Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 February 21

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February 21

DWK statue

I have a statue of the Archangel Michael with DMK 2002 on it. It fell over and broke and when I picked it up inside was the head of a cherub inside looking right at me. maybe a flaw but to this day it gives me chills. really curious,Zuech1 (talk) 06:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

You thought you were scared? Just imagine how the cherub felt. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Is that DWK or DMK? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Moral event horizon: does morality exist in North Korea?

Wikipedia's recent news item on human rights in North Korea is uniquely appalling. I should say that I have, at times, questioned whether such reports could be accurate, doubting that a society can be entirely hellish toward all of its inhabitants at once, and to the extent I might believe it, it causes me to doubt, for example, ideas for spreading life to other planets, on the basis that we may be of such monstrous essence that it would be better for all life to perish, without so much as a microbial Noah to survive the steam-cleaning, than to risk writing and rewriting such scenarios across the infinite heavens. But what I'd like to ask in particular is whether there is any theory of morality that has addressed, either to assert or repudiate, that in such societies morality can become utterly irrelevant because they are already in need of destruction.

For example, imagine the Bombing of Dresden in World War II is imminent. Supposing it is justified to prevent Nazis from oppressing all Europe, could we say it would be wrong for a psychogenic arsonist to burn down individual buildings in the city for his personal amusement? Would it be wrong to steal a car that the world wants to see bombed anyway? Would it be wrong for a man to beat the wife who we're about to try to drop a blockbuster bomb on? Is anything wrong in such a situation -- even to the extent of collaborating with the regime's mindless ravings in the hope of being someone akin Lenin's "wreckers" and helping the society to lose all connection with reality and destroy itself?

Now I do intend this to be a question, not an argument; I recognize that there were those among the early Christians who developed a profound morality in opposing a regime little better than the worst of our own era (and only due to the blessings of technological backwardness). I'm just wondering if there is an overall analysis of the concept. Wnt (talk) 09:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you are asking but it sounds like you're interested in Normative_ethics. 196.214.78.114 (talk) 10:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

North Korea is at war with South Korea, United States and Japan. The Bombing of Dresden was during war. The arsonist is not burning down a building during war. The car is not being stolen during war.
Sleigh (talk) 10:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Sleigh, North Korea is not at war with Japan. See Korean War. Oda Mari (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't read Korean, but I'd bet the Korean wikipedia (being in the language standard in both warring countries) has some real experience in balancing our concerns for humanity like WnT's with impartial reporting. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Responses in this direction do call on known doctrine. In particular, the Thomas Aquinas version of just war theory states that war should be done by a properly instituted authority (i.e. not random people) and with motives of peace rather than self-gain (not psychogenic arsonists). But how does the first interact with a world in which partisans and even lone whistleblowers are key to conflicts? And how does the second interact with the reality that those in the military may get pleasure from an enemy's suffering, while an arsonist might have a valid grudge against a society as well as gaining personal satisfaction? Lastly, there's the issue of whether Dresden is a war zone but North Korea isn't. Technically, North Korea is a war zone; even the armistice has been repudiated. How can the morality of an action be determined based on whether an undeclared peace exists or doesn't exist far away from the scene? More generally, if someone within a society believes it should be the target of war but it is not, then doesn't that give him more justification for any harmful action than if he knew that established authorities and professionals elsewhere would do it for him? Wnt (talk) 15:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Of course concepts of morality exist in North Korea, just as concepts of morality persisted in Nazi Germany. Just because a country's ruling elite seem to defy morality as we, or most people, understand it doesn't mean that there is no morality in that country. Very likely many North Koreans view their leadership as immoral. On the other hand, the Nazis and very likely the North Korean ruling elite had their own warped view of morality. In the view of the Nazis, they were engaged in a moral mission of ridding Europe of what they considered "inferior races". I am less familiar with the North Korean case, but one wouldn't be surprised if they justified their actions with a warped version of Confucian-derived role ethics. Marco polo (talk) 15:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd also point out that it is almost impossible to imagine a case in which an entire society is in need of destruction, as you have put it. The leadership may be in need of replacement, the ruling ideology may be in need of rejection, but ordinary people living as morally as they can under a murderous government are not in need of destruction. The immoral actions of a government, or the fact that a country is technically at war do not suspend the strictures of morality. During military combat with an enemy in a just war, if one accepts that concept, the moral standards that would apply may be different than those that apply between civilians not engaged in combat, but in each case, there are moral standards that apply. For example, there is no way that a man is justified in beating his wife just because his country is in a state of war. Marco polo (talk) 16:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Not only do they consider that they are moral, it may well be that the regime has considerable support and that they consider themselves morally superior, as this article claims: https://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/02/19/northkorea/ . I have read other articles that claim the similar things. See Moral relativism. DanielDemaret (talk) 16:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

