User talk:Rusmeister

Hello,

Regarding the edits on Education, I wasn't targeting your edits. The entire section was pov, so I removed all of the stuff about millenia and successful people, and your qualifying edits. If you see something like the statement you followed up, just delete it as opposed to arguing against it in the article. Have a nice day.

Yanksta x 11:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Alexy II

Hi, what's the point in reverting an edit I made to the homosexuality section when I did two things? I changed the grammar to reflect that he's dead... And I removed material which was synthesis. If you want to revert the latter, at least keep the grammar correct. Your edit was not particularly helpful. It would be kind if you could at least restore the grammar to the correct version. Malick78 (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Malick, I was not at all targeting your specific edits - on the contrary, we had pretty much hammered out was was expressed about his views before his death, the event which triggered every amateur and their mother to fly on the site and throw their opinions around.

It'll take a while to evaluate what, if any, changes to make. As long as people who know nothing about Russia, Orthodoxy, the patriarch, etc are flocking here in large numbers I see no point in wasting my time. As you can see, my own edits have been similarly subsumed.

One thing that I do think ought to be admitted, and that is that people who really know something about a topic - ie, have broad-based knowledge, should be deferred to when speaking of the area of their expertise over people who merely have opinions, informed minimally or not at all. Whether it's the orthodox Church, the patriarch or the theory of evolution, having dilettantes and amateurs who don't really know anything posting opinions does not truly communicate knowledge or truth - only their own worldview. Rusmeister (talk) 08:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Dewey

Rusmeister, I could not agree more whole-heartedly with your comment on dilettantes and amateurs above. That is why I removed your statement that Dewey was an atheist from the Dewey article. Clearly, you have not read Dewey's book "A Common Faith." He was much more a Spinozan than a dyed-in-the-wool atheist. Mark DietzMddietz (talk) 20:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Mddietz, Clearly, you are not familiar with Spinoza, if you think it anything substantially distinctive from atheism. "Spinozan atheist" might do for a more accurate description, but the extent to which he was Spinozan is debatable. But the denial of a personal God is quite clear. Making insinuations about what one has read or not read is an ad hominem attack. I had to read quite enough of Dewey to get my teaching certificate to be quite clear that a) his views were essentially atheist, whatever specific term you care to try to hide them behind and b) that that essentially atheist worldview was the thing that shaped his education philosophy (see "Moral principles of Education" 1909 and "Democracy and Education" ch 26 "Theories of Morals"). Rusmeister (talk) 04:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Russmeister, I am glad you are back and contributing to the Dewey page. I am quite willing to work with you. Asking if you had read a specific reference was certainly NOT meant as ad hominem; I'm sorry if it came across that way and looking at how I wrote it I can see that it was not stated very well. My apologies.

A Common Faith is the pertinent reference -- it is the major source for what we know about Dewey's religious beliefs. The otehr references you give require us to infer his religious beliefs which in the absence of A Common Faith we might have to do, but we do have A Common Faith and the work of scholars like Rockefeller (and as I will point out at the end of this paragraph Donald Stone and myself.) You are right, frankly, on Spinoza's influence on Dewey, but I believe, nonetheless, that there is more quesiton relative to Spinoza's beliefs than you seem to allow for, but lets just call that a difference of opinion shall we? and not so really relevant anyways -- I was shorthanding the issue. And, of course, the denial of a personal god may be relevant to Dawkins style atheists who have no idea what they are talking about and can imagine nothing other than a personal god -- I am not at all a fan of Dawkins and his militant extremists, a vulgar bunch who want to be rid of ALL religion, and Dewey also made it clear he wanted nothing to do with agressive atheism either which is one of several reasons that he refused to accept the descirptor of atheist. Frankly, Dewey's most significant influence in this respect was Matthew Arnold (who had his own peculiar reading of Spinoza), and for that you will need to see Rockefeller, Donald Stone (Communications with the Future) and my own book (An Awkward Echo: Matthew Arnold and John Dewey).

Now I really must apologize again. I do think my comments above were a little out of line, while not really meant to be offensive, I can see how you took them as such. I ask you to forgive me. I am sure we can work together. As for "A Common Faith" it is the relevant reference, but you and I cannot write about it here (that would constitute secondary research). We could write about Rockefeller's findings, or Stone's, but, of course, my own findings are off-limits to me. Oh and I agree with you on the "albiet minor" being POV. Good catch. Mddietz (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)