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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Yes, he was Irish in that he was born in Ireland. But he wasn't Irish in the modern sense of the term. Ireland was still part of the UK when he was born there so his passport (if he had one) would probably say that he was British -- SteveCrook ( talk) 17:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Is Shaw British or Irish? Because the Nobel Prize Committee says he is British. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.154.56 ( talk) 02:20, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed this before with regards people born in Ireland: people say that his passport would have said British but the Act of Union 1800 states that the name of the state is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The idea of people being Irish or people being described as Irish or being from Ireland does exist before Irish Nationalism. I don't think it is an error to describe him as Irish —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.46.242.180 ( talk) 22:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
SteveCrook, by that logic then Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera were British then? Obviously not. Bernard Shaw has even referred to himself as Irish so I think that settles that dispute. As for the Nobel Prize Committee saying he was British, it is clear that they gave him a more "respectable" title at the time. It's like with Richard Harris. Clearly Irish but was labelled British by newspapers when he has accomplished something great! Yet described as Irish when he did something bad. Jamie Kelly ( talk) 07:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I think by putting 'Irish?' (with a question mark) is quite misleading because it seems to suggest that Shaw is not Irish at all it just seems very extreme. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.47.13.142 ( talk) 16:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
'When I say that I am an Irishman I mean that I was born in Ireland, and that my native language is the English of Swift and not the unspeakable jargon of the mid-XIX. century London newspapers. My extraction is the extrac- tion of most Englishmen : that is, I have no trace in me of the commercially imported North Spanish strain which passes for aboriginal Irish : I am a genuine typical Irishman of the Danish, Norman, Cromwellian, and (of course) Scotch invasions. I am violently and arrogantly Protestant by family tradition ; but let no English Government therefore count on my allegiance : I am English enough to be an inveterate Republican and Home Ruler. It is true that one of my grandfathers was an Orangeman ; but then his sister was an abbess ; and his uncle, I am proud to say, was hanged as a rebel. When I look round me on the hybrid cosmopolitans, slum poisoned or square pampered, who call themselves Englishmen today, and see them bullied by the Irish Protestant garrison as no Bengalee now lets himself be bullied by an Englishman; when I see the Irishman everywhere standing clearheaded, sane, hardily callous to the boyish sentimentalities, susceptibilities, and credulities that make the Englishman the dupe of every charlatan and the idolater of every numskull, I perceive that Ireland is the only spot on earth which still produces the ideal English- man of history.'
Desperate to be idiosyncratic in other words.
1. Sign your posts in discussion pages Mr. Anonymous.
2. What does "desperate to be idiosyncratic" mean - Shaw is simply making a point about nationalism (and, worse, racism) and contrasting it with legitimate national pride. Not especially idiosyncratic at all - more like a breath of sanity.
3. How does this impinge on our article - what changes would you like to make based on your perception of Shaw as being idiosyncratic just for the sake it (nonsense - but let that pass for the moment)? Dicussion pages are not intended as forums or intended for general discussions of the subject concerned. This discussion, to put it another way, is about this article, which in turn happens to be about Shaw. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 01:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Put it down to puckishness on my part that I felt like pasting the quote and getting in a little dig at the old chap. I've read a fair bit of Shaw and have no difficulty in grasping his tone, I just feel he tried too hard too often, but as you said, this doesn't belong in this discussion. Although I still think something about ancestry is important with the likes of Shaw, Yeats, O'Casey, Synge, etc, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.13.218.53 ( talk) 14:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Is the sentence "He supported the Stalinist regime, dismissing the reports on famine as falsehoods" really appropriate for the introduction (or the article as a whole)? Shaw's feelings towards the Soviet Union are better left for the body of the article and not in awkward and out of place sentences in the introduction. -Matt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.3.17.129 ( talk) 07:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Shaw was noted for taking extreme views, whether on vegetarianism (branding his own pre-vegetarian self a "cannibal"), the development of the human race (his own brand of eugenics, driven by miscegenation and marrying across class lines), or in politics (in spite of his own liberal views he is recorded as supporting, or at least condoning, the dictators of the nineteen thirties.
Talk:George Bernard Shaw/Archive 1#His name discusses this briefly. He's often referred to as simply "Bernard Shaw", although only in certain places, apparently. For example, in Australia, it's only ever "George Bernard Shaw", or occasionally "GBS". I distinctly remember the first time I ever heard him referred to as "Bernard Shaw", which was about 25 years after I'd first heard of him. At first I didn't know who they were talking about, then the penny dropped.
