Talk:Frederick Crews/Archive 1

Date of "Pooh Perplex" publication, ISBN #
According to the publication information page of my 2003 edition copy of the Pooh Perplex, it was first published in '63 by E.P. Dutton & Co. The ISBN I have given was on the back of the 2003 edition, though, so might be incorrect. Edward Wakelin 03:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Unwarranted speculation
The article currently reads, 'It is likely that Crews will eventually be best remembered for this playfully witty book [ie, the Pooh Perplex].' This is speculation that does not belong in the article, and I am going to remove it.Skoojal (talk) 04:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Censorship about Crews's comments on homosexuality
I am not altogether surprised to see my edits reverted, and before anyone tells me that they are worried about my feelings, let me add that I'm not that bothered about it, given that it was fairly predictable. I will point out several things. Firstly, it was Frederick C. Crews's choice to make those comments about homosexuality, not mine. None of those quotes were made up by me; they were all taken from Crews's books. They are part of the public record of his statements about a highly controversial issue. They are in no way a minor matter, and nor are they irrelevant to this article (Crews is primarily a literary critic, to be sure, but I think it is extremely pertinent what someone who wrote books about Henry James and E. M. Forster has to say about homosexuality). I assume that the person who removed them was concerned for Crews's reputation, but there are other issues at stake, such as the right of readers of this article to be informed about what Crews wrote.

Secondly, I strongly doubt that there is any useful way in which this article can be expanded without including those comments. Frederick Crews is a well known and influential writer, so it's appropriate that an article on him go into a certain amount of detail about what he wrote in his books. Readers of the article can be expected to already know something about Crews (presumably that is their motive for reading it), so why not tell them something they may not already know? Presumably that is the whole point of a wikipedia article. The Memory Wars, for instance, wasn't just about the recovered memory movement; it was an attack on psychoanalysis as well, and it is surely of help to the reader to be told, in Crews's own words, one of his reasons for attacking it. So why should those comments about homosexuality not be there? (The same point applies to comments about Crews made by other people - for instance, why cannot readers of the article learn that Judith Butler found one of Crews's comments homophobic? This is exactly the kind of thing an article should tell its readers)

Thirdly, this is not a matter of 'interpretation', not by any reasonable definition. That homosexuality is a mental illness is the plain meaning of Crews's first footnote in Analysis Terminable. I do not agree that this is 'considerable undue weight being given to one sentence of a book.' It should not matter if there was only one sentence; this is what that sentence, a very important and relevant sentence, means. In fact it is not the only sentence; the casual way that Crews mentions homosexuals in the same company as psychotics and neurotics in his postscript also suggests that he views homosexuality as a mental illness. If it is only the 'interpretation' of this sentence that is at issue, it can easily be re-written.

Fourthly, I think it accomplishes very little to expunge those comments from the article. Anyone with any interest in the issue can go to its saved older versions to see them. I expect that numerous people will do just that, especially since I have added this note here (unless of course someone is going to delete not only this note but also the old versions of the article, which really would be extraordinary, and damage wikipedia's reputation). And fifthly, some of the edits that were reverted had nothing whatever to do with Crews's comments about homosexuality. May I ask why that was done? Skoojal (talk) 20:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Your own discussion of his books what we call original research on Wikipedia; there's lots of places those opinions would be welcome, but at Wikipedia, we simply report what other reliable sources have already said. Undue weight is another Wikipedia concept that you need to understand, especially when its on a biography of a living person (see the policy here to understand how careful you are required to be on these types of articles) -- devoting multiple paragraphs to something that is not integral to the person's notability also violates the neutral point of view policy.


 * I understand that you feel his comments on homosexuality were notable, but they were mere sentences in much larger works and are not integral to understanding those larger works. Unless you can produce reliable sources that single out those comments in the same way, I'm afraid its simply your opinion and thus not suitable for a Wikipedia article.  Its also not a good sign that you're going out of your way to add "controversy" to the article and your response here does make it appear that you may be too involved in this subject to edit reliably.  Considering the bulk of your edits were questionable, I chose, per WP:BLP, to remove them until such time as they conform to Wikipedia policy. Shell babelfish 21:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Where original research is concerned, the page on that subject says, 'Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.' This is what I have done. Crews's books are such a source, and I have done no more than to report what he says in them. As for notability, the fact that these were 'mere sentences in much larger works' is surely not important in itself. If it were, then there would probably be no grounds for ever quoting anything that anyone says in any book. They are among the most relevant sentences in Crews's books, since they concern his reasons for attacking psychoanalysis, and therefore are indeed integral to understanding them.


 * (As for adding controversy - Crews is a controversial person). Skoojal (talk) 22:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If you were just discussing his works, then you could say it was source-based research. However, what you did was cherry pick a few specific points to mention.  If these points are so controversial and if he is such a controversial person, surely it will not be difficult to provide reliable secondary sources to back up those claims.  Wikipedia is very strict on sourcing when dealing with biographies of living people. Shell babelfish 00:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It is unclear to me exactly how the concept of 'cherry picking' applies here. In this context, I suppose it refers to trying to convey an unbalanced and misleading impression of something by selectively mentioning only facts that suggest that impression, while ignoring others. That is not what I did. Crews has made different statements about homosexuality over the years, apparently expressing different points of view. I mentioned what was relevant (it would have been cherry picking had I mentioned only those statements by Crews in which he suggests that homosexuality is a mental illness, but I did not).


 * Perhaps what you are really trying to say is it that it is wrong for the article to in any way include Crews's comments about homosexuality, but whatever term one might use for including them, it isn't 'cherry picking.' The fact that Crews is a controversial person has nothing to do with this. He is controversial; the fact that he made those comments is not. If you want to know what someone wrote about something in his books, then the books are all you need. Skoojal (talk) 00:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope, what I'm saying is that you need to provide a reliable secondary source for the information you want to include. Let me see if it helps to put it this way -- you could say "His book says this" and provide his book as the source (but unless its something earth shattering, its unlikely a Wikipedia article would do that), you cannot say "His book says this, which is controversial" without providing a source that says its controversial.  Hope that helps.  You also need to understand that Wikipedia isn't a news outlet, its an encyclopedia.  Articles don't contain things that aren't of enduring worth -- for instance, if someone makes a comment about the subject once during an interview, its unlikely it would be included unless what was said could be shown to be significant.  We don't include every comment made about a subject, just the major points of view.  This is discussed in depth at WP:NPOV. Shell babelfish 09:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

From my limited knowledge of the matter, I tend to believe that Crews is indeed homophobic. However, I do not see any evidence showing, nor even really suggesting, that this alleged homophobia is biographically significant to Crew's notability. I could be wrong, but if so we would need a neutral and reliable third-party source making that connection. It's not even really enough to find a third-party source that makes the accusation against Crews: we need a source that claims the accusation is important to Crews' biography and reputation.

