Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 August 26

= August 26 =

A Theory of Justice
I gather that John Rawls' A Theory of Justice has been through several different editions, with the work being revised since its original printing. How greatly does the revised version differ from the original, and is this something the reader should care about? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently significant enough that they have recently reissues the 1971 edition. See here in Google Books, which has an ebooks version of the reissue.  For comparison, here is the 1999 edition.  You'd have to check them both yourself, but there they are.  -- Jayron 32 14:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * According to Jayron's link to the 1999 edition, it includes "a new Preface in which Rawls reflects on his presentation of his thesis and explains how and why he has revised it". HUP's presentation of the book quotes a Choice review: "It contains a new preface that helpfully outlines the major revisions, and a ‘conversion table’ that correlates the pagination of this edition with the original, which will be useful to students and scholars working with this edition and the extensive secondary literature on Rawls’s work." ---Sluzzelin  talk  15:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Just a note that Rawls has been dead for 14 years. The works of political figures with followings often get reworked by their followers/heirs after their deaths.  Look up Nietzsche, for example, whose sister imposed her anti-Semitic views on his work after his death.  Ayn Rand's "Q&A" book has her "corrected" to say the exact opposite in print of what she actually said in recorded voice transcript.  I have only read of Rawls what I was assigned, decades ago, so I can't say whether the actual text of the work has been altered. μηδείς (talk) 20:37, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Just a note that 1999 was 17 years ago, and Rawls was very much alive at the time... -- Jayron 32 02:00, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Only just noticed this; I was speaking of the perspective from now, not of the date of publication of a certain book. The Silmarillion was published posthumously, but started in the decade of the Great War. It makes one weep to think how much of our culture dates from that catastrophe. μηδείς (talk) 23:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I know it's off-topic, but I'm curious about the Rand thing &mdash; can you elaborate? --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't remember the exact issue,, but it had to do with the posthumous Q&A book being editted to fit the "party line" or being "politically correct" rather than what she actually said. At one point she was asked about the perfect society, and she responded that it would be horrific if everyone were in lockstep with her own beliefs, and that diversity of thought (e.g. people being Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, Marxist) would make a much better world.  Her cult is terribly divisive; and if you want to look at them as the Stalinists versus the Trotskyites, I am an Orwellian.
 * In the edited, published version, this point is entirely glossed over. The point is covered in the top review at Amazon here and is based on comments by someone who has the actual tapes of those lectures.  I am not a good source, given I only heard of her after she was dead.  Of course, I could say the same for Nietzsche, Spinoza, Epictetus and Aristotle. (smiley). μηδείς (talk) 01:00, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I just re-read that review,, and the essential pont is how the word "dreadful" is used in Rand's actual speech, and in the editted version. The meanings are unrelated, but the editted version serves the cultist interpretation.  I see Orwell is also mentioned, ha! μηδείς (talk) 01:10, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Ohio River lock tolls
Can someone find a table of tolls by lock-and-dam (or a single statement giving the toll for all of them, if they're uniform) on the Ohio River? I'm finding stuff about tolls on the Ohio and Erie Canal, road tolls for the Ohio River Bridges Project, and other things that sound similar to Google but obviously aren't related. Nyttend (talk) 13:17, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * We have List of locks and dams of the Ohio River, which I don't think has tolls but at least has locations. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I was reading just recently, I forget where, about the Soo locks, which are free (or more accurately subsidized) for all traffic through the locks. It may be similar for the Ohio River locks. Might also want to compare locks of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. older ≠ wiser 13:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Anthropology/Sociology/Psychology
Hi everyone. I would like to seek out clear-cut definitions amidst these social sciences without overlapping, if they can exist. It is possible? And if so, which are? Cordially, --217.57.195.210 (talk) 16:39, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology. Anthropology is the study of people. Sociology and psychology could be thought of as subsets of anthropology. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:56, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Also psychosociology, social psychology, and social psychology (sociology). Loraof (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure one CAN define them without overlapping. Anthropology studies culture, sociology studies social interactions, and psychology studies behavior and thought processes.  I don't know how one could study any one of them with a complete ignorance of the other two... -- Jayron 32 18:16, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * And social anthropology and Sociology. Loraof (talk) 18:19, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * When I was obtaining my degree in anthro, the differences were humorously described thus: psychology is about you, sociology is about us, anthropology is about them, and archaeology is past tense. As others have noted, they use many of the same terms and study much the same thing; it's mostly about perspective. Matt Deres (talk) 13:24, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Were any Republicans elected to statewide office during the Solid South era?
From the end of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement, roughly 1877-1964, were there any Republicans elected to statewide office in the former states of the Confederacy? --Gary123 (talk) 19:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Solid South says "In the Deep South (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas), Democrat dominance was overwhelming, with 80%–90% of the vote, and only a tiny number of Republican state legislators or local offficials. In the Upper South (Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia), Republicans retained a significant presence, even winning occasional governorships and often drawing over 40% in presidential votes." So there were some.  Rojomoke (talk) 19:06, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * For example North Carolinian governor Daniel Lindsay Russell, Tennesseean governors Alvin Hawkins, Ben W. Hooper, and Alfred A. Taylor. ---Sluzzelin  talk  19:16, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Building on that, are you interested in Kentucky? Compared to most southern states, its politics were fuzzy during the time, occasionally becoming highly contentious (in particular, see Kentucky gubernatorial election, 1899), and List of Governors of Kentucky will show you that Republicans were several times successful in reaching the Kentucky Governor's Mansion.  Also, note that Tennessee is an anomaly, with the exceptionally strong Republican presence in the Eastern Grand Division; the last Democrat elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from this region was Robert Love Taylor, who left office in 1881.  Nyttend (talk) 21:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Appalachia has always had distinctly different politics from the rest of the South. -- Jayron 32 01:58, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The Rise of Southern Republicans seems to discuss this in some detail, with a focus on elections to the Senate . It mentions the last Southern Republican Senator for many years being Jeter Connelly Pritchard in North Carolina, and the first being John Tower in Texas - both within the era you ask about. Warofdreams talk 19:13, 29 August 2016 (UTC)