I certainly don't advocate moving the article to "Bernard Shaw", but I think we ought to make some reference to the fact that that's what he gave as his name, and what he's known as to millions of people. -- JackofOz ( talk) 04:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
He preferred to be called plain Bernard Shaw. "Don't George me" he used to say. 109.154.9.232 ( talk) 13:47, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Shaw is no longer the only person to have won a Nobel and an Oscar; Al Gore has won both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.134.39.36 ( talk) 15:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Al Gore also won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.172.254.60 ( talk) 16:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Shaw was against vivisection and he elaborates on this issue in length in the preface of Doctor's Dilemma. Do you think this deserve a place in this article? Tavanarasi ( talk) 10:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC) 81.214.255.101 ( talk) 10:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
In the BBC's weekly magazine, Shaw made a 1933 "appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. Deadly by all means, but humane not cruel..." His appeal would shortly come to fruition in Nazi Germany. As Robert Jay Lifton notes in The Nazi Doctors, "The use of poison gas—first carbon monoxide and then Zyklon B—was the technological achievement permitting 'humane killing.'"
Shaw admired not just Stalin, but Mussolini and even Hitler. He despised freedom, writing, "Mussolini... Hitler and the rest can all depend on me to judge them by their ability to deliver the goods and not by... comfortable notions of freedom." Asked what Britons should do if the Nazis crossed the channel into Britain, Shaw replied, "Welcome them as tourists."—Preceding unsigned comment added by Thismightbezach ( talk • contribs) 09:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
This article contains far too many subjective comments by its various authors. Sentences such as it should be remembered that Shaw played a great role in Brittish literature or Shaw's writing style was so different that it's difficult to believe him the author (paraphrases) have no place in an article written for an encyclopedia. I cannot find and change them all, but I should like to point them out to any who may happen upon an example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homo Ergaster ( talk • contribs) 12:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
This supposed quote has just been deleted. I just googled it, out of interest, and it turns out to be a forgery. It comes from Volume 1, issue 8, of Genuine Islam, published by the "International Union of Islamic Propaganda and Service", Singapore, in 1936—see New York Public Library record, here. It seems that Shaw didn't write it; it was made up or, at best, a wilfully loose paraphrase from an informal interview between Shaw and Abdul Aleem Siddiqi. It's all a bit muddled, but a good starting point is Being an Unforgivably Protracted Debunking of George Bernard Shaw’s Views of Islam, here. Debunking probably wouldn't make it into the article as a reliable source, though, but then neither should Genuine Islam. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 06:12, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
According to her homepage this is just a collection of undergrad and grad school essays that she's posted on the internet for a while. There's no reason to treat her as a reliable source. Moreover, her essays contain individual citations to the scholarly literature so it's those references that should be checked and then cited to. On at least one occasion, in her "German Requiem" article, she cites a source stating that the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1866! So either her source or her citation is incorrect there; it would be wise since she does not appear to meet WP:RS any more than if she had put up her undergraduate essays on a geocities page, for such references to be checked rather than simply changing our references to match her citations without double-checking them. TheGrappler ( talk) 17:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I see that this contribution contains index marks to footnotes numbered in the mid two-hundreds (e.g., empty a good deal of respectable morality out like so much dirty water, and replace it by new and strange customs” (264). Freedom from “common ideals” (267),) whereas the article here only goes up to (84), at the time of writing. Does this mean that the edit has been lifted from somewhere else and, if so, can anyone identify where? -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 21:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I have no interest in a WikiWar, but this section is frankly embarrassing. Reading Shaw's quotes and letters in the NYT or the preface to "On the Rocks" and it's clear that:
1) He believed in eugenics including the killing of the unfit without a hint of irony. 2) He vigorously defended Hitler, Stalin and Mao again without irony.
Now that doesn't necessarily detract from the value of his work, but for God's sake, why make Wikipedia look foolish when "Conservapedia" can just refer people directly to dozens of NY Times articles like this:
How silly to pretend that this stuff came from Glenn Beck. Beck is just quoting Snore the NYT. Pretending that this a Glenn Beck dispute and trying to push a false interpretation of is simply false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.248.20 ( talk) 23:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
George Bernard Shaw's comments on having people appear before a board to "justify their existence" were meant to be sarcastic. He was expressing his disagreement with some of the more vulgar eugenicists of his time. The linked source is a clip from Glenn Beck's extremely biased show on Fox News. It is taken out of context, and is a deliberate misrepresentation of Shaw's position.-- 108.28.48.21 ( talk) 15:37, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
If it's satirical, why is he using the exact same words ("are you pulling your weight in the social boat?etc") when justifying the "liquidating" done by the soviet police? 91.91.155.254 ( talk) 22:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
That U-tube clip from The Soviet Story is linked from here twice. As far as I can see they both fail WP:ELNEVER and so should be removed. I think the movie misunderstands Shaw's satire, but I'm suggesting de-linking only on policy grounds. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 21:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
I have deleted the eugenics section.
