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 5 | ← | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | → | Archive 15 |
Points of agreement:
Potential points of difference:
I invite pertinent discussion of these and any other relevant topics on this Talk-page. Otherwise I propose, once again, that we remove any misleading/simplistic "German" tag from the opening paragraph and add relevant material to the "Biography" section, conveying the fatcs:
Nietzsche had [[Saxony | Saxon]] ancestry, [[Prussia]]n birth, a Polish self-image,<ref> See [[Radwan coat of arms]] for a discussion of Nietzsche's self-perception as a Pole.</ref>[[Switzerland | Swiss]] residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the [[German Empire]].<br><br>At the time of his appointment to Basel, Nietzsche applied for the annullment of his Prussian citizenship<ref>''Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behoerde seine Expatrierung'' [Translation:] "He accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification". Curt Paul Janz: ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, page 263.</ref> The official response came in a document dated [[17 April]] 1869.<ref>German text available as ''Entlassungsurkunde fuer den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg'' in Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari: ''Nietzsche Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe''. Part I, Volume 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993. ISBN 3 11 012277 4, page 566.</ref> Janz comments:<blockquote>Von diesem Tage an war Nietzsche also staatsrechtlich kein Preusse und kein Deutscher mehr, sondern ... staatenlos, oder, wie der Terminus damals in der Schweiz lautetet, heimatlos, was auf Nietzsche besonders zutrifft, und er blieb es... Er wurde und blieb <i>Europaeer</i>. [Translation:] So from this day onwards Nietzsche, in terms of international law, was no longer a prussian and no longer a German, but ... stateless, or in the terminology used in Switzerland at that time, "homeland-less", which was particularly appropriate for Nietzsche; and he remained so... He became and remained a ''European''[italics in original].<ref>Curt Paul Janz: ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, pages 263 - 264</ref> </blockquote>
-- Pedant17 ( talk) 01:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the long post. Let me first say, that I agree with user User: Alcmaeonid that the energy being put into this debate would best be spent elsewhere. However, I think it is also important that we clear up this issue. The following material should leave no doubt that the "German" label is not only appropriate, but standard and supported by professional philosophical literature.
Since there is some dispute over how WP:MOSBIO is to be interpreted in Nietzsche's case, here are how some of the other Wikipedia sites characterize him. (No, I don't speak all these languages: I could just parse whether they called Nietzsche a German philosopher or not, frequently by clicking on a link and finding a map of Germany on the resulting page). Afrikaans: was 'n Duitse filosoof en filoloog. Alemannic German: ischen dütsche Filosof u klassische Filolog gsi. Azerbaijani: alman filosofu və klassik filoloq. Breton: Ur prederour alaman eo. Bosnian bio je njemački filozof, filolog i psiholog. Catalan: filòsof alemany. Czech: byl německý filozof a klasický filolog. Welsh: Athronydd ac ieithegwr o Almaenwr. Danish: tysk filosof. German: war ein deutscher Philosoph, Dichter und klassischer Philologe. Greek: ήταν σημαντικός Γερμανός φιλόσοφος και φιλόλογος. Spanish: filólogo clásico, filósofo y poeta alemán. West Frisian: is in ferneamd Dútsk filosoof en filolooch. Irish: Fealsamh Gearmánach. Galician: foi un influente filósofo alemán. Hebrew: פילוסוף גרמני. Italian: è stato un filosofo e scrittore tedesco. Latvian: bija vācu filozofs, filologs un psihologs. Lithuanian: vokiečių filosofas. Dutch: Duitse filosoof en filoloog. Norwegian: var en tysk filosof. Polish: filozof, filolog klasyczny i pisarz tworzący w języku niemieckim. Portuguese: foi um influente filósofo alemão. Romanian: filozofi germani. Swedish: var en tysk filosof, författare och klassisk filolog. Turkish: Alman filozof.
