Humanities desk
< October 17	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 19 >

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.

October 18

Why there is no article about Antisemitism or racism in Iran?

I wonder why there is no separate article about Antisemitism in Iran. Antisemitism in Iran is actually a redirect to Antisemitism#Iran. And Racism in Iran is again a redirect to Racism_in_Asia#Iran. Is there something wrong here? 46.225.10.109 (talk) 05:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These are not long enough for separate articles, so it's more appropriate to include them in something of more suitable length. IBE (talk) 08:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As for why there isn't much info about antisemitism in Iran, that's probably due to the lack of a free press there, so any reporter or citizen talking about that might end up in prison. StuRat (talk) 02:49, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The concrete structural reason why there is not a separate article is an insufficiency of text at the two articles you point to. (Though there is also Holocaust denial in Iran). The operational reason why there is no article is that no-one has got around to writing it yet. I suggest that if you are concerned, your time would be better spent in writing the artice than in arguing the toss here. As you might expect given the contentious nature of the subject-matter, references to reliable sources will be required for claims made on the page. I very much look forward to reading your work. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:07, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Look at Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism#Israel and Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism#India to see that Iran is strongly anti-Israeli. So, it's hard to believe they aren't anti-Semitic at home. Here's a Washington Post article about anti-Semitism in Iran: [1]. StuRat (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As for lack of freedom of the pres in Iran, here's a source for you: [2]. Note that the actual charges aren't going to be "saying something we didn't like", the authorities will make up some false charges. StuRat (talk) 19:37, 26 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Name of the weapon

What is this weapon held by two figures flanking the woman? Looks like some sort of club, rather than bladed. A vajra? --Brandmeister^talk 08:01, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The story - Tilottama - just says clubs. Wymspen (talk) 08:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

J. A. B. van Buitenen uses "horrible clubs" in his translation of the Mahabharata. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone finds a specific name for it might be worth adding to this list Club (weapon)#Types. MarnetteD|Talk 15:27, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One that's missing on that list is the gada, but most depictions of gadas show a weapon with a more bulbous head compared to the shaft we see in Brandmeister's example, even in the example of this sculpture (see Kaumodaki). Then again, maybe the gada doesn't belong on that list as it's also considered a mace, and it does feature in our article on mace along with the shishpar. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:34, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be similar to a Japanese Kanabō, but no luck finding an Indian equivalent. Alansplodge (talk) 13:17, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But I have just found in this forum an Indian octagonal-section iron mace called a sonta. Alansplodge (talk) 13:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Parable or story referring to a red harness on a white horse, or something similar?

I'm trying to think of a saying or parable or quote I read years ago, to the effect of "(something) is as unfitting to (someone) as ..." and the closest I can remember it is, something like "...like a red bridle on a white horse" or something like that.

I think it could be a well known quote. Any hints? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is "Poverty befits Israel like a red trapping a white horse" in this translation of the Hagigah (and other translations do use "bridle")---Sluzzelin talk 10:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A red bridle on a white horse sounds quite striking, to me. StuRat (talk) 20:42, 24 October 2016 (UTC) [reply]

Climate in the Upper Midwest (USA), agriculture, arable lands, opportunities etc. around year 1900

I'm doing a school assignment, writing about this here fictional Norwegian immigrating to USA. For obvious reasons, it is only natural that I place the story in Minnesota or surrounding states (Wisconsin, the Dakotas or Iowa), as that is mainly where Norwegian immigrants settled.

There was a lot of poverty in Norway back in the late 1800s / early 1900s, and agriculture was always hard in such a Northern climate, with lots of mountainous regions, not to mention the lack of agricultural technology that we have today. With Norway being a winter-nation, the search for arable lands was one of the main things that lured Norwegians across the Atlantic.

So I wonder about Minnesota and nearby states around year 1900. It seems to me that the climate in Minnesota ain't that different from Norwegian climate, with proper winters and all, which begs the question; how was agriculture in the Upper Midwest back then?? Were the lands truly arable? What work-opportunities did people have to sustain themselves? I reckon the worst of the Gold Rush was over by then, right. I'm not asking for answers for free, because I will need to find sources to confirm my findings anyhow.