In terms of relation to psychoanalysis, it looks to me like Skoojal is reaching. Psychoanalysis has not exactly had an unambiguous relationship to gay-rights itself: it has had its share of both homophobes and homophiles. Rejecting psychoanalysis can arise out of a myriad of motives and arguments, this one element indeed looks a bit like cherry-picking to me. But again, my knowledge is limited, and I would love to see neutral sources that point out any such connections. LotLE × talk 09:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Stubbification of the article
I note that the article has recently been reduced to a stub. I do not necessarily think that this was a mistake, although much of the material described as 'opinion and speculation' seems clearly correct to me. That, for instance, 'Crews achieved fame in the popular press because of a controversy over his two essays critiquing Freud, Freudian theory and the recovered memory movement' seems clearly correct, even though there was no reference. One part of what was removed - a mention of the publication of Crews's articles about the recovered memory movement in The New York Review of Books and their subsequent publication as a book - was simply a neutral statement of fact. So I wonder why that had to be removed. Skoojal (talk) 21:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "Clearly correct" isn't the standard of inclusion, verifiability is, especially in biographies. There's no reason any proper information couldn't be replaced with sources. Shell babelfish 06:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Does proper information include mention of criticisms Crews has made of other people? I have in mind specifically Crews's suggestion that Judith Butler interpreted one of his remarks as homophobic. Can this be mentioned in the article, and if so under what conditions? Skoojal (talk) 08:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * As long as what you want to include was reported by a reliable secondary source and you add it in an appropriate weight (for instance, if you write five paragraphs on the incident, it would be out of proportion since the entire article isn't that large) it shouldn't be a problem at all. If you haven't taken a look at the policy on biographies for living people, it wouldn't hurt to read it over. Hope that helps! Shell babelfish 08:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

De-Stubbification of the article
Someone recently restored the article to the way it was before it was stubbified. It should be pointed out that, while much of the material in the article does indeed have a source, it also contains an inaccuracy: it suggests that Judith Butler used the word 'homophobic' to describe Crews. This did not happen. Butler said some things about Crews that he interpreted as an accusation of homophobia, but she did not use the word 'homophobic.' Those who want to see what Butler actually said can find it in Whose Freud?, by Peter Brooks and Alex Woloch. Skoojal (talk) 03:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Be bold. Go ahead and correct it. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC).
 * I am not sure why you would suggest that I correct the article. It was you, not me, who re-inserted this material. The fact that I was aware that it wasn't 100% accurate was one of the reasons why I didn't re-insert it myself. Surely it is at least as much your responsibility to correct the article as it is mine? Skoojal (talk) 05:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Still, I suppose I really can't let the article remain the way it was, so I have corrected it. Skoojal (talk) 06:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Following the discussion on the Judith Butler talk page the last paragraph seems ill-sourced and trivial. Shall I delete it? Xxanthippe (talk) 11:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC).
 * No, Xxanthippe, don't delete it. Other sources can be provided if necessary, and this is not trivial. Skoojal (talk) 03:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have temporarily removed the exchange between Butler and Crews. This will eventually be restored with the proper source, the book by Brooks and Woloch. Skoojal (talk) 02:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Why I made a recent change
I have deleted the following passage from the article: 'especially in its decision to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual'. I have done this because I think the article is quite damning enough without it - there is no need to spell out the obvious. Skoojal (talk) 21:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Frederick Crews
Xxanthippe, I have undone your recent edit to the article on Frederick Crews. If you are going to undo my edits, you might at least be sure to get your facts right - Slate Magazine is not a "blog." Skoojal (talk) 06:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The above comment was placed on my talk page. I put it here where it belongs. The entry about Crews that I excised is abusive, defamatory and inconsistent with Biographies of living persons policy, to quote: "Biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone." see also Blocking policy. The entry is removed. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC).
 * While I won't immediately undo your edit, I think that was a mistake. Try looking at what other controversial writers have in their criticism sections (Camille Paglia is someone who comes to mind). The criticism does tend to be robust. If someone writes that someone else gives every indication of being a maniac in apparent seriousness, then it should be fine to mention this. The quote from the BLP policy does not appear to be relevant, because it seems to concern only how other people's comments can be reported and not what kinds of comments can be reported. My reporting of Sullivan's comment was written in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. As for Wikipedia's blocking policy, you do not appear to be an administrator, so I am not sure why you are mentioning this. It looks arrogant and bullying. Skoojal (talk) 09:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

disputed tag
This is an explanation for the disputed that was added to this article. Due to Skoojal's admission of bias in regard to this subject site policy demands the article be tagged with to warn readers that there may be a problem with the article's accuracy.

Having only reviewed it quickly I've removed some quotes and some criticisms in accordance with WP:COATRACK and WP:BLP. Further examination of this page is necessary it is still a coat-rack and may, in fact, need to be stubbified-- Cailil  talk 19:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This does not surprise me. I've been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time, and I'm not in the least bothered. What wikipedia does to this article may prove something about wikipedia, but it can't save Crews. Nothing can. Skoojal (talk) 23:12, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Have changed tag to Blpdispute as more appropriate maintenance tag-- Cailil  talk 23:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I am a little puzzled. What statements presently in the article do you think violate BLP? DGG (talk) 23:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Precisely. The note at the top of the article says, 'This biography of a living person may contain unsourced, or poorly sourced controversial claims.' Well does it or doesn't it? If it does, remove those claims, and the note with them. If not, just remove the note. Skoojal (talk) 08:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

On changes not made
Before commenting on the changes Cailil has recently made to this article, I will comment on some things that he did not change. Cailil did not remove the following quotes from Crews.

Quote 1: 'when smoking replaces homosexuality as a mental aberration, more of the credit must go to caucuses than to new findings.' The effect of not removing this quote is to leave readers free to find out that Crews implied that homosexuality is a mental illness. It also leaves readers free to learn that Crews did this in a sarcastic and scornful tone, using language ('mental aberration' as opposed to simply 'mental illness) that is deliberately ugly and insulting.

Quote 2: 'I would like people to know that the guilt dispensed by psychoanalytic theorists to ... the parents of homosexuals, "neurotics", and psychotics can be plausibly declined.' The continued inclusion of this quote means that readers can find out that Crews thought that if parents did cause their children to become homosexual, then they should be ashamed of themselves, and that Crews was happy to place homosexuals in the same category as neurotics and psychotics.

Quote 3: 'Thanks to the once imposing prestige of psychoanalysis...gays have been told that their sexual preference is a mental disorder.' This is actually the most damning quote of all. Apparently nice, it is far worse than the other two quotes. Thanks to the inclusion of this quote, readers can find out that Crews, having sneeringly implied that homosexuality is a mental illness, later on attacked other people for saying that homosexuality is mental illness.

Do you think you're protecting Crews, Cailil? You are so wrong. What you have done makes no difference to anything that matters. The substance of my case against Crews is present in three quotes that you did not remove. Skoojal (talk) 00:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I simply can not see the implications of the quotations that you think so important. I think we would do well to concentrate on what the article says, not what   one may think the quotations in the article may possibly imply. DGG (talk) 02:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * DGG, are you saying that you don't have any idea what Crews meant? If Crews's comments don't mean what I think they mean, then what do they mean? When I debated this with Allen Esterson, he told me that Crews was actually rejecting the theory that homosexuality was a mental illness, and indeed giving it as one example of the political influence on the DSM. I thought this was willful obscurantism on Esterson's part, motivated by the desperate desire to hide a truth that it would be disastrous for Crews's (and Esterson's) credibility to admit. I told Esterson that obviously what Crews was objecting to was the replacement of homosexuality by smoking as a mental illness, otherwise he would hardly have used the words, 'when smoking replaces homosexuality as a mental aberration.' When homosexuality replaces smoking as a mental illness, two things happen: homosexuality is no longer deemed a mental illness, and smoking is deemed a mental illness. Crews is a literary critic, someone alive to nuances of language and meaning, and one would be doing him an injustice to think that the exact implications of that statement did not occur to him.


 * Something similar applies to the casual lumping together of 'homosexuals, "neurotics", and psychotics.' There is no reason to categorize homosexuals with neurotics and psychotics unless one thinks that homosexuality, like neurosis and psychosis, is an illness. Crews, as a literary critic, would understand this too. Skoojal (talk) 09:13, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Remember that these were comments published in Commentary. Commentary has a well-established reputation as an anti-gay magazine. Its editor, Norman Podhoretz, is someone whose anti-gay views have been widely commented on. Commentary published an anti-gay rant by Midge Decter, Podhoretz's wife, two months after Analysis Terminable was published, and one month before the publication of its postscript. Commentary were on the war path against gays at the time. To think that Crews would have complained about homosexuality being called a mental illness, in Commentary, in 1980, defies belief. Skoojal (talk) 08:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

On changes made
Cailil recently made several changes to this article. I will comment on several of them.

