Humanities desk
< October 3	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 5 >

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

October 4

Would "Howl" have been known if it hadn't been subject to a court action?

In 1955, according to our article, no one had heard of Allen Ginsberg. In 1957 Howl became the object of a court case for obscenity, defended by the ACLU, brought to national attention. Question: is this court case the only reason why this became known? Would anyone otherwise have been aware of Ginsberg, or Jack Kerouac (whose first work was bought in 1957), or William S. Burroughs (according to the article Ginsberg was "instrumental" in getting his first work published), or anyone in the "Beat Generation"? And if so, does this illustrate some general law or principle of historical development (beyond the Streisand Effect?) and if so what? Wnt (talk) 00:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, . . .

I don't see much point in speculative questions of this sort. Looie496 (talk) 00:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty pointless waste of time. OK for chatting over a cup of coffee or a mug of beer, but not really appropriate for the RD. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 00:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that a true "alternative history" can go anywhere - maybe the 60s never happen and we all go up in nuclear war; maybe some other dissidents come to prominence with a more reasoned philosophy, etc. But I think you can analyze the situation in a very narrow way, simply asking whether some people in this group were making it into the public eye independently at the time when the court case began. Wnt (talk) 01:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any reason to crucify Wnt for the question, although it is speculative as worded. He could have asked which contemporaries are there of Ginsberg who were compared to him without being accused of obscenity, etc. He did ask whether Kerouac's and Burrough's fame is seen as derivative of theirs. Referring to critics of these authors might be helpful. And next time he might do better by asking what reviewers of and works about these writers might help me research the question whether.... μηδείς (talk) 01:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That kind of question can be asked about anything in history. Would the Kennedys still have had a lot of impact if JFK had died on PT-109? Would Regis Philbin still be nationally known if he had never worked on the Joey Bishop Show? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are many questions one can ask about history; I just happened to ask this one. Though nothing good can come of trying to justify a question, I think I should disclose my underlying motivations. You see, I am a very strong believer in freedom of speech. And I have regarded some of the Beat Generations works as a good thing, contributing to social progress e.g. gay rights that are a better thing. So I have to deal with the inconvenient question of how is it that censorship, a bad thing, can bring about a good result? And so I can warm up the 'dialectical engine' and postulate that it didn't really bring it about, or that the poets and writers would have done even better without it, or that someone else better would have come to the limelight and so forth, but such an engine delivers more meaningful results from more precise contradictions. If the people who contemplated the prosecution had a moral choice between doing the right thing and the wrong, and if doing the right thing would have led to some phenomenon causing even better social progress which, being just, is nonetheless fated to occur, then that insight must still remain somewhere and must still be fated to be revealed. Wnt (talk) 19:38, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think counterfactual historical questions are necessarily a bad thing; they can highlight the highly contingent nature of history, and separating out events of random chance from broader historical forces is well within the range of academic discussion (see, e.g., Carr's famous What Is History?, which is entirely devoted to thinking about such things). Out of curiosity I did a search on Ginsberg's name across the newspapers in ProQuest's historical archives (which includes a number of national newspapers in their entirety, like the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times). What sticks out immediately is that even though Ginsberg's 1957 trial was covered, his real name-recognition period — where he's showing up in the papers more than 20 times a year) is in the mid-to-late 1960s, with a peak in 1969 (where his named showed up 170 times). This leads me to think that while the Howl trial may have put him on the map in some circles, much of his fame as Allen Ginsberg derived from a much later period.

On the question of Kerouac and Burroughs, I suspect that they'd have found a route into the "Beat" scene (which was quite independent of Ginsberg) one way or another. Whether Beat would have taken off without Ginsberg is an open question, but it strikes me that it was a movement larger than Ginsberg himself, and while the Howl trial may have brought it some new attention, I suspect that the San Francisco scene would have largely gone on the way it was already going at the time that happened. I don't think that Beat became enormously popular in the 1950s anyway; like many "scenes", it had its circles of devotees at the time but it lives on much larger in the nostalgia of later eras than it ever did when it was contemporary. (Compare also hippies, disco, etc., both of which were relatively small scenes compared to the population as a whole, but when people think back to "1960s" or "1970s" they make it seem like that was all there was.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

¶ There is a nub to this question that isn't counter-factual, alternative or speculative history, perhaps better expressed as something vaguely like "how much importance did the San Francisco case against the publisher and distributor of Howl have for Allen Ginsberg's future career and renown?" Allen Ginsberg was the son of two prominent poets, he was able to get William Carlos Williams to write a foreword to Howl, and the City Lights Press of Lawrence Ferlinghetti was his publisher. Many of his close literary associates like Burroughs and Kerouac achieved some place on their own merits (or demerits). None of this of course automatically makes Howl important, although it indicates that Allen Ginsberg was no nobody. But Howl in my highly-inexpert and antique opinion is, for all its eccentricities, by far the most important (perhaps the only really important) American poem written since 1950. What's more difficult to assess is how important the Beat Generation (a small though significant group with a small though significant following even in its time) will seem in fifty years. Everyone's heard of Impressionism, but it's far harder to judge how lasting and how important were the respective contributions of the Pre-Raphaelites, Futurism, Vorticism, the Ashcan School, Socialist Realism, the Bloomsbury Group, or Op Art. —— Shakescene (talk) 11:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting answer. Hmmm... I like parts of the first part, but find it too burdened by private references, I dislike the third, but the second deeply expresses one of those emotions I've had to name myself because I feel it relatively often yet know no word for it in English or any other language. Even so - is it really that important? Surely someone can name some other poem to rival it?! But if its quality is truly so superior then I suppose it would not matter what was done to try to suppress it. Wnt (talk) 03:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bangladeshi diaspora North America

Why Bangladeshis tend to migrate more to America than Canada? What does America have that Canada doesn't that Bangladeshis like about? Education system? health system? lifestyle? --70.31.19.100 (talk) 03:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)Don Mustafa[reply]

More people. --Jayron32 04:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And more stuff. Futurist110 (talk) 05:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Warmer weather?-85.119.27.27 (talk) 07:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More Bangladeshis. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To illustrate Jayron's point: Using the estimates given in our article on Bangladeshi diaspora, the number of Bangladeshis per 100,000 people in Canada is actually greater than the corresponding number in the US by a factor of about 1.48 (there are about 70.4 Bangladeshis per 100,000 people living in Canada, and about 47.7 Bangladeshis per 100,000 people living in the US). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a false analysis. When considering whether more Bangladeshis have migrated to the USA or Canada, it's the absolute numbers that matter. The question was not which country has the higher proportion of Bangladeshis in its overall population. We could probably find a country whose proportion of Bangladeshis to the total population dwarfs 70.4 per 100,000, but its raw numbers of Bangladeshis is quite low compared to the raw numbers in either the USA or Canada. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the percentage of Bangladeshis within a given population is more likely to reflect the presence of established Bangladeshi communities, infrastructure, cultural programs, media etc than absolute numbers. We are talking about two huge countries of similar distance from Bangladesh, both geographically and culturally. The country you suggest "we could probably find" might be the Maldives for example, where there exist a possible 10,000 Bangladeshis per 100,000 inhabitants. A dwarfing figure indeed, but not really comparable in this context, for many reasons. You wrote "More Bangladeshis" as a possible answer to this question, but I think it's more relevant how many people of an immigrant's culture might be found near where they live, not how many live within the entire country's long borders. YMMV. (By the way, I do not think the factor of 1.48 is really that significant either; if anything, it puts both countries, Canada and the US, in the same league of attractivity. I just don't think the question "what does America have that Canada doesn't" is a question than can be derived from the fact that there are more Bangladeshi immigrants to the US than to Canada in terms of absolute numbers). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bangladesh recognition map

Is there a map where it shows the nations and the date of recognizing Bangladesh?--70.31.19.100 (talk) 03:22, 4 October 2012 (UTC)Don Mustafa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.19.100 (talk) 03:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It’s an interesting idea. I couldn’t even find a list, let alone a map, but if you wanted to make one, there are a number of dates in Foreign relations of Bangladesh (some even have sources). There’s also an interesting account of the four-year process by a former senior Bangladeshi diplomat here that gives specific dates for India (6 Dec 1971), East Germany (11 Jan 1972), Bulgaria (12 Jan 1972), Soviet Union (25 Jan 1972), Malaysia (31 Jan 1972), UK (4 Feb 1972), Canada (14 Feb 1972), Iraq (8 July 1972), Pakistan (22 Feb 1974) and China (8 Oct 1975) and ranges for other countries that could help your research. Taknaran (talk) 16:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

historic flag lapel pin

I'm trying to find a lapel pin depicting the Grand Union Flag. Where's a good place to begin?142.255.103.121 (talk) 04:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I googled [grand union flag lapel pins] and a number of entries came up. This particular one is on the blacklist for some reason, but I would think there are others: www aliexpress com / wholesale / wholesale-united-states-grand-union-flag-lapel-pins.html ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Blacklist?142.255.103.121 (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "Blacklist" is a list of websites that are banned on Wikipedia for one reason or another... in the case of a blacklisted commercial website, the reason is usually because some idiot tried to turn Wikipedia into a platform for advertising... by, for example, spamming a link to the website into lots and lots of articles. Don't know if that's what happened with the one that Bugs is talking about, but it would not surprise me. Blueboar (talk) 22:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the first time I've seen this kind of thing, where I cited some website and it rejected the post after I hit "save". You're probably right that someone tried to spam it here at some point. That's a recurrent problem. And the way around it, in this situation, is to state the text of the link without linking to it, and then the reader can decide what to do with it, if anything. I recommend the OP google the subject and look for it. I would think there would be a number of sites that would feature historical US Flag pins of various kinds. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:22, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there another good place to find what I'm looking for?142.255.103.121 (talk) 04:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mean besides the internet? Well, are there any historical sites or museums near you? You could see if they have something like that and/or if they have any idea how to find such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:42, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

German (Nazi) Army 3-finger salute

In the first episode of The World at War there is a clip showing members of the German Army swearing a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler. They are shown making a 3-fingered salute with the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand held in front of the chest at shoulder level with the elbow bent. It looks similar to the Serbian salute. What are the origins and symbolism of this salute, and why was it used in preference to the German military salute, or the Hitler salute? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mean this gesture? Neither out Hitler oath or Nazi salute article mention it. A quick look at Google didn't bring anything to light either. Alansplodge (talk) 14:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not unusual to raise only three fingers when swearing an oath in Germany and it isn't a "Nazi salute". See for example this picture of federal president Gustav Heinemann's oath of office in 1969: [1] -- Bgfx (talk) 15:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at Category:Oaths on Commons. You'll see some two finger oaths; here is a 1700 exposition on the meaning of the two-finger oath. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article Nazi salute does contain a brief mention of this alternate gesture, called the Kühnen salute. The de:WP interprets this as the symbol for the letter W, meaning Widerstand = resistance. Details, if you can read the language, can be found in the German entry Hitlergruß--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit strange that it's named after a post-war neo-Nazi, and what exactly were the Wermacht of 1933 resisting? The mystery deepens. A reference to the salute (but no explanation) is in A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika, By Alfons Heck who describes joining the Hitler Youth; "..the oath we swore with our left hand gripping the flag and three fingers of our right extended to the sky..." (p.8). Alansplodge (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go... The swearing in of 32 the new Swiss Guards at the Vatican; "Each of the recruits puts their left hand on the flag and takes the oath with 3 fingers raised, representing the Trinity." So not a specifically Nazi gesture at all. See also the Vatican website which says that the custom dates back to 06 May 1527; "Then one by one the new recruits are called by name. Each one advances alone, and with his left hand he grasps the Guarďs standard, holding high his right hand with three fingers open, as a symbol of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he confirms the oath:..." Alansplodge (talk) 22:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The answers deal with different gestures. The soldiers and the Hitler youth swore using the middle-European oath gesture, see de:Schwurhand. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, that makes sense, but the Swiss Guard gesture seems identical[2]. And here's William Tell doing the same thing.[3]]. Alansplodge (talk) 22:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)]. Alansplodge (talk) 22:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have created an English language article Schwurhand. Thanks to Pp.paul.4 for pointing me in the right direction. Alansplodge (talk) 22:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that article, which is surprisingly original. A more conservative approach might cite sources like Ferdinand Schuster: Die Civilprocessordnungen für die Königreiche Ungarn, Croatien und Slavonien. § 247. Wien 1854, S. 535. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 09:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, my grasp of German is very cursory. Would you be so kind as to translate the salient points, or better still, add them to the article yourself please? I am also more than happy to accept any corrections to the article - I freely admit to having no prior knowledge of the subject. Perhaps the talk page would be a better place for further discussion. Vielen Dank. Alansplodge (talk) 11:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Roosevelt's quote

Could someone remind the phrase where Franklin Roosevelt (or possibly Theodore) said that the country where the citizens have their own houses is invincible? Don't know the exact wording though. Thanks. 176.241.247.17 (talk) 12:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was FDR in a speech to the United States Savings and Loan League in 1942. The full quotation appears to be "[A] nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable." See here. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, since the first mention I could find of this quote is from a book published in 1950, it's possible the quote is apocryphal, or at least synthesised. It's also frequently misquoted, especially by Realtors as "A nation of homeowners is unconquerable". - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

this dates it precisely on page 408 and cites it in the next day's NY Times. meltBanana 15:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so 1942. Follow-up question from a curious non-American: Was the US a nation of homeowners back then? Or was it a goal? HiLo48 (talk) 22:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Federal Housing Administration was devoted to increasing homeownership among Americans at that time (though it also got the U.S. federal government involved in encouraging economic racial discrimination in a whole new way...). AnonMoos (talk) 23:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's from a message sent by the President to a special war conference of the League in Chicago and read (apparently by someone else) to the opening session on Nov. 16, 1942. Here's a contemporary news report [4] --Cam (talk) 01:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Naming discretion in academic publishing

I was just looking at Arvind Mithal's Wikipedia article, and see that he goes by just the name Arvind to the point that all of his published works that I can see cite him only as Arvind, without including his last name, which he has, which is Mithal (if the Wikipedia article is correct). What he wants to do is not at all my question, but I just wonder about the majority of peer-reviewed publications, at least in the field of computer science, if they have stated policy regarding the procedure of applying an author's desired name to the article written. Obviously, they're letting Arvind go by simply Arvind. Is this an exception? If some computer scientist named Peter Sanders (I just made that up) wrote a paper that was reviewed as highly relevant and well-written and by all degrees was determined "this needs to be in the next issue of Communications of the ACM!" And Mr. Sanders adamantly wanted to go by only "Pete," is it likely (not invitation to speculation, cite policy) it could show up on the page "[Article Title] By Pete, University of [whatever]"? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 14:01, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why shouldn't anyone call a person what they wish to be called? --Jayron32 14:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I'm not asking why or why not, I'm asking if the publishers have policy on this and Arvind is a granted exception or not. What if someone, despite any assumption of such professionals by default being absolutely not frivolous, were one whose papers were undeniably deemed of the highest importance and needed to be published, but he was a weird person and demanded to go by "#apofijawpeoi5rj"? What if thirty computer scientists all wanted to go by only "Pete"? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 14:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a blog, but it has some relevent information on the topic. Skimming that and a few other things I found in some google searches, it appears that a person has some latitude in choosing their "publishing name" in terms of which form (Nicknames, initials, middle names, etc.) they use, with the expectation that the name is unique to them and that they will use the same name for their whole career. I'm sure there are exceptions to both, but I don't think your hypothetical has any need to be dealt with. Do you have evidence that there is a rash of "Petes" who all publish only under that name? So far you've presented a single author who uses a name unique to him. That seems to be all that academic publishing requires. --Jayron32 14:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, and your statements are fair enough. But how common is the "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, and absolutely not wonder about quite unlikely scenarios." attitude when attempting to structure policy in large organizations? I don't have experience being on teams developing policies for humans, but I do know that with computer programs, people still worry about things that might happen once in a million times (granted, computers are quicker than humans, so maybe there's that). 20.137.18.53 (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it relates only to Wikipedia, but there are principles here like Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep and Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Which is not to say that, in general, there aren't lots of organizations which invent rules on unlikely scenarios; there's a lot of people who invent lots of stuff just to justify their own jobs, not because what they create is valuable or useful (i.e. the entire mission statement industry). So yeah, I wouldn't discount that such rules may exist with the caveats that a) they aren't necessary and b) after a good-faith Google search using a wide variety of search terms, I turned up bubkis. --Jayron32 15:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While probably ideal, "unique ... and ... will use the same name for their whole career" certainly isn't a requirement, isn't necessarily expected, but it certainly makes things easier for everyone involved. There are many cases where there are multiple people publishing under the same name. Name changes are also seen, frequently with women using both their maiden name early in the career (while they're single), then switching to their married name. I can't think of examples off-hand, but I'd imagine the reverse (going from married name to maiden name) happens occasionally on divorce. The other typical variation you see is middle name issues. The same person may publish as "John Jacob Smith", "John J. Smith", or "John Smith", depending on the article. Of course, it behooves a researcher to pick a single distinct name and stick with it, as it makes matching articles to researchers much easier. There have been some efforts to establish a unique identifier for academic publishing (see, for example, ORCID, ResearcherID, etc.), though those haven't yet gained traction. -- 205.175.124.30 (talk) 18:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The case of Perri 6 may be worth looking at here. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I worked at an academic journal for a number of years. We had no pre-ordained policy on such things — people could pretty much call themselves what they wanted. We never had anyone try to call themselves something unusual, though. We wouldn't have bothered making up a policy ahead of time, though, since this is very unusual in academic publishing.

Separately, one might be interested in the case of Nicolas Bourbaki. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unsolved problems

According to this Hilbert's problems. The DARPA has shown 23 unsolved math problems (not the same 23 problems as of Hilbert). Where can I see them?65.128.190.136 (talk) 22:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Googling "DARPA 23 problems" produced this. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article gives two references for this, the first of which lists all the problems (the second was a broken link to the official announcement, which doesn't seem to be on DARPA's website any more, but you can see it here). Though it does seem a bit odd for them to compare these to Hilbert's problems: most of them are very applied (in some cases, like "what are the fundamental laws of biology?", they aren't really about maths at all) and are very vague, whereas most of Hilbert's problems are about pure maths and ask specific questions (or at least there were intended to be specific). 81.98.43.107 (talk) 23:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alan Watts Audio Recording

I was wondering where I could find the audio from this video and other speeches like it minus the music. I have found a few sites that have archives of Alan Watts' lectures but none with this specific one. The video description is misleading and has no information and searching any variation of the speech yields no results. --67.86.147.91 (talk) 22:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No luck with that audio but I found a Watts talk very similar to this one here (starting 7:49).--Cam (talk) 01:51, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Secret self-haters

Are there any other cases similar to those of Csanad Szegedi and Ola and Pawel here (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/23/poland.jewish/index.html) where someone is prejudiced against a certain ethnic group or race and then discovers that he/she himself/herself is actually a member of this ethnic group or race? Futurist110 (talk) 23:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adolf Hitler.
Sleigh (talk) 00:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. The claims that Hitler was of Jewish ancestry (which I assume you are referring to) are dubious, to say the least. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I don't think that Hitler had any Roma or Slavic ancestry either. Futurist110 (talk) 00:35, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

