Humanities desk
< November 10	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 12 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 11

the superstitions/beliefs of people who used bamboo as a construction material

Hi - years ago I read an excerpt of an account by a Westerner working with Asian construction workers in the early 20th Century. Their primary material was bamboo, about which they had some interesting ideas - I can remember only one of them, though, and that only vaguely: that the stems were to be laid in a certain way when stored, lest the spirit run out of them.

Can someone point me to this record, or something like it?

Thank you

Adambrowne666 (talk) 00:25, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds a lot like Feng shui, as applied to bamboo. StuRat (talk) 20:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Stu. I found this today - haven't read it in detail yet, but it looks like just the thing. Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:57, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Strange that they use "bamboos" as the plural, I always use "bamboo" as it's own plural. Reminds me of a spoken joke: "Be careful to avoid bamboo slivers". "What's a bamboose, and why do I need to avoid it's liver ?" StuRat (talk) 05:16, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

When was the District of Columbia named?

The District of Columbia was originally created as simply a 'federal district' in March 1791. In September 1791, the commissioners supervising the planning of it termed it the "Territory of Columbia". The 1801 organic act specifies "District of Columbia". However, it seems to indicate in the text of the act that the term "District of Columbia" may have already been in use (for example, "in that part of the District of Columbia" in the first section of the act); was it? Basically, for Territorial evolution of the United States, should I say "created March 1791, named Territory of Columbia September 1791, organized District of Columbia 1801"? --Golbez (talk) 03:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A surprisingly complex answer to a seemingly straightforward question. See William Tindall, "Naming the Seat of Government of the United States: A Legislative Paradox," Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. Vol. 23 (1920), pp. 10-25 (available on JSTOR and Google Books):

The first statutory mention of the name "District of Columbia" in an act of Congress, is in the title, but not in the body, of "An act authorizing a loan for the use of the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes therein mentioned," approved May 6, 1796; but a previous statutory use of the name appears in the fourth section of the act of the Maryland legislature, approved December 28, 1793, entitled "A further supplement to the act concerning the Territory of Columbia and the city of Washington." The seat of government is mentioned in at least one act of Congress as the Territory of Columbia and the District of Columbia indiscriminately. (2 Stats., 193 and 194.)

The territory at the seat of government is referred to in a number of subsequent statutes as "the District of Columbia," but it was not until February 21, 1871, that Congress directly legislated on the subject of naming it, which it did in the act of that date, entitled "An act to provide a government for the District of Columbia," as follows:

"That all that part of the territory of the United States included within the limits of the District of Columbia be, and the same is hereby, created into a government by the name of the District of Columbia, by which name it is hereby constituted a body corporate for municipal purposes." (16 Stats. 419.)

It will be noted that this statute does not name it "The District of Columbia" as the designation of the seat of government; but only created it into a local government for municipal purposes, by that name. ...

Congress again legislated on the subject, in the act entitled "An act providing a permanent form of government for the District of Columbia," approved June 11, 1878, as follows:

"That all the territory which was ceded by the State of Maryland to the Congress of the United States, for the permanent seat of government of the United States, shall continue to be designated as the District of Columbia." (20 Stats. 102). ...

...In brief it appears that Congress sought by the acts of February 21, 1871, and June 11, 1878, to name the territory at the seat of government of the United States, "The District of Columbia," ...

Tindall goes into great additional detail about the complexities of this, including Congress's confusing 18th and 19th century references to the "Federal Capital," "the City of Washington," "the Territory of Columbia," and "the District of Columbia." Neutrality^talk 05:33, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Thank you! --Golbez (talk) 14:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A number of things in American culture have acquired their names via popular usage before they became "legal". In 1878, I expect everyone would have said "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem. But it wasn't "legally" so until the 1930s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:09, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention the fact that the capital of the United States is popularly thought to be named "Washington" or "Washington, D.C.", but it's (apparently) never been so styled; the City of Washington embraced only part of the District at one time (most of the rest was part of Washington County), and none of the District has officially been named "Washington" since the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871. Nyttend (talk) 05:28, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't "Washington, D.C." an accurate reference to the City of Washington, in the District of Columbia? It's not implying that the entire District is called Washington, just like "Los Angeles, CA" means the city of Los Angeles, in the state of California. According to the article on the Organic Act, the City of Washington appears to legally still exist in its original boundaries, although it has no government separate from that of the District as a whole. These are the kinds of technicalities a lawyer would love. And it's true that "Washington, D.C." is commonly used today to refer to the whole District, but that's just an example of how common usage of names often differs from official naming. In a somewhat similar vein, Tokyo today is legally a prefecture containing dozens of individual entities, each with its own government, but in non-legal contexts, "Tokyo" is generally considered a single city. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 00:43, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, it isn't. Today, the entire district is under the same postal address, being "Washington, DC" (no periods in DC), but there is no longer any official meaning to the name "Washington" except as a postal address. The official name for the whole district is "District of Columbia", and the former names have no legal, official, or even cultural distinction anymore, excepting that Georgetown is still the name of a neighborhood within the District. While it is true that the former "imaginary lines" that defined the borders of the former entities that made up the district could still be drawn, that is certainly no different than any other defunct geographic entities. I can certainly still define, on earth today, the former boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, doing so doesn't mean that entity has any modern meaning, anymore than the former 19th century "City of Washington" does. The only two names for the U.S. Capital district are the "District of Columbia" (on official documentation and under the law) and "Washington, DC" (as a postal code). In common modern usage, the term "Washington" is rarely used by locals to refer to the city itself. It's called "DC" in common speech, while the term "Washington" is more used as a metonym for the U.S. Federal Government. --Jayron 32 13:18, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A song is a bit different from a territory or a state, though. --Golbez (talk) 20:19, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Grignon: English and French language versions of his DVD "Money as debt"

