User:Arjunayar/Preparatory Assignment

Democratic Centralism
The Wikipedia article on Democratic Centralism discusses the following:


 * The definition
 * An example
 * Lenin's idea of Democratic Centralism
 * Advantages
 * Application in China

While the definition and example is slightly different from what we discussed in class, the concepts are pretty similar. The bigger question mark though is on the neutrality of the article. The article refers to mostly Marxist and Leninist sources and only discusses the positives of the idea as opposed to the possible negatives in its applications. The article doesn't even mention the lack of democracy in the application of democratic centralism in the Soviet Union and China.

May Fourth Movement
The Wikipedia article on the May Fourth Movement is extremely informative and well written. The article first gives the readers a background of the origins of the movement and the history preceding it. The article goes on to describe the initial protests and happenings and then goes on the talk about the birth of Chinese communism under Mao. The article then emphasizes the historical significance of the movement, talking about the new emphasis on Chinese traditions and thought over the Western thought and imperialism. What the article lacks however is a Western perspective on the movement and sources talking more about Chinese communism. It would be interesting to look at the movement from different perspectives within China as well because not all of Chinese society backed the movement. Additionally, another interesting thing to see would be what impact the movement had on modern day China.

On Practice
In this article the authors describe Mao's philosophical arguments on the acquisition of knowledge. The article covers the steps of acquiring knowledge, the application of knowledge, and Mao's criticism of the rationalists and empiricists approach to the acquisition of the knowledge. What this article lacks however is context, the article fails to place this piece of work in the context of Mao's ideologies and doesn't talk about its significance. Another interesting perspective that the article could have put forward would've been criticisms of On Practice.

Wikipedia as a resource
Wikipedia is supposed to be an online encyclopedia, a place to find the 'absolute truth'. But as is often the issue with many sources of information, bias can creep in through on sided perspectives. Wikipedia tries to get around this by crowd-sourcing the knowledge and banking on the fact that the bias will be balanced out if enough people contribute. While this works really well in many cases such as in gaining knowledge about many scientific concepts or a movie or an album, this process does have its pitfalls:


 * 1) An article could be dominated by authors with a certain opinion
 * 2) An article could be edited as part of propaganda or defamation
 * 3) Factually incorrect opinions might be given equal weight as those that are based in fact

Especially when it comes to a subject like Modern Chinese Philosophy which covers many-a sensitives subjects such as Communism, it is possible that the resource turns more into a political discourse than anything else with every author trying to argue their opinions on the matter rather than sharing facts with the readers.

Additionally, while writing a Wikipedia entry on philosophy it is important to keep in mind that the audience aren't just philosophy students but also people with a casual interest in philosophy or people trying to expand their philosophy knowledge to gain more perspective on certain other issues. Therefore, articles should be written with care and keeping in mind that references and articles should be cited and assumptions shouldn't be made about background knowledge. It would also probably be helpful for authors to share elementary readings of the topic to help out new entrants to the field.