User talk:172/Talk bloc 1

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Hello and welcome to userland 172! --mav

Hello. 194.117.133.118 11:05 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)

Minguy is pretty unfriendly, no?Vera Cruz

What are they saying you removed anyways? I don't see why they are making such a big deal out of it, it's not like we can't revert anything anyways. Most of these talk pages are a mess and need cleaning. Vera Cruz

I think quotes from the Washington Times and other POV sources do belong in NPOV articles. It's very informative to know what the POVs on different topics are. Vera Cruz

172, let's not get into a misunderstanding here. I would be the last person to call you a communist. Prior to your arrival, a good many of the history pages were rather shallow things, and showed little understanding of the interrelationship between history (in the traditional "kings and queens of England" sense) and the broad flow of economic change that underpins and (in general) controls the actions of statesmen, generals and inventors. You certainly do not fall into that trap! Your contributions have made significant inroads into the task of describing history as an interacting whole. Several others here have objected to what they see as a "communist bias" in your writing. In large part, these objections stem from two things:
 * 1) Many people here have spent a lifetime steeped in a rather one-sided view of history - I'm talking about the sort of history that describes the Battle of the Bulge or Second Alamain in loving detail, but relegates Stalingrad to a footnote and doesn't even bother to mention Kursk; the sort of history that thinks Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and therefore we had an Industrial Revolution - and on reading the sort of thing that you write, they (very naturally) tend to say oh, this isn't what I'm used to seeing, therefore it must be wrong.
 * 2) You tend to write large slabs of text which is perfectly comprehensible if one concentrates but far from easy reading, particularly as it is liberally laced with the jargon of political economy. Many people see key words or phrases like "bourgeoise", "hegemony", or "accumulation of surplus" and (a) don't really understand them, and (b) assume that because the two or three Marxist or Leninist tracts they happen to have glanced at are filled with these same words, that the present work is more of the same.

As I see it, the challenge is not to write long entries that are technically correct but so complex, wordy, and jargon-filled that no-one reads them (any fool with half an education can do that), but to translate the specialised jargon of Marxian political economy and materialistic history into terms that that are readily accessable to the ordinary, non-specialist reader, and in doing so to bear in mind that any given article should not aim at detailed perfection at some far off future time to the exclusion of readability and usefulness at the present time - changes should, in other words, be sufficiently incremental that the article as a whole remains useful in the meantime.

There. It's said. Now is there anyone I haven't' offended yet? Tannin


 * Bah. If you can't see that it's POV to write things like, "Mao sure pulled China together and gave the people more freedom than they've ever known before!", then you and 172 deserve each other. --Len

(I loathe Mao, and did not write such a sentence. But one could make a very strong case for that statement.)


 * One can pull individual POV statements out of anyone's contributions - you and me included. I am talking about the bulk of 172's work, not every single sentence as if it were Holy Writ. I assume that the quotation above has already (and quite properly) been edited into shape - but with the massive slabs of text 172 submits, this is no easy task! Tannin

Quite so, 172. The 172.X user I reverted was obviously nothing to do with you, just one of those rather sad little people with a self-image problem that go about making up imaginary countries with three citizens and a modem for their Yahoo Groups account, and casting themselves in the role of King Mucho Stupido the 2nd. After I reverted his nonsense a few times, he deleted my user page. Shrug. Tannin

I worked hard on that description of the derivation of the term imperialism. You deleted it from here, but, judging from your response in my talk page, you didn't read it, or at least did not understand it. They didn't call it new imperialism at the time, they called it a new word, imperialism. Why? Because it was a new phenomenon, not a new version of an old phenomenon. If it had been colonialism or mercantilism, they'd have called it that. As you yourself said on my talk page:
 * the era between 1871 and 1914 was notable in itself due to the an increased drive toward formal colonialism. Ironic once again though, since this distinction is noted in the first paragraph.

Ironic indeed, since my now-deleted suggested paragraph made precisely that point, and further noted that since this new phenomenon was so powerful, it had been applied retrospectively to the past and continued to be applied to the future. It isn't a question of like or dislike, it's what makes a good encyclopedia article. I think that knowing the way words have changed is an aid to understanding. Ortolan88


 * Ah, but you see, 172 didn't write it, therefore it wasn't worth keeping. -- Zoe

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I’m familiar with the origins of the word “imperialism”; that’s why I keep deleting that explanation on my talk page. But it has come into common usage since then. Look up any dictionary definition. For instance, mercantilism is now considered one form of imperialism in particular. New Imperialism is now considered an era of imperialism between 1871-1914.

I don’t know why this is such a contentious issue for you. The term “New Imperialism” is so common because this field of history has been so controversial and the focal point of a rich tradition of historical literature and theory. New Imperialist historiography has in large part been devoted to what role the over-accumulation of surplus capital by the rich played in this phenomenon, and what role New Imperialism played in spurring World War I. To imperial critic J.A. Hobson’s credit, his controversial charges have spurred a great deal of theories and studies regarding this era. The study of New Imperialism has been essential to Lenin’s critique of capitalism, and critiques of his analysis of the amalgamation of industry have been central to the work of many anti-Marxian historians. One of the most prominent to these anti-Marxian historians was William L. Langer, who emphasized the role of mass-psychology earlier in the twentieth century. He uses the term "New Imperialism" as well.

172


 * What I believe: I believe that it is both interesting and important that the word imperialism was invented in the 19th century to describe a new phenomenon, a new phenomenon that proved so all-pervasive that the term invented in the 19th century still lives today despite greatly changed conditions, and has even been applied backwards to describe previous phenomena that were not called imperialism until the emergence of imperialism revealed their true nature.  I find that fascinating.  It is all about how words work, and what makes a good encyclopedia article, that is, one that explains its terms.


 * What is so hard to understand about this point that I have now made four times in four different ways? I am confident that I  made it clear each time.  In addition to being interesting and important, it explains why the article is called New Imperialism and not Imperialism, even though the phenomenon being described was specifically called imperialism (without the qualifier) for the entire length of its sway.  I guess a non-ideological point is hard for an ideologue to understand, even when it fundamentally supports what the ideologue is trying to say.   Ortolan88


 * I have not changed my mind. I have stated the same thing over and over, and, in fact, just put the original paragraph into the article.  As to what kind of ideologue I think you are, I believe you are a Kimjongiliast.  Ortolan88

'I'm tired of all of this. Can I make peace with both of you?'' - Not so long as you continue to revert any and all changes to articles you consider as your personal property. -- Zoe

--- I tear that baseless charge above on Zoe's userpage.

''I do no such thing; I revert articles to improve them, just like everyone else. You're just looking at me through a biased guise.'' - Really? I spent half an hour doing modifications to New Imperialism which consisted of nothing but markup corrections -- adding links, changing the headings to match Wikipedia's manual of style. And you reverted them without considering their worth with, "Mine looks better." You refuse to allow anyone to make any changes to what you consider your work, even your former ally Vera Cruz is tired of it. Why do you think that EricD, AnnieKat, Ortolan, myself and others are tired of it all? Because you refuse to work with anyone.

You continue to copy huge blocks of text from article to article, making those new articles worthless.

''I doubt that I will contribute anything else to Wikipedia. I'll be going back to work anyway next week. That’s a loss, as I am an actual PhD historian. I do, however, want to maintain my former contributions.''

PhD in history. That makes sense. Most PhDs I know have no grasp of interpersonal communications. You never did address the questions I asked, which had nothing to do with bias, but which you sniffed at as beneath your contempt. You never addressed the issue of copyright violation. Your articles are not your personal property, and they will be modified somewhere, sometime down the road. You have no way to "maintain" your contributions. They don't belong to you. -- Zoe


 * Zoe, I put some markup fixes back in the new imperialism article. I imagine they were the same ones you did. Ortolan88

- "Can I make peace with both of you ?"

172 I feel tired to.

Well, but :

"I do, however, want to maintain my former contributions." Your text will be modified by writing in Wikipedia you wite all your rights. If you don't like in don't write in Wikipedia.

You cut and paste the same text everywhere. Why ? Links exists after all. You qualify people as ignorants.

You use technical language in a text that is supposed to be understand by the was majority.

You mix technical language and non-neutral judgement. Infamous is non-neutral it's better to convice people that it was infamous using facts than to say it was infamous.

You tend use an attitute like everybody know that except ignorant when your writing are controversial.

I refered somewhere my contribution about the infamous (no kidding I'm neutral) Le Pen Compare :

"He practiced torture in Algeria." with a comment in the talk page "Everybody know that except ignorants that never read "Le Canard Enchainé"


 * and :

"It is also etablished that he practiced torture in Algeria. This fact was published by "Le Canard Enchainé" and "Libération" and by Michel Rocard (ex-prime minister) on TV (TF-1 1993). Le Pen sued the papers and Michel Rocard. This affair ended in 2000 when the "Cour de cassation" (French supreme jurisdiction) concluded that it was legitimate to remember this fact. War crimes committed during the Algerian War of Independence are amnestied in France so there should be no further judicial issues."

Which one is the less controversial ? Which one has some chance to stay in the article ? If the response is not obvious to you I will believe you lacjk some common sense.

I wish you become more positive and we can make peace. User:Ericd:Ericd

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Ericd:

Your're probably detecting this bias laced in technical language because of language difficulties. I can understand how that's possible, since I speak French and Spanish as non-native languages. I sometimes have a hard time picking up subteties.

172

Sure, move the derivation of imperialism up in the article. I wrote it mainly because it made it clearer to me. Ortolan88