Talk:Juan Cole

Cole responds to Wikipedia content (though indirectly)
In the "autobiography" section of his blog, Cole "vigorously disputes the baseless and misleading editorializing in his current Wikipedia article that his views of international politics in the twenty-first century are still shaped by his youthful Baha’i misadventure." I'm afraid this was my doing--I sincerely believed this to be true, even obvious. Instead,


 * Cole was all along an American liberal, and had thought the Baha’is were on his side, which he discovered to be an error, at least with regard to the secretive and duplicitous leadership. His political and social philosophy is rooted in American traditions going back to the Transcendentalists and going forward to Martin Luther King, Michael Harrington, and other progressives, and all along has been.

I apologize for the misunderstanding, and will try to edit the text in line with the above (unless some more neutral person can be enlisted to do it first). Incidentally, Cole writes that he "now not interested in organized religion as a personal matter." --Dawud

Maybe we should try to keep Wikipedia pages about living individuals as "about" them, not "by" them. Never heard of Juan Cole before today. His page is only marginally shorter than Mark Twain's... Klod (talk) 19:40, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Concur. Trim by 80%. Zezen (talk) 23:16, 10 December 2019 (UTC)


 * And only slightly less self-congratulatory than Cuomo's pandemic book. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:17, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Supported US violence to destroy Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
Cole has said different things at different times. This is common with most of us. However Cole's position im the media and prominence equates with something more specific, learned and intentional. Being both opposed and for a major war, sometimes both within the context of a single essay isn't a criticism of the writer, i.e a criticism of Mr Cole. Identifying propaganda, and refraining from the natural inclination to assume the description is used in the perjorative sense can help readers identity content that may be harmful to them. Most of Cole's writing is to convince readers of something more than informing them of anything outside that first goal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.221.96.101 (talk) 16:04, 12 May 2020 (UTC)