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June 1

the term "postmodernism" in non-academic discourse

Hi all,

I've been doing some work on the postmodernism article, and I believe that it needs a section on how such a poorly defined term from art criticism made its way into mainstream cultural and political discourse. Can anyone point me to any good sources? Or just suggestions of where/how best to find high-quality sources on this kind of thing?

Thanks! Patrick (talk) 19:17, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

From the point of view of many people who were somewhat aware of developments in certain corners of U.S. academia, but not directly involved, it was a part of a wave of French-derived theories mainly imported from France starting in the 1970s (see Foucault, Kristeva, Derrida, Lyotard, Lacan, Irigaray, ad nauseam) which had little concern for facts or truth, and in some manifestations had a strong ultra-relativist hostility to the very idea of truth (see strong programme, constructivism, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" etc etc). The general reputation of such "theory" (a word sometimes pronounced with reverence in English literature departments, but with contempt by academics of a more scientific orientation) was not helped when Paul de Man turned out to have Nazi connections. For a relatively early book partly about such "theory", see Higher Superstition. Even people without any great knowledge of postmodernism/deconstructionism have sometimes wondered what the heck the value is of an academic field which hovers on the boundary of rejecting the concept of truth (and sometimes crosses over the boundary). AnonMoos (talk) 00:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I've always wondered if there was a deeper, perhaps coincidental connection with Asian philosophical traditions. There are arcane philosophical ideas about rejecting the concept of truth that can be traced to Hindu and Buddhist teachings, particularly when it comes to understanding emptiness. Because these old ideas have religious patinas, they are considered obscure and out of reach for most people. It almost seemed like Derrida and others were giving people a taste of this, very much in line with countercultural interpretations that perceived differences in assumed and given truths, experienced and lived truths, and learned or revealed truth, such as the kind popular in Christianity. So maybe the value is in realizing that Derrida and others, who in all likelihood were atheists and quite secular, had unknowingly crossed over into religion. Just my take. Viriditas (talk) 03:47, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know. My two cents are that postmodernism is a good idea for sciences which do not have a paradigm, and a bad idea for sciences which do. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:59, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Even though my politics are likely very different than AnonMoos, and lean towards the progressively liberal, I tend to agree with conservatives that postmodernism overall was bad for academia. I only say this because I saw the impact it had in the university up close and personal, and I knew then it was nonsense just as I do now. That is not to say that nonsense doesn't have a time and place, which is what you are getting at in some respects with your reply. Personally, I think a certain kind of nonsense makes for some good art, like comedy, or even certain kinds of music such as aleatoric music. And like I said above, it may even have a reduced role in philosophy and religion. But for academia as a whole, it's hard to see how it was useful, since it served more to confuse students than to enlighten them. Viriditas (talk) 04:11, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

This is not really the place to debate the issue at any length, but I actually consider myself somewhat "left" (certainly in terms of whom I'm likely to vote for in U.S. elections), but a fact- and truth-respecting Enlightenment-influenced reasoned leftist, who's unlikely to be swayed by jargon buzzwords or trendy slogans of the moment, if they don't have substance behind them. Some forms of Buddhism analyze the world in terms of "things true", "things false", "things true and false", and "things neither true nor false" (and each of these four can then be negated as a whole), and as a dogmatic religion this may not be any worse than any number of other dogmatic religions, but I don't see how it's likely to advance our understanding of either literature or scientific facts about the universe. It's been pointed out a number of times, that postmodernist/deconstructionist apathy toward truth is overall compatible with global-warming denialism (may have even been part of the foundations of global-warming denialism in some respects), and the only real reason why postmodernists/deconstructionists aren't climate-deniers is pure personal preference... AnonMoos (talk) 05:47, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for the input. My question, however, still stands (which is just to say that I remain confused). What I would like to document for the article is how the thought of a variety of notoriously difficult French thinkers in the second part of the 20th century came to attain such an outsized importance in popular discourse. People who have not even heard of the figures mentioned above believe that science, culture, and society are genuinely threatened by the fringe views held by a small number of professors of the humanities. This seems to me quite unusual and in need of explanation. Patrick (talk) 15:53, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

There are people who whip up a frenzy of righteous indignation on various media about basically anything not fitting the ideal way they wish to see the world framed. What draws their ire can be a library holding a book acknowledging that humans too have bodily functions, or a teacher admitting to their class that the Emancipation Proclamation did not totally erase the problems of formerly enslaved people (or even merely referring to them as "enslaved people"). The idea is that the world is ideal, or rather would be ideal except for a growing legion of social-justice warriors and intellectuals out of touch with reality, controlled by a sinister elite with a nefarious secret plot. They suggest forcefully that if not stopped this will upend everything we hold dear. It gains them a following of easily frightened people and helps to maintain the status quo.

Specifically for postmodernism in academia, because the writings of the stars in the field were so abstruse, it was easy to fake it and not get caught (not only for Sokal), which appeared a more inviting road to upcoming academics in a publish or perish environment than to call out the Emperor's New Clothes of a local star. IMO the criticism of scientific certainty as being a cocky pseudo-certainty is sometimes justified; both sides of the debate can go overboard. See also Science wars.  --Lambiam 16:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, that's not implausible, but Wikipedia can't denounce something as a cynically deployed moral panic without much stronger sourcing than I think we are going to find.

Since most of the major texts and figures are more than 30 years old, I was hoping to find a non-polemical account of how these various thinkers, most of whom did not use the term "postmodern", were lumped together under that heading and injected into the popular imagination. For, as is attested by this very thread, it continues to generate a strong evaluative response well-outside the seminar room.

(Also, NB, Many of the criticisms mentioned here are documented at criticism of postmodernism, which another editor broke off into a child page due to its considerable length.) Patrick (talk) 18:04, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

AnonMoos, I'm familiar with the history of climate denial, and I don't see any direct connection between the architects of science denial and postmodernism, so I wonder if what you are describing is just a coincidence. I do see what you are saying when it comes to people like Jean-François Lyotard and his unusual admonition against explanatory theories and consensus, which he calls an "outmoded and suspect value", as this comes off as deeply anti-science and, to my mind, even anti-democratic, which is odd to me, because he is described as anti-authoritarian. This is one of the many reasons I dislike postmodernism; it is self-contradictory, paradoxical, and has little to no explanatory or predictive value. In some respects, it is a natural outgrowth of the counterculture of the 1960s, but in others, it just devolves into navel-gazing. I was also surprised to discover that there are writers who have drawn parallels between Buddhist notions of emptiness and postmodernism, which I thought was my own idea. It wasn't. As for the OPs question, it's a good one and it's something I still don't know the answer to here. Viriditas (talk) 20:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Patrick_Welsh -- In the case of Judith Butler, the largely unfalsifiable "fringe views held by a small number of professors of the humanities" have had a very deep influence on a number of western nations over the past ten or a dozen years, many would say for the worse, leading to unfair competition in girls' and women's sports, biologically male sex offenders being placed into women's prisons, sterilization of children for reasons that the Cass Review found to be usually not based on solid science, etc. etc. Political turmoil over gender ideology controversies almost certainly accelerated the departure from office of the last two First Ministers of Scotland (Humza Yousaf and especially Nicola Sturgeon), though not the only reason, while the Green Parties in the UK (different organizations in England & Wales and in Scotland), have now adopted a rigid Stalinist attitude toward gender ideology, rapidly expelling from the party anyone who dares to question it in any way (they seem to be a lot more concerned about that than about environmental and ecological issues these days). In the United States, roughly two dozen states have passed anti-gender-ideology laws while a smaller number have passed pro-gender-ideology laws, and there's a perpetual flood of lawsuits flying in all directions. I bet a lot of people really wish that Judith Butler was a fringe figure without much influence outside academia, but that's not the case... AnonMoos (talk) 21:26, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I can’t say that I agree with this assessment, as most of it has been debunked as conservative fearmongering; I also don’t see the direct connection between gender issues and postmodernism. I first learned about this topic in the context of anthropology, so I think it’s been politicized by bad actors, many of whom have connections to religious interest groups. For me personally, this has always been an issue related to civil and human rights. Opponents exemplify the maxim: "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." Somehow, I think issues related to postmodernism are being thrown into this mix unnecessarily, often to muddy the waters. Even our article on gender equality starts off in the early 15th century. Further, the fact that traditional gender roles are historically enforced by society doesn't really have anything to do with postmodernism. More interesting is how traditional gender roles, when looked at with a historical microscope, tend to fluctuate greatly over time and culture. My understanding is that this means that traditional gender roles don't actually exist, they are artificially imposed, such as forcing boys to wear dresses as children (quite common until recently) and dressing girls in blue clothing (now pink in the modern era). Pink was once considered more "masculine" than blue, etc. One thing that drove this point home to me the other day was a discussion on NPR where one of the participants said, and I loosely paraphrase, "until recently, our only acceptable career choice as women was to be mothers". It's a heavy statement that has a great deal behind it. Although not in any way equal or equivalent, I think men have faced a similar problem. Until recently, men were shaped as warmongers; they either had to go to war on the battlefield, go to war in the courtroom, go to war in the boardroom, or go to war on the natural world (science). So what women are going through, men are also experiencing in different ways, but obviously from a position of power. This isn't a kind of postmodernism, nor is it saying that there's no objective truth. It's just an observation that societal truth changes over time and place. As for your comment about environmental and ecological issues, I have noticed more people engaging in interdisciplinary discourse in those two fields, and I wonder if this comes off as "postmodern" to critics. About a month ago, I watched an hour long webinar about mitigating climate change in Hawaii, and while it was very good and run by two leading experts on the subject from the University of Hawaii, one from the social sciences and one from the hard sciences, some of the things the social science representative said were a bit fuzzy and postmodern-like, but I think their intention was rooted in the idea of inclusion: climate change will impact everyone in every field, so we need to have a big tent. I could see conservative critics hating on this, but it makes a lot of sense if you consider that nobody is safe and everybody will have to do their part. My guess is that this POV is very much at odds with conservatism, as that kind of ideology is rooted in Us vs. Them polemics, and depends on upholding the status quo, which means continuing to use oil and not to change the way we do things, and to keep society stratified, segmented, and segregated by class, race, gender, etc. This is why I think most criticisms of postmodernism might not be criticisms of postmodernism at all, but rather reactionary attempts to stay the course and prevent progress. Viriditas (talk) 22:00, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to y'all for your attention to my query! I do not see this going anywhere productive, however, and I am unfollowing. Please tag me or, better yet, post to the discussion page with any suggestions of good sources.

All best, Patrick (talk) 22:52, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

