Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 September 7

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September 7

What was the title or name of the occupation of a storyteller in ancient Greece or Rome?

For example the word Griot is used for a storyteller from West Africa but what were they called in ancient Greece or Rome? 50.68.252.153 (talk) 02:06, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

As to Rome: according to Cassell's Latin Dictionary, "storyteller" translates into Latin as narrator. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 05:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

• aoidos, rhapsode. Шурбур (talk) 06:44, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Also fabulator. --Antiquary (talk) 08:54, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

And Aoidos. --Xuxl (talk) 13:43, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

No platform for the far left?

There have been several well publicized cases in recent years of far right politicians and other figures not being allowed to speak at public events not being invited to speak in a particular setting. The justification for this is normally that such people should not be given a platform from which to espouse their far right views. See here for a recent example. However, there do not appear to have been many, if any, calls for people espousing far left views to be prevented from speaking.

Is there a double standard at work here? The reasons for giving no platform to the far right are clear, but what about the far left? Aren't their views equally as abhorrent as those of the far right? This is not a request for opinion or an invitation to debate. I would like to know why there is no pressure to deplatform speakers from the far left. --Viennese Waltz 07:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

There's a category error in this post; it's not about "not being allowed to speak at public events," it's about who is chosen to be invited to speak in a particular setting. Steve Bannon is free to speak anywhere he likes. There is no First Amendment right to be an invited guest of The New Yorker.

To more specifically answer your question requires more information. Who do you consider to be on the far left and what have they been speaking about? If your definition of "far left" is "someone who supports single-payer health care in the United States," well... the view that single-payer health care should be implemented in the United States is not equivalently "abhorrent" to public opinion as the view that, say, America should implement laws to remain a majority-white country. One is a legitimate, if debatable, question of health policy, the other is naked white supremacism. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:38, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, I have struck out the offending text and replaced it as per your wishes. To answer your question, no I'm not talking about someone who supports single-payer health care. I'm talking about people who espouse the ideology of Marxism–Leninism. --Viennese Waltz 07:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The problem with "no-platforming" is not about whether it violates the First Amendment (basically if it's not the government doing it, it usually doesn't, with a possible caveat related to Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins). It's about whether to have an open discussion, hearing people's reasons before making a decision on them, or whether to foreclose certain views in advance — with the further observation that whoever gets to decide which ones to foreclose in advance has a noticeable advantage in promoting their own views. See Overton window.

As for the original question, I think there are plenty of cases of attempting to deny platforms to left-wing speakers, though I don't have immediate examples at the top of my head. Search the archives of http://reason.com and http://thefire.org, which cover such things as they apply to multiple sides. They probably don't call it "no-platforming", but that's just a matter of terminology; which term you use is an identifier for which tribe you're in. --Trovatore (talk) 07:50, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

There sadly seems to be a significant number of people these days proposing racist policies in many countries around the world. I don't see an equivalent number of people proposing Marxism and Leninism. HiLo48 (talk) 08:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

It would make it mucheasier if you gave examples of left wing iideas or people a university for instance might reasonably deny an audience to? And as to racism I'd have thought that came more under populism or nationalism than right-wing though far-right parties do seem to often go in for it. Dmcq (talk) 08:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Actually thinking about it, would the Chinese party be considered left-wing? I would consider it very racist and certainly a number of other left-wing states have been. Dmcq (talk) 08:39, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

There has certainly been effort to silence or ban the BDS movement which is associated with the left wing, though not Marxist-Leninist. Some disinvitations: [1] 2607:FCD0:100:8303:5D:0:0:B7D4 (talk) 10:06, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Maybe because when we hear "Palestinian" we're programmed to think "terrorist". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Or, maybe worse yet, when we hear "BDS" it sounds like someone's trying to say BDSM. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:55, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

One of the main reasons is that in the minds of a large number of "BDS" supporters, the purpose of the movement is actually to protest against the existence of Israel itself, and not just against specific Israeli government actions and policies. Also, in the United States, many people opposed to it think it's basically the same thing as the Arab League boycott of Israel, which was highly unpopular in the United States.... AnonMoos (talk) 18:02, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Marxism/Leninism may be economically misguided (though I always wonder how such a broken system brought Russia from a state where it was beaten in WW1 by the Germans with a minuscule part of their army to a state where it bled Hitler's Wehrmacht dry in just 20 years), but it is just another economic system. It's not the same as fascism. It's not inherently racist or sexist. Also, how often have you heard say the Heartland Institute or the Hoover Institution inviting Noam Chomsky or Bernie Sanders? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:41, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

It may not be inherently racist or sexist, but it is inherently anti-individualist. It's not in error just from the point of view of economic consequences. It's morally in error. --Trovatore (talk) 18:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. Although definitions differ, Marxist/Leninist parties tend to be rather explicit about democracy and civil rights being low priorities. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:39, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

• The original question appears to be based on the false equivalency that racism is somehow equivalent and opposed to shared means of production, and that when an organization decides to not allow speakers that espouse racist policies, that somehow they are duplicitous by allowing speakers which espouse an economic policy. The use of terms like "far left" and "far right" makes them seem equivalent and opposed, and hides the real nature of the philosophy. --Jayron32 11:43, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Jayron32 has hit the nail on the head, and I endorse his response.--WaltCip (talk) 16:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Marxism/Leninism is not only, or even mostly, an economic theory. It's a program for a vicious regime of repression, which when put into maximal effect has had outcomes every bit as horrendous as fascism. --Trovatore (talk) 18:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Beware. People who have claimed to be Marxists and/or Leninists have put things into effect that are indeed "every bit as horrendous as fascism". Yes, they have done, and I say this as a communist. Stalin was a brutal dictator, an abhorrent dictatorship is what he built. But I don't see why this is connected with a specific "anti-individualist" idea that you want to have found in Marxism-Leninism. Also, I can't see why "anti-individualism" (which you want to charge Marxism-Leninism with) should be "morally in error". This is a position I have mostly heard from the GOP and its supporters. Still, I think these people - Stalin, Hoxha, Mao Zedong,... should, and would be disinvited just as frequently, if not more frequently, than the far-right.

However, not everybody who is "far-left" or espouses Marxism-Leninism admires Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung or Mengistu Haile Mariam. I, for example, don't. I would say that all those dictators - except possibly Fidel Castro - cannot claim to be true Marxists-Leninists.

And speaking out for the ideas of August Bebel, Karl Liebknecht or Arthur Crispien, or the ideas of James Connolly, Patrick Pearse and Éamonn Ceannt, or supporting Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere or Sahra Wagenknecht is - while just as much a "far-left" position as admiring Mao or Stalin - not nearly as bad as showing admiration for Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich etc.

So why do you demand that everybody who has even remotely far-left ideas be disavowed and made a political pariah like people on the far-right political fringe? --ObersterGenosse (talk) 20:37, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't demand to make anyone a pariah. I am willing for all ideas to be expressed, even the ones I find sharply and morally in error. This is somewhat separate from the issue of freedom of speech; it's more about open discourse, which overlaps with freedom of speech but is not quite the same thing.

However, if you're going to try to refute equivalency by bringing up communists who weren't quite as bad, I can point out that there were also fascists who weren't quite as bad as Hitler. I would rather live in former communist-lite San Marino than in Nazi Germany, but, even allowing a Rawlsian veil of ignorance, I would rather live in Franco's fascist-lite Spain than in Stalin's Ukraine. --Trovatore (talk) 20:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

What do you want? Go back to McCarthyism and the - in my opinion extremely un-democratic - HUAC? Or do you want to see more right-wingers at public speeches? --ObersterGenosse (talk) 21:09, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I want open discourse. I don't especially want to listen to Steve Bannon or Alex Jones, myself. But I don't want them silenced by pearl-clutchers. --Trovatore (talk) 21:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

They are not silenced. Jones has a Website and a radio show. Bannon has Breibart. There is no "right to be invited" - what would that be based on? The right to free speech does not imply that you will be provided with an audience. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:44, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has violated Jones's or Bannon's right to free speech. As I said, that's a somewhat separate matter. It's not about their rights.

Don't get me wrong; if anyone did violate their right to free speech, of course I would be against that. But that isn't my argument. --Trovatore (talk) 23:50, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, maybe I don't understand your argument. Jones, for example, is a self-admitted serial liar. He is not participating in a public discussion, he is making money by playing on the emotions of "people with a limited world view". Why would you expect anybody to offer him a platform as if he were a serious debater? I can understand him being booked for a comedy club, or maybe as part of a festival on the Theatre of the Absurd. But not as a serious speaker on political or social issues. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

He's been banned from, for example, Twitter and Facebook, which are open to almost everyone, including liars and people who aren't particularly serious. What bothers me is not so much that Twitter and Facebook have decided they don't want them — that's their prerogative as private entities, though they are large enough that I'm concerned about their market power (what if American Airlines decided he couldn't fly with them, for example?).

What concerns me is that they've done so in response to a bunch of people yelling loudly about it. That's a bad precedent; it tends to enable a heckler's veto, which is something we shouldn't have, no matter how many people agree with the hecklers. --Trovatore (talk) 00:13, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I frequently see consensus defined on Wikipedia as "There are more of us than you, so you're wrong, and what you think has no place in the article" (Not officially, of course, but in practice on some articles.) HiLo48 (talk) 00:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Touché!!! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

So unfortunately I'm going to give an opinion/suspicion, but I did look for sources! At least. Anyway, I can't find any comprehensive list of people who have been no-platformed in the explicit context of having a speaking thing cancelled. I echo the above that there is a false-equivalency. There are people on the left who are as awful as anyone on the right, but there is a difference in the attention they are paid, if nothing else. There are black-lives-matter activists literally calling for white genocide, communists calling for a violent revolution, atheists calling for religion to be banned, etc. Of course they exist - pick any group of humans, and you'll find that 1% are consistently awful. But thinking mostly about social media, but also media in general, the difference is that the lunatics on the right get a lot more attention. They are much better known. And they appear to be disproportionately the targets of deplatforming because college republicans often deliberately invite controversial speakers, not to provoke debate, but to make left-wing students look bad when they inevitably overreact. The left-wing lunatics are probably just not getting invited in the first place. The closest similarity you can find are the various college professors who have been fired or or otherwise punished for, usually preaching violence or hatred, but in a way that might be described as far-left, or simply anti-white. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm for free speech as in allowing for instance someone from ISIS to talk at a university meeting where their views can be debated in a structured context. I think the real problem nowadays is with social media and the way their algorithms drive people to enclaves of more and more extreme views. There is a big difference between one person talking to a group who have to actually travel to hear them and it being pushed to millions of people who wouldn't have considered it in the first place. Something like Speakers Corner in London is fine. Videoing it and putting it on YouTube is not. And I'm also very much against personalized email shots pushing political views where others can't see what nonsense is being pushed or try and counter it. I only hope that people growing up now have a more skeptical view of what comes over the internet but I'm not at all confident they do. Dmcq (talk) 12:28, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

No one's being forced to watch, either on a street corner or on youtube. It's by choice. And therein lies the problem. I concur with your skepticism. Quite to the contrary, it seems like more people than ever are willing to believe bizarre stuff spewing from the internet - which they actively go looking for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:56, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's an NYT article[2] claiming youtube pushes extremist content, basically as click bait to generate advertising views. 2607:FCD0:100:8303:5D:0:0:B7D4 (talk) 21:24, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

That article seems fair enough. It isn't that people setting up YouTube are evil, it's simply that AI recommender systems are set up to pick content that engages users because that brings in the most ad revenues. And people tend to click on more extreme content of all types rather than anodyne truthful stuff so that is the stuff it picks out to recommend. It isn't just politics, try practically anything people people can have strong views on. Fixing it is a difficult problem because the imperative 'make more money' is easy to program, 'do no evil' and yet make money - that is a very difficult thing to program a computer to do. Dmcq (talk) 10:10, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

In fact thinking about it, I think this is good instance of a rudimentary Paperclip maximizer. Yes we do have to worry about that sort of thing now. Dmcq (talk) 11:05, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

If rock music still counts as greasy kid politics, there was that time Marilyn Manson was formally booed out of Utah. And the Clear Channel memorandum kerfuffle. Or how the whole world was afraid of metal for a while. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:34, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Baron Sonnino's mother

Our article Sidney Sonnino says he was born in Pisa to "a Welsh mother, Georgina Sophia Arnaud Dudley Menhennet". The source used describes her as "un’inglese che allevò i suoi figli nel culto anglicano" (an Englishwoman who raised her children in the Anglican cult). The New York Times report of his death says he was born on the banks of the Nile, and that she was Scottish. Menhennet is of course a Cornish name. I would like to know more about her - was she Welsh, English, Scottish, or Cornish, and how did she end up married to an Italo-Egyptian Anglican Jew in Pisa? DuncanHill (talk) 15:51, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Quick question - why Menhennet? Italian wiki says her surname was Dudley. Georgiana Sophia Arnaud Sonnino, nata Dudley 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The source used in our article, the Centro Studi Sidney Sonnino, says Menhennet. DuncanHill (talk) 18:11, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh no, more competing sources :) This will be a tough one. Here's the Italian wiki source, but unfortunately the book isn't readable online. [3] 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

She is a woman of mystery. Now I'm finding sources that say her surname was Terry. These ones all say her father was an English merchant and she grew up in Portugal and Egypt. If you google Sidney Terry separately, he also lived in Mumbai. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:45, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

"apparently Georgina herself did not know her precise birth date. Some accounts describe Lisbon as her birthplace.50 Others refer to Bath, England.51 It appears that her father was one Sidney Terry, a native of Lisbon and son of British parents.52 But there is no consensus concerning the identity of Georgina's mother, who is usually described as English, or, somewhat less precisely, as British, someones as Scottish,53"

"Georgina met Isacco Sonnino in Alexandria. By January 1843, they were engaged to be married. As Sarah Terry, her adoptive nother, put it (in a letter to Amelia): Mr. Sonnino was a "Man of good Fortune:, who had "settled a handsome sum of money on Georgina"."

"Georgina was the dominant personality in the Sonnino household. She concerned herself with the upbringing and education of her children with great care - particularly since her own childhood has been, as she put it, "void of all affection".74 All the Sonnino siblings were baptised into the Anglican faith"

"... dei cinque figli di Isacco e di Georgiana Dudley Terry, anglicana, fu improntata ad un rigore morale di stampo vittoriano."

"Georgina Sonnino was most probably the illegitimate daughter of an English merchant, Sidney Terry. In 1843 she had married Isacco Sonnino in Alexandria, Egypt."

"Sidney Sonnino, infatti, era italiano, nato a Pisa nel marzo del 1847. ... una giovane, Geor- gina Sofia Arnaud Dudley Menhennet, figlia del mercante inglese Sidney Terry, la quale era stata a sua volta allevata in Portogallo e poi in Egitto."

"His father was a wealthy Tuscan (of Jewish origin), who had lived in Egypt for years, and his mother, Georgina Terry, was English"

On a separate issue, I don't think I'd translate Italian culto by English "cult"... AnonMoos (talk) 18:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

More for the language desk, but you're right; "mode of worship" would be less likely to invite misunderstanding. That said, this use of the word "cult" is not unknown in English, though it's usually restricted to fixed phrases like "the cult of Mary". --Trovatore (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

In certain (mainly) technical scholarly uses, the English word "cult" can have a neutral meaning, but otherwise the word has overwhelmingly negative meanings... AnonMoos (talk) 13:19, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

How/Where to buy greeks short maturities bonds ?

I’m considering putting some of my savings in short term Greek bonds directly without using an investment funds.

As I’m not Greek and doesn’t live in Greece, how can I buy them remotely on the Athens Stock Exchange (or an other stock exchange if they are traded elsewhere). 2001:861:3A00:61C0:F525:FB70:751E:8ED9 (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

We do not offer financial advice. Consider consulting a financial advisor.--WaltCip (talk) 18:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This was the first link in the Google Search titled "Buying Greek bonds". --Jayron32 18:37, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The reference is outdated. I’m talking about since the greek state come back issuing bonds on the bond markets. This isn’t about financial advice (I’m not asking if it’s a good investment) but where to buy. 2001:861:3A00:61C0:81B4:8EC6:5F43:C721 (talk) 19:34, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Ask a registered broker-dealer if they will allow you to purchase said bonds. Many of the "full service" firms may, though fees will probably be higher than for more liquid debt securities such as US Treasuries. Debt securities aren't traded on exchanges; they're traded "over-the-counter", in finance jargon. Note that Greek government securities are priced in Euros, so you will have to first purchase Euros on the forex market if you don't already have them. A broker-dealer can help you do that too, with concomitant fees of course. As noted, we don't give financial advice, but if you're not very confident in your financial knowledge and strategy I highly advise first consulting a licensed financial advisor. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:59, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

F. Herrick Herrick's first name.

I'm looking for the first name of F. Herrick Herrick. I think he is the one who was involved peripherally in the movie industry though you'll probably see his connection with Apollo 15 postage stamp incident. He was living in Miami at the time (1971) and apparently died in 1987 in Michigan. Obviously I'm looking for a RS if possible.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, not an answer to your question, but wow! life imitates art, huh? In The Man Who Sold the Moon, there was a small subplot where stamps were supposed to be brought along, but Harriman forgot to get their weight taken into account in the flight-plan calculations, so they had to be left behind. I think they were fraudulently added to the manifest even though they weren't brought, so that they could be sold afterwards. In the real-life case, they were brought along but not put on the manifest, so not exactly the same, but so reminiscent. --Trovatore (talk) 22:38, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I've read the story but had not made the connection. The astronauts knew their science fiction too. Wonder if any of them ever have made the connection.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:14, 7 September 2018 (UTC)