tort 21:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Comprehension
I clicked onto this page from the article Infanticide and I find myself lost.

First, I thought the term "Early infanticidal childrearing" referred to early in infancy, not early in human history. Having read the talk page, I understand the reason for using the term, but "early" as a synonym for "historical, pre-historical, and contemporary-primitive" does not help with clarification. The best suggestions I can offer are "aboriginal", "ancient", and "archaic", although all of them are imperfect.

Second, the initial sentence, "Early infanticidal childrearing is a model developed by Lloyd deMause within the framework of psychohistory which purports that childrearing in the Paleolithic Era and in contemporary pre-literate hunter-gatherer tribes was or is infanticidal" does little to illuminate the topic. Perhaps it is because I am not an anthropologist or a sociologist by trade.

The third paragraph consists of one sentence which finally defines the 'model': "This model makes several claims: that childrearing in tribal societies included ritual sacrifice, high infanticide rates, incest, body mutilation, child rape and tortures." Disregarding the first listed item (despite terrors of Satanism, we generally do not see instances of babies ritually slaughtered in a religious context), the rest of the items occur in many societies, including modern, Western, industrialized ones. Is it that such activities were culturally acceptable (explicitly or tacitly)? If so, the article should state that clearly rather than assuming.

In the model, is there any discussion of how children were selected for infanticide? My feeling upon reading the article is that each child was killed or tortured in one way or another. I assume that that assumption is incorrect, and there was some sort of selection process that would vary from culture to culture. From the Infanticide article: "In the Solomon Islands, some people reportedly kill their first-born child as a matter of custom -- and then adopt a child from another island, a practice that suggests that the causes of infanticide are more complex." The comment lacks a citation, but it does point to a systematic infanticidal practice.Lizbetann 20:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, you are right. The article is confusing since it deals with a specific model within psychohistory. I will try to correct it. —Cesar Tort 00:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

D'Souza?
Why is there a Dinesh D'Souza link here? This doesn't appear to be within his bailiwick.S. Ugarte 01:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes: I know about his political views. But the article explains topics such as the “cultural relativism” debate in a more civil way than the flaming above (for example, his article mentions how the Aztecs practiced child cannibalism). —Cesar Tort 01:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The first link doesn't work for me (temporary outage?). A brief skim of the second and it appears to be a polemic against multiculturalism, with some brief mention of the Aztecs thrown in merely to bolster the argument--hardly an academic source of such information. What's the Wikipedia policy on this? D'Souza's opinion pieces don't seem particularly noteworthy, as they presumably contain no original research--he's not an expert in this field--nor are his views particularly relevant (he's a pop-historian and commentator). I'll readily admit to thinking he's a useless hack, but even if he weren't, I'd be surprised to see him cited here. S. Ugarte 05:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Point taken: I removed both links. —Cesar Tort 06:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * However, I would like that the link stays here in talk page:


 * "Dinesh D'Souza and some anthropologists have pointed out that, ironically, some natives disagree with the orthodox anthropologists' relativism, as can be seen in this long article."


 * —Cesar Tort 23:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Added 'context' and 'technical' templates
As a reader with no background in the subject, I found the introduction to be lacking v/v the MoS for introductions to subjects, and the rest of the article too technical and lacking in context. Anchoress 23:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I have reworked the introduction to hopefully make its context and meaning clearer.  Lumos3 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the re-worked intro is definitely more understandable, thanks. Anchoress 09:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Thanks! —Cesar Tort 14:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Cesar Tort, I left the technical template up because the rest of the article is still too technical and lacking in context. The intro is definitely better, and I agree completely with Lumos3's removal of the tag commenting on the intro. I'm not going to replace the tag you removed (although I placed it), but I do think the article still needs work. Perhaps a more detailed overview in a section between the lede and the 'model' section? Or perhaps a better introductory paragraph to the 'model' section. I don't know because I know nothing of the topic outside what's in the article. ;-) Anchoress 06:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand. Do you want me to place the tag again? Please do it if you wish.

I write books in Spanish. My writing style is much closer to novels, poetry and confessional autobiography —the very antipodes of what a dry encyclopedia is supposed to be!

Once I considered merging this article with the psychohistory article. But it would make no sense: I am pretty sure that in the future other editors will start articles about Late infanticidal childrearing and the other five psycho-historical childrearing modes.

I am not good as an encyclopedist. If you have time and interest, could you take a look at the selection of the above flaming I linked today?: The selection gives you & the readers the big picture of what the model “early infanticidal” really is.

If, unlike me, you have encyclopedic skills you can propose some very specific changes and we may edit the article to make it comprehensible for the lay reader. Anyway: in my opinion this is a mere expansion. So I will add this to the article:


 * "This article is an expansion of a section entitled Psychogenic_mode from within the main article: Psychohistory"

—Cesar Tort 08:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Oops! In edit summary I wrote: “deMause doesn’t say that Greeks & Romans practiced ‘late’ infanticidal childrearing”. In fact that was an example of “late infanticidal childrearing”. I should have written instead that according to deMause not only Greeks & Romans practiced that, but other ancient civilizations as well. —Cesar Tort 08:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)