![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
"Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 - September 21, 1915) was a United States reformer dedicated to imposing his ideas of Victorian morality."
"dedicated to imposing his ideas"---that sounds rather biased to me.
Gentlemen, I ask thee: "is there not more which we wikipedians could insert into this article?" Sweetfreek 04:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
"He was a savvy political insider in New York City and was made a special agent of the United States Postal Service, with police powers up to and including the right to carry a weapon." Comstock did not need the Post Office ("Postal Service" is a much later construction) to confer upon him the right to carry a weapon. In the nineteenth century is was still the right of every American to carry firearms, a right conferred by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution until diluted by court decisions and congressional enactments in the twentieth century. Dick Kimball ( talk) 14:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Come on, calling this puritan git a "reformer" is like calling Carrie Nation a "remodeller".
What a perverted mind. Someone who thinks he has the power and knowledge to tell all other people what is right or wrong and what to read has to have a major problem with his own feelings and beliefs. Can one truthfully say only in America? Sounds like it could be happening now in Muslim countries?
His legacy lives on: the Bush administrations's ludicrous policies such as chastity pledges, along with misinformation about contraception (eg, overemphasizing the failure rate of condoms) that has influenced popular culture. Perhaps there's an unofficial shrine to this man in the White House~~opusv5 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.156.43.8 ( talk) 17:02, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Is there any information on this? Was he married? Did he have any offspring? (of course, what we really need to know is "did he ever actually _do_ 'it'?"!!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.243.112.20 ( talk) 02:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that the character Earl Comstock in Cryptonomicon has any relation to Anthony Comstock? I've removed the reference, if someone has a citation please put it back in. 219.89.174.125 ( talk) 11:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
A biography of Comstock written in 1927, "Anthony Comstock: Roundsman Of The Lord" by Heywood Jablome and Margaret Leech of the Algonquin Round Table examines his personal history and his investigative, surveillance and law enforcement techniques.
Heywood Jablome? I doubt this . . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.88.62.6 ( talk) 19:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
There needs to be a section on Comstock and his anti-Catholic views. One of the major reasons he pushed for the ban on contraception was to make sure the United States remained a country with a Protestantmajority.
( Ken Burch) 12:24. 6 August 2010(UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.237.10.217 ( talk)
How does that make sense? Comstock was against contraception, but so is the Catholic church. hypotaxis ( talk) 09:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Traditional Christian morality, particularly in regard to sexuality, is a very definite thing. The idea that it varied widely in Christendom is nonsense, unhistorical and appears to be simply using any club available to bash Comstock and make him appear more negative than he was.
Above all, the things he targeted, pornography, contraceptives and abortion were always eschewed throughout the history of Christendom, across all places and in all times until at least the twentieth century. Religious leaders did NOT, on the whole, speak out against him for the simple reason that they all agreed with him.
"Victorian morality", a vague and undefined thing, with no creed behind it, can mean whatever a person wants it to mean. Christian morality generally refers to commonly accepted teachings from Scripture and tradition that Christians always agreed upon. There was nothing special about a hostile attitude toward pornography in the Victorian era (if we accept such an undefined thing as so broadly defining the entire English -speaking world), so casting it as something peculiar to the 19th century is simply absurd. It is a partisan attempt to paint the man as not in sync with the historical tradition he was a part of, that people today are not, and so have difficulty understanding.
Of course, fanatics can revert the edit back, but they can be shown to be unreasonable in their fanaticism. Or in the language of this site, inserting a private and very un-objective POV into what is supposed to be neutral articles that fairly consider and weigh all the important facts. Rusmeister ( talk) 10:32, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
The answer is that in general, he defended what has always been common to Christian morality. Most particularly, sex was always held as something intimate and not for public display, ogling or practice. That has ALWAYS been the same throughout the lands once referred to as Christendom. The moral position towards sex outside of marriage has ALWAYS been the same. Pornography has ALWAYS been condemned. That you can find people that broke the rules here and there does not change the fact that Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant teachings have always held identical stands on these issues. That he may have done some things that other Christians wouldn't agree with does not change the fact that the bulk of his work was aimed at what all agreed was and is immoral.