The primary source, Dan Stone [3], makes a highly controversial and poorly-argued [4] attempt to link Shaw and eugenics, which has been picked up by Glen Beck, the World Future Fund and Conservipedia: [5] [6] [7].
All of these sources use incomplete and out of context quotations.
"At a meeting of the Eugenics Education Society of 3 March 1910 he suggested the need to use a 'lethal chamber' to solve their problem."
The only available source for this claim is Dan Stone's book, linked above. He incompletely cites a Daily Telegraph account of Shaw's speech. Note that the entire speech is not available. In Dan Stone's quote, Shaw uses bouletic [8] terms like "should" and "would". Because Dan Stone is employing selective quotation, it is not possible to say whose desires Shaw is discussing. Shaw's? The eugenics community? Society? England? Russia? A hypothetical world Shaw is describing to prove a point? And unjust society? A just society? No context is given, so ALL of these readings are equally defensible. That's to say NONE of them are defensible without more context.
And given that Shaw's entire works paint him as a pacifist and proponent of human rights and decency, it is incorrect to be taken by Dan Stone's faulty logic and conclude without better and more extensive evidence that Shaw somehow supported Hitler and eugenics. Clotten ( talk) 23:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
( edit conflict)::Stone is not the only source for the section deleted (and there are many more which could be ref'd). Are you suggesting that Stone should be considered an unreliable source, or that this article should make no mention whatever of Shaw's views on eugenics, or is it your intention to re-instate the section in a more 'neutral' way? RashersTierney ( talk) 23:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Some material sourced from Glen Beck removed, as suggested. The World Future Fund isn't a WP:RS and material sourced from here also trimmed. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 08:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Umm, there is footage of Mr. Wells laying out his ideas to have a eugenics panel to kill unproductive members of society. There is no reason to conclude that any of this was intended ironically.those He calls for the extermination of those "swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people" in his Anticipations, and defends it in his autobiography, again without a hint of irony. He has long been associated with the Fabian Society, admitted here, which has its own connections to eugenics. This must be why the eugenics section is still up, despite Moonraker's frantic attempts to whitewash this article, and to present a balanced and unbiased view by removing anything that might be less than complimentary to Wells. More lines like "he endorsed that executions be carried out humanely" should be included by the Wells propaganda wing, as they will accelerate Wikis's descent into popular contempt. -Vision —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.197.236.146 ( talk) 19:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Since the issue begins to pop up in German wikipedia as well, I would like to express my surprise that Shaw is quoted on such an important issue from such an obscure source like The Soviet Story, which clearly does not fulfill WP:V. Apart from that omninous 1910 speech, which apparently has never appeared in print, Shaw discusses euthanasia somewhat sarcastically in his preface to the The Doctor's Dilemma and in his preface to the Webbs' ( Sidney & Beatrice) English Prisons under Local Government (1921). Thus Shaw argues provocatively within two distinct contexts. In one context, speaking of an overburdened health care system, he discusses the ethical question, whether and how "a choice between those worthy and those unworthy to be treated, and presumably saved" (as quoted by Archibald Henderson: George Bernard Shaw. Cincinnati 1911, p. 389) should be made, and concludes: "No doubt the higher the life we secure to the individual by wise social organization, the greater his value is to the community, and the more pains we shall take to pull him through any temporary danger or disablement. But the man who costs more than he is worth is doomed by sound hygiene as inexorably as by sound economics." (The Doctor's Dilemma, p. xciv) - just as sarcastically as he concludes "Treat persons who profess to be able to cure disease as you treat fortune tellers." (p. xciii) In the other context, treated somewhat superficially by Dan Stone, Shaw makes a case for abolitionism, claiming that imprisonment is no more sensitive than "the lethal solution" and that capital punishment does not lower the standard of humanity as continuing penalties do. He claimed that he was dealing "with a very small class of human monsters," about a tenth the number of whom were presently being executed. (p. xxxiv) This issue was of lifelong importance for Shaw, whose first paper read in front of the Zetetical Society in 1882 was on the virtues of Capital Punishment over Life imprisonment. (Holroyd, 1998, p. 75). Shaw picked up on this in a somewhat tasteless letter to The Times, published on March 5th, 1945, claiming that as soon as "the necessary work of 'weeding the garden' becomes better understood" there would be "State-contrived euthanasia for all idiots and intolerable nuisances, not punitively, but as a necessary stroke of social economy." (Brian P. Block, John Hostettler: Hanging in the balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain. Winchester 1997, pp. 102-3.) In short, there is plenty of source material available to treat the issue in a more contextualized way than suggested by The Soviet Story. For a much needed discussion of Shaw's complex relationship to Fabianism and eugenics one might refer to Mike Hawkins: Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: Nature as model and nature as threat. Cambridge 1997. There is also a German dissertation on that topic (Sören Niemann-Findeisen: Weeding the garden. Die Eugenik-Rezeption der frühen Fabian Society. Münster 2004), but it is not very instructive on Shaw. -- Assayer ( talk) 19:32, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I looked at Shaw after researching Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel, listed as a "eugenicist" on his Wiki page. By the looks of it, people are deleting the label of "eugenicist" from Shaw, as people did for awhile from Carrel, because they view it as a slur. This is much like noting someone as a "slave promoter" in that it is a slur by today's standards and yet it was widely accepted in the 18th C. Eugenics was a popular phenomenon embraced by many in the scientific and other intellectual communities in the late 19th early 20th century, while opposed by some others (notably G. K. Chesterton.) Making information difficult to find helps no one to understand the times and the rise of movements like these. Because many people come to this article because of their historical interest in eugenics, and because the article contains a major section about it, the word should appear in the opening of it just like it does in the Carrel article. Kris ( talk)