You may be familiar with Canadian Paul Grignon's theories, but his theories is not what my question is about.

Watching the French and English language versions of his 2006 DVD "Money as Debt" (in French: "L'Argent dette") I was startled by the following:

Towards the end of the DVD the English sentence:

"Few people are aware today that the history of the United States since the Revolution in 1776 has been in large part the story of an epic struggle to get free and stay free of control by the European international banks. This struggle was finally lost in 1913 [etc.]"

is translated into French (or vice versa) as follows:

"Peu de gens savent aujourd'hui que l'histoire des États-Unis depuis la révolution de 1776 a été en grande partie une lutte épique pour se libérer du contrôle des banques mondiales dominées par les Rothschild. Cette lutte a finalement été perdue en 1913 [etc.]"

The animation in both DVDs is identical, showing at that point a "financial octopus" living inside a "Central-Bank-somewhere-in-Europe" and busy (presumably) siphoning resources from the whole planet into that "Central Bank" building.

Now my questions: Any narrow explanation for this discrepancy in this particular case, e.g. an original contribution from the French translator (if the English version is the original one, which I don't know)? Can a larger conclusion be drawn regarding the cultures of the French vs the English speaking world (admittedly this is a very small sample, but this is why I am asking the question), e.g. that there is more tolerance for antisemitic tropes in the French-speaking world than in the English speaking world? Have you come across this sort of discrepancy in other French language version vs English language version of some material?

Thanks.

Contact Basemetal here 10:33, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For a larger conclusion about tolerance for antisemitic tropes, I think we would first need something more convincing than just comparing "banques mondiales dominées par les Rothschild" with "European international banks". As it is in this translation example, one could equally not convincingly enough, draw a larger conclusion about censoring in the English version, certain names that could help a better understanding of the world banking system of the past century? Akseli9 (talk) 11:48, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. To prove something about antisemitism, it would have to say "banques mondiales dominées par la famille juive les Rothschilds" or something like that. Theoretically, it could be a covert attempt at encouraging anti-semitism but it's hard to prove without something explicit. Munci (talk) 20:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The use of an octopus based in central Europe in the accompanying image is telling, although it's not as obvious a smoking gun as your hypothetical text would be. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:17, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's fair to say that including the Rothchilds makes this an antisemitic trope, whether the "juive" is explicit or tacit. You'd have to use the release dates to determine if it was added for consumption by the French, or removed to make the stance more palatable for the English speaking. - Nunh-huh 23:14, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the silliness of the contention that you'd need to specify that it was about the Jewish Rothschilds (I mean, not the Episcopalian ones) was so obvious to everyone that no response was necessary, but thanks for reacting. For anyone entertaining any doubts check out article Rothschild family and especially the paragraph Conspiracy theories and the references provided there, or more simply go to YouTube, type "Rothschild" and see what comes up. Incidentally, here is one Frenchman who seems to think like you and me. He even quotes the sentence I referred to above but does not seem to be aware it is specific to the French version.

As to the question whether it is an addition to the French version or if it is the English version that was "censored" I took a look again at the two videos and noted that the credits of the English version do not make any mention of a translator whereas the French version credits two translators, one Marc Simon who contributed a "première traduction", that would, I would guess, have been a straight translation of the English text, and one Sophie Arthaud, who contributed the "traduction finale", which might have included any tweaking and departure from the English text. The same Sophie Arthaud also contributed the voiceover of the French version. Judging by her accent she is a Frenchwoman (I mean, not French Canadian). Does anyone have any idea who that Sophie Arthaud might be?

Contact Basemetal here 11:35, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that "Rothschild" was present in the English-language source text supposedly final draft from which the French was translated, then the name was omitted from the English production version due to an editor's afterthought regarding PC or similar considerations. -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:27, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), 3rd President of the United States. Akseli9 (talk) 19:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Hey look, it's one of everyone's favorite fake Jefferson quotes. The first sentence is a fragment of a sentence he wrote, but the rest is just made up. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 22:29, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for this useful link. The original phrases by Thomas Jefferson are actually more efficient and powerful than the misquote. Here they are:

I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

The earliest known appearance of this quote is from 1895 (Joshua Douglass, "Bimetallism and Currency", American Magazine of Civics, 7:256). It is apparently a combination of paraphrases or approximate quotations from three separate letters of Jefferson (longer excerpts in sourced section):
I sincerely believe, with you, that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies... (Letter to John Taylor, 1816)
The bank mania...is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance... (Letter to Josephus B. Stuart, 1817)
Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs. (Letter to John W. Eppes, 1813)

Akseli9 (talk) 14:02, 15 November 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Foreign historians of the Western world

I've mostly never heard about this, and I am relatively well versed in the humanities.

There are many historians (in the West) interested in topics like Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, etc., history. However, the reverse seems rather rare. Notably if you exclude colonialism or race as a main or corollary subject matter. For example, a Senegalese scholar of the European Middle Ages, a Chinese one of the U.S. Civil War. Is it because of the language barrier, or it's a cultural thing? Matt714 (talk) 19:47, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well it will be very hard to find a WP:RS that has nicely compiled data on this. But just to offer a bit of a counterexample, note that Fudan University has a center for American Studies, established over 30 years ago. See their page here [1], it's far from my field, but it seems to me that many of the faculty are well-regarded historians of the Western world. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I offer a third hypothesis: they are just not well-known, and perhaps did not even get far in their field. Munci (talk) 20:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps they are well enough known in their own fields, but not popular figures. Some of the following faculty have many fine accomplishments, and are probably known to many other specialists around the world. Bilkent University has two faculty members focused on history of the USA - [2]. Tokyo Metropolitan University has a few western history specialists, one even in Ancient Greek [3]. Mind you I'm just picking non-western country names at random and searching for things like /[country adjective] university American (studies/history) department/. I think many many more examples can be found with more similar searching. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:12, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an overview written in 1988 by Takeshi Kido, Professor of European History at the University of Tokyo: "The Study of Medieval History of Europe in Japan" ---Sluzzelin talk 20:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is often considered one of the issues of Orientalism. A British scholar can freely present themselves as an expert on the Ottoman Empire, but a Turkey based writer will never be considered a serious scholar of the American Revolution. - SimonP (talk) 00:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

O really? --Jayron 32 15:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I guess Simon didn't follow my link above before he came up with his example :) Anyway, while we can come up with many examples of non-westerners studying western history, that doesn't mean the OP's claim is totally untrue either, at least as a tendency, if not a rule. I don't think it's unreasonable to think there are more academic historians of Egypt living in Britain than vice versa, and the history of the past century or so probably has something to do with that. I think the idea of Orientalism is very pertinent here, but this is now far enough from my field that I can't search well for good refs that might further support Simon's claims. I think language barrier is not an issue for modern academics, no matter their ethnicity. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:58, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think the language barrier is a big issue for modern academics. If an American scholar publishes research on Japanese history in English, Japanese academics who speak English, which is many of them, will still be able to read it. However, if a Japanese scholar publishes research on American history in Japanese, relatively few American academics will be able to read it, so the research, which might be just as good as what an American would do, will not come to the attention of the American academy. Perhaps more to the point for present purposes, it certainly will not come to the attention of general readers in the United States. And the disparity is more pronounced for Turkish or Senegalese. John M Baker (talk) 16:26, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Although unrelated to national background and not related to academic acceptance and from source who's biases are well known, there is that rather infamous exchange between scholar Reza Aslan#Fox News interview controversy who is an Iranian-American Muslim and the host of Fox News after he wrote a book on Jesus [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. Ignoring the fact Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam, which IIRC wasn't mentioned in the exchange (or at least was ignored by the host), it's hard to imagine a similar exchange by a host in anything akin to mainstream media in the West if a white Christian had just written a book about Muhammad. If the question of why did you as a Christian write a book on Muhammad did come up (particularly from Fox News), the context of the question would likely be fairly different. (Although to be fair, I think such a person may find related objections from a big chunk of the Muslim world if the book said anything they didn't like.) At least this opinion piece published by the same source makes more substanial criticism [11]. If you bring national origin in to it, I can't help thinking if the exact same book had been written by someone who was an Iranian Muslim, no one would have heard of it in the US, if the author even found a publisher. Nil Einne (talk) 20:50, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]