I said fanatic in regards to people who are determined to assert that the moral conception of public display of sexual practices was somehow limited to Victorian England. If the shoe fits, wear it. if not, don't. I make no personal accusations. Since it is clear that on the whole, Christian teachings support most of what he stood for, it is unreasonable POV to try to assert otherwise. Rusmeister ( talk) 18:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC) Rusmeister ( talk) 18:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
![]() |
Disclaimers: I am responding to a third opinion request made at WP:3O. I have made no previous edits on Anthony Comstock/Archive 1 and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process (FAQ) is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes. Third opinions are not tiebreakers and should not be "counted" in determining whether or not consensus has been reached. My personal standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here. |
Opinion: At this point in the discussion, slow though it may be, I think Victorian morality is the better term. That is partly because (a) Beeblebrox has made a good case for Comstock's work being immersed in that period and (b) Rusmeister's arguments that Victorian morality is somehow a pejorative term towards Christianity and that "traditional Christian values" has always had a fixed and uniform meaning would appear to be original research in their current state. I would, however, also note that while it is probably true, as argued by Rusmeister, that on the whole Christianity has considered the kinds of things he mentions above to be sinful that there has long been a good deal of difference of opinion both between and within individual Christian bodies about the extent to which Christians should be encouraged to, on the one hand, avoid participation in such things versus, on the other, the extent to which they should go out and attempt to put an end to them. (As illustrated, if not particularly authoritatively but certainly entertainingly, in Chapter XXVI, subchapter 3, of Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry when a Catholic priest upon being invited to join a committee of interfaith ministers to go out and raid the city's red-light district declines to do so, saying, "My church, gentlemen, probably has a more rigid theology than yours, but I don't think we're quite so alarmed by discovering the fact, which seems to astonish you, that sinners often sin.") Comstock's historical significance was not that he was dedicated to certain values, but to the degree that he was dedicated to taking action to stamp out or limit practices which he believed to be in violation of those values. In that, Victorian morality which also refers to the application and enforcement of those values is a much better description, especially in the lede, of why he is notable. |
What's next: Once you've considered this opinion click here to see what happens next.— TransporterMan ( TALK) 17:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC) |
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
"Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 - September 21, 1915) was a United States reformer dedicated to imposing his ideas of Victorian morality."
"dedicated to imposing his ideas"---that sounds rather biased to me.
Gentlemen, I ask thee: "is there not more which we wikipedians could insert into this article?" Sweetfreek 04:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
"He was a savvy political insider in New York City and was made a special agent of the United States Postal Service, with police powers up to and including the right to carry a weapon." Comstock did not need the Post Office ("Postal Service" is a much later construction) to confer upon him the right to carry a weapon. In the nineteenth century is was still the right of every American to carry firearms, a right conferred by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution until diluted by court decisions and congressional enactments in the twentieth century. Dick Kimball ( talk) 14:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Come on, calling this puritan git a "reformer" is like calling Carrie Nation a "remodeller".
What a perverted mind. Someone who thinks he has the power and knowledge to tell all other people what is right or wrong and what to read has to have a major problem with his own feelings and beliefs. Can one truthfully say only in America? Sounds like it could be happening now in Muslim countries?
His legacy lives on: the Bush administrations's ludicrous policies such as chastity pledges, along with misinformation about contraception (eg, overemphasizing the failure rate of condoms) that has influenced popular culture. Perhaps there's an unofficial shrine to this man in the White House~~opusv5 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.156.43.8 ( talk) 17:02, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Is there any information on this? Was he married? Did he have any offspring? (of course, what we really need to know is "did he ever actually _do_ 'it'?"!!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.243.112.20 ( talk) 02:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that the character Earl Comstock in Cryptonomicon has any relation to Anthony Comstock? I've removed the reference, if someone has a citation please put it back in. 219.89.174.125 ( talk) 11:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
A biography of Comstock written in 1927, "Anthony Comstock: Roundsman Of The Lord" by Heywood Jablome and Margaret Leech of the Algonquin Round Table examines his personal history and his investigative, surveillance and law enforcement techniques.
Heywood Jablome? I doubt this . . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.88.62.6 ( talk) 19:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
There needs to be a section on Comstock and his anti-Catholic views. One of the major reasons he pushed for the ban on contraception was to make sure the United States remained a country with a Protestantmajority.
( Ken Burch) 12:24. 6 August 2010(UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.237.10.217 ( talk)
How does that make sense? Comstock was against contraception, but so is the Catholic church. hypotaxis ( talk) 09:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Traditional Christian morality, particularly in regard to sexuality, is a very definite thing. The idea that it varied widely in Christendom is nonsense, unhistorical and appears to be simply using any club available to bash Comstock and make him appear more negative than he was.
Above all, the things he targeted, pornography, contraceptives and abortion were always eschewed throughout the history of Christendom, across all places and in all times until at least the twentieth century. Religious leaders did NOT, on the whole, speak out against him for the simple reason that they all agreed with him.
"Victorian morality", a vague and undefined thing, with no creed behind it, can mean whatever a person wants it to mean. Christian morality generally refers to commonly accepted teachings from Scripture and tradition that Christians always agreed upon. There was nothing special about a hostile attitude toward pornography in the Victorian era (if we accept such an undefined thing as so broadly defining the entire English -speaking world), so casting it as something peculiar to the 19th century is simply absurd. It is a partisan attempt to paint the man as not in sync with the historical tradition he was a part of, that people today are not, and so have difficulty understanding.
Of course, fanatics can revert the edit back, but they can be shown to be unreasonable in their fanaticism. Or in the language of this site, inserting a private and very un-objective POV into what is supposed to be neutral articles that fairly consider and weigh all the important facts. Rusmeister ( talk) 10:32, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
The answer is that in general, he defended what has always been common to Christian morality. Most particularly, sex was always held as something intimate and not for public display, ogling or practice. That has ALWAYS been the same throughout the lands once referred to as Christendom. The moral position towards sex outside of marriage has ALWAYS been the same. Pornography has ALWAYS been condemned. That you can find people that broke the rules here and there does not change the fact that Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant teachings have always held identical stands on these issues. That he may have done some things that other Christians wouldn't agree with does not change the fact that the bulk of his work was aimed at what all agreed was and is immoral.
I said fanatic in regards to people who are determined to assert that the moral conception of public display of sexual practices was somehow limited to Victorian England. If the shoe fits, wear it. if not, don't. I make no personal accusations. Since it is clear that on the whole, Christian teachings support most of what he stood for, it is unreasonable POV to try to assert otherwise. Rusmeister ( talk) 18:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC) Rusmeister ( talk) 18:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
![]() |
Disclaimers: I am responding to a third opinion request made at WP:3O. I have made no previous edits on Anthony Comstock/Archive 1 and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process (FAQ) is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes. Third opinions are not tiebreakers and should not be "counted" in determining whether or not consensus has been reached. My personal standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here. |
Opinion: At this point in the discussion, slow though it may be, I think Victorian morality is the better term. That is partly because (a) Beeblebrox has made a good case for Comstock's work being immersed in that period and (b) Rusmeister's arguments that Victorian morality is somehow a pejorative term towards Christianity and that "traditional Christian values" has always had a fixed and uniform meaning would appear to be original research in their current state. I would, however, also note that while it is probably true, as argued by Rusmeister, that on the whole Christianity has considered the kinds of things he mentions above to be sinful that there has long been a good deal of difference of opinion both between and within individual Christian bodies about the extent to which Christians should be encouraged to, on the one hand, avoid participation in such things versus, on the other, the extent to which they should go out and attempt to put an end to them. (As illustrated, if not particularly authoritatively but certainly entertainingly, in Chapter XXVI, subchapter 3, of Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry when a Catholic priest upon being invited to join a committee of interfaith ministers to go out and raid the city's red-light district declines to do so, saying, "My church, gentlemen, probably has a more rigid theology than yours, but I don't think we're quite so alarmed by discovering the fact, which seems to astonish you, that sinners often sin.") Comstock's historical significance was not that he was dedicated to certain values, but to the degree that he was dedicated to taking action to stamp out or limit practices which he believed to be in violation of those values. In that, Victorian morality which also refers to the application and enforcement of those values is a much better description, especially in the lede, of why he is notable. |
What's next: Once you've considered this opinion click here to see what happens next.— TransporterMan ( TALK) 17:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC) |
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |