Talk:Mother Teresa

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Warning: Very high flaming level

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You may want to read the Talk:Mother Teresa/FAQ and related discussion before commenting. Also see Talk:Mother Teresa/Groundrules.

John Stuart Mill

I have read the flaming controversy of the previous MT talk pages. I cannot discuss everything I have read but will offer my comments on the recent issues.

A point that Jossi has repeated over and over again, with some backup from Ethan Mitchell, is that a quarter of the article ought not present the POV of just four individuals.

I wonder if Jossi knows one of the pillars of free societies: John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty. Mill tried very hard to show there that the claim that “we should not represent the views of a small minority” is something extremely wrong. I would like to illustrate Mill’s point with the city in which I was born.

Five hundred years ago the Aztecs ruled the place known now as Mexico City. They were sanguinary theocrats that sacrificed little children to their gods. The Aztecs were just the last people in a sanguinary culture that developed in almost three thousand years. Though codices survived the Spanish conquest, no Indian, at least in writing, seems to have spoken out against child sacrifice. Why? Because they were a tiny minority; and tiny minorities are rarely heard in a totalitarian culture.

One of the phrases that struck me the most in On Liberty was Mill’s statement that there are exactly the same probabilities that a single individual may be right or wrong on a controversial issue than the rest of humanity. That’s why Mill fought for the outsider to be listened with due attention even if the society overwhelmingly outnumbers the lone outsider.

I don’t want to compare MT with the Aztecs. But like Mill I believe, above all, in the genius of certain individuals, and value the society that —unlike the Aztecs— makes their existence possible.

This is a plea for people like Hitchens to be heard in at least a quarter of the article. The tragedy with the Aztecs and the next totalitarian society that took over the city in which I live, the Spanish with their Inquisition, is that both of them wiped out, vanished and reduced to nothing all dissenting opinion.

This simply cannot happen today, much less in Wikipedia. Cesar Tort 05:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Just one observation - you say, "This is a plea for people like Hitchens to be heard in at least a quarter of the article" - no probs. on that count, I'd support evan a full article on Hitchens, but definitely not MT's article. If I give one quarter to Hitchens and another to other critics, what is left to talk of facts of MT per se? Also, jossi was quoting from the NPOV policy - if you have a problem with that, pls. try to get the policy changed rather than cast aspersions such as "This simply cannot happen today, much less in Wikipedia" as it would be unproductive. --Gurubrahma 12:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

OK with not giving a quarter to every critic. But why not just leave the 25% to all critics, as the article stands now, and just improve the Controversy section by sourcing the “citation needed”? Cesar Tort 19:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Diseenting opinions need to be present in an article as diseenting opinions. Passing value judgements about this and that are not the domain of Wikipedia editors. Cesar, I would suggest you need read WP:NPOV to understand Wikipedia content policies work. You may also want to read WP:NOT to understand what this encyclopedia is not. And by the way, Christopher Hitchens, has his own article in which you can expand on his criticism on this and other individuals. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I have already read those tutorials.

“Dissenting opinions need to be present in an article as dissenting opinions”. This reminds me very strongly Alexis de Tocqueville’s fears of the tyranny of democracy (i.e., the dictatorship of the masses). The 25% space for critics precisely represents the balancing NPOV for this article. Cesar Tort 19:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

So, you are saying that four critics deserve 25% on a biography? You may want to read WP:LIVING ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:LIVING refers to living personalities. MT is dead. Cesar Tort 19:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

What does WP:LIVING have to do with this? Moreover, why don't we put what the Pope said on the Pope's page? Why must only the comments of critics go on their pages?--Prosfilaes 19:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstood my point. Of course that criticism must be presented here. But if you want to expand and cover all aspects on the POV of an author, such as Hitchens, you can do so in his article rather than here. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a quotation from Wikipedia’s On Liberty:

“In Mill's view, tyranny of the majority is worse than tyranny of government because it is not limited to a political function. Where one can be protected from a tyrant, it is much harder to be protected 'against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling'. As such, people will be subject to what society thinks is suitable — and people will be fashioned as such. The prevailing opinions within society will be the basis of all rules of conduct within society. As such there can be no safeguard in law against the tyranny of the majority.”