Slight misquote there: I thought it was an improvement on the previous, but I still don't think it should be there. It gives undue weight to the topic and doesn't meet the WP:MOSBIO guidelines. A WP:3RR reminder to contributor's talk page. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 13:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
The synopsis of this "tale" gives the (quite incorrect) impression that the Black Girl herself is treated condecendingly, specifically that she is "misguidedly" searching for a god in the form of a human being. In fact the story is very clearly an allegory - the "Girl" is an unusually intelligent person of great force of character; her "travels" are metaphorical expressions of her intellectual assessments of differing views of God. I have added nothing to the synopsis, it (rightly) needs to be short, and I don't want to substitute my POV for the original editor's here, but I have cut the (to me) offending words. Anyone who thinks I'm wrong - read the "story" (it is really an agnostic tract rather than a short story) and see what you think. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 21:17, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
A recent edit has pointed out that the play contains no references to lethal gas. This is true. Why, though, would it do so in this comedy of a reverse Don Juan? I suggest that this statement is superfluous and propose a revert. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 09:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
OF COURSE the reference to "Shaw" from the song (from A little night music) refers to GBS. The reference to "dialogue" clinches it, but since he is by far the most famous person called Shaw that anyone could think of there is a very good chance indeed that ANY reference to the name anywhere refers to him. Like Shakespeare, or Beethoven. references to the surname alone so obviously refer to a certain person that it becomes necessary to prefix any reference to another person of the same name with their initials or given names - just to make the distinction. The trouble is that piling up every casual reference to Shaw in songs and things (if we seriously started to list them) would rapidy get to ridiculous lengths. Put it another way - a discussion of Roll over Beethoven may well be aposite in an article on Chuck Berry - but probably NOT in an article on Beethoven himself. In a detailed discussion of the Sondheim song, the reference to Shaw would be far more notable than the other way round. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 21:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi! I was just wondering if there are any Shaw fans out there with a book or two on him who could create a stub page for his play The Millionairess? It obviously wasn't one of his major works, but Katharine Hepburn starred in a production of it on the West End and Broadway in 1952 (the reason I'd like there to be a page on it, because I'm working on her article and this is related), and a movie version of it was made in 1960 with Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, so it surely meets notability criteria. I don't mind making it myself but it would be very scarce because I don't have any books on Shaw to get information from. -- Lobo512 ( talk) 15:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Was knighted. Ireland was part of the UK, United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland back when he was born & the majority of his life. He was therefore a UK citizen by birth. His acceptance of the Knighthood would therefore indicate that he was happy with such a situation and had no issue with being referred to in such a way. 86.145.144.171 ( talk) 20:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Since when is common sense unencyclopedic? Pointing out the obvious does not need citing - but we often do it. Just look at the articles for the days of the week for instance! -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 09:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
It's nice to read that Shaw eventually changed his mind about Brahms. I recently read that Shaw hated Shakespeare's plays. If this is true, shouldn't it be included in the article? WilliamSommerwerck ( talk) 14:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Could someone with access to Holyroyd determine more exactly what Joan was sculpted?
This
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Please hyperlink Saint Joan to the correct article. 75.247.185.157 ( talk) 23:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Is it possible to include detail of his long friendship with his neighbour Apsley Cherry-Garrard? His support and encouragement gave much to the success of 'The Worst Journey in the World'.
Limhey ( talk) 22:45, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
This quotation (from both Time and the New York Times) appears to be a transmission error. The contemporary NYT correction is paywalled, but is cited here. The doctrine of Creative Evolution is a major theme in Shaw's work, notably Back to Methuselah but also other plays going back as early as Man and Superman, so the emendation makes enormously more sense than the typo. Due to the inaccessibility of the correction, I'm not sure what the correct thing to do is here, so I leave it to an actual Wikipedian to fix the article text, but it certainly shouldn't stand as written now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.149.135