Talk:Horatio Alger myth

Wealth disparity
"The increasing wealth disparities between upper-class and working-class Americans confirm that indeed, the rich are getting richer at the expense of the rest of the U.S. population."

I'm wondering whether this article should be emphatic about this question of wealth disparity. There seems to be room for disagreement on the matter--in part because the concept is inherently fuzzy. For example, does the above claim take into account total compensation (health benefits, etc.) or just wages? Also, even if said disparities are increasing, how does this demonstrate the second part of the sentence (that the rich are benefiting at the expense of the rest...)? In other words, if 1) A is decreasing and 2) B is increasing, how does these observations prove that 2 caused 1? Kevborg (talk) 23:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Too much attention given to wealth/income inequality?
There are about five paragraphs in the criticism and analysis section relating to wealth or income inequality. The Myth claims that anyone can increase their wealth, and that such a feat can be accomplished through meritorious hard work. Income disparity is a prerequisite for the Myth. While an increased difference in income raises the bar for what it takes to be considered extremely wealthy, I don't see that having a significant impact on the veracity of the Myth's claims. David@sickmiller.com (talk) 20:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

NPOV tag
This article only discusses voices critical of Horatio Alger's stories. Even the title of the article is NPOV with the use of the word "Myth".50.8.95.54 (talk) 16:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

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Not convinced that this criticism really applies since the article is specifically about a particular viewpoint on Alger's novels (namely that one can discern a common theme in the novels and this theme is reflected in a certain, probably spurious, folk myth at large in society). If this were the page 'Horatio Alger' and it only contained voices critical of Alger's stories then of course NPOV applies. But since the page just describes what those who refer to the 'Horatio Alger Myth' are talking about, without giving any opinions of its own, I don't see that this violates NPOV. At any rate, I have attempted to remove any whiff of POV in the intro.

I suggest that if other editors don't find fault the neutrality dispute tag should be removed in the near future. Arch Mute Brave (talk) 14:44, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

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The problem here is that there are 10 lines (as formatted on my screen) describing the myth, and then 40 lines detailing the views of people who do not believe that the myth corresponds to reality plus its very existence is harmful to society. There are two issues here from a neutrality viewpoint.

1. Sheer bulk of text. When 80% of the article is critical of the myth, employing words like "propagandist", "monster", "sick", "fleecing the public", "destroying the American Dream", "socially destructive", etc., it creates an overall sense that "Wikipedia thinks the Horatio Alger myth is bad".

2. Relevance. I don't understand how the 80% of the article is relevant. When I encountered this page, I wanted to know what the myth *was*. I would rather look elsewhere for opinion, commentary, or analysis on what degree of social mobility actually existed in the US in 2003 or 1935 or any other particular point in time. The article already contains links to that effect; why don't they suffice.

$0.02. Thanks for considering. User:Kduda 14:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the IP and Kduda about the WP:NPV issues. Moreover it's apparent to me that this article is a classic example of a WP:COATRACK and should be merged into Horatio Alger as well as balanced with opposing views. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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Sorry to repeat myself but I think the above commentators are missing the point. This is an article describing a point of view, rather than an article surreptitiously promoting a point of view. Unlike, say, "the work of Horatio Alger", "The Horatio Alger Myth" is not a subject matter that different people have differing views on; it is a critical term used by people intending to put across a certain point of view. Nobody says 'I think the Horatio Alger myth is a great thing'. It's similar to, say, the article on the term 'idiot'. Nobody is complaining that the article is biased because it doesn't put across the viewpoints of people who think that actually idiots are a good thing. The very term entails a point of view; this doesn't mean that a description and explanation of such a POV-entailing term is necessarily biased.

Kduda complains (#1) that the article contains "40 lines detailing the views of people who do not believe that the myth corresponds to reality", but clearly the very use of the term 'myth' already indicates that the speaker does not believe that the thing at issue 'corresponds to reality' - that's pretty much the definition of 'myth' in the sense it is being used here. To label something a 'myth' is to express a point of view - and this article is about one such point of view. Kduda complains that the article contains words like 'propagandist' and 'monster', but these are all in the context of referring to this point of view. It's not that "Wikipedia thinks the Horatio Alger myth is bad", it's that people who use the term 'Horatio Alger myth' are using it to refer to and criticise what in their opinion is a pernicious bromide. This article is explaining what such people think, and what they mean by their use of the phrase. Clearly, if Wikipedia can't describe points of view then we won't get very far.

Similarly for complaint #2, with due respect I think that again this complaint turns around a misunderstanding. The article is clearly relevant; it describes what the contents of the 'myth' are taken to be by those who use the term, and then describes the views of some of the people who have theorised the existence of this myth, and what led them to use the term. Horatio Alger is not the author of 'The Horatio Alger Myth' - it is these kind of people who identify or extrapolate what they perceive as a 'myth' characteristic of Alger's writing, and then proceed to criticise it, who are the authors. If they weren't critical of it then they would probably call it 'The Horatio Alger Life Philosophy' or suchlike and valorise it.

As for DrFleischman's view that this should be merged into the 'Horatio Alger' article, I disagree. It seems to me at least that "The Horatio Alger Myth" is a very well-known cultural trope, arguably more well-known than Alger himself and his actual books. In my personal experience I had heard the phrase and caught the basic gist of its meaning long before I actually bothered to look up who Horatio Alger was. Ok, clearly that might not be the same for everyone, but at any rate I think that the trope is significant enough to have its own article. It would be appropriate to have a section in the Horatio Alger article linking to this article, and, similarly, that would be the place to balance out criticisms of Alger with positive reviews of his work. But the subject of this article is actually not exactly the same as 'criticisms of Alger', because it is about a criticism of a broader way of thinking and cultural cliche that is termed "The Horatio Alger Myth". (In a similar way that, for example, the article on 'Whig History', and the concept of a 'Whiggish' view of history, are not just about the views of specific members of the British Whig party, but about a broader tendency of thought.)

As such, I think that - at least in relation to the charges of bias, irrelevance, coatrack and not deserving its own article - this article is fine as it is. Arch Mute Brave (talk) 18:26, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

-- I've now removed the NPOV and Coatrack tags since there have been no further responses or complaints on this talk page. Arch Mute Brave (talk) 09:12, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

NPOV again. A true NPOV would give evidence "for" and "against" the "myth". All we see here is one point of view. Also, it's not clear that half the wordcount should be devoted to the views of one relatively obscure professor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.158.95 (talk) 07:56, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Horatio Alger is NOT "rags to riches"
This section doesn't look very professional or N.P.O.V., especially without a citation. There's readability, and then there's objectivity and encyclopedic tone. I appreciate the idea, but this seems to have strayed. I'm going to edit it to basically its previous state. By the way, I'd like to second the idea that this should be combined with the main Horatio Alger Jr. page, as it is (at least by my estimate) what people expect to read about when they land there, since it is the most notable part of Horatio Alger's work. Though if it were more explicitly focused on in the main article's lede, that might be a solution too. I guess this really does work how it is, but it should be very easy to find this page. --174.27.199.10 (talk) 01:06, 20 November 2014 (UTC)