That's enough. Matt Deres (talk) 13:01, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Sorry, I only just now looked at your article. It already uses Connor's The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism which answers your question in spades. It notes that Daniel Bell, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Charles Jencks, and Ihab Hassan were working on the topic simultaneously in the 1970s and 1980s, but it wasn't until the 80s that Fredric Jameson synthesized (in part) the disparate work into a cohesive whole, at which point it was anthologized in the 1990s, and became transformed into a kind of pseudo-hypothesis (my words) in the humanities, forming the first notions of what became known as postmodern theory in academia, followed by work by Hans Bertens and John Frow. By the late 1990s, it transformed into a kind of philosophy and became associated with "postcolonialism, multiculturalism and identity politics", which was a newer formulation. Connor notes that in 1970, it focused on postmodernist literature; in 1980, it was postmodern architecture; while by 1990 with the fall of the Soviet Union, it became a discussion of cultural postmodernism. Connor argues that by the 2000s, it had transformed into discussions of legal, religious, and performance postmodernism. There is some indication in the book that Jean Baudrillard may have had a lot to do with introducing the discussion into academia, but he famously distanced himself from postmodernism. Frankly, I find the entire topic confusing and obfuscatory, so this will be my last comment on it. Just looking at Connor's book for ten minutes made me remember why I dislike this subject so much. It's just nonsense. Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 2 June 2024 (UTC) There's no real commonality between "gender equality" and "gender ideology", except for a word of six letters. Some gender ideology fanatics are among the strictest in insisting on basically traditional gender roles -- if a child (even far younger than puberty) shows any non-traditional gender-role characteristics, then the extremists will insist the child is "trans". (So much for tomboys, etc.) For example, Susie Green's son liked wearing tutus and playing with girls' toys, and his father was uncomfortable with that behavior, so that was apparently pretty much it, from anything that she's ever said publicly -- he was dragged off to Thailand and castrated. Our Susie Green article is mealy-mouthed when it says she "unexpectedly" resigned -- she had received severe criticism from a number of sources, and the organization Mermaids which she dominated for years was placed under a legal inquiry a week after she resigned, and her boasting TED Talk mysteriously disappeared off of Youtube a month or two later, but you won't find any of that out from her Wikipedia article. Also, gay and lesbian advocates never displayed the personal vindictiveness that "transactivists" or "TRAs" do. Gays and lesbians singled out a few prominent figures like Anita Bryant and Rick Santorum, while TRAs try to destroy the careers or lives of a large number of people who dare to dissent from gender ideology, often using thuggish tactics of intimidation and harassment, and often seemingly motivated by misogyny in singling out women for heavier retribution than men. Gays and lesbians also never had any particular objections to heterosexuals meeting together for relevant purposes (such as in singles bars), while TRAs have devoted great effort to making it almost impossible for lesbians to publicly meet together in some regions and countries (see the Tickle v. Giggle lawsuit, whose only amusing feature is its name, etc etc). Much of lesbian life is now furtive and underground in those areas, while back in the 1990s it was open and free. A great advancement for "progressivism", I'm sure! AnonMoos (talk) 23:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC) Cancel culture and deplatforming were invented by the right wing and are touchstones of conservatism, not the left. It was used for decades to ostracize anarchists, socialists, communists, peace and anti-war advocates, homosexuals, libertines, labor rights advocates, and anyone remotely perceived as a threat to capitalism, the military industrial complex, and the government. This changed in the 1960s and 1970s, as the right wing openly opposed progress such as civil rights and desegregation, aligning and identifying themselves as regressives, and engaging and supporting the criminal Nixon administration which was pardoned for its crimes. This led the right to create their own conservative counterculture, in the spirit of the Powell memo and the Koch network, and wage a campaign of conservative infiltration of the media and academia over about four decades, all the while claiming there was a "liberal media bias" and "liberal bent" to academia; once again showing that every accusation was, in fact, a confession. In response to this open opposition to democracy, obstructionism, and authoritarian impulse, progressives began to fight back. The right wing revised history (as they always do), to make it seem like the left invented cancel culture and deplatforming in the 2000s, when the right had been using those tactics for a century. Once again, the old conservative adage applies: "do as we say, not as we do". Or as I like to say, "watch what they do, not what they say". All this constant talk of "electoral fraud" and "irregularities" on the right, only to discover that it was the right who was trying to overturn the election. This is what conservatism looks like. Rank hypocrisy, disinformation, and lies. Every accusation is a confession. This is post-truth politics, and if it's postmodern, it's an invention of the right, not the left. Viriditas (talk) 00:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC) Whatever -- I'm not right-wing, so most of your tirade whooshes right by me. In any case, whether I'm more right than wrong, or more wrong than right, either way, it's simply not working now (assuming that it ever did work) to try to paste a smiley face on the current situation and claim that everything connected with gender ideology is just fine and dandy except for a few complaining "right-wingers"[sic]. That won't accomplish anything for Scott Wiener or anyone else at this point... AnonMoos (talk) 20:57, 3 June 2024 (UTC) I mean, yes, that's my point. "Gender ideology" is a manufactured controversy and culture war spread by the right. I get that you don't see it that way, but when you painstakingly trace it back, the majority of the talking points come from billionaire-backed, right-wing foundations working in partnership with Christian Nationalist-oriented interest groups, who perceive gender fluidity, or the notions thereof, as an "attack" on Christian values. The last time I looked into this, they went to great lengths to hide the connections through dark money slush-funds and front groups. And I think it's perfectly reasonable that you might not be aware of this subterfuge, as numerous, well-known left of center celebrities have been fooled into thinking otherwise. You should look a little closer at the connections in red states where the masks have accidentally come off. Florida is a well known example. The Florida Parental Rights in Education Act was originally introduced by Dennis Baxley, who was on the Steering Council of the Conservative Baptist Network, which is connected to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL). The NACL uses the bill mill model of the Koch-connected American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to push Christian nationalism. The artificial culture war talking point of gender ideology is one of many ways that they introduce Christian nationalism into law to undermine democratic norms and freedoms. They are working towards establishing the US as a Christian theocracy, and this is one of their incrementalist approaches. The Kochs and other right-wing foundations may not be as religious as they are, but they work together to strengthen the power of oligarchs, corporations, and the state, such that individuals (in this case gay people) have less rights, which in turn, promotes the heteronormative paradigm of Christian nationalism. This kind of model of overreach can then be used in all other like-minded legislation in their agenda, from prohibiting the discussion of the environment or climate change within state government, to putting the breaks on renewable energy transitional models. All of these things, while vastly different on the outside, are intimately connected. The Kochs and these other foundations are all heavily invested in oil production, that's how they make their money. They can't just come out and say "pass a bill to make oil production and usage mandatory", so they work around on the outside margins, to test their legislation out on marginalized people first. Another good example is their well-funded backlash to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). You might think this has everything to do with racism, but once again, that's the going after marginalized people angle to test their strategy. In reality, the attack on DEI has to do with going after equity, which impacts oil producers because there are aspects of fossil fuel divestment connected to it. Once again, all of these things come back to oil. Things are just not what they appear to be. There's three agendas at work, the overarching agenda of the oil, chemical, and extraction industries, and their so-called "side-gigs", which keep people distracted from where their money is going and what they are doing with it. Christian nationalists attacking gender ideology is one of these side-gigs. About a year or so ago, I spent an entire day tracing it all back to these foundations. None of this is grassroots based, or originating in popular movements. In fact, every grassroots movement that comes forward and says they are, have been uncovered as part of this well-oiled machine, with Moms for Liberty one of the most notable. And in case you haven't figured it out by now, if a group has "liberty" or "freedom" in its name, they are often a right-wing front group for the Koch network. Viriditas (talk) 21:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC) So… it’s all a conspiracy by big oil? Please, spare me. We hear enough conspiracy crap from the right… we don’t need to hear it from the left. Blueboar (talk) 21:27, 3 June 2024 (UTC) Yes, it is all connected to big oil, but big oil has shared interests with Christian nationalists. Some conspiracies are very real. The Koch network and the Council for National Policy are both well-known conspiracies working out in the open. This has been covered extensively by historians of science and investigative journalists like Naomi Oreskes and Jane Mayer. Sometimes the truth is too difficult for people to believe, which is why people like yourself prefer to believe in fantasies. You're in good company, as that's true for most people. Viriditas (talk) 21:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC) You can add the Federalist Society to the list. (See also Leonard Leo.) For a more complete list, see the sections Think tanks and Other organizations of Template:Conservatism US. Not all are equally conspirational, but they are very connected through personal unions, and the goals of several as they are actually scheming are not quite as democratic as their publicly professed aims.  --Lambiam 07:09, 4 June 2024 (UTC) Listing all those people and organizations certainly make appear obsessions with conspiracies so obviously undeniably founded. It particularly quickly contributes to proving your point that everything worrying has been initially concocted by right-wingers with access to a lot of money and the means of more or less individually controlling the diffusion of their very personal and very wrong theories. That's forgetting that all right-wingers may have not been created equal just like leftist scholars identifying themselves as authorities regarding the roots of climate scepticism because they are primarly able to reiterate the discourses that showed the evilness of the tobacco industries. Then one who owns money and doesn't know where that only comes from and sometimes reads one or the other pieces of what's left of the press will easily decide that endorsing the role of a leftist billionaire would make of him at this point in history merely a follower. So he knows how to make followers but I'm sorry to say, those might not be be only the flock that will be rallying around his banner. He's also rallying the adequate opposition. But yes in my opinion, whatever it has to be considered morally or sociogically, that's also in all probably a very postmodern phenomenon. For example rallying against climate change was a move already possible in '65, though maybe not realistically in the US. Established hippies I met as late as fifteen or eighteen years later were still engaging in touristic activities, few good will people being able of realistically rejecting rationalism. Postmodernism transfers may have been the disguise of prudent attempts to finally start to be acting realistically, prudent because everybody has to be cautious to not definitively spoil their chances at a comfortable fucking session some time to begin with. --Askedonty (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC) This was kind of what I was getting at, based on what AnonMoos wrote up above. We are told via conventional wisdom that the phenomenon of postmodernism originally came of out Marxist and leftist-counterculture, and by extension, centrists and conservatives objected to its embrace by the social sciences and the humanities and the loss of objectivity (to whatever extent that is even true). But when we look really closely at this, we see that it wasn't the left that embraced this kind of postmodernism, it was the right; conservatives, not liberals, gave birth to the very concept of doubting the truth, which later morphed into climate denial, alternative facts, COVID-denial, and post-truth Trumpism. But somehow the left is to blame for this? It doesn't make sense. Viriditas (talk) 10:39, 4 June 2024 (UTC) Back in '65, climate denial was not even identifiable. For example my mother's ambition to be equal to men which was a highly considered goal amongst most men around us and most of the kids I had to play toy car with implied she was to own any fitting gas guzzler like the guy next door so soon as was feasible. So she was rather right-wing most of the time: the left were too many intellectuals. Among her motivations collectivism implied faring bus, and she was outraged at society imposing to the disabled them waiting for busses. So after she was used having her own cars and the left was explicitly busy focusing on the disabled because nobody else needed assistance anymore, she ceased being very much an ardent no-leftwinger. In a way in the end I would say, with perseverance she more or less managed to get money alloted by the right, with the left not bothering to interfere. After which she could afford growing leftist, make black people friends if she could even though them not in subservient roles etc. As with a too early climate denial charge for example truth if that ever can be determined would have to be gotten lost on the way. She simply would have been frightened under one different light. A frequent criticism regarding the left monopolizing ownership of truth relates to the denial problem including a dimension related to the initiative sequence - as in a present struggle - and also, representativity. The left does not divide itself on subjects as readily identifiable like the right would because their base just does not need, and is not required to consider the current contentious points in deep like those on other side would; a matter of the initiative sequence. Behind would have to be studied the relevant specific doctrines, it's really not interesting to get blinded by the effects after someone managed to turn the lights to their's own advantage. --Askedonty (talk) 12:37, 4 June 2024 (UTC) I'm going to belatedly invoke WP:SOAPBOX at this point, and WP:NOTFORUM. Before somebody more influential than me does, and perhaps questions the usefulness of the ref desks.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I'll bite. I'd say there are four postmodernisms.
There's the postmodern movement in art, which is often used outside of academic literature without too much trouble -- remix, influence, combinations, collaborations, collages, mixed methods, mixed styles, etc.
There's the postmodernism that's really just talking about a loose grouping of writers skeptical of proclaimed matter-of-fact capital-T truths, perfect histories, unquestioned chains of causation, ahistorical ideas, and any and all relationships between knowledge and power. If you've heard the Churchill quote about history being written by the victors and had a realization that reality might've been skewed through the presentation of objective facts in a history book, congrats you're a postmodernist. Focus on the kind of language used in that history and you get bonus points for being poststructuralist, too. :) The people who we group together under this postmodernism hardly ever actually use that term. People who write in the humanities might use the term as shorthand, but I don't think you hear it used outside of academic writing much. Maybe because the next two postmodernisms have spoiled it.
The third postmodernism is closely related to the second: it's the brash, performatively provocative postmodernism of the [mostly French] theorist-celebrities who say things like "there should be no age of consent laws" or "tuberculosis is a social construct" or "there is no truth". You don't make headlines or appear on popular television programs if you say things like "we should be skeptical of claims to objectivity"; it requires the flair of "the author is dead". To actually read and understand their writings, you can see past their habit of stating things in the most [ironically] matter-of-fact and provocative way to see that they're really just doing something similar to folks in the second postmodernism or providing vocabularies for more grounded scholars to apply to real things in the world. But it's through these performances that we get the fourth postmodernism.
The fourth postmodernism is squarely for popular usage outside of academia, especially in the realm of right-wing influencers: postmodernism as a rejection of reality, a rejection of scientific fact, extreme relativism, shocking moral relativism, etc. It's based in part on a kneejerk reaction to the third postmodernism, part on a good faith misunderstanding, and part on a bad faith pseudointellectual veneer grafted onto reactionary ideas to give them an air of legitimacy. It's that last part where you might find a bunch of recent literature. Look for basically anyone who knows anything about postmodernism writing about Jordan Peterson, for example. May also be worth looking for things like "cultural marxism", too (another term that sounds academic but has more to do with reactionary politics than scholarship, and is therefore frequently uttered in the same breath as postmodernism). FWIW. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:04, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

June 3

First documented first documented Anglo Saxon woman

Who was the first named Anglo Saxon woman in history? 2601:1C0:8382:2680:5911:A6EE:7C7A:B66A (talk) 05:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

What kind of history? Rowena probably didn't exist, but if she did, she did it in the 5th century. Acha of Deira is a good option. Bertha of Kent was slightly older, but Frankish.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:22, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's going to be possible to name the very earliest, unless Rowena was real, since in early Anglo-Saxon history dates of death of women are usually unknown and dates of birth always are. Here are two more possibilities though. Bede tells us that in 604 the kingdom of Essex was being ruled by Sæberht, son of Ricula, who was sister of King Æthelberht of Kent. Ricula must certainly have been a 6th-century woman then, maybe stretching into 7th. The Historia Brittonum mentions a wife of Æthelfrith of Bernicia called Bebba, after whom Bamburgh is named. --Antiquary (talk) 11:02, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Petroglyph sites

Are there any major (especially ancient near East) rock art locations not included here? Temerarius (talk) 13:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

You could cross-reference with this list of rock art sites in Turkey, and repeat for other counties of interest, and again for "carving", and decide which are notable (for instance "earliest horse figures in Anatolia"), but it's a lot of work, especially establishing what commons doesn't have. I'm interested in the subject and I wish I knew site names, but I'm afraid I don't.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:59, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

". . . a lot of work" indeed. I contemplated the query earlier, but concluded that giving a meaningful answer to it would require an effort equivalent to at least several weeks of academic study. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.67.173 (talk) 22:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks very much. If anyone thinks of a better way to collect them, let me know. I'll do Egypt, but not today. Temerarius (talk) 19:47, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Love tragic stories in Bengali culture and folklore

Is there such famous or well-known love tragic stories in Bengali culture like how in Punjabi culture, they have Heer Ranjha, Saasi Punnun, Sohni Mahiwal and Mirza Sahiban? Donmust90 Donmust90 (talk) 16:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

June 4

Is the Ruqayya bint Husayn tomb in Damascus or Cairo??

Editor User:Al Shaykh Al Kasuri decided that the shrine in Damascus: Al-Amara Mosque which used to be called Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque belongs to unknown person and the real tomb is in Cairo: Mashhad of Sayyida Ruqayya. And they changed the article to reflect that. I don't know much about the topic but I assumed vandalism and reverted their edits once but they made the changes again.
Is there someone with knowledge about the topic? Are the sources cited actually trustworthy? Is there consensus around the issue between political scholars of Islam? I would appreciate help in this manner. Quick-ease2020 (talk) 11:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

• I don't understand why you are discussing this here instead of the talk page of Al-Amara Mosque. Your claim that Al Shaykh Al Kasuri decided that the shrine in Damascus: Al-Amara Mosque which used to be called Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque belongs to unknown person and the real tomb is in Cairo is completely incorrect. Nowhere I have said that the remains of Ruqayya bint Husayn are in Cairo? The Mashhad of Sayyida Ruqayya in Cairo is supposedly of Ruqayya bint Ali, not of bint Husayn. I decided nothing, the encyclopedic sources (Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam, The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, the Encyclopaedia of Husayn) did! The information on the al-Amara Mosque is taken from Ruqayya bint Husayn itself! If you believe these sources are not reliable, then why don't you add any reliable sources for this article? My revised version is clearly far better than the previous one which was based only on one source, Mailviruskid.tripod which is clearly not WP:RS. Can you elaborate on how my sources are unreliable and how the previous version was better? Al Shaykh Al Kasuri (talk) 12:22, 4 June 2024 (UTC) Blocked sock. SilverLocust 💬 08:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know anything about this topic and I don't have time to research it right now. I posted here hoping that someone can give their more informed opinion into the topic. No need to get defensive. I appreciate the extra details you provided here. I hope someone else can chime in and we can get a consensus on the issue. Quick-ease2020 (talk) 13:56, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  It is wise not to assume vandalism (unless it is manifest vandalism, like someone adding "I <3 coookies!") if you don't know much about the topic. Even if you suspect vandalism, at least research the topic before reverting. If accessible sources are provided, that should not be too difficult. Otherwise, instead of reverting, raise the issue on the talk page of the article; it is what talk pages are for.  --Lambiam 16:18, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  Will do for the future. Thanks for the advice! Quick-ease2020 (talk) 16:32, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

update: edits were reverted because of a sockpuppet account: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SheryOfficial Quick-ease2020 (talk) 07:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

This whole thing should be moved to the article talk page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Life of an illegal migrants

Legal migrants to USA, Europe have better life but what happens to asylum seekers and illegal migrants in USA Europe? Do they become rich after few years? MiguelCiytrf (talk) 18:34, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Point of order: asylum seekers are legal migrants. Also, "better life" and "rich" are kind of differing concepts. --Golbez (talk) 18:36, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The evidence for the United States is that immigrants do slightly better than the average for native-borns. I suspect this is for people with green cards. Abductive (reasoning) 23:23, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

No human being is "illegal". The main difference with other residents is that they are not officially recognized as residents because they do not have certain documents that are legally required to be treated by the authorities as a human being. It is better to call them undocumented immigrants. French has the term sans-papiers, literally meaning "without papers". In the EU, they have no right to take a job that will earn them some money, or to follow a study at a university. They can only work illegally in the underground economy and are afraid all the time of being put in detention and deported to the country they fled from. It is not an existence one would wish for any human being.  --Lambiam 10:08, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Shorthand for "migrants here illegally". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:06, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

And "illegal migrant"/"illegal immigrant" doesn't say that any person is illegal, so I don't understand your objection. The formulation is no different from "illegal driver", which is a quite common usage that attracts no such objection. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:18, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

"illegal driver" is not a common usage at all in American English. --Golbez (talk) 13:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Umm... so they don't speak American English in Oklahoma City? https://www.newson6.com/story/5e365ab35c62141fdeeb4b87/oklahoma-city-bombing-victims Or in New Jersey? https://www.verizon.com/about/news/press-releases/mahwah-police-double-illegal-driver-apprehensions-new-wireless-data-system --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:07, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

And there's still other such forms, like "illegal occupant". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:09, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The first two examples you found were from 10 and 26 years ago, and that's your evidence for calling it "common usage"? --Golbez (talk) 14:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

In Newspapers.com, I'm seeing "illegal driver" as recently as last year, and in Oklahoma as recently as 2016. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:25, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Cool? --Golbez (talk) 21:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I assume that someone labelled as an "illegal driver" violated a criminal statute and can be brought to court to answer for that. In many cases, individuals labelled as "illegal immigrants" did not violate any criminal statute. They just don't have the right papers.  --Lambiam 17:26, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I assume that someone labelled an illegal immigrant is someone who has immigrated illegally. These papers that they lack are necessary for legal immigation. Meaning that anyone who immigrates without them has done so illegally. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:03, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

But what does "someone who has immigrated illegally" even mean? Does the USA or any country have any law that says that someone who has fled from persecution in their home country in a boat and lands on American soil, starving and dehydrated, without even food or water let alone papers, has done something illegal? Exactly which law has been broken? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

It means they haven't followed the procedures established by law. Part of those procedures have to do with deciding whether someone qualifies for asylum. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

So, what about someone who arrives unannounced by boat, and then reports to the police, who refer him to the immigration authorities, who commence some sort of processing procedure. Presumably, at this stage he's become "legal" since he's complying with official procedures (not the same as an approved resident, but voluntarily in the system just the same), but when he turned up on shore he wasn't "legal". At what exact point did his status change? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:42, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, once he complies with official procedures, he is no longer an illegal immigrant. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:13, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

See, my problem with "illegal immigrant" is grammatical as much as ethical. "Illegal" is an adjective that is applied to actions, or failures to act, but not to people. Nobody is either legal or illegal. If such a thing as an "illegal immigrant" can exist, then anyone who breaks any law whatsoever could become "an illegal human being". 1984 was a while back now, but the memories linger ... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:47, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

But it is not being applied to them as a person, it is being applied to them in terms of their actions. If I occupy a house illegally, I am an "illegal occupant". It says nothing about my legality as a person. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:17, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

If someone flees their country and applies for asylum in a supposedly safe country, they did nothing that was illegal in the country of arrival, at least not in countries that recognize the right of asylum, such as all countries of the EU. If the application is rejected and they appeal, they cannot be deported (in countries where "the rule of law" still means something). Are they then "illegally" in the country? Some politicians and the media are not shy of referring to them as "illegals". So is their migration retroactively "illegal"? Still, in most EU countries, they are sans-papiers – they cannot work, they cannot study, they cannot marry. In Poland it is a criminal offence to help undocumented people: good-hearted locals have become the illegals. Other EU countries are considering similar legislation.  --Lambiam 10:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

"and applies for asylum" There's the point. An illegal immigrant doesn't apply for asylum. Once you enter the bureaucratic procedures, you are no longer an illegal immigrant. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:20, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Yet you may be labelled as such. The media makes no difference between asylum seekers denied asylum and other people lacking certain documents.  --Lambiam 18:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

That's it. What is or is not legal is a matter for courts or legislatures to determine. Not the media, not individual partisan politicians, not the man in the street, not the reasonable man, and not random commentators (on Wikipedia or anywhere else). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:23, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

What authority says that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

What authority says what? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

A term being misused is not an argument for not using the term. It is an argument for using the term correctly.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:44, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

It's no fun. DuncanHill (talk) 22:35, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I want to answer the original question. As others have pointed out, asylum seekers are a category of legal immigrant. If their asylum application is approved, they can usually work and live freely and may have a path to citizenship. Many countries let applicants work while their application is awaiting a decision. As outsiders without connections or a work record in their new country, these immigrants tend to face hard work, often for long hours, for lower pay than native-born citizens. They often get by but seldom get rich. Then, there is the possibility that an application for asylum is rejected. In that case, the applicant faces a risk of being sent back to their home country or otherwise facing disruption to their lives. For other immigrants who don't go through a legal process, something similar is true: Hard work, often for long hours and for less pay than most native-born citizens. Those who haven't gone through a legal process and who aren't seeking asylum also face a lifelong risk of being arrested and deported. Life for immigrants, especially unskilled immigrants, is usually not easy. Costs are lower in most parts of Europe than in the US, but so is average pay, and pay for undocumented immigrants is usually well below average, so they tend not to live well. The cost of living in the United States is much higher than in most countries. It might sound great to hear that you can make $10 an hour doing construction work as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Until you hear that you won't be able to get to work without spending at least $400 a month on a car, you can't rent an apartment for less than $2,000 a month in many places, and you will spend at least $100 a week on food as a single person if you cook at home and never go to restaurants. Health insurance in the United States is not provided for most low-paid workers. It typically costs nearly $1,000 per month per person. If you are uninsured and you need medical care, the cost can be in the tens of thousands of dollars, and you could be in debt the rest of your life. Imagine trying to support a child with those costs. Life can be very hard for immigrants in the United States. Aside from the minority who immigrate legally with valuable skills and professional qualifications, most struggle to survive and very few become rich. Marco polo (talk) 20:09, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Angelita C. et al. v. California Department of Pesticide Regulation talks about working conditions for migrant workers in Central California fwiw. Elinruby (talk) 23:31, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

June 5

Caspar Röist Image

Hello!

Does anyone know if there is any illustration/image of Caspar Röist, captain of the Swiss Guard out there on the internet? I get the feeling that if there ever was one, it was most likely either destroyed in the sack of Rome or kept in some library in the Vatican. Sorry if this is an irrelevant question on a very minor historical figure (haha)!

-Roosterchz Roosterchz (talk) 20:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not at all irrelevant. However, although entering "Caspar Röist" in a common search engine yields a number of images, those that are historically contemporary (that I have examined) turn out to be of other people involved (such as the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor of the time). Most others appear to be recent and therefore conjectural – he has of course been prtrayed in film (and, it appears, anime or manga-related media). Nor does any factual article in a Reliable source I have seen contain an illustration of him, which – since a 16th-century portrait would be in the public domain – suggests there aren't any.

Disclaimer: I am not a historian or art historian, and my search was far from exhaustive, so it's quite possible that someone else might be able to do better. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 188.220.136.217 (talk) 16:42, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

June 7

Al Biruni, What did he say?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Regarding Tashabbuh bi’l-kuffār (Link to draft in user sandbox) an anecdote seem to have been covered by couple of WP:RS sources. Though a little, but there seems some difference in versions of the anecdote.

• ".. Al-Biruni rejoined: 'The Byzantines also eat food. Then do not imitate them in this!' .. Al-Biruni was sarcastic yet he made a point worth stressing: .." ~ As covered by Lawrence, Bruce. Muslim Cosmopolitanism, The Idea of Islam. United Kingdom, C Hurst & Company, 2012. p 22.

• ".. Other mu’adhdhins were of “excessive ignorance.” One of them was upset that all available measurement devices and time tables were based on the (solar) “Byzantine year,” not the Arab (lunar) year, and “his ignorance made him at the end refuse to accept anything based on the Byzantine months, not allowing it into the mosque, since [those] people are not Muslims. Then I said to him: The Byzantines also eat food and walk around the market. Do not imitate them in these two things [either]?” .." ~ As covered by Barbara Freyer Stowasser in “Time Sticks”: How Islam and Other Cultures Have Measured Time.

• Which version is likely to be more correct?
• Whether Al-Biruni was answered by any theologians, if yes, then by whom and how?
• Any other sources covers any similar anecdote on topic of Tashabbuh ?

Bookku (talk) 05:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Stowasser's version is what Al-Biruni himself reports^[1] in his book The Exhaustive Treatment of Shadows (in the translation by Edward Stewart Kennedy; the original text is in Persian). Curiously, although having been called "the most important book on shadow ever written",^[2] I do not find it mentioned on Wikipedia.  --Lambiam 10:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. I updated one of the prime editor (at User talk:Reify-tech) of the article Shadow in case they find information shared by you interesting. Bookku (talk) 11:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

• Al Biruni said, what he said actually was, "My name is Al, and I like Biryani". 2.28.124.7 (talk) 11:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

  Initially I also did not know that in WP discussions WP user's own humour ought to be tagged as ^[Humor] :). Bookku (talk) 11:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

June 8

"American-style" railway carriage

A passenger compartment without corridor at a heritage railway in England.

V/Line Vlocity interior

The article about the Burwood railway station, Melbourne notes that beginning in 1898, it was served by a train consisting of one or two "American-style" carriages hauled by a steam locomotive. Any idea what an American-style railway carriage would be, or how it would differ from the typical late-colonial-era Australian carriage? Google gives me almost nothing; the results are either irrelevant (e.g. horse-drawn) or don't explain anything. Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

This is like the, "what do they call Brazil nuts in Brazil?" problem. Abductive (reasoning) 07:17, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

pt:Bertholletia excelsa uses the scientific name, but the first alternate name is "castanha-do-brasil"; this also is mentioned in the brazil nut article. Nyttend (talk) 10:11, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Scientific names are always italicized. Abductive (reasoning) 17:33, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

British (or European) carriages have a side aisle and American carriages have a central aisle.
Sleigh (talk) 07:23, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

A slight qualification; British carriages had compartments, either accessed directly from the platform or by a corridor at one side. Our corridor coach article says they were "first introduced, in Britain at least, around the start of the 20th century", so British carriages in the 1890s must have just had compartments with no connecting corridor. The same article also says: "The corridor coach was known on the European continent as the American system or American coach in the early 1900s". Both types were phased out in the UK during the 1970s IIRC. Alansplodge (talk) 21:57, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I am an American fan of rail history and in the US, we usually say "railroad" instead of "railway", and "railroad car" instead of "carriage". "Railway" was sometimes used for local commuter lines. My wife and I have ridden on many historic tourist railroads over the years, and by coincidence, we rode on the spectacular White Pass and Yukon Route from Skagway, Alaska to the Canadian border just one week ago. I can confirm that every American railroad passenger car I have ever seen (except sleeper cars and dining cars) is arranged with seats on either side of a central corridor. Cullen328 (talk) 02:40, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, new UK carriages for many years have normally been "open plan" with a central passage, though some compartmented ones with a side corridor (especially for 1st class) have still been made. I think I last sat in a fully compartmented one (on a normal railway) in the late 70s or 80s. Among other issues, you couldn't get to the toilet, so they were used on lines with lots of stops. I think there was a famous case of rape/indecent assault involving one in the late 19th-century, causing their downfall. In the 1960's and early 70's some of the compartments were marked "Ladies only". Johnbod (talk) 04:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

There were fears for the vunerability of women in unaccessible compartments, but the crucial case was the robbery and murder of a man in 1864: see Franz Müller. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.30.195} 188.220.136.217 (talk) 11:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting. Except as a young child, I've never travelled in a railway carriage outside the Melbourne/regional Victorian/Sydney networks, so I've always assumed that open plans (example at right) were normal. I've only once seen a carriage that had compartments, in a Tait that had been converted into a restaurant, and I assumed it had been completely redone. This helps me understand the "Hogwarts Express" better, too. Nyttend (talk) 05:36, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

The corridor coach article is a bit vague to the point of misleading. A cursory search of Google Books shows that corridor stock was clearly in fairly widespread use in the United Kingdom in the 1890s. You can even see the plan of one from 1898 here. —Simon Harley (Talk). 08:26, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Deniz Baykal

In 1990, the Social Democratic Populist Party of Turkey wrote the article "Perspective on the Eastern and Southeastern Problems and Proposals for Solving Them" (Doğu ve Güneydoğu Sorunlarına Bakışı ve Çözüm Önerileri). The article criticised the Turkish government's policy towards the Kurds as "state terrorism" (Devlet terörüne). I noticed that the committee that wrote this article was headed by Deniz Baykal, which puzzled me because of his strict Turkish nationalist views when he later became the leader of the Republican People's Party. I have read two different accounts on the internet, one that he did agreed with the views in the article when he led the writing of it, and only later, for some reason, shifted to strict Turkish nationalist views, and the other that he was opposed to the views in the article from the beginning, and that he only nominally led the writing of it as the Secretary General of the Social Democratic Populist Party. Which is closer to the truth? Dinuco (talk) 09:17, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the true explanation, but there appears to be a tendency among politicians to espouse at any given time those views that are politically the most expedient. In 1990, the SHP saw an opportunity to woo the Kurdish section of the electorate. The resurrected CHP might have been less strictly nationalist than its predecessor if it had not been vying for the same voters as the nationalist DHP. As I remember Baykal's opposition, it consisted solely of opposing in a negative sense; I don't recall any proposal ever being made, so it is hard to tell what his views, if any, were.  --Lambiam 13:49, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Gloriana Ranocchini

The article Gloriana Ranocchini lists her passing in 1993 but the statement is entirely unsourced. I fail to find anything on her passing online or in Swedish media archives, but presumably San Marinese (and maybe Italian?) media must have reported on it when it happened? AlexandraAVX (talk) 12:44, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I've removed this per WP:BLP.  --Lambiam 14:15, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you.

Unless San Marino is very different it feels like there should have been some reporting on her post 1993 to disprove it if she didn't die in 1993. Even if it's just "Former head of state acquires cute dog" or some other fluff piece. AlexandraAVX (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

It feels to me like there should have been some reporting on the death of a former head of state if she did die. The absence of such reports is IMO more significant than the absence of reported signs of life.  --Lambiam 21:53, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

None of the online mentions of her that I can find, some of them much more recent than 1993, indicated that she had died, except those that are obviously quoting or relying on the Wikipedia article. Many of the latter will, of course, not be updated: thus do false facts proliferate from unsourced (and possibly malicious) edits here :-(. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 188.220.136.217 (talk) 16:59, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

This article says (I think) that she founded a cancer hospital in 1993 as the first president of the Associazione Oncologica Sammarinese (AOS). Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

reference librarian questions

• I am doing a driveby edit of Crimean hetmen and several of them could use a source that Qaplan I Giray lost at the Battle of Kanzhal. Those two for example. Preferably in English. Can anybody suggest one?

• Also, can anyone identify a Eropkin who would have done battle with Qaplan Giray at the Terek river in 1733 or 1734? I am assuming a Russian general? (Qaplan artcle)

Thanks for any thoughts Elinruby (talk) 23:21, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

The surname Eropkin in Cyrilic is Еропкин, which can also be transliterated as Yeropkin. None of the many entries at the Russian disambiguation page Еропкин is a fit. The page Битва при Чершете (Battle of Chershet, a battle between the Circassian and the Crimean Tatar army) gives a quote from a report issued in 1731 by D. F. Eropkin (no link), "the commandant of the fortress of the Holy Cross". The article does not cite a source and does not make clear who he was reporting to.  --Lambiam 07:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

The Russian article on the Eropkin family lists one "Eropkin Dmitry Fedorovich – lieutenant general and governor of Riga". No dates, no links, but some sources. He is not mentioned in the list of governors of Riga on the Latvian Wikipedia, and the Russian article on his son Еропкин, Пётр Дмитриевич makes him only vice-governor.  --Lambiam 07:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I like the association of "driveby" with "hetmen" (sounds like "hitmen"), but the plural of hetman is hetmans. Just so you know. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:19, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both. I will circle back and try to do something intelligent about this. Elinruby (talk) 02:02, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

June 11

Legal or illegal?

In Germany and Ireland, incest (sexual intercourse between lineal ancestors and descendants, or between full and half-siblings) is legal for same-sex couples but illegal for opposite-sex couples, see Legality of incest, however, see Transgender rights in Germany and Transgender rights in Ireland, both Germany and Ireland have self-determination law (self ID), allow everyone to change their legal sex in the civil registry without gender-affirming surgery, so are these four situation legal or illegal in Germany and Ireland?

1. male trans to female, has sexual intercourse to brother
2. male trans to female, has sexual intercourse to sister
3. female trans to male, has sexual intercourse to brother
4. female trans to male, has sexual intercourse to sister

And will the answer be different if they have done gender-affirming surgery? 61.224.132.200 (talk) 03:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

As stated at the top of this page, We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require legal advice. In any case, you should never trust random people on the internet for legal advice. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:44, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

That is not a request for legal advice, it's a request for legal information (there's a difference). In any case, it would need to be decided upon by the courts. If the courts haven't already ruled on the matter, then the question is unanswerable. --Viennese Waltz 09:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

If you'll excuse the expression, it's a case of "suck it and see." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 188.220.136.217 (talk) 00:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Characters 入梅 on Chinese calendar

Why does my Chinese calendar show 入梅 (or something that looks like 入梅) for today, June 11, 2024? Google Translate says it means "plum blossom season". Is there any cultural significance to this, like with cherry blossom season in Japan? And why was this put on this specific day of the calendar, June 11? It is the 6th day of the 5th lunar month: is this relevant? 2601:18A:C500:E830:526A:B17D:E5EF:4ACD (talk) 04:13, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

入梅 refers to the commencement of the rainy season. In particular, it literally refers to entering the rainy season. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:16, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

(ec) While the literal meaning is "beginning of plum blossom", Wiktionary defines it as "beginning of the rainy season". Our article East Asian rainy season states that it is also called "the plum rain".  --Lambiam 09:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

June 14

Scientific article about religious/scientific cognitive dissonance

What are some peer-reviewed articles that examine possible cognitive dissonance or lack of true supernatural belief in academics or scientists who purport to be religious? 75.80.42.225 (talk) 07:05, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

It is not easy to define "true supernatural belief". If you define it as a belief that is at odds with the scientific consensus, a scientist harbouring such a belief obviously does not accept the scientific consensus in some respect. But many atheist scientists also question some aspect or another of the scientific consensus; this need not give rise to cognitive dissonance. More importantly, many religious beliefs do not intersect with the realm of science, such as the existence of an immortal soul or an all-powerful creator outside space and time.  --Lambiam 19:06, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

That's the concept of Non-overlapping magisteria, which a religious scientist came up with, and atheist scientists have made criticisms of it, unsurprisingly.  Card Zero  (talk) 19:49, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

You might like Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:78AE (talk) 20:04, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I found Religion among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics. Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Unpopular leaders

Per World losers gather at G7 summit (Axios),

Biden's 37% approval rating positively sparkles next to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau (30%), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (25%), U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (25%), French President Emmanuel Macron (21%) and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida (13%), per Morning Consult's tracker.

Is there a quick TLDR of why these people are so unpopular? Biden I sort of know about but I didn't realize that the rest of them are even further in the toilet.

Also, in the upcoming US election, while Biden and Trump might both be personally unappetizing (not in the same way), is there some reasonably established notion that the actual president (i.e. the person, not the institution or the office) doesn't matter much? Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, GWB, and maybe others were disengaged or vegetative or otherwise dysfunctional, at least towards the end of their terms. (More.) But the election is really about the entire executive branch, which at least sometimes is more influential than the figurehead whose face is on TV. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:78AE (talk) 19:47, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Narendra Modi is at the top of the list with 70%, yet in the recent election his victory margin was the second lowest ever for a sitting Prime Minister in India, and his BJP paty is now in a coalition instead of having an outright majority. So I'm unclear on what global approval ratings are even relevant to. They might predict the result of an election for leader of the world?  Card Zero  (talk) 03:55, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Several factors may have a major effect on the outcomes of opinion polls, such as the sampling method and the wording of the questions. Comparing outcomes from differently conducted polls in different cultures is not necessarily a meaningful exercise.  --Lambiam 04:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Mid-term many voters tend to blame their current leader(s) for everything they're unhappy about, so when asked to rate those leaders, will give quite low scores. But when it comes to a real choice, and they see the quality of the opposition, they return their preferences to the devil they know. HiLo48 (talk) 05:10, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

You can read the articles about each leader, but both Trudeau and Macron have been around in their position for years (2015 and 2017, respectively) and that tends to decrease approval ratings as anything unpopular that happened over that long span tends to reflect on their ratings. For Sunak, he hasn't been around that long, but his party has been in power for a long stretch, and that stretch has been marked by a succession of leaders and, again, some traumatic events that have not helped the various leaders' popularity. And as mentioned, that can change quickly come election time when voters have to make an actual choice, not just express an opinion to a pollster. Xuxl (talk) 13:44, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Here's an article about Schultz's SPD, which paints its unpopularity as an outcome of battling against fiscal conservatism. The usual rule of "it's the economy, stupid" at present is influenced by the Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (still). We're apparently going through World food crises (2022–present), although I'm more keenly aware that multiple countries are experiencing a housing crisis with no affordable rented accommodation available, which I'm told is an echo from the pandemic's damage to builder's supply chains. (Our article on those current events is simply titled Housing crisis.)

More articles: Kishida’s popularity in free fall, Kishida is so unpopular, he can't even give money away, mention inflation, and tax hikes due to spending on defense and social care.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:49, 15 June 2024 (UTC)