This makes me think about all those Gallup polls on MT and this very article. —Cesar Tort 02:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Please note that these pages are not a discussion forum. These pages are provided to discuss edits to this article. Thank you for your consideration. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

My point with all that Mill stuff and quotations was precisely to discuss your planned edits to this article: moving everything you dislike to the critics’ page. —Cesar Tort 03:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I have no such plans. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Didn’t you write: “After summarizing, we could move most of the content to these author’s respective articles” (on 9 March 2006, 18:40 UTC)? —Cesar Tort 05:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I did. And I still thing is the way to go for all the reasons presented, if there is consensus for that move, that is. I would suggest that you take sometime and learn how this project works. It will save you and everybody else a lot of time. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

So we agree to disagree —Cesar Tort 15:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You may want to take a look at Talk:Mother Teresa/Archive1. Since 2003 overzealous editors wanted to move all criticism to another articles. But always failed to do so... —Cesar Tort 16:22, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Cesar- I'm a great fan of Mill. On LIberty is one of my favorite essays. I'm not a fricking Catholic apologist. I agree with Hitchens to a great degree. And no one is trying to remove all the criticism of Mother Teresa from this page.

A number of people, myself included, feel that the (currently) minority status of the criticism, coupled with its generally presumptive nature, coupled with the scarcity of prominent adherents, suggests that it violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy to elaborate the criticisms here on this page, since they are currently more associated with their authors than with their subject. That is what we are talking about. Ethan Mitchell 19:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Ethan, I appreciate them.

I have not only read the MT Archive Talks, but printed them and presently I am re-reading them in a special ring binder I bought for the occasion.

I am surprised to see that, from day one in 2003, MT’s fans have tried so hard to move criticism to other pages. It’s remarkable the flaming level around this issue in those Archives! The last thing I want is to engage in that sort of uncivil discussions with other editors.

However, though I understand your opinion, I respectfully disagree. For instance, you like Mill’s On Liberty. Great! What can you tell me then about what I wrote in this talk page on 02:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)? —Cesar Tort 22:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

All right. As I understand it, you are saying that if we reduce the proportion of an article devoted to criticism to below X percent, then we are marginalizing and silencing the critics. In my experience, though, this is not how people absorb information. If I don't know anything about Abagail Frunk, and I'm reading along about what a great person she was, and then I run across a line that says "Several witnesses saw her kill and eat her neighbors and their lapdogs," then I am going to sit up and pay attention, even though it is only twelve words in a sea of words.

However, if I'm trying to learn how my refrigerator works, and a large portion of the text is devoted to Dr. Wonkum's theory that electrons have feelings, too, you know, I am apt to be irritated. Clearly, clearly, I can screen out the information I don't want. But not if it begins to dwarf the information I'm looking for. And if we establish as a precedent that any critique deserves to be discussed in great detail on the page corresponding to the object of criticism, we are moving in that direction.

Cesar, you have said you are happy to spend 25% of an article on X discussing four people's criticisms of X. I imagine that if eight authors were criticizing MT, you would not concede that 50% of the article should be criticism? So the principle you seem to be suggesting is that if ANY prominent criticisms of X exist, we should spend 25% of the article discussing them. This seems to me an impossible burden on wikipedia.

Consider a paragraph like this: "Several prominent critics of Mother Teresa, including health experts and some of her former volunteers, have argued that the widespread admiration for her is misplaced. They argue that Mother Teresa's ministries are focused primarily on converting people to Catholicism, and that such medical treatment as is provided is meager and incompetent, even by the low standards of Calcutta. Further, these critics argue that Mother Teresa and the Catholic Church have misused funds donated for medical purposes, and callously pursued a campaign of deathbed conversion rather than providing competent medical and hospice care."

Three sentences. But what reader can get through it with all their innocent hagiolatry intact? Those who want to learn more about Hitchens' criticisms can click on the link to his page, and those who don't, or are already aware of Hitchens' critiques but are trying to read a page about Mother Teresa, won't. Ethan Mitchell 00:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course, Ethan: claims that witnesses saw Frunk kill and eat her neighbors, or Wonkum’s theory that electrons have feelings, shouldn’t be mentioned in serious articles. But I trust you agree with me that these sort of lunatic claims are not in the same category of Hitchens’ accusations?

I wouldn’t concede 50% to eight MT critics. I am only asking 25% for all critics, whether they have published books or were just acquaintances of MT.

I do believe however (and that was my point above) that neither Aztecs nor New Spain scholars in Mexico spoke out respectively against Aztec child sacrifice or the New Spain Inquisition because in totalitarian, theocratic societies, dissidents are never heard: they are invisible. That’s why Mill is so important. Even a minority of one —whether an Indian critic of child sacrifice or a New Spaniard critic of the Inquisition— would have been heard in an open society. But there are no existing pre-Hispanic or novo-Hispanic pamphlets exposing any of those atrocious events...

I believe many of the problems in Mexico today, an underdeveloped country with atrocious levels of poverty, have to do with its totalitarian past. A single individual may be right and the rest of the society wrong. That’s what I learnt in Mill’s On Liberty and Orwell’s 1984. Hitchens is no Wonkum. All I am asking is some space for people like him in the MT article. —Cesar Tort 01:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, more specifically, you are asking for up to 25% of each article to be devoted to a criticism of the article's subject. Yes? This isn't about "some space;" everyone involved in this discussion for quite some time has agreed that Hitchens et al. should get "some space." This is about the NPOV:UW policy.

I agree with you that Hitchens is not making "lunatic claims," but I think I would also agree with JSM that we are incomptent to decide who is and who is not a lunatic. So, as I see it, wikipedia only has three options on the table:

• (#1)Every critic, including Wonkum, gets individually mentioned. The criticism section can take up a certain ammount (25%?) of the article, irrespective of how few critics are cited.
• (#2)Criticisms are given an ammount of room on the subject's page proportional to how widely they are accepted; important but minority critiques are explicated further on their own pages.
• (#3)Criticisms are given room on the subject's page proportional to how much wikipedians agree with them.

Now, the NPOV:UW policy is #2. Cesar and others are suggesting #1, but to do this consistently would entail a massive re-styling of wikipedia, and it seems unlikely to me that any of us are really looking for that. So I cannot help but feel that what people are really pushing for is #3, and that is quite obviously an NPOV violation.

I would be game, incidentally, to apply a policy like #1 in some consistent fashion. But I don't hear any enthusiasm for doing so, and I doubt MT is the issue that will change people's minds. We are, after all, talking mostly about a fairly cranky pundit arguing about the reputation of a dead woman, with few facts in dispute. It isn't like anyone says MT was a brain surgeon. Here on this talk page, we are all hopped up about her, but I don't see this as an issue that will compell people to rewrite an entire encyclopedia.

And, Cesar, as a total non-sequiter, I think there are some surviving novo-Hispanic sources critical of the Inquisition in Mexico. Let me get back to you on that. Cheers, Ethan. Ethan Mitchell 12:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think #3 is obviously an NPOV violation. I think if there's a large number of people on Wikipedia that hold an opinion, it's an opinion that's not totally unrepresented in the larger world. To describe the multiple proponents of the anti-Teresa group as "a (sic) cranky pundit" is unfair; I could get as sharp about the naive religionists who pushed a legend, but I don't think it would advance this article.--Prosfilaes 21:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Moving criticism of a person away from their biographical article amounts to burying it in a POV fork. I'm fine with criticism of Hitchens (and there sure is a lot of it) residing in Hitchens' article, but his criticism of MT belongs here in MT's article. In short, I agree with Cesar Tort on this matter. Alienus 17:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Ethan. Your explanation of Wikipedia’s disputed policies #1, #2 and #3 are most pertinent now that I’m having big trouble with some POV editors of the Biological psychiatry article. Thanks for explaining them!

I haven’t read Hitchens’ book so I cannot ascertain whether or not he is a “cranky pundit” (though I have read some of his articles, including a MT article in Free Inquiry magazine). However, if MT diverted the funds to the Vatican that donors believed would be used for the poor, Hitchens’ accusation doesn’t sound crank to me.

And yes: it would be great if some people from the 16th-18th centuries spoke out against the Inquisition here in Mexico! Hitchens aside, let’s think a little about Arthur Koestler or Orwell. In their times most of the intellectuals were wrong about communist Russia and these two individual critics were right. This example helps me to illustrate why I still believe that On Liberty is a milestone in our understanding of something that people has not grasped yet, not even wikipedians. As I stated in my April 2 post, there are the same probabilities that a single individual may be right or wrong on a controversial issue than the rest of humanity. If we don’t listen to them... just look what happened to the world under communist rule. —Cesar Tort 17:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Or, to put it more briefly, the first person to discover a fact is always a minority. Alienus 17:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

What this has to do with our discussion? Wikipedia is not the place to assert the POV of a minority, but to describe all POVs in proportion to their significance. You may need to re-read WP:NPOV as well as WP:NOT ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and the opinions of four notable people are held by a large number of less notable people. Alienus 19:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

An assertion that it is not Verifiable. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Look, whatever. I'm just explaining that the presence of four notable people does not mean that their beliefs are unique to them. Rather, they're the visible side of a larger group. If you want to play wikilawyering games, you can do it on your own time, but if you want to censor critics of MT, you're in for it. Alienus 21:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

What? I am not censoring anything. But your position is incorrect and in total contradiction with Wikipedia content policies. Your assertion about the magnitude of support for the critical views of these four criticis is not verifiable, and not reported by reputable sources. What I mean to say is that whet you or I think is inconsequential, we have to report only what other sources say about the subject. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

We are reporting only what other sources say about the subject.--Prosfilaes 01:49, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Many Indian doctors and rationalists protested the beatification of Mother Teresa. This can be verified. However, I don’t have time right now for Google searches. I am supposed to be on vacation, for goodness sake! —Cesar Tort 21:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

When you do you can add it. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Again: no one is trying to eliminate pertinent criticisms from the MT page. The number of people who support a particular POV, although obviously irrelevant to its truth-value, is both germane to wikipedia's NPOV:UW policy and (may) be a claim in need of verification.

Prosafilaes, I did say "mostly," and this discussion has been mostly about Hitchens, who--as I have said before--I am largely in agreement with. But I am concerned that this entire line of criticism borders on being trivial (maybe the dead people didn't read the fine print before they agreed to some ritual they were probably unconscious during???), and it would be bad to establish a policy that even the most absurd criticisms are guaranteed coverage in a large portion of the subject page. (This is Ethan, forgetting to sign in)

A ritual they were probably unconscious during?

Etan, the thing about the ritual is minor, but it's also one of the most minor criticisms. We're not setting policy here, and these aren't the most absurd criticisms.--Prosfilaes 22:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

If I could comment, the idea that she's baptizing people without informed consent isn't that minor. First of all, many find it deeply offensive in an of itself. Even Christians complain that baptism is a holy ritual, not something you trick people into, while non-Christians see this as being an example of how MT furthers the RCC goal of proselytizing as opposed to helping those in need. This last point is particularly relevant, because it offers a non-charitable explanation for her behavior. Alienus 06:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the big question is whether she was tricking people in a malicious, blasphemous manner which downplayed the importance of baptism, or whether people only wish that MT was tricking people, just so people could say that they've critizied someone famous. It's similar to how you'll encounter many people who only wish Christians are worshipping a blood thirsty tyrant of a God, yet we aren't. The distinction may be crucial, but unfortunently, I know of nothing that we could source which might elaborate on the issue that way :(. Homestarmy 12:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I regard that comment about a blood thirsty tyrant of a God as flamebait. What matters is whether she was tricking people, not whether she was malicious about it (which I find rather unlikely) or whether she was blasphemous about it (which baptism is, inherantly, from the perspective of many religions.)--Prosfilaes 17:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I speak from personal experience attempting to debate people in various atomospheres regarding Christianity, not from trying to invite even more debate, yeesh. And I was going on the assumption that Alienus was bringing up a point for the article..... Homestarmy 17:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

So you see nothing wrong in making a comparison that you know will offend many of the people you're discussing with? What matters for the article is the deception more than any underlying motives. Blasphemy was not part of the criticism as given, and is horribly WP:POV; I'd never bring it up except as part of a direct quote.--Prosfilaes 18:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Offend whom exactly? If there are people out there who believe God is a blood thirsty tyrant, then thats their choice, but I reserve the right to label that belief incorrect as much as I please. My comparison was meant to illustrate how when it comes to Christian matters, many people take things horribly out of the real meaning to make criticisms, and it is possible that the controversy over MT is one of those cases. Or, conversly, it may not be one of those cases, for all I know, she really could of been scamming or whatever every single one of the people she was baptizing and horribly desecrating baptism in general, I don't know. And if it really is the deception that matters, then I don't even see the reason why this section of a talk page existed. Is the original information that this section was created to discuss still inside the article or not? Homestarmy 21:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If you're speaking from personal experience, then you know there are people who believe this. You have that right, but that doesn't mean that other people won't be offended, and anyone who's offended, or even disagrees, will not take away from your comparison what you wanted. To offend people in an off-hand comment, to which following up would be off-topic, is rude.--Prosfilaes 21:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Birthplace

The first sentence says shes Macedonian-born. The country didn't exist then, even if the region did, so isn't there a better way to word this? --Grocer 06:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Somebody has defaced a picture included in the article and replaced "Mother Teresa" with "Easson" in the accompanying section of the article. Please fix.

Both issues have been addressed. Thanks. --Grocer 08:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)