I'm looking for articles that might be helpful to me. If you have information/knowledge to add beyond that, then that's a bonus, and might be helpful

Krikkert7 (talk) 11:58, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Norwegian diaspora has scant detail, but Swedish emigration to the United States has lots of relevant links to what they got up to in the New World, and a lot of that would roughly apply to Norwegians as well. History_of_Minnesota#Early_European_settlement_and_development has some info. Here [3] is what looks like a very nice and detailed description of Euro-American farms in MN in that time period. This [4] looks to be a great resource on Norwegian immigration in that time/place too. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) While some parts of Minnesota are similar to Norway (e.g. the Mesabi Range), there is also lots of land suitable for farming in the state, and it was opened up to settlement just as Scandinavians began to emigrate in large numbers. Here's an interesting study on the history of agriculture in the state [5]. You may also want to look at Vilhelm Moberg's classic novel The Emigrants, which explains the lure of the Midwest for poor Swedish farmers in the mid-19th century: it was a veritable land of milk of honey compared to what they were leaving behind. Look also at Swedish emigration to the United States (remembering that Norway was apart of Sweden at the time). --Xuxl (talk) 15:13, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Norway was a part of Sweden. Today it is apart of Sweden. Isn't the English Language fun! --Jayron 32 15:28, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Norway was in a union with Sweden, but was a separate country. Moberg would still be useful. --Hegvald (talk) 14:43, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And if reading Moberg's books is too hard, you could watch the two movies. Deor (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks guys. That gives me lots to work with. Krikkert7 (talk) 18:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Number of people killed at auschwitz

Accord to the article on Auschwitz, the number of people that died at Auschwitz was 1.1 million people. I thought the death toll was 4 million.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a source or reference for that 4 million figure? Wikipedia's article is cited to these works for the 1.1 million number:

Rees, Laurence (2005). Auschwitz: A New History. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 1-58648-303-X.
Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00239-9.

If you have a source for the 4 million number, perhaps we could understand what the difference is. --Jayron 32 16:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was in Final Solution:Attempt to exterminate Jews in Europe.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And was it specifically about Auschwitz, which was only one of many killing centres? --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, it was about the holocaust in general.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't remember the page number from the top of my head.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I think it was page 500162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This book? Maybe you just misremembered the number... --Jayron 32 17:00, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that's the book.162.246.17.125 (talk) 17:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

According to The review on this page here, "Reitlinger describes the extermination of Jews in great detail, arriving at a probable range of 4.2 to 5.7 million murdered Jews (p. 501)" That's total across the entirety of Europe, not merely just at Auschwitz. Your confusion seems to be total genocide vs. those killed at just one complex. Also please note that Reitlinger's book is 55 years old; his numbers are in range of the current accepted scholarship, but a bit lower, which gives about 6 million Jewish people killed among 11 million total deaths in The Holocaust. --Jayron 32 18:17, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's no confusion. The plaque at Auschwitz said 4 million until 1992; the number was inflated to suggest that non-Jewish Poles were the primary victims. [6] --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 20:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An identical question was posted on 27 June 2016, possibly by the same person. The answer then (as now) was: "On May 12th, 1945, a few months after the liberation of Auschwitz, a Soviet State Commission reported that not less than four million people were murdered there. This number was displayed at the Auschwitz State Museum until 1991, when it was lowered to 1.1 million. The total death toll for Jews in the Holocaust, however, stayed at about six million". [7] Alansplodge (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on the author of the book, Gerald Reitlinger, covers this perfectly:

During the 1950s he wrote two books about the Holocaust: The SS: Alibi of a Nation and The Final Solution, both of which achieved large sales. In the latter book, he alleged that Soviet claims of the Auschwitz death toll being 4 million were "ridiculous", and he suggested an alternative figure of 800,000 to 900,000 dead; about 4.2 to 4.5 million was his estimate for the total number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust.[3] Subsequent scholarship has generally increased Reitlinger's conservative figures for death tolls, though his book was still described in 1979 as being "widely regarded as a definitive account".[4]

Happy to help. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 15:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unease due to lack of mountains

The above question about Scandinavians immigrating to farms in the USA reminded me of a claim I've read about numerous times: people in this group had high incidence of mental illness, which was supposed to be related to seeing expansive land in all directions, i.e. a relatively distant and unbroken horizon, compared to the mountainous views of their homeland. I thought they called it something like "missing mountain sickness", but I've been unable to find much of anything about it today.

The question: What is this phenomenon called? Note I am not at present interested in the veracity of the claim, only in verification that the claim was made, and possibly getting some names for it. Thanks! SemanticMantis (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is it not just an instance of home-sickness? It's not so much the absence of mountains acting like kryptonite, as it is distress at the absence of the once-familiar and an inability to reconcile themselves to their current environment - two things that would seem to be hallmarks of that condition?

Agoraphobia is used for a number of different phobias, sometimes cited as "fear of crowds" but also for "fear of wide-open spaces". --Jayron 32 19:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm, that's interesting. I dimly recall something I listened to on Radio 4 a while back, about iirc Erving Goffman doing post-doc research on a hebredian island, and working out that the population was anxious because there was no tree cover, which meant that they were all observable by others from long distances away ... it was commonplace for the inhabitants to carry pocket telescopes so that they could periodically check whether anyone was approaching their crofts. Our article suggests that would be found in Communication Conduct in an Island Community (1953) - Erving Goffman#Early works --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but no, I recall a phrase specific for this instance, not a general term applied to a case. This blog [8] calls it "horizon sickness", but apparently nobody else does, or it's too swamped with motion sickness, much like mountain sickness is swamped with altitude sickness. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:19, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I apparently only had to ask and wait a bit before it hit me: "prairie madness" is the term I'd read about before, and yes, it is related to home sickness and agorophobia. Other accounts focus on the mountain/flat distinction more than our article. Perhaps User:Krikkert7 will find that of interest as well. Still interested in other terms for this if anyone happens to find one. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:27, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reminded of the scene in Fargo, where Steve Buscemi's character buries the ransom money along the road, at a fence, then looks around, and everything seems identical as far as the eye can see, in both directions. So, the point is that a lack of landmarks could be disorienting for some. StuRat (talk) 22:23, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian.

QI#Culture has this line: "Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian." I'm confused. The Joan of Arc article says she was born in the "French part of the duchy of Bar", which makes her French. The Lenin article says he was born in the Russian Empire, to two parents who were both born in the Russian Empire as well.

What am I missing here? Pizza Margherita (talk) 20:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnicity vs. nationality, in Lenin's case; some argue he had no Russian blood in him at all. The duchy of Bar was in Lorraine, which didn't join France until 1776. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 20:43, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Duchy of Bar says that "From 1480, it was united to the imperial Duchy of Lorraine.", and Joan of Arc was born in 1412, so what you said about Lorraine doesn't really apply here. Pizza Margherita (talk) 22:13, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. Why not be pissy with people trying to answer your question. That always helps. JPGs point was clear - that Lorraine was not part of France at the time of her birth. Lorraine joined France, afaik, after a) it was united with Bar and b) Bar integrated itself with France. If you have sufficient time to mine for quotes in the Bar article you have time to mine Lorraine for " In 962, when Otto the Great restored the Empire (restauratio imperii), Lorraine became the autonomous Duchy of Lorraine within the Holy Roman Empire until 1766, after which it became annexed under succession law to France, via derivative aristocratic house alliances" ... which amounts to nothing more than JPG expailined. The Reference Desks are not a punch-bag. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:19, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Restauratio Imperii - great name for a burger joint. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did you not understand what I wrote or what? Joan of Arc was born in 1412 in Bar. She was not born in Lorraine. In 1412, Bar and Lorraine were completely different places. If I'm asking about Joan of Arc, who was born in Bar, how does all this stuff about Lorraine help?

I can only explain this to you; I can't understand it for you unfortunately. Pizza Margherita (talk) 02:49, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, Hence Do-Re-Mi; I see: my mistake ;). Yes. Is a Fief of France France? Yes & no, probably. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:32, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Duchy of Bar said part of the duchy became a fief of France, the other part remained Imperial and was joined to Lorraine in 1480. Not that it matters for the ultimate question - Joan of Arc's birthplace was in the part of the Duchy that was a French fief. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:41, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

QI is very entertaining, but often perpetuates myths and legends or is just plain wrong. In Joan of Arc's case, they are purposely obfuscating things, and things are already confusing enough when Joan was born in 1412. She was born in the territory of modern France, certainly. But what was "France" in the 15th century? Territory personally controlled by the King of France? What about Burgundy? Champagne? Brittany? Were they "France"? They were also technically independent, like Bar. But an independent territory could be linguistically and culturally French. The ruler of the territory could be a vassal of France, paying money or giving military service to the king of France. Bar is strange because it seems to be a vassal of both France and the Empire, but it's definitely culturally French...more or less. (Tagishsimon says above, "Is a Fief of France France? Yes & no, probably", and that is exactly the point.) With hindsight we can distinguish a clear line of French kings, and maybe there was a definite king of France in 1412, but this was the middle of the Hundred Years' War, and a few years later everything fell apart. When Paris was ruled by the English, was there even a "France" at all? The kings of England were culturally French too, so if Bar is French, is England also French? The problem is, the question of whether something is French or not just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the 15th century. There were no passports, there were no border checkpoints, the modern concept of a nation-state didn't even exist. No one is worried about jus soli and jus sanguinis. Pretty much all we can do is ask what people considered themselves to be. Did Joan think she was French? Did other people think she was French? Clearly, yes. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:04, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The two examples are actually opposites of each other. While Joan of Arc was, undoubtedly, ethnically French, there is some uncertainty about whether she was a French citizen (though in saying that we are applying a modern concept of citizenship which did not apply in the messy, feudal society of the Middle Ages). Lenin was certainly a citizen of the Russian Empire, but his father was of Chuvash and Kalmyk descent, and his mother is described as "Russian-Jewish." That might mean that he was, at least in part, of Russian ethnic descent - if Russian-Jewish means of mixed ethnicity, and not simply Jewish but living in Russia. Wymspen (talk) 13:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that would ALSO imply that one can inherit an ethnicity (a purely cultural concept) in a genetic manner. That makes no sense. "Russian blood" is meaningless. Either he considered himself, and was considered by those he interacted with, as Russian (in which case he was so) or he wasn't. We can't deny his ethnicity based on a post-hoc genetic analysis because ethnicity is not genetic. --Jayron 32 18:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's mostly but not entirely correct according to most orthodox views of ethnicity. The more widely accepted views of how to assess ethnicity encompasses three elements: (1) biological inheritance; (2) self-identification; and (3) identification by other members of the ethnic group. The biological inheritance element refers to inheritance from someone else who fits the criteria, so to a degree the definition is circular and ultimately resolves down mostly to a social one (as you might expect). Nevertheless, if someone has no "Russian blood", in the sense that they have no biological relationship with anyone who is accepted as ethnically Russian, a claim that they are ethnically Russian would, I think, be fairly controversial. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Biology holds only insofar as the culture itself identifies biology as a necessary component. But it is not necessary in all cultural contexts. There are many cases of people with little to no genetic relationship to a culture still being fully accepted as that culture. --Jayron 32 12:33, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are confusing culture and ethnicity. I don't disagree that ethnicity is fundamentally a social characteristic, and like all social characteristics it is capable of supporting different perspectives. But the concept as it is understood in most contexts, is a kind of social identity that carries a biological element. This is true in mainstream Western cultural discourse, and it's also true in the East. I can't think of any culture I have come across, where a person who has absolutely no biological connection to an ethnic group would be widely regarded as a member of that ethnic group. Even in the US, which probably has some of the most open cultural conceptions of legal and cultural nationality, a claim to membership of an ethnic group by someone with no biological connection is controversial. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:58, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In that one case, we're talking race and not ethnicity, which are different ways to parse culture. Also, that's because the way race as a social construct is defined carries a biological component. Which is exactly 100% what I said: the culture in question picks which biological factors it considers important, and identifies cultural relationships based on that biological construct. But the reverse isn't true. Staying, for example, with the examples given above. Which gene(s) in Joan of Arc's genome defined her as "French" and does everyone with those genes become automatically French? --Jayron 32 15:50, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lenin was born in Ulyanovsk, in those days called Simbirsk (Симби́рск), which is quite firmly in Russia. His parents were from Astrakhan which is also in Russia. Our article Chuvash people says that at least some of them are native to Russia. It seems a bit silly to try to argue that Lenin isn't Russian. Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for US election tv ads

A few days ago Politico said that US Democrats were running political ads attacking down-ticket Republican candidates in marginal districts - ads which tried to associate the Republican with that party's unpopular Presidential candidate, Mr. Trump. Is there anywhere online (YouTube or the like) where I (in the UK) could view such ads? I'm specifically interested in these kind of "Senator XYZ is big chums with Donald Trump and is therefor probably horrid" type ones (and not interested in a general "Senator XYZ is wrong about everything and is horrid" ads that don't try to leverage Trump). 87.114.14.104 (talk) 23:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are terribly mistaken if you think Trump is unpopular. Either that, or you are push-polling, otherwise known as begging the question. I suggest you google a site called youtube. μηδείς (talk) 03:53, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[9] [10] [11] [12] Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:08, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The LA Times poll has come under some serious scrutiny as to its methodology. To their credit, they are extremely transparent as to what their methodology is. But there was an article about how they "weigh" the different members of their polling panel - apparently, there's ONE black participant aged 19-21 who's a Trump fan, and he gets a HUGE weighing, as if he was a true representative of his entire age-ethnic group (all black 19-21 year olds). In other words, they under-sample many groups, and attempt to balance this out with no limits on weights given to individual participants. They are interesting in using the same 3,000 people for the entire polling season, rather than selecting new random participants each time, as most other polls do. I'd say the poll is academically interesting, but its value as a genuine indicator of Trump's popularity is significantly dubious. Then again, they have at times been proven right in previous elections, so I'm not totally writing them off, just saying that they're somewhat odd, and certainly don't follow the norm in their polling methodology. An interesting experiment in political science, I would say. We'll only know how it stacks up to reality come polling day. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 14:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a good one: [13]. StuRat (talk) 03:34, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]