To be fair, the French call him a Prussian. [1] The Latin site does not mention his place of birth or nationality. [2] The scales seem tipped, however. RJC Talk Contribs 16:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to see this issue resolved. This is my attempt to summarize the situation and propose a solution. Please do not intersperse text with these 7 points. Rather, I request that you comment following the final point. Fixer1234 ( talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to see this issue resolved. This is my attempt to summarize the situation and propose a solution. Please do not intersperse text with these 7 points. Rather, I request that you comment following the final point. Fixer1234 ( talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Pedant17 has continued to do so as I have linked to examples of the label \u201cGerman Philosopher\u201d being used by respected professional philosophers.
Pedant17 has been quite accommodating in presenting his rebuttals to any position other than his own. Months of silence regarding his points, in addition to an RfC, have not persuaded him that his is not the consensus position: he continues to argue that his position is in fact the correct one. I hope that the acrimony of this debate has not driven other editors away, for I hope that we are faced with a question that they can resolve.
For more than a year and a half now, Pedant17 has edited this page to remove statements to the effect of "Nietzsche was a German," denying that this constitutes a campaign to deny Nietzsche's being a German. In the past, this question has involved other editors. I wonder, is there any continued support for Pedant17's position, beyond Pedant17? If there is, this is a discussion we should have. If there is, and those agreeing with Pedant17 are turned off by the tone of the discussions that have taken place on this page and in edit summaries for months beyond many's memory, please speak up. As things stand, this appears to be the position of a lone editor.
It is possible that only Pedant17 shares the view which would justify his revisions to the lede of the article, even as others have agreed that the lede as it stands includes an unavoidable simplification. If this is in fact only a single editor denying a consensus that has been established at least a year and a half ago (and since then), there is no need to answer that editor's objections, unless he raises something that we have not considered, and consider worthy of consideration.
Pedant17 has on several occasions declared his willingness and eagerness for a debate on this subject. But we are not a debating club. My possible solution, indicated by the heading of this comment, is that we ignore Pedant17's comments until support for his position is demonstrated. One editor cannot demand that the community engage him in debate until he himself is satisfied with their decision, pursing his agenda every month until a sufficient number of editors cease from objecting to his campaign such that he can declare consensual victory. RJC Talk Contribs 05:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
We find the sentiment repeatedly on this talk-page:
And in the edit summaries:
Not to mention the numerous quotations from books briefly setting a context: "N. was a German philosopher" -- before going on to talk about his childhood or his ideas...
Assertions without supporting material remain unsupported assertions. I have no objections to stating a position, but one needs to support it. "Where one is coming from" seems completely irrelevant to discussion of the intrinsic merits of a case. -- Pedant17 ( talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
The focus on Nietzsche's citizenship comes about from the Wikipedia guideline in the Wikipedia Manual of Style for biographies, which as of 2008-04-07 states: "The opening paragraph should give: ... 3. Nationality ... In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable." By the time Nietzsche had become notable he had renounced the only citizenship he had ever held (Prussian) and become stateless.
As to the "pertinent facts about Prussia":
1. The assertion that "Prior to the unification of Germany, Prussia was recognized as one of the German principalities" tendentiously stresses the German nature of Prussia with unverifiable weasel words ("was recognized" -- recognized by whom?). If one thinks in pan-German terms, of course Prussia seems like a German principality. But one can also recall that the original Prussia lay well outside the German area; that one can think of Prussia as a North European or Baltic state; and that Prussia for many years before 1871 counted as a Great Power in its own right -- regardless of one's attitutde to the archaic or future notion of a "Germany". In summary: "Prussian" can mean "German" -- but not necessarily so. We can more accurately treat the young Nietzsche as Prussian rather than German (and the mature Nietzsche as stateless rather than German).
The fact that Prussia had "its humble origins in the German state of Brandenburg and once had Berlin as its capital", though true, does not seem of great relevance. Russia once had relatively humble origins in the Kiev region and once had Kiew as its capital. So what? Does that mean that we should regard Muscovy as Ukrainian? -- The Prussian state had Berlin as its capital continuously from the invention of Brandenburg-Prussia to the disappearence of the Prussian state in the 1940s -- with the exception of a period of Napoleonic occupation when the Prussian capital shifted to Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia). Does that mean that we class Prussia as a Soviet or Russian state in Nietzsche's day? -- I suspect not.
2. The claim that "Prussia was always considered the major state of "northern Germany" when "German" was primarily a regional descriptor (rather than primarily a state descriptor...)" appears a little too sweeping. Brandenburg hardly figured in the German lands until well into the Middle Ages, and Prussia proper lay outside the Holy Roman Empire and under Polish-Lithuanian suzerainity until even more recently. At various times one could regard Saxony or the Netherlands or even Sweden as the major state of the Northern German lands. Once again, if one starts thinking in terms of "Germany" or "Northern Germany" one imposes a modern concept on an earlier reality. -- Nor can we treat "Germanic" as a useful "regional" term. The Vandal kingdom in North Africa counts as Germanic. The Goths in the Crimea count as Germanic. Let's not muddy the waters by expanding Nietzsche's associations unjustifiably.
3. The suggestion that "Prussians saw no problem in thinking of themselves as German when they formed and largely controlled the North German Confederation" needs qualification. Prussia happily co-opted German nationalism to its own imperial policy. Did that make the Prussians less Prussian and more German? It seems debatable. -- By the same token, we could say that citizens of the United States had no trouble in thinking of themselves as Natonians when they formed and largely controlled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization... or as Naftans once they formed and dominated NAFTA.
4. The claim that "[t]he unification of Germany was undertaken by Prussia (under Otto von Bismarck), and it was Prussia that created the German Empire" seems unexceptionable. But one becomes wary of claims of historical creationism. Look a little more closely at the so-called "German Empire" in 1871 -- in theory as in reality a federation or confederation of independent states with their own governments, parliaments, courts and diplomats -- even citizenships. The Bavarian army retained a separate identity into the First Wold War. And Prussia itself remained a separate, self-governing entity -- dominating but not entirely integrated into the Second German Empire -- throughout the life of that concept. And today, we still occasionally speak of France or of Italy, even though they have become part of something called the European Union. -- If we want to speak of Nietzsche's birth-citizenship, "Prussian" conveys much more detail and accuracy than "German".
Perhaps I should spell this out.
Prussia did indeed act as the 'progenitor' of modern Germany. But it assembled the various states into the Second Reich by treaty of alliance, not by addition to its territory. The result did not bear the name of "Greater Prussia" or "New Prussia", and Prussia itself continued to exist and function -- largely unchanged. So much for historical details of 1871, though: Madeleine Albright appears in Wikipedia without a blatant nationality/citizenship tag in the lead of her article (compare the emigre philosophers Karl Marx and George Santayana), which article goes on to detail that she became a US-citizen in 1957 (about the age of 20). The parallel with Nietzsche seems apparent: he became a stateless person at the age of 24. Bickering as to whether to call him (initially, at least) Prussian or German has as little relevance to his career as a stateless person as arguing as to whether to characterize Albight's tenure as US Secretary of State as Czech or as Czecho-Slovak in nature. The details of the subsequent careers of their birthplaces, in each case, have little to no bearing on the matter. The distinction between change by addition and change by division seems quite irrelevant to me. -- Pedant17 ( talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Nietzsche, in critiquing things German, did not attack his own country: he had no country in any legal sense. The Prussian Saxony of his youth and Professor Nietzsche himself had gone separate ways. The good professor had enough friends and family and cultural background to know the new Germany -- and enough detachment and separation to criticize it. -- Pedant17 ( talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
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 5 | ← | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | → | Archive 15 |
Points of agreement:
Potential points of difference:
I invite pertinent discussion of these and any other relevant topics on this Talk-page. Otherwise I propose, once again, that we remove any misleading/simplistic "German" tag from the opening paragraph and add relevant material to the "Biography" section, conveying the fatcs:
Nietzsche had [[Saxony | Saxon]] ancestry, [[Prussia]]n birth, a Polish self-image,<ref> See [[Radwan coat of arms]] for a discussion of Nietzsche's self-perception as a Pole.</ref>[[Switzerland | Swiss]] residence, declared statelessness and an international intellectual outlook/influence: he never held citizenship of the [[German Empire]].<br><br>At the time of his appointment to Basel, Nietzsche applied for the annullment of his Prussian citizenship<ref>''Er beantragte also bei der preussischen Behoerde seine Expatrierung'' [Translation:] "He accordingly applied to the Prussian authorities for expatrification". Curt Paul Janz: ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, page 263.</ref> The official response came in a document dated [[17 April]] 1869.<ref>German text available as ''Entlassungsurkunde fuer den Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche aus Naumburg'' in Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari: ''Nietzsche Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe''. Part I, Volume 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993. ISBN 3 11 012277 4, page 566.</ref> Janz comments:<blockquote>Von diesem Tage an war Nietzsche also staatsrechtlich kein Preusse und kein Deutscher mehr, sondern ... staatenlos, oder, wie der Terminus damals in der Schweiz lautetet, heimatlos, was auf Nietzsche besonders zutrifft, und er blieb es... Er wurde und blieb <i>Europaeer</i>. [Translation:] So from this day onwards Nietzsche, in terms of international law, was no longer a prussian and no longer a German, but ... stateless, or in the terminology used in Switzerland at that time, "homeland-less", which was particularly appropriate for Nietzsche; and he remained so... He became and remained a ''European''[italics in original].<ref>Curt Paul Janz: ''Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie'' volume 1. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1978, pages 263 - 264</ref> </blockquote>
-- Pedant17 ( talk) 01:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the long post. Let me first say, that I agree with user User: Alcmaeonid that the energy being put into this debate would best be spent elsewhere. However, I think it is also important that we clear up this issue. The following material should leave no doubt that the "German" label is not only appropriate, but standard and supported by professional philosophical literature.
Since there is some dispute over how WP:MOSBIO is to be interpreted in Nietzsche's case, here are how some of the other Wikipedia sites characterize him. (No, I don't speak all these languages: I could just parse whether they called Nietzsche a German philosopher or not, frequently by clicking on a link and finding a map of Germany on the resulting page). Afrikaans: was 'n Duitse filosoof en filoloog. Alemannic German: ischen dütsche Filosof u klassische Filolog gsi. Azerbaijani: alman filosofu və klassik filoloq. Breton: Ur prederour alaman eo. Bosnian bio je njemački filozof, filolog i psiholog. Catalan: filòsof alemany. Czech: byl německý filozof a klasický filolog. Welsh: Athronydd ac ieithegwr o Almaenwr. Danish: tysk filosof. German: war ein deutscher Philosoph, Dichter und klassischer Philologe. Greek: ήταν σημαντικός Γερμανός φιλόσοφος και φιλόλογος. Spanish: filólogo clásico, filósofo y poeta alemán. West Frisian: is in ferneamd Dútsk filosoof en filolooch. Irish: Fealsamh Gearmánach. Galician: foi un influente filósofo alemán. Hebrew: פילוסוף גרמני. Italian: è stato un filosofo e scrittore tedesco. Latvian: bija vācu filozofs, filologs un psihologs. Lithuanian: vokiečių filosofas. Dutch: Duitse filosoof en filoloog. Norwegian: var en tysk filosof. Polish: filozof, filolog klasyczny i pisarz tworzący w języku niemieckim. Portuguese: foi um influente filósofo alemão. Romanian: filozofi germani. Swedish: var en tysk filosof, författare och klassisk filolog. Turkish: Alman filozof.
To be fair, the French call him a Prussian. [1] The Latin site does not mention his place of birth or nationality. [2] The scales seem tipped, however. RJC Talk Contribs 16:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to see this issue resolved. This is my attempt to summarize the situation and propose a solution. Please do not intersperse text with these 7 points. Rather, I request that you comment following the final point. Fixer1234 ( talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to see this issue resolved. This is my attempt to summarize the situation and propose a solution. Please do not intersperse text with these 7 points. Rather, I request that you comment following the final point. Fixer1234 ( talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Pedant17 has continued to do so as I have linked to examples of the label \u201cGerman Philosopher\u201d being used by respected professional philosophers.
Pedant17 has been quite accommodating in presenting his rebuttals to any position other than his own. Months of silence regarding his points, in addition to an RfC, have not persuaded him that his is not the consensus position: he continues to argue that his position is in fact the correct one. I hope that the acrimony of this debate has not driven other editors away, for I hope that we are faced with a question that they can resolve.
For more than a year and a half now, Pedant17 has edited this page to remove statements to the effect of "Nietzsche was a German," denying that this constitutes a campaign to deny Nietzsche's being a German. In the past, this question has involved other editors. I wonder, is there any continued support for Pedant17's position, beyond Pedant17? If there is, this is a discussion we should have. If there is, and those agreeing with Pedant17 are turned off by the tone of the discussions that have taken place on this page and in edit summaries for months beyond many's memory, please speak up. As things stand, this appears to be the position of a lone editor.
It is possible that only Pedant17 shares the view which would justify his revisions to the lede of the article, even as others have agreed that the lede as it stands includes an unavoidable simplification. If this is in fact only a single editor denying a consensus that has been established at least a year and a half ago (and since then), there is no need to answer that editor's objections, unless he raises something that we have not considered, and consider worthy of consideration.
Pedant17 has on several occasions declared his willingness and eagerness for a debate on this subject. But we are not a debating club. My possible solution, indicated by the heading of this comment, is that we ignore Pedant17's comments until support for his position is demonstrated. One editor cannot demand that the community engage him in debate until he himself is satisfied with their decision, pursing his agenda every month until a sufficient number of editors cease from objecting to his campaign such that he can declare consensual victory. RJC Talk Contribs 05:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
We find the sentiment repeatedly on this talk-page:
And in the edit summaries:
Not to mention the numerous quotations from books briefly setting a context: "N. was a German philosopher" -- before going on to talk about his childhood or his ideas...
Assertions without supporting material remain unsupported assertions. I have no objections to stating a position, but one needs to support it. "Where one is coming from" seems completely irrelevant to discussion of the intrinsic merits of a case. -- Pedant17 ( talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
The focus on Nietzsche's citizenship comes about from the Wikipedia guideline in the Wikipedia Manual of Style for biographies, which as of 2008-04-07 states: "The opening paragraph should give: ... 3. Nationality ... In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable." By the time Nietzsche had become notable he had renounced the only citizenship he had ever held (Prussian) and become stateless.
As to the "pertinent facts about Prussia":
1. The assertion that "Prior to the unification of Germany, Prussia was recognized as one of the German principalities" tendentiously stresses the German nature of Prussia with unverifiable weasel words ("was recognized" -- recognized by whom?). If one thinks in pan-German terms, of course Prussia seems like a German principality. But one can also recall that the original Prussia lay well outside the German area; that one can think of Prussia as a North European or Baltic state; and that Prussia for many years before 1871 counted as a Great Power in its own right -- regardless of one's attitutde to the archaic or future notion of a "Germany". In summary: "Prussian" can mean "German" -- but not necessarily so. We can more accurately treat the young Nietzsche as Prussian rather than German (and the mature Nietzsche as stateless rather than German).
The fact that Prussia had "its humble origins in the German state of Brandenburg and once had Berlin as its capital", though true, does not seem of great relevance. Russia once had relatively humble origins in the Kiev region and once had Kiew as its capital. So what? Does that mean that we should regard Muscovy as Ukrainian? -- The Prussian state had Berlin as its capital continuously from the invention of Brandenburg-Prussia to the disappearence of the Prussian state in the 1940s -- with the exception of a period of Napoleonic occupation when the Prussian capital shifted to Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia). Does that mean that we class Prussia as a Soviet or Russian state in Nietzsche's day? -- I suspect not.
2. The claim that "Prussia was always considered the major state of "northern Germany" when "German" was primarily a regional descriptor (rather than primarily a state descriptor...)" appears a little too sweeping. Brandenburg hardly figured in the German lands until well into the Middle Ages, and Prussia proper lay outside the Holy Roman Empire and under Polish-Lithuanian suzerainity until even more recently. At various times one could regard Saxony or the Netherlands or even Sweden as the major state of the Northern German lands. Once again, if one starts thinking in terms of "Germany" or "Northern Germany" one imposes a modern concept on an earlier reality. -- Nor can we treat "Germanic" as a useful "regional" term. The Vandal kingdom in North Africa counts as Germanic. The Goths in the Crimea count as Germanic. Let's not muddy the waters by expanding Nietzsche's associations unjustifiably.
3. The suggestion that "Prussians saw no problem in thinking of themselves as German when they formed and largely controlled the North German Confederation" needs qualification. Prussia happily co-opted German nationalism to its own imperial policy. Did that make the Prussians less Prussian and more German? It seems debatable. -- By the same token, we could say that citizens of the United States had no trouble in thinking of themselves as Natonians when they formed and largely controlled the North Atlantic Treaty Organization... or as Naftans once they formed and dominated NAFTA.
4. The claim that "[t]he unification of Germany was undertaken by Prussia (under Otto von Bismarck), and it was Prussia that created the German Empire" seems unexceptionable. But one becomes wary of claims of historical creationism. Look a little more closely at the so-called "German Empire" in 1871 -- in theory as in reality a federation or confederation of independent states with their own governments, parliaments, courts and diplomats -- even citizenships. The Bavarian army retained a separate identity into the First Wold War. And Prussia itself remained a separate, self-governing entity -- dominating but not entirely integrated into the Second German Empire -- throughout the life of that concept. And today, we still occasionally speak of France or of Italy, even though they have become part of something called the European Union. -- If we want to speak of Nietzsche's birth-citizenship, "Prussian" conveys much more detail and accuracy than "German".
Perhaps I should spell this out.
Prussia did indeed act as the 'progenitor' of modern Germany. But it assembled the various states into the Second Reich by treaty of alliance, not by addition to its territory. The result did not bear the name of "Greater Prussia" or "New Prussia", and Prussia itself continued to exist and function -- largely unchanged. So much for historical details of 1871, though: Madeleine Albright appears in Wikipedia without a blatant nationality/citizenship tag in the lead of her article (compare the emigre philosophers Karl Marx and George Santayana), which article goes on to detail that she became a US-citizen in 1957 (about the age of 20). The parallel with Nietzsche seems apparent: he became a stateless person at the age of 24. Bickering as to whether to call him (initially, at least) Prussian or German has as little relevance to his career as a stateless person as arguing as to whether to characterize Albight's tenure as US Secretary of State as Czech or as Czecho-Slovak in nature. The details of the subsequent careers of their birthplaces, in each case, have little to no bearing on the matter. The distinction between change by addition and change by division seems quite irrelevant to me. -- Pedant17 ( talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Nietzsche, in critiquing things German, did not attack his own country: he had no country in any legal sense. The Prussian Saxony of his youth and Professor Nietzsche himself had gone separate ways. The good professor had enough friends and family and cultural background to know the new Germany -- and enough detachment and separation to criticize it. -- Pedant17 ( talk) 02:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)