However, he was anything but the ideal "Aryan" model (tall, blond, blue-eyed, healthy, and mentally sound). StuRat (talk) 02:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bobby Fischer somewhat fits the premise. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Vladimir Zhirinovsky whom I remember having said "My mother was Russian, my father was a lawyer". (His father was Jewish) Another gem, quoted in the article: "Why should I reject Russian blood, Russian culture, Russian land, and fall in love with the Jewish people only because of that single drop of blood that my father left in my mother's body?" ---Sluzzelin talk 00:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: Sorry, this is perhaps not what you're asking, since I suspect Zhirinovsky knew all along and didn't discover his ancestry after having formed his prejudice. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Yeah, I meant that one needs to be unaware of his/her ethnic or racial heritage at the time of his/her prejudice towards this ethnicity/or race being formed. Bobby Fischer and Vladimir Zhirinovsky were always aware that they were ethnically Jewish. Also, Béla Imrédy might or might not fit this bill. He had some Jewish ancestry, but I don't know whether or not he was aware of it before forming his prejudice towards Jews. Futurist110 (talk) 00:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious, but what was the race of the first humans? If they were all black (due to being from Sub-Saharan Africa), then every white supremacist would be an example of this if you'd go far enough back due to the one drop rule. Futurist110 (talk) 00:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest you read Race (human classification)? I have seen no evidence that white supremacy has ever limited its beliefs to the constraints of science or logic. YMMV. Bielle (talk) 01:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Then you're obviously unfamiliar with the subject. See scientific racism and eugenics. --140.180.242.9 (talk) 03:32, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Then you're obviously unfamiliar with science. Well, maybe not you, but them. Just sayin'. --Jayron32 03:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Scientific racism" is, at best, pseudoscience; the article you have linked is quite clear on that. As for eugenics, the concept that any given race is inherently superior to any other has been debunked; the other article you have linked is quite clear on that. My points stand. Bielle (talk) 04:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you missed my point. If the established science was racist (which it was), and the average Joe was racist because they believed in the established science, then the average Joe could have constrained himself to "the constraints of science or logic" and still been racist. Don't believe that you're inherently superior to your ancestors. You can't possibly independently verify every scientific belief you hold about the world; you have to trust scientists to be truthful and objective, and if they're not, you'd be just as clueless as the eugenics proponents from 100 years ago. --140.180.242.9 (talk) 06:35, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting point by the OP about the race of the first humans, but I think the simplest answer, as Bielle's link shows, is that they had no "race" as such, because race involves classification into distinct categories. Since the term includes cultural factors and a concept of ancestry, there is no way of saying how we would classify them if they existed today. It depends a little too much on history and circumstance. Races have emerged since the first humans, and whatever the term represents, it is usually accepted as meaningful. An Arab, for example, is different from a Persian (or a Westerner), regardless of whether you use culture, language, or mitochondrial DNA. For this reason, I don't think stuff about the first humans is terribly relevant to the original question, and we risk getting lost in argument about this detail. IBE (talk) 05:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Several films, notably Blade Runner, Gattaca and The Conformist, spring to mind. --Ghirla^-трёп- 09:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- The Blade Runner thing (that Deckard was really a Replicant) is basically a fan-fic invention. AFAIK, both Philip K. Dick (the original author) and Ridley Scott (the film director) have denied that there was any intent to imply that Deckard was a Replicant. --Jayron32 12:41, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- - That's not quite right Jayron: According to Themes_in_Blade_Runner#Deckard:_human_or_replicant in the book he's explicitly human, and in the movie his status is ambiguous. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My favorite case is Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream, though I don't think he ever explicitly explicitly says it, merely explicitly. ;) Wnt (talk) 03:34, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Barney Stinson is one quarter canadian ^^. 203.112.82.128 (talk) 18:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So what's the 3/4 he hates being? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Uhm, he mocks robin for being canadian.203.112.82.128 (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TV Tropes calls this Boomerang bigot and has some real life examples.--90.165.121.56 (talk) 00:18, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this is off-topic, certainly it is unsourced speculation, but it is my belief that prejudice against an ethic or sexual group is as prevalent within the group as outside it. When minority kids join gangs or fall victim to drugs, when gay kids attempt suicide or engage uncaringly in risky sexual practices, this is the same demon that turns those outside the group into bigots and bashers, just as the legendary incubus and succubus are the same creature. Wnt (talk) 03:34, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not an ethnic or religious prejudice (well, possibly religious), but homophobic repressed homosexuals are a general fit for the pattern. StuRat (talk) 05:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]