First, Cailil removed a quote from Frederick Crews about Henri F. Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious. I have no idea why this quote should be considered objectionable. Cailil needs to explain his decision to remove it.

Second, Cailil re-wrote the article so that it no longer says that Camille Paglia was angered by Crews's comments about Freud and Jung. This is just silly. Obviously Paglia was angered, and she was pleased to make it clear that she was angered. So why shouldn't the article say this?

Third, Cailil removed part of the quote from Frederick Crews about what he deemed to be Judith Butler's accusation of homophobia against him. This is strange, since that part of the quote shows Crews's awareness that such accusations can potentially destroy people's reputations, which is a serious matter that readers of the article deserve to be aware of. It also shows Crews's apparent belief that Butler would not know what his social views were, an interesting assumption that readers of the article may well find curious given what else is in it (see 'on changes not made' above).

Fourth, a quote from Andrew Sullivan about Crews was removed. This is actually the second quote from Sullivan to be removed from the article. Xxanthippe removed the first one, and while I complained about that, I didn't restore it to the article. Neither of the two quotes came from a 'blog'; they were both from Slate, an online magazine that is not a 'blog.' DGG is thus in error in saying that I inserted 'negative statements about living people sourced only to blogs.' That never happened. Cailil needs to explain his decision to remove this quote.

Fifth, a criticism of Crews by Richard Webster was removed. Cailil needs explain this decision also. Cailil implied that the quote violated BLP policy; I have no idea how.

Skoojal (talk) 00:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * you are quite right that it is not a blog. The material is opinion letters nonetheless, and that is not acceptable for the purpose of inserting these strongly negative quotations in articles subject to BLP. In addition, the opinions of Paglia and Butler about Crews and homosexuality do not seem to me relevant to the article in the first place.  Though the two of them are  are  well know literary figures,  I do not see that their comments on Crews and homosexuality or homophobia are significant in the first place.  Probably it is only an minor part of his criticism of Freud--as I recall his works, the accusations of Freud deliberate inaccuracy in reporting cases were much more significant, whether or not one think them correct.   I would support a rewriting of this article to contain all mention of homosexuality and homophobia in a single small paragraph. Making a big deal out of it is simply undue weight.
 * I'll also mention that as I see it, in the climate of the early 20th century, the doctrine that homosexuality was a medical illness does not represent homophobia. It was an advance over the earlier prevailing doctrine that homosexuality was a matter of evilness in ones personality and a signal of moral degeneracy. One protected and defended homosexuals by considering them only mentally ill, rather than criminals. To the extent Freud's work was an influence on this, he was a positive figure in the development of the later attitude of tolerance leading to the contemporary attitude of acceptance. I think trying to twist the quotations here to imply otherwise is a expression of an agenda that may is not relevant here. This is an article on Crews, not on Freud. If Crews said Freud thought homosexuality an illness, he may well have been right, and it's something that, in the historical context, one would commend Freud for having the independence and courage to do. But all of this is afield from the discussion of Crews. To go from Crews saying this to Crews being an homophobe seems, a rather odd extrapolation at best, and probably a reversal of the real situation. If there are notable authorities who have indeed said this explicitly, we can find a way to mention it without reprinting their charges.   DGG (talk) 02:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I must agree with the enlightening comments by DGG above. What is grotesque about the situation is that Skoojal has failed to understand what Crews was saying about psychoanalytic theorists. Crews did not assert that homosexuality was a mental disorder. What he did was criticise the psychiatric establishment for having held that view. The exact opposite of what Skoojal is suggesting. Skoojal has spent his last few hundred edits tilting at windmills. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC).
 * The only quotes about Frederick Crews's views on homosexuality came from Frederick Crews himself. Granted that she is a homosexual, the remarks by Paglia did not mention homosexuality. Judith Butler, also a homosexual, did not mention homosexuality directly, although Crews correctly judged that she did so by implication. Thus it's not what others said about Crews, but what Crews said himself, that's at stake. The importance of Crews's remarks about homosexuality can best be judged not by how many of them there are, but by the emotional intensity that goes into them and the rage they express. Skoojal (talk) 09:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding Freud's views on homosexuality, Crews's comments were not about this directly. They were about the influence of psychoanalysis generally. Freud sometimes wavered, but usually did not see homosexuality as an illness. As for why Crews's views on homosexuality should matter: Crews began his career with books about Henry James, E. M. Forster, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Two of those three writers (a majority) were either homosexual (Forster) or suspected of homosexuality (James). This makes it particularly important that Crews's attack on psychoanalysis later in his career, after the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and the cultural decay of the 1970s, was partly motivated by anti-gay sentiment. I am trying to perform a public service by focusing attention on this. Skoojal (talk) 09:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There are also other reasons why Crews's comments on homosexuality matter. I won't mention them, because it would be wearying and take me too far from the main point, but anyone looks into criticism of psychoanalysis in enough detail will find out what they are. Skoojal (talk) 10:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Skoojal it's quite simple, this article is being disputed because you have made significant changes to it and you have admitted to being an agenda driven account. The full extent of your agenda driven edits here will require the community to fact check everything - that takes time. It will be removed when the page is properly fact checked and I suggest bringing to WP:BLPN and project:critical theory for opinions there - when they have reviewed it and if they deem whatever is here up to standard I or someone else will happily remove the tag.

Now, I'm not here to protect anyone, and I will warn you that speculation about other editors motivations is a violation of WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL & WP:EQ. For the record I don't hold or agree with any of Crews's ideas or views, as you have expressed them - quite honestly I understand your position Skoojal - however wikipedia has a standard, we don't write articles as coat-racks to hang quotes, criticisms or defamatory comments upon. My removals as explained yesterday are covered by WP:COATRACK and WP:BLP. They are also in-line with WP:UNDUE and with the general thinking behind "when not to use a quote" from the essay WP:QUOTE. It needs to be recognized that this page has structural and policy problems and I'm still of the view that it probably needs stubbification. Right now the page is a series of bullet points not an encyclopedia article.

You seem to be very able to make good edits (meaning in-line with encyclopedia standards and policies) but this "public service" crusade against Crews however noble or otherwise is not what wikipedia is for-- Cailil  talk 12:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, I'd be happy to reduce this to an accuracy dispute from a BLP dispute if others are satisfied that the page is in-line with BLP-- Cailil talk 12:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * All the changes I made to this article that were in any way controversial I have already pointed out. There is nothing else of a contentious nature that I have not mentioned, and thus no rational reason for that note to be placed at the top of the article. Skoojal (talk) 00:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, you have not answered several of my questions: why remove the quote from Crews about Ellenberger, why re-write the account of Paglia's reaction to Crews, and why remove the remarks by Webster? I am not threatening to undo any of your changes (I have no intention of making any more changes to this article for the moment), but I still think that you should explain each of these decisions. You imply that the quotes violate several wikipedia policies, but I want to know specifically how. Skoojal (talk) 00:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I might decide to add the quote from Webster to the article about him at some point, so if there is something objectionable about it, please say so now. Skoojal (talk) 00:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * (ec)Skoojal what's left on the page needs to be checked by people who have the books to make sure there is no further OR. Secondly I have answered you twice. The article is not a coatrack for quotes (or anything else) it still suffers from being one at present. It is preferable to summarize points rather than quoting large chunks of text in the manner the article previously had. Also the issues were given too much weight (as per WP:DUE)-- Cailil  talk 00:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Although I agree with Webster the point is undue for an encyclopedia. Adding it again treats the page as a coat-rack for hanging as many criticisms of the subject upon as possible and that has BLP implications (ie our policies of doing no harm)-- Cailil   talk 01:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Restructure
I have restructured the article and pruned trivia in an attempt to make the article more balanced and NPOV. I have not found it necessary to retain a blow-by-blow account of decade-old controversies. The article contains direct quotes from Crews. The accuracy of these quotes needs to be verified. From the point of view of balance the article may need attention from editors more familiar with Crew's work than I or previous editors. I would like to see a more substantial treatment of Crews' literary criticism, for example "Postmodern Pooh", rather than what seems to be an overblown concentration on psychiatry. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC).
 * I'm not going to undo your edits, since I'm in sin bin at the moment, but some of them seem clearly mistaken to me. For example, there is absolutely no point in saying that writers more supportive of Freud have criticised Crews, and then citing the book by Brooks and Woloch. Just that reference, without a quote, gives readers no idea at all what the basis of the criticism is. Moreover, the general point that writers supportive of Freud have criticised Crews can be made without mentioning that book, so it's ridiculous as it stands. Skoojal (talk) 04:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A couple of other things. Does the main section of the article really have to be called, 'Publications, work, research and criticism.' Wouldn't something a bit more concise be better? Also, the material in this section is not arranged properly by chronology; the publication of The Critics Bear It Away, in 1992, should come before the publication of Crews's articles about the recovered memory issue in The New York Review of Books, not after. Skoojal (talk) 04:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