On a smaller scale, it may be instructional to compare smaller moral differences among western countries. Many from especially small countries in the EU consider the US to be immoral for upholding the death penalty. DanielDemaret (talk) 16:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Let's not get into a debate about the death penalty, but of course not everyone subscribes to the same moral standards. The death penalty issue is relevant to my point about North Korea, if one considers the death penalty immoral. (If one doesn't consider the death penalty immoral, it's relevant only insofar as it points out that moral standards are not universal.) There are many Americans who agree that the death penalty is immoral. For this reason, the existence of the death penalty in the United States, even if one considers it immoral, cannot be used to argue that all Americans are immoral or that morality doesn't exist in the United States. Marco polo (talk) 16:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree. DanielDemaret (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@[User:Wnt], I am curious to whether you think Moral relativism relates to what you would consider and "overall analysis of the concept." or whether I have misunderstood the question. DanielDemaret (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't really much understand moral relativism. In fact, the second sentence of our article, "because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to..." pretty much sums up the problem. At least superficially, it is relevant, in that it suggests the morality is different in different countries; but if I understand at all it would seem to bend the rules in favor of an oppressive country's basic conduct rules rather than finding them invalid. Wnt (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

That said, perhaps I'm missing a point, because there's still the question of judgment to consider. As awful as the report paints the country as being, I still even now do reserve consideration that it might not be impartial, and that indeed as User:Marco polo says there could be plenty of good people there being ignored. Can you have an isolated society where a substantial fraction of the people are good yet everyone is, unnecessarily, at the very edge of utter misery? Well in any case I recognize that someone who is actually there should be in a better position to judge whether life is unbearable than someone far away. And I don't understand why they don't take that action. North Korea is famous for having an impressive array of biological weapons stored up, even bizarre hybrids of smallpox that would be of unprecedented lethality. What I don't really understand is why it would be that among the people working at one of those facilities, seeing how bad things are, facing the ever constant threat of brutality themselves, some one of them doesn't take some of the stuff, gulp it down, go home and kiss his family goodbye, and wander around the country spreading ... mercy. (Actually, it was consideration of the potential for this to happen and what it would imply for those of us outside the country that are at the motivational origin of this question...) Wnt (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@[User:Wnt], in the long run we're all dead, our planet is dead, the universe is dead. The question of why and how to live in the meantime is the heart of existentialism. It's easy to act morally when social pressure supports moral action and you expect a payoff to moral behavior (or a penalty for randomly burning down buildings). On the other hand, it's exactly when moral (or ethical) actions carry a heavy cost and the results are uncertain that moral decisions are thrown into the sharpest relief. They are stripped bare of habit, self-interest, and social expectation. I would say that morality exists in North Korea or it doesn't exist anywhere at all. Since you were wondering about analyses of this concept, I think you're basically looking for existentialist ideas of ethics and morality. Of course there are a lot of divergent views under that heading. --Amble (talk) 19:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It would clearly be immoral by any number of moral standards for a North Korean to spread a biowarfare agent around the country with the intention of killing as many of his countrymen as possible. One such argument would be that, even if there is a lot of misery in North Korea, even if most of the people are miserable most of the time (which I don't think we know is true), many North Koreans may still find meaning and fulfillment in life. Occasional, widely scattered moments of joy, such as expressions of love or experiences of the beauty of nature, may make life worth living for millions of North Koreans, even amid vast suffering. Most moral standards would agree that no individual has the right to take the life of another (except perhaps in combat, again depending on one's moral standards). Marco polo (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

For North Koreans morality is based on "What would Kim Do?" just like some Christians base their morality on What Would Jesus Do?. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

There's an extremely weird and evil cult that bases its morality on some obscure clerk, but I wouldn't give them the time of day. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

If there were no morals at all in North Korea, would they still be able bring up children in their 11-year compulsory school? There has to be love in there somewhere for this to work, doesn't there? DanielDemaret (talk) 23:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@[User:Wnt], I have just read human rights in North Korea . It brings to mind how people were treated in several western european countries up to few hundred years ago. In fact, I think I could make a case that human rights were violated even worse in England, France and Sweden three hundred years ago. There seemed to be a race as to who could invent the most cruel methods of execution. Hanged, drawn and quartered was just one out of a hundred. The way poor people starved all over Europe was appalling. Foreign aid, food, came from Italy to starving Sweden, for example, asking nothing in return. There were a number of problems. First of all, the Italians would be burned for being Catholic, as was the law in Sweden. Secondly, even when they finally agreed to unload the food, Swedish poor people were not allowed to touch it, because of their way of interpreting Lutheran ethics at the time. They had to invent hard nonsense labor for the poor to do since the idea was that only people who worked were allowed to eat. Trials were a sham by the standards of any modern country. North Korea may have no worse morals than 18th century Western Europe had, and we still attribute morals to Western Europe . There was a reason that France had a revolution and that millions of Swedes, those who could afford the ticket, fled to the USA even in the 20th Century. There is one big difference. For those who could afford to travel and were not indentured, borders between countries did not restrict people from travelling. This would have made it obvious to people in France at the end of the 18th century that they were ill treated compared to Switzerland, for example. It is the isolation of people and their ideas that makes North Korean violations possible today. The relatively modern idea that states may restrict movement across borders. DanielDemaret (talk) 06:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Morality in NK is presumably whatever Kim decides it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:39, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

From the article, it seems to me that the human rights abuses in North Korea are similar to those in (wartime) Nazi Germany, minus the Holocaust; the latter might thus be a better example of morals in extreme situations. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Nappy pack sizes

Can anyone shed any light on why nappies should come in packs of 74? Or why dishwasher tablets should come in packs of 51? It must relate to projected usage but I wonder why the quantities wouldn't be rounded up for easier accounting... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Total speculation/OR here, but maybe in the past the item was a different size. Rather then retool the production machinery for larger or smaller packaging, it might be easier and cheaper to modify the quantity in each package and the printing on the outside. So for example, maybe at one time there were 100 nappies in a packet, but the nappies got thicker (more absorbant) and now there is only room for 74 in the same size packet. Astronaut (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It may have to do with ensuring that the product fits snugly into a container fitted to standard pallet sizes. A product will be cheaper to warehouse and ship if it can be packed in multiples tightly into the area of a pallet. The manufacturer and/or retailer has probably balanced the most popular quantities and price points with those physical constraints. For example, they may know that customers would like about 50 or 75 nappies at a time, but not be able to create economical packages with exactly those amounts. They can create profitable packages that come close containing 51 or 74 nappies, so that's what they offer. Marco polo (talk) 19:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be a UK thing. In the US Fairy comes in 34 tablets: [[1]]. I suppose they set the weight first and then they see how to divide the amount into x tablets. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no such thing as US Fairy. That's a European brand. Did you see the shipping charges to the US? Marco polo (talk) 19:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

That's completely right. Now I wonder who pays that $40 to get it shipped to the US. Otherwise, I agree with your explanation above about the convenience of packaging this way as the reason of these numbers of units. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Downsizing is one possibility. In the US, at least, a seller who wants to increase profits knows that raising prices will be noticed, but slightly decreasing the quantity of product may not be. And with things like liquid detergent there's always the twist that they can disguise the downsizing by claiming the product is now "more concentrated". So, maybe it's now 10% more concentrated but in a 20% smaller package, and perhaps after everyone gets used to the smaller quantity they will go back to the original concentration. (They should have to list the amount of the active ingredients, to prevent this particular scam.) StuRat (talk) 19:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It's difficult to tell. For example, when you mentioned dishwasher tablets coming in packs of 51, I immediately thought that they were in three packs of 17 and then Osman essentially supported that by saying the other pack-size was 34 (also divisible by 17). It could be that whoever figured out how many to stick in a box laid 17 out (in rows of 6,5,6) to figure out how many tightly fit per layer and then figured 3 layers would fit in the "carton" and 2 layers in the "box" ("and try our new jumbo 68-pack for real saving!"). It could also be that the die used to form the tablets was laid out in 6,5,6. It may sound unlikely, but I assure you such prosaic explanations are entirely possible; never mind that they don't actually sit in the box in neat layers anyway. Matt Deres (talk) 21:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

White opposition to the Jim Crow laws

I've been reading about the issues of racial discrimination in the United States, mostly between the Civil War and the 1960s. I'm curious that while there were campaigns by individual African Americans and bodies such as the NAACP, there is almost no mention of liberal white attitudes of the time. For example, while the Kate Brown (plaintiff in racial discrimination case) article doesn't mention the intervention of a white man, when I read up on the case itself she was indeed helped by a Mr Hinds (see here). Was the intervention of Mr Hinds, a white person coming to the assistance of an African American, a very unusual thing? Did no white person make any attempt to intervene, for example in the beating of Isaac Woodard, or when Rosa Parks was arrested, or in countless other cases? Why was it up to the (federal) courts to force the repeal of Jim Crow laws, rather then white public opinion? Astronaut (talk) 20:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Look at the Freedom Riders, Freedom Summer, Mississippi civil rights workers' murders, notice all the white folk singers who had songs about those events, etc. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 21:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• I don't suppose you've heard of the Republican Party? Jim Crow was largely imposed on the nation by the Senate. The railroads fought segregation, they didn't ask for it. It was imposed on them by the Fedral Gubmint. μηδείς (talk) 22:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what that means -- before the early 1930's, U.S. blacks were aligned with the Republican party much more than with the Democratic party, and such civil rights laws as existed in the 19th century were almost always passed with Republican support (not to mention the 13th-15th Amendments). In fact, Jim Crow laws were much more a product of the individual states, and railway segregation was basically due to the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court (during its 1857-1937 politicized period) weakened the interpretation of Republican-passed provisions to the point where the states were able to impose it on the railways. It was Democrat Woodrow Wilson who segregated federal government employees... It wasn't until the 1970's that deep south whites turned to the Republican party in large numbers. AnonMoos (talk) 00:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. It was (white) Republicans who opposed Jim Crow, not Robert Byrds. μηδείς (talk) 03:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, it was the 60s and not the 70s. See Southern strategy. The "flip-flop" of the parties (Republicans as progressives and Democrats as southern conservatives back in the 1860-1920 period) to the modern, largely opposite, alignment started in the 1930s, and took a good 50 years to work itself out. The Democratic party, which had its power base in the Solid South started in the 1930s putting forward Northern elite old-money candidates to combat what had been a Republican hold on most of the national-level politics for the better part of the first few decades of the 20th century. Franklin Roosevelt alienated many of the Southern Democrats; eventually leading to the Dixiecrat split in 1948. Those conservative Southern Democrats stayed democrats, but left the National-level power of the party and had nowhere to go until Nixon and Goldwater's southern strategy convinced many of them to finally give up their yellow dog status and they became a major part of the strong support that ushered Nixon in in 1968. However, there were still quite progressive Republicans even into the late 1960s (see Pete McCloskey) The last piece of the political swap came in the 1980s, when formerly Democratic northern white labor (politically conservative but traditionally Democratic voters who supported the Democratic party because they were strong labor supporters) switch to support Reagan and became so-called Reagan Democrats. So yes, it is correct that the parties were once "Republican= progressive and Democratic =conservative" and have since swapped, but it didn't happen overnight and took about half a century to occur. Even today, however, it's not as monolithic as the FOX/MSNBC split makes it appear. There's still conservative Democrats (the Blue Dog Coalition including people like Brad Ellsworth and Heath Shuler) and still progressive Republicans (before he had designs on national office, Mitt Romney basically invented Obamacare, many of his political positions changed dramatically when he ran for president. See also politicians like Richard Tisei, and Carl DeMaio). Politics in America is diverse and complicated. --Jayron32 02:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

As you mentioned, in national elections Southerners started significantly dissenting from Democratic presidential candidates as early as 1948, but locally I don't think that large numbers of Southern whites in most areas transferred over to the Republican party until the 1970s... AnonMoos (talk) 04:31, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

No, it was a decade earlier. Read again the link I noted above to the Southern strategy. See the map at File:ElectoralCollege1964.svg, in 1964 Goldwater took the entirety of the Deep south; in 1960 Kennedy still won some of those states, while the situation in Mississippi and Alabama that election was "confused" by the election of "unpledged electors" in those states who, though Democratic, decided to cast their ballots for southern Democrat Harry F. Byrd, a vocal segregationist who wasn't even running for President that year. So you can see that in 1960, the south is basically "We don't like these Northerners who like civil rights, but we don't know what to do about that, and we're very confused" and by 1964 the south is all "Yeah, screw it, we're all Republicans now." The transition between the Solid South as a Democratic stronghold to a Republican one is basically played out in the space between those two elections (1960-1964). The basic process started earlier, but the actual flip in party alignment in the deep south was in the early part of the 1960s. It took a bit longer for the "old guard" of local politicians to die off/retire, so for example many of the incumbent Democratic politicians from the old Solid South hung around until the 1970s, the voters themselves were identifying with the Republican party on a national level by the Goldwater candidacy in 1964. --Jayron32 05:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm actually going to partially contradict myself, and reinforce my earlier statement that "Politics in America is diverse and complicated". Looking at the maps at the various House of Representatives elections, the Solid South remained solid Democratic from a House perspective until the 1990s Republican Revolution. Except for a few random districts through the Deep South, the entire area remains stubbornly Blue from the 1960s right through 1990. Start at the United States House of Representatives elections, 1990 and watch the map of the Deep South change rapidly over the next three election cycles from Blue to Red. It isn't until 1998 or so that the Deep South became fully Republican from a House of Representatives point of view. --Jayron32 05:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not a coincidence that 1948 is in the time-frame where Democrats began taking up in earnest, the cause of civil rights for minorities. And by the 1960s, the Democrats were strong on civil rights, and passed reform legislation over the objections of guys like Barry Goldwater. The hard truth is that no US president since Lincoln, neither Democrat or Republican, was willing to seriously challenge the white-supremacist status quo of the south, until the Truman years. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:21, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Grant cracked down very hard against the KKK (see Enforcement Acts etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:34, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

While it is interesting that the south switched from Democrat to Republican (although the exact timing of the change seems in dispute), it doesn't really answer my question. I'm rather looking for examples of individual liberal-minded whites intervening in the manner of Mr Hinds, rather than politicians or civil-rights workers. Astronaut (talk) 15:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Appliance kidnapping?

Part of the Vance Miller article is the intriguing idea that, in November 1995, he was sentenced to 18 months on counts of kidnapping and affray following an altercation with his neighbours over a missing kitchen unit. Is something missing here, or did the guy get charged with kidnapping because he took the kitchen unit? The source is print, so I can't check it. Nyttend (talk) 23:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

A sin in Appliantology? -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The Times law report of 28 November 1996 (page 45) states: "LORD JUSTICE ROSE, giving the judgment of the court, said that the prosecution case was that the appellant had kidnapped one Robert Macey and his common-law wife, Carol Jones. They had been neighbours of the appellant and the offences took place against a background of a missing or stolen kitchen unit." Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:20, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Here's his own explanation [2]:

...kidnapping charge that followed his 'citizen's arrest' of a gang who had repeatedly robbed his mother's house. "I staked the place out and collared them when they tried the next time. But then I was the one charged for catching them and they were let off".

StuRat (talk) 00:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Article edited to clarify what went on. Thanks for the help. Nyttend (talk) 01:51, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Having just read that article, I think the word kitchen must be used differently in British English than American. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 03:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, while Americans use "kitchen" solely to mean the room, I suspect that Brits also use the term for the sum of the contents, as in "I need to buy a new kitchen". This is similar to how "wardrobe" can mean all your clothes, or the closet in which they are stored. Can a UK English speaker confirm this ? StuRat (talk) 04:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed - see Kitchens from only £395

Oh, I completely missed the point. I thought he was some sort of construction professional with a side business of selling fixtures. Nyttend (talk) 13:41, 22 February 2014 (UTC)