Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 August 31

= August 31 =

Pétain's degradation
An interesting question has arisen about Philippe Pétain, the disgraced French former hero. Our article says "After his conviction, the court stripped Pétain of all military ranks and honours, including the distinction of Marshal of France", but later says that the title Marshal of France was "The sole award retained following his trial in 1945". The French article Philippe Pétain says he was stripped of the title, as does the French article Maréchal de France. I should thank for noticing the problem and raising it at Talk:Philippe Pétain. So - what was it? Did the process of dégradation nationale strip him of the rank or title of Marshal of France or didn't it? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 11:14, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * —— Shakescene (talk) 18:12, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Responded at Talk:Philippe Pétain, where further discussion should be addressed. Mathglot (talk) 18:32, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I asked here because over a month had passed on the talk page since it was raised there. Please can people answer here. DuncanHill (talk) 18:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, this is not the optimal location for discussing this. The proper venue for discussing a question directly related to the content of a Wikipedia article, is the talk page of the article. Reference desk can be used for off-Wikipedia questions, even questions unrelated to any Wikipedia article. While there is no prohibition for using it for something relating to a Wikipedia article, there is a disadvantage in doing so, in that the editors concerned with questions about Philippe Pétain won't necessarily find it here. Additionally, once this discussion is archived, it will be much more difficult to find if it's archived here, whereas if archived at the Talk:Philippe Pétain archives, the built-in archive search box at the top of the Pétain page will find it, but only if the discussion is held there. Mathglot (talk) 18:58, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Well, you are allowed to use the RefDesks to ask for references, which can then be used to improve articles. However, after wading through some of these, thereby severely testing my very rusty French comprehension, I have drawn a blank on the issue. Alansplodge (talk) 17:25, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I concur with Alansplodge; the closing of the discussion by the OP, and their closing statement, is almost certainly a misunderstanding of what Mathglot was saying to them (even ignoring the fact that the answers by one person do not represent anything like standard procedure). Mathglots opinion on the use of the ref desks in this case is really just the feelings of one person, and the OP should have given them that much weight.  Secondly, Mathglot is correct in the sense that article talk pages do have the advantage of preserving discussions of article content in close proximity to the page.  The ref desk is a perfectly good place to attract attention to issues such as this, and I invite  to reopen their discussion.  There are could be other answers given by many other people than just Mathglot, and if Mathglots answer is insufficient for DuncanHill's purpose, they are not required to give it any heed.  -- Jayron 32 18:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The primary point of the Reference Desk is article improvement. Nyttend (talk) 20:11, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * (e/c, was typed after Jayron pinged me) Of course the RefDesk is a perfectly good place to ask, and answer, a question like this, and we have a long and honourable tradition of digging up sources to improve articles, often articles with moribund talk pages. Given that the question hadn't got a definite answer on the article talk page before I came here then this is probably a much better place than there. But some people are very protective of their articles, and I don't have the energy to deal with behaviour like Mathglot's anymore. Just close it down and walk away. If anyone else thinks it's an interesting question then they are of course free to ask it again. Petain was one of the most significant figures of two world wars, and our article's coverage of his trial and conviction is, to put it frankly, crap. I've never been one to stop people using the Desks for interesting questions, however outré. But please leave me out of it, and don't ping me. I took this page off my watchlist as soon as I hatted the thread, and it will stay that way till I decide I'm up to coming back. DuncanHill (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Claiming to be crazy
I have watching an Argentine TV series where the crimes of the bad guy have finally been proved, he has been captured and sent to jail (at the police station for the time being), he has no legal way to get out... so he started acting like a madman in the cell, talking in Gollum style as if he had a personality disorder, hoping that he would be diagnosed to be mentally ill and then sent to a madhouse instead of a proper prison.

I'm sure that it can't be so easy in real life. Is there an article about such a legal recourse, so I can compare it with the way the plot is unfolding? Cambalachero (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Sounds a bit like Vincent Gigante, for whom that ruse worked, at least for a while. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:59, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * See also Twinkie defense. --Lambiam 18:51, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * See also M'Naghten rules, guilty but insane, fit to plead, criminally insane. DuncanHill (talk) 18:55, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * A fundamental principle underpinning most legal systems is the ability of a person to formulate criminal intent for an act prohibited in their legal code. In many Anglo-Saxon systems, this is known as the mens rea, and in the French penal code as the "moral element". This is why children are not held criminally liable, because almost all jurisdictions hold that they are unable to form criminal intent. The same question of intent applies to various mental disorders among adults, and is a thorny question. In French law, "imputability" is an attempt to define this, as the "ability of someone to recognize their action as being unlawful", and it appears that the Argentine penal code Title V – Imputabilidad deals with exactly the same topic, in particular, art. 34 §1. This appears to underlie the plot of the Argentine TV series, as you describe it. Mathglot (talk) 19:52, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * In the US we have United States v. Kantor (1987). See Strict liability_(criminal).  We could probably use an article about that case.  What I'm getting at is that it wasn't litigated until fairly recently in US historical terms.  Plus that was a circuit court decision: I've no idea what the current SCOTUS would say. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6032 (talk) 03:07, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

WWII: Japanese-Americans in Japanese military
During World War II, were there any Japanese-Americans in the Japanese army and other military? 86.130.49.195 (talk) 19:47, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, Stranded: Nisei in Japan Before, During, and After World War II has some details. Alansplodge (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * And were they all placed in US concentration camps because of their race? 86.130.49.195 (talk) 18:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * That's improbable. Rather for reasons of the kind of blindness leading to preventive paranoia: "No sabotage by Japanese Americans has yet been confirmed, but it only proves a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." --Askedonty (talk) 19:15, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Aren't you confusing Japanese-Americans in the USA with Japanese-Americans in Japan that the OP was aking about? Alansplodge (talk) 12:17, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I thought the OP was asking his race question about Japanese-Americans not serving in the Japanese army during WWII, and living in the US instead. The sentence "US concentration camps post WWII" was not leading in the Google search engine to results related to Japanese-Americans having served in foreign military. --Askedonty (talk) 19:04, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
 * In the WWII TV film Women of Valor, the POW camp commander Captain Nakayama spoke with an American accent. According to the female inmates, he was born in San Francisco and was studying in Japan when he was inducted into the military service. He mentions all Japanese-Americans had been placed in concentration camps because of the color of their skin. His parents chose not to endure that shame and chose to take their own lives. 86.130.49.195 (talk) 21:56, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I doubt the level of detail is realistic. Here is one concrete case:, a young man who grew up in the land of plenty and was suddenly promised to a dull existence as someone who had been institutionally excluded. If I'm cold about it it's because I've been there - that counts too. Parents taking their own life and their children's because of the enemy coming is all around the world during WWII. --Askedonty (talk) 22:27, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
 * See also Kawakita v. United States Eliyohub (talk) 15:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)