missing material
I've been away from this page for a while, and it is strange to come back to it and find almost all the information of Crews' major published controversial works reduced to a sentence or two. This can be seen rather frequently in pages where strong and unwarranted POV has been expressed--in the discussions that follow, the material on one side or the other is removed by various parties, until almost nothing is left. In this case, inappropriate negative criticism has been removed, but essentially none of the wide range of critical material supporting as well as attacking his views have been added. Time to start, with a neutral POV spirit, readding appropriate sourced material. There should be full references at least to the major critics. and an explanation of what he actually said in his major works. DGG (talk) 06:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The History tells the story. This BLP had to be protected from an editor who was making abusive and defamatory comments about its subject. Removal of this material does indeed leave the article sparse but at least basically NPOV. I join DGG in hoping for improvements. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:33, 30 August 2008 (UTC).

WTF?!
[Comment moved from user talk by Xxanthipppe]: What the heck was going through your mind when you removed a talk page comment of mine from the Crews article?! It's both absurd and rather disrespectful of other editors (i.e. me). The comment I made about Crews (alleged) homophobia was no different in that respect from multiple other comments in the discussion; but even if it were new, it was conditioned as my opinion (and in talk space not article space). Moreover, by removing the antecedent sentence, it makes the remainder of my comment nonsensical. Don't do this! LotLE × talk 23:21, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have transferred the above from my talk page to this page where it belongs. In the jurisdiction in which I live the only defence against a claim of defamation is proof of truth. For example, if a person were to publish the statement "I think X is homophobic, a paedophile, a necrophiliac and a Neo-Nazi, but that's just my personal belief." they would be required to prove the truth of each of their statements to be immune from damages in court. Defamation law is a complex matter: it best left to lawyers and it is best to avoid even the appearance of defamation. LotLE shouild not find it hard to rewrite his comment in a more neutral form. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:28, 28 December 2008 (UTC).
 * Fortunately, WP servers are located in Florida, USA, not in whatever jurisdiction you reside in. If you have some actual defamation concern, bring it up with WP's existing legal committee for BLP issues, they can act if there is some actual need.  However, I think this supposed concern is really nothing more than an asnine attempt to flamebait other editors; it's hard to imagine how anyone could seriously imagine such a concern existed from comments made on this talk page.  Hint: I know far, far more about these issues, including WP's history with it, than you do... cutting out the crap deletions are the right thing to do here.  But failing that, see WP:BLP for correct procedures.  LotLE × talk  02:10, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * We often include attributed opinions in Wikipedia articles, especially if they are from notable sources. It is not false to say that "Joe Schmo has written that Sally Smith sings off key" if Schmo has written that. Whether Smith actually sings off key is a separate matter. We have no way of knowing whether or not the subject of this article is actually homophobic. We do know whether or not people have said that. If it's a significant point of view it should be included, per WP:NPOV. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 02:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Btw. to Will Beback or other editors. This little tempest of deletion by Xxanthippe isn't even about anything in article space.  At the urging of another editor here, I added an opinion above recently.  You can read that earlier thing, but basically I wrote that I think Crews is (somewhat) homophobic, but that fact does not ascend to notability for the article.  For no apparent reason, Xxanthipe decided that s/he needed to delete my comments in a stupendous failure of WP:AGF... the mild irony is that I basically agree with her/him that the homophobia thing isn't worth discussing in the article.  LotLE × talk  03:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It may be acceptable to some people to quote opinions of notable secondary sources about living persons, even though the opinions could be considered to be offensive. I try not to do this myself. What was being done in this case is that an editor was quoting opinions of his own, quite a different matter. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC).

Reversion of Aurep84
Edits by aurep84 to this article were recently reverted. Presumably this was done because that editor was a sock-puppet who was evading a block and topic ban. However, the version reverted to was also edited by a sock-puppet. The sock-puppet in question was controlled by an editor who last year made an aggressive and determined attempt to destroy Frederick Crews's reputation by adding his interpretation of Crews's comments about homosexuality to the article. If that editor's contributions are deemed acceptable here, I really see no reason why the contributions by Aurep84 should be removed. I am therefore going to restore a slightly reworded version of them to the article. Henry James Fan (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Aurep84 should have their contributions removed because they are a confirmed sockpuppet of ResearchEditor. That alone is sufficient reason to remove their contributions.  It's also a possible issue of undue weight to place so much emphasis on a New York Review of Books posting, not a scholarly publication, on one area of Crews' work, that's now 14 year sold.  Particularly when it is known that ResearchEditor had a known, overly-strong point of view and was, in fact, blocked for pushing that POV past the tolerance of the community.  That POV included the idea that satanic ritual abuse had any credibility.  And particularly when it nets to zero - Crews rebuttal, in the same source, pretty much destroys any credibility of the criticism in my mind.  This is also a criticism of one work of Crews, not Crews as a person or scholar.  I fail to see much merit in the contribution in the first place, particularly when it is one of a set of contributions whose sole purpose is to discredit any skepticism of allegations of child abuse coerced through abusive interviews and multiple trials that collapsed for a complete lack of real evidence beyond said coerced testimony.  That is why I believe the contributions should be removed.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 02:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You reverted the article to a version edited by Taste of Tears, an account that is also a confirmed sock-puppet. Please check this. It was the sock-puppet account of an editor who made no secret of his extreme hatred for Frederick Crews and his desire to cause as much harm to him as possible. His POV was as strong, or stronger, than ResearchEditor's. Your recent edits have introduced some enormously undue quotations, and at least one basic factual error (you state that Erdelyi criticised The Memory Wars in 1994 - the book was in fact not published until 1995), and I am therefore going to revert them. Henry James Fan (talk) 04:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Great, why don't you correct that error, and not revert to a version that places ridiculous weight on an obviously flawed analysis? And how could I ever correct that error?  Oh, by altering one digit.  That totally misses the substance of my edit, you reverted on a technicality.  Fantastic.  I've replaced.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 12:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You still seem to be under the impression that the exchange between Crews and Erdelyi was about The Memory Wars, since you have again added this incorrect claim to the article. The Memory Wars did not exist in 1994, when the exchange occured. Read it, and you will see that The Memory Wars is never mentioned.


 * To address your other edits: it is factually wrong that Frederick Crews edited The Literary Animal. He only wrote the foreword. The book's actual editors were Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson. Listing Great Short Works of Hawthorne as a book by Crews is also misleading; it's an edition of Hawthorne edited by Crews. Richard Webster is a minor figure; he is only one of many people who have expressed views similar to Crews's, and it is unnecessary to mention him in the article.


 * This time I'll give you a chance to fix your own errors. Regarding your removal of content I added to the article: I consider it bad form to do this without giving an explanation, but no doubt you have reasons of one kind or another for doing it, and I can't be bothered readding it. Henry James Fan (talk) 01:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Good. That'll give me a chance to correct a few small entries rather than having to re-write the whole fucking page because of a wholesale revert.  There and there and there.  If you can't bother re-adding anything and don't have any further criticism, I consider the matter settled.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 02:54, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually it's not quite over, because you removed article content without giving a proper explanation. Please discuss changes like this before making them. Henry James Fan (talk) 22:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Undent. Why should there be so much detail on one facet of his writings, criticisms not published in a reliable manner (these are letters to the editor and a comment by the author, which don't meet the standards of scholarship and oversight required by WP:RS in my opinion and in particular are not of the high standard required by the policy on biographies of living persons), are relatively meaningless in the long term, and completely disproportionate to the rest of the page. Every one of his criticisms has replies to his reviews, and Crews' rebuttals to the replies. Why does this one get singled out? It is content added by a single purpose account who is now blocked and banned, added while they were sockpuppeting as part of a storm of sockpuppeting, a problem which had been happenning for months even before the block/ban. I do not believe there is any merit to including this, and believe that bloating the page with this issue and not similarly examining the minute levels of details that could be reviewed in comparable publications presents an issue of undue weight on one aspect of Crews' life that is no more notable than any of his other myriad publications. The criticism is in my mind only inserted because of a credulous belief in the satanic ritual abuse moral panic which POV-pushing editors civilly yet ilegitimately try to shove onto the page to the exclusion of other interests. Your own user page suggests you give weight to the purported reality of satanic ritual abuse, and this suggests your motivation for wanting to add this to the page is to promote the truth that this was a real problem instead of a grotesque, hysterical over-reaction to something that never existed in the first place. Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth, but beyond that it is about a neutral presentation of the facts in an encyclopedic manner. It is not a place to soapbox about issues for which you have a personal belief. Therefore, I see no reason to continue to place so much emphasis and a disproportionate amount of text on an issue that has ridiculously low notablity and reliability and adds very, very little to the page that is of realistic biographical merit. Please stop or seek dispute resolution. Note that this is exactly the same critcism that I made the first fucking time, which didn't respond to beyond "you reverted to another sockpuppet's version". Well, the current version is very far from Taste of Tears version, so that's not a complaint. So what fucking purpose is there in continuing to have it. Please be detailed and refer to the relevant policies and guidelines. I have discussed changes like this before making them, see the very first posting in my seciton, and this time please refer to the actual substance of my comments instead of addressing irrelevant tangents. The section is undue weight, poorly sourced for a biography, is not relevant to this page since it is a page about Crews and not his ideas or books, and is overall just a poor addition to the page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 13:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Your long, rambling post above is unsatisfactory and unconvincing. Erdelyi's criticisms of Crews were published twice, first in The New York Review of Books, and then once again in The Memory Wars. The New York Review of Books should count as a reliable source; a published book such as The Memory Wars definitely does. Your opinion that Erdelyi's criticisms are meaningless is hardly relevant, and I simply do not agree that they are undue. My personal views about satanic ritual abuse are irrelevant. It borders on a personal attack for you to criticise me for what you (incorrectly) assume to be my beliefs. Actually, all that I meant by my comments on my user page is that I am interested in the issue and want both sides to be presented fairly. Regarding your comments about Taste of Tears: the point is not that the current version of the article is close to the one edited by that sockpuppet of a banned editor, but that the material it added has not been removed. That makes it inconsistent to remove the material added by Aurep84 simply because it was a sockpuppet of a banned editor. Either both should be reverted for that reason, or neither should be. Lastly, it's simply silly to say that this is an article about Crews, rather than his books and ideas. There is nothing worth discussing about Crews aside from his books and ideas - look at the article and you'll see that that is all it contains. However, I will probably wait for comments by other editors before adding this content again, since I am reluctant to edit war with you. DGG, Shell Kinney, Will Beback, Cailil and Xxanthippe have all commented on this article in the past - why don't you ask them what they think? Henry James Fan (talk) 22:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Content Changes
User:WLU recently removed information about Crews's anthology Psychoanalysis and Literary Process, giving as a reason that most of the authors mentioned were "not notable." As an experienced user, WLU should know very well that notability does not directly limit the content of articles. It concerns what subjects may have articles created about them. Psychoanalysis and Literary Process is an important and interesting book, and describing it is necessary to give a proper account of Crews's career as a literary critic. This article would serve its readers very poorly if it cannot do that. I am therefore going to restore this content. I am also going to readd some other content (eg, that Crews criticised what he saw as the harmful influence of psychoanalysis on American society); I'm mystified why someone would think that should be deleted. Henry James Fan (talk) 05:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's one set of essays that he edited. Why is it worth having a discussion of it's entire set of contents?  Was it award-winning?  Was there an extensive reaction to it in the scholarly community?  Did it define his approach to literature for the next decade or the rest of his career?  Important and interesting to who?  To you?  The lack of notability of the contributors suggests they're not particularly worth discussing.  The assertion that "sexuality was an important theme" is unsourced.  Per WP:PROVEIT I've removed it.  Why does it deserve as much text as what is given to The Pooh Perplex, which launched several follow-up books, a 2003 re-issue, a wide variety of popular and scholarly reactions, and is considered a classic work of satire  with numerous scholarly reviews  despite being from the '60s?  What justifies the listing of the titles of the essays contained inside, the authors and an overview of only one essay?  The section on Pooh is worth having as it's one of the things he is quite famous for.  A discussion of one set of essays that didn't seem to have much impact really, really seems inappropriate.
 * I'll look into the "harmful on American society" point. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It is worth discussing its contents because, as I said, one cannot give a proper account of Crews's career as a literary critic without doing so. The fact that it may not have won an award (or provoked a widespread reaction from the scholarly community, etc) does not change this. Note that it does not say anywhere in Wikipedia policies or guidelines that someone or something is probably not worth mentioning in an article if they or it is not notable; the argument you are making is totally contrary to the intention of the content guidelines. In any case, how much research did you actually do into the notability of its contributors? Sheldon Brivic happens to be a well known Joyce scholar (http://etc.temple.edu/English/dbpages/people/BrivicS.asp). David Leverenz is also a widely published author (http://www.english.ufl.edu/faculty/dleverenz/index.html), and possibly notable. You seemed to grant earlier that Murray Schwartz is notable, yet you removed the mention of him too, without explanation. So not only is your argument contrary to the intention of the relevant guidelines, and invalid for that reason alone, it doesn't even make much sense in its own terms.


 * Furthermore, the exact same argument that you make could be made against most content in the article, content which you have not removed, however. The description of Crews's book The Tragedy of Manners that I added recently is also not sourced directly - yet you did not remove it. Even the fact that Psychoanalysis and Literary Process is a collection of Freudian-inspired critical essays is not sourced, according to your standard, but you have not removed that either. What makes the fact that sexuality is a major theme of this book so much worse than any of the other information in the article that it must be removed? Do you have something against sexuality? The accuracy of the description can be established by simply reading the book. Have you in fact read it? My response to WP:PROVEIT is that the book proves it. You call describing this collection inappropriate - but why exactly? What harm could it possibly do to include this basic information?


 * To address your other points: I added the content about that one essay because it gives the reader an idea of what that essay is about. I didn't choose it for any special reason; it's simply inherently interesting content, at least to those who are interested in literary criticism. I'm not saying that content about the other essays should not be added as well; certainly it shoud be. I simply don't have the time or the inclination to do that myself at the moment. The fact that the other essays aren't described isn't a good reason for removing that description of that essay. Your arguments are invalid, based on an idiosyncratic reading of content guidelines, and anyway are being applied selectively and inconsistently. Henry James Fan (talk) 02:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've shortened all mentions of works to a basic overview and relevant information outside of the contents of the books themselves, it was correct to call me on that so I've tried to be more even. Detail on the contents of a book that he did not even write isn't a good idea.  As you say, I'm an experienced user, and per WP:SS and nearly three years of experience, I think it's a bad idea. Feel free to get a third opinion.  Inherently interesting content is an opinion; we should be representing his ideas to the proportion of attention they get.  Satire now has three topics in it, two of which were of popular as well as scholarly appeal.  Literary criticisms now mentions each work and a sentence on its contents.  Criticisms of Freud have more content because that's far more what he is known for (witness that's the topics that New York Times articles mention him regarding).  The recovered memory topics were republished several times and got a lot of commentary.  His membership to a very controversial organization is also real-world noteworthy.  His writings on English ran to many editions and were favourably reviewed.  Collectively they also indicate a preoccupation with these topics.  All three NYRB have a core theme of skepticism.  His awards and honours go without saying.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 18:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm pleased that you now admit (even if indirectly) that the arguments you were making are invalid. The fact remains that your removal of content about The Tragedy of Manners and Psychoanalysis and Literary Process is without justification and unsupported by any policy or guideline. I find it bizarre, and consider it little better than vandalism. As the article stands now, there is more about Crews's writing guides - a rather minor part of his work by any reasonable standard - than there is about The Tragedy of Manners; this is absurd. I'm not minded to restore this content just now, but that doesn't mean I consider your edits right. If you regard the problem as being that I didn't give references, that can easily be done. Henry James Fan (talk) 02:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The writing guides have a positive review in a peer-reviewed journal. So there's a source to say that he's good at it.  If you can add sources to give context on any other works, indicating its reception, so be it.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 11:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as sources go, I would direct your attention to this http://books.google.com/books?id=EluiCy-pqisC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=%22the+tragedy+of+manners%22+crews&source=bl&ots=Bpg45yLT6j&sig=I4V3QXzkuCShDvpf0nYGYfiFIsQ&hl=en&ei=8aD3SbXZA4r66gOE88SCAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6, which specifically states that The Tragedy of Manners was an influential work. I am going to restore the content about The Tragedy of Manners - it is preposterous (as well as pointless) to list the James novels that Crews wrote about in this book without mentioning what he actually said about them, and there are clearly enough sources to justify the inclusion of this content. If you remove it again, you will no longer be practicing borderline vandalism, but vandalism pure and simple. Regarding Psychoanalysis and Literary Process, note the following review, which credits it with important accomplishments: http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=paq.042.0644a. This contradicts your claims that the book did not prompt a response from the scholarly community; a simple google search shows that there were other reviews from scholars (Joel Kovel, for example). I am, accordingly, going to restore the content about this book as well, in a modified form. Your assertion that it is wrong to mention the contents of an edited anthology has no basis in the content guidelines. Henry James Fan (talk) 01:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Undent, added Simon. Added Barchilon. Listing contributors says nothing about the book and adds nothing to the page. I have adjusted the page to reflect sourced discussions of the substantive contents of the books, not merely a listing of chapters. The page is about Crews, not his students, and should discuss his contributions and not a listing of chapters and for the most part non-notable contributors. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 13:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for adding Simon. I agree that this improves the article, and was better than the direct quote I used (not that there's anything wrong with using direct quotations from an author). Listing the contributors to a book obviously does say something about it. The ideal way of dealing with Psychoanalysis and Literary Process would be to describe what the article it contains say, rather than to list the chapters (which may not be worth restoring by themselves). You say that Crews did not write this book. I reply that, in one sense, he did write it, since he chose the material and the final responsibility for its contents is his. Obviously, the material that Crews decided to include says something about him and shows what his interests were, which makes it appropriate to his biography. The fact that this is an article about Crews and not his students does not mean that this material cannot be included - the work of Crews's students can be appropriately mentioned to the extent that what they did is relevant to and involves him. Henry James Fan (talk) 00:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Crews didn't write the book. He wrote one part, the introduction, and the rest were by his students.  His one essay could have more material on it as it seems to resurface in later works, but it should reappear in that context.  Two reviews do not indicate long-term interest.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 01:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Source
WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality
I have made several changes that I consider necessary to ensure NPOV here. A sentence such as, 'Crews describes his criticisms of Freud as two-pronged - one aimed at the low ethical and scientific standards held by Freud, and the other that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience' is not acceptable as it stands. It clearly implies that Crews's view is correct, a matter that remains disputed among reliable sources. Whether Crews is correct or not about Freud is not for this article and its editors to decide; we state what his views are and do not take sides. Henry James Fan (talk) 02:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "one aimed at what he considers" is redundant to the introduction of the sentence - if he is describing his views, rather obviously they are what he considers. I've adjusted anyway and hopefully that avoids the issue.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex
 * Stating that Crews supported "...his objections to Freud's personal qualities and theories with meticulous research and extensive references to Freud's work" is blatantly POV. The Memory Wars, a reliable source, reprints the views of numerous scholars, including James Hopkins, who certainly didn't find Crews's research "meticulous." The purpose of this article is neither to praise Crews nor to denigrate him. It is to neutrally document him and his work. I have rewritten it accordingly. Cut out the POV-pushing, please. Henry James Fan (talk) 01:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it's a quote. And now it's an actual quote, in quotations.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 13:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It was a quote being used in a POV way. Other sources deny that Crews's analysis of Freud's work was careful. When there is disagreement among reliable sources, policy doesn't support reporting what only some reliable sources say and ignoring others. While we're on the subject of neutrality, the removal of any mention of the views of Crews's critics in The Memory Wars is improper and lowers the quality of the article. The views of both Crews and his critics need to be presented, carefully and neutrally. Henry James Fan (talk) 00:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Salon is already attributed at the beginning of the sentence, and it's in quotations, so it's clearly a quote. Further qualification is unnecessary.  Is the quote misinterpreting what the interviewer is trying to say?  Is it selective quote mining?  Have I cunningly removed some words or inserted others to give an impression other than what the reviewer says?  Is there a source calling Crews' work slipshod or ignoring swathes of research on Freud or Freud's own papers?  Or is it consistently referred to as high quality and empirical, always pointing to the source material and (maddeningly to Freud's supporters) always scrupulously well documented?  If you have those sources, feel free to present them.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 01:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Crews rejected psychoanalysis
User:WLU evidently prefers that this article state that Crews rejected "Freud's work" in the early 1980s. This is a misleading and unfortunate way of putting things - Crews rejected psychoanalysis, which, as we all know, includes much more than only Freud's work. The language prefered by WLU doesn't correspond to the language Crews himself used; Crews didn't use the expression "Freud's work." Crews writes in Skeptical Engagements about Analysis Terminable, in which he announced his change of view, "I wrote this essay in 1980 to explain the grounds of my disaffection from psychoanalysis." And indeed, the essay does just that. It isn't only about Freud, as WLU is suggesting. WLU used the edit summary, 'rejected Freud's work in totality, which includes more than just therapy but also developmental theory, etc', which seems to suggest that he thinks "psychoanalysis" refers only to therapy, which is incorrect. The term psychoanalysis refers to both a therapy and a developmental theory. Henry James Fan (talk) 01:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * . WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 13:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That website may not count as a reliable source. Even if it does, the article you link to is irrelevant and does not, in any obvious way, support your preferred version of the lead, which contradicts what anyone can see from reading Crews's work from Analysis Terminable onward, and indeed contradicts what he explicitly says about his own work. Just to state the obvious, Analysis Terminable didn't criticise and reject only Freud - it criticised psychoanalysis in general, including (for instance) the work of Heniz Kohut. If you must have a source for what is in the lead, then Skeptical Engagements will do, since Crews states in no uncertain way there that he rejected psychoanalysis in general and not only Freud. Henry James Fan (talk) 00:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The Times Literary Supplement doesn't count as a reliable source? Crews rejects psychoanalysis and it's myriad theoretical underpinnings.  Whether that's rejecting Freud, Freud's work, or just psychoanalysis is hairsplitting as far as I'm concerned, and so long as his attacks on Freud's ethics and research are also mentioned, I'll consider it settled.  Books get italics, essays and chapters within a book do not.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 01:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Despite the ongoing Tweedledum and Tweedledee-like tussles between the passionate POV warriors who strut their stuff on this page, the article (although not yet GA) is vastly improved over the version that I was last involved in. It now gives a reasonable account of Crews' standing as a major North American intellectual who involves himself in matters of contemporary social concern. Congratulations to those who contributed. Xxanthippe (talk) 10:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC).
 * Thanks! Note that I have undone your change to the page - the interview was not removed, I created a new EL section called ===Interviews===, added a second interview I found online, and harmonzied the appearance of both.  It is now Interview with Whoever hosted the interview .  Nothing was removed, only reformatted.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 13:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Subject notes from OTRS
It's not true that I rejected Freud's work "in the mid-1980s." That happened at least a decade earlier. My first completely negative published assessment was the essay "Analysis Terminable," which was published early in the year 1980. You mention this fact twice yourself, but it turns your "mid-1980s" statement into a glaring contradiction. Just FYI, off the record, the gap between first changing my mind and then going public with the full set of reservations was motivated by concern for my former Ph.D. students, who were still struggling on the academic ladder as "psychoanalytic critics."

The heading Literary Criticism is appropriate, but neither The Pooh Perplex nor Postmodern Pooh is a work of lit-crit. These are parodies or satires. If they went into a section of their own, you could add The Patch Commission, 1968, a satire on presidential investigating commissions, with emphasis on my disapproval of the Vietnam war. (I was an antiwar activist, locally and nationally, from 1966 through 1970, and I'd be happy to have that fact  mentioned.)  The most comprehensive heading for the three entries would be Satire.

Under Literary criticism proper, all of the following works are relevant: The Tragedy of Manners (my prizewinning undergraduate senior essay at Yale), E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism (derived  from my Princeton Ph.D. dissertation), The Sins of the Fathers, parts of Out of My System, parts of Skeptical Engagements, The Critics Bear It Away, and parts of Follies of the Wise.

On the other hand, you might also want to consider a heading called Essay collections. This would include Out of My System, Skeptical Engagements, The Critics Bear It Away, Unauthorized Freud (edited, not written, by me), and Follies of the Wise.

Re The Pooh Perplex: It makes little sense to mention "Myron Masterson" and "Murphy A. Sweat," because these are fictitious characters. (If you wouldn't write that Huckleberry Finn contains "contrasting opinions by Mr. Pap Finn and Mr. Thomas Sawyer," you  ought to follow the same rule here.)  The real point has already been made, namely, the sample list of "approaches." Note that deletion of the "Masterson" sentence would make your treatment of the Perplex parallel with that of Postmodern Pooh.

The next paragraph begins with the unusual form Crews'; compare Crews's at the start of the previous paragraph. That's usually considered correct.

I can only repeat that Psychoanalysis and Literary Process was just a collection of my graduate students' papers; it doesn't merit anything more than a mention of the title, at best. Omitting it altogether would be appropriate, since too much space is already being devoted to my wavering position regarding Freud. However, if you do decide on an Essay collections section, this title could be named among the others.

In the very first paragraph, the fact that I was once a Freudian but then "rejected Freud's work" is prominently mentioned. This ought to suffice, I think. But under Literary criticism you take up the topic again and devote a very long paragraph to it. Regarding "Reductionism and Its Discontents," I can't imagine that any readers are interested, by now, in the stages of waffling that preceded "Analysis Terminable." It's not as if I were a famous composer or painter with creative phases that need to be dwelt on; I'm just someone who struggled for a while before finding a stable attitude toward questions of knowledge and method. If my views are to be emphasized, surely they ought to be the views that I have held and consistently expounded for the past thirty years. Please, then, forget about "Reductionism . . . "--and doubly so because "doubts about psychoanalysis as a therapeutic approach for having a weak,  sometimes comical tradition of criticism" makes absolutely no sense at all. I could explain the several tangles I find here, but I hope this won't be necessary. The sentence that follows, still dealing with the same essay, should also be deleted.

OK, now I arrive at the third section, called Criticisms of Freud and psychoanalysis. You can guess what I'm about to say. You now have three sections in a row dealing with exactly the same topic! But it gets worse, because, having mentioned my opposition to recovered memory therapy in this section, you entitle the next section Criticisms of recovered memory therapy. This is organizationally confused.

In the first sentence under Criticisms of Freud and psychoanalysis, you call me a "sustained figure." That is a meaningless phrase. The same sentence maintains that criticism of Freud "began in earnest" in the 1980s. Not true. Right around 1970, the work of Ellenberger, Frank Cioffi, and Paul Roazen initiated the phase of "Freud revisionism" that continues today. Those critics deserve the credit for changing the terms of discourse; I joined in a decade later.

The next sentence mentions "Analysis Terminable" (an article, not a book, so it belongs in quotes rather than italics) for the second time. Please weed out such repetitions.

It's proper to mention the NY Review articles of 1993 and 1994, as they were extremely controversial and influential. (I'm quite proud of them and of their  effect on public debate.)  But if you could tuck that sentence somewhere else (perhaps in the opening paragraph?), this whole section on Criticisms of Freud and psychoanalysis would be empty and could be discarded, to the advantage of structual coherence.

You'll have to decide where--somewhere, in one place--you want to put all statements about the recovered memory phenomenon. Your opening sentence in the section now devoted to the topic comes close to representing my view, but it's slightly off. In the first place, "reported by patients of Freud" suggests something that I don't believe: that Freud was told the stories in question. His three papers of 1896 state clearly that he himself "reconstructed" childhood scenes of abuse that his patients didn't recall. He browbeat them to extract confessions that, for the most part, weren't  forthcoming. So: it's true that the tales were "forced upon the patients by Freud himself," but in most cases they still didn't  deliver the memories he was demanding of them. Second, "in part saw" is very confusing. If you're referring to me, the difference of tenses between "believes" and "saw" destroys the intended connection. Moreover, what does it mean to say that I "in part saw" something? This just isn't English. Finally, the wave of false allegations mentioned at the end of the sentence lasted from about 1985 to about 1995--so it wasn't "in the 1990s."

Needless to say, you have added to the organizational tangle by mentioning, in this section, the very same articles that you have just finished mentioning in the previous section!

It's fine to point out that those articles and the ensuing letters were collected in The Memory Wars. But to say that the articles alone were republished (not "re-published") in the 2006 (not 2005) Follies of the Wise is not a significant fact; this should be deleted.

Under Other Interests, you refer to my defense of a "satirical position." One can convey a position through satire, but there is no such thing as a "satirical position."

As I mentioned in my last letter, the major "other interest" not covered by Wikipedia is college-level composition. My Random House Handbook and my co-authored Borzoi Handbook for Writers went through a combined total of nine editions and were used by over a million students. Another textbook, The Random House Reader, was less successful but was motivated by the same preoccupation. I told you-- but you haven't taken the statement into account--that my concern for rational discourse carries over from such issues as evolution and psychoanalysis to common standards of clear and effective writing. This is genuinely an interest on my part. In contrast, themes such as UFO abduction tales and the predation of the drug industry have been merely occasional topics. Once treated, they weren't taken up again. So I plead with you: if you are going to have an "other interests" section, please take note of what my permanent interests actually are. Running through some random articles doesn't do the job.

"Creationism" should be lowercase.

I don't think it's newsworthy that an exchange of letters followed my essay on that topic. Just about every piece I've written for NYRB has been followed by an exchange of letters.

In the next sentence, "books related to" ("relating to"?) is vague and off the point. But there is a larger problem here. Among readers of NYRB, UFO abduction per se is not a serious consideration, My article about it was a lighthearted piece, making fun of claims that were obviously absurd. Your paragraph takes all this too seriously. And once again, you waste a sentence mentioning that there were letters pro and con.

Your next sentence seems to say that "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" are a "major depressive disorder." What?? The next sentence speaks of a "potential" influence over legislators and regulators; there is nothing "potential" about it.

As I said in my last letter, the best honor I have received is election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991. You don't mention this fact under Honors and awards.

Since you have asked for further assistance with honors and awards, I would single out the following:

Essay Prize, National Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1968 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1965-66 Faculty Research Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, 1991-92 Nomination for National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction (The Critics Bear It Away), 1992. Editorial Board, “Rethinking Theory” series, Northwestern University Press, 1992– Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002, ed. Natalie Angier (Houghton Mifflin, 2002) Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005, ed. Jonathan Weiner (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) Nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award (Follies of the Wise), 2006

If you check the Bibliography entries, you will find some inconsistency in the format. Presumably, initial caps are used in both titles and subtitles; but this rule is violated with The Sins of  the Fathers, Starting Over, Anthology of American Literature, and Concise Anthology of American Literature. Please note also that The Random House Reader has been omitted altogether, along with my editions of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Great Short Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. These are not important works, but I gather that your list is meant to be comprehensive.

Finally, you have my permission to use the photograph in any matter whatever.

Many thanks,

Frederick Crews

BJ Talk 20:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Most of Frederick Crews's comments above are fair and reasonable, and I thank him for making them.


 * Crews is correct to note that he rejected psychoanalysis well before the mid-1980s, arguably having done so by 1975 (this point isn't in dispute, however, and no one was proposing to restore the version suggesting he rejected it in the mid-1980s). I'm interested to see that 'the gap between first changing my mind and then going public with the full set of reservations was motivated by concern for my former Ph.D. students, who were still struggling on the academic ladder as "psychoanalytic critics" ', although now that this has been posted on the talk page (I assume with Crews's permission), it's no longer off the record. I added the part about "Myron Masterson" and "Murphy A. Sweat." I suppose Crews is right that this wasn't a helpful addition, and I apologise for adding it - it just seemed like a good idea at the time. I have to confess that I'm puzzled that Crews thinks that Psychoanalysis and Literary Process deserves to have only its title mentioned - after all, he did write the introductory essay. Henry James Fan (talk) 04:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've already integrated the changes suggested by Crews. An e-mail is not a reliable source for changing the page, so I've only made the changes where they could be justified by sources.  You don't need to apologize for adding anything that's not vandalism; this is a page about Crews, but it is not Crews' page and accordingly his input is to be treated with care akin to that urged for self-published sources.
 * I am not sure about this being posted with Crews' permission, I'll be checking on that. I was quite surprised to see it turn up here.  That Crews' only wrote one introductory essay of PaLP is the reason it deserves minimal mention - it's primarily a work of others and it's questionable whether it strongly affected his career arc.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 22:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In OTRS it is stated "The contents of e-mails handled by OTRS members are confidential." Xxanthippe (talk) 00:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC).
 * He sent the suggestions to OTRS and since there isn't much we can do I asked if I could publish them here, he agreed. If you'd like me to have a more... "experienced" OTRS agent confirm it I'd be happy to have one double check it. BJ Talk 02:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC).
 * That's O.K. then, no further action needed. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC).
 * The e-mail is substantially identical to one he sent me when I was trying to confirm the release of the photo under the GFDL, so I wondered if it was a posting of the reply that I had forwarded to OTRS. If he had forwarded it on himself with the note it could be posted, then that's fine.  I just didn't want to be responsible for even a quasi-confidential e-mail being posted due to my actions.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 02:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

wow. Incredible feedbac on structure, content, and text. Impressyve fellow, just by the OTRS.TCO (talk) 08:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 203.118.185.245, 18 September 2011
Please change "Bibliography" to "Works" - properly speaking, the list of Crews' books is not a bibliography, which is a list of sources used in a book or article.

203.118.185.245 (talk) 05:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Bibliography can also mean "A list of the books of a particular author, printer, or country, or of those dealing with any particular theme; the literature of a subject" (oed). Doesn't seem particularly necessary to change it. Jay  Σεβαστός discuss  07:24, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Updating broken links
The link for ref#2 to Crew's Emeritus page at Berkeley is old and needs to be updated to .Kvadla (talk) 15:41, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Link Updated.Kvadla (talk) 05:09, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Links
My recent edit to this article was reverted by Xxanthippe with the comment, "Which Wikipedia policy do you cite for this edit?" I could ask Xxanthippe the same thing, as he did not cite any Wikipedia policy for his edit. Remember that a fundamental principle of links is that when people click on them, they should know where they are going. When someone clicks on a link in Wikipedia, it's almost always to a Wikipedia article or a disambiguation page, not to an off-site resource such as Google Books. Is there any reason why three links at this article - links to The Foundations of Psychoanalysis, Freud, Biologist of the Mind, and Freud Evaluated - should be exceptions? Based on how links normally work on Wikipedia, people will expect those links to go to the Wikipedia articles about those books, not to Google Books, a different website entirely. Note that there is a link to The Discovery of the Unconscious in this article and it leads to the article on the book. There is absolutely no logical reason why that article should connect to the relevant book while other links on books should not. For one link for a book to go to the article and for others not to is confusing, to say the least. I respectfully suggest Xxanthippe self-revert.

(I should not really have to cite a policy, as my edit was a common-sense improvement, but WP:EL clearly supports the principle that links to other websites belong in the external links section: "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be used in the body of an article." The very reason we have an "external links" section is that links to other websites do not belong in the main text of an article). FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:43, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You're correct FKC - I've reverted Xxanthippe. WP:EL is quite clear about this-- Cailil  talk 19:16, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this proper approach to the WP:BRD cycle. My thinking was based on policy WP:Circular "Do not use articles from Wikipedia as sources." Xxanthippe (talk) 22:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC).
 * For the record, the change discussed above had nothing to do with using Wikipedia articles as sources. That was never the objective of the edit. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 10:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Bad editing by Sturunner
This edit is very harmful and needs reverting. Note that the edit summary (" But there was no "wave of false accusations. . . " One of the co-founders of the FMSF was forced to resign because of his advocacy for pedophiles.") states personal opinion as fact and gives a completely illogical rationale for removing well-cited information. Does it show that there "was no wave of false accusations" because one of the co-founders of the FMSF was forced to resign? No. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.243.96.25 (talk) 02:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Revert
Xxanthippe, I do not understand the purpose of this edit. To me, it seems that bullet point lists are normally undesirable, as they have no generally accepted place in writing. They are certainly unnecessary in this case. What purpose can it possibly serve to list Crews's contributions in the New York Review of Books with bullet points when they can instead be summarized in normal prose - which is what one usually expects to find in an encyclopedia? You asked me how my change was an improvement; I could equally well ask why you see the current version as better. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for responding to WP:BRD. An explanation is helpful for changes to a mature article on an important topic that has been much vandalized in the past. To be candid, I can't see much improvement over the previous version. Best wishes, Xxanthippe (talk) 05:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC).
 * I have just given you an explanation, Xxanthippe. You have rejected it without argument. To be candid, that is not an acceptable response. Please reconsider your approach. You should give a reason for your views: why is the article better with the bullet points than without? Perhaps you believe that because the article is "mature" it cannot be further improved and making further changes is pointless? If that is your position (please do clarify) then it is unfortunate and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. Opposing change for the sake of opposing change is neither constructive nor appropriate. Your position would be slightly more comprehensible (although still misguided) if this were an A-quality article, but as may know it is only B-quality. So further improvement is needed, and I think removing the bullet points helps. You do not seem to have considered, for instance, that if someone wanted to discuss Crews's reviews in slightly more detail, that would be easier if his views are not summarized using bullet points. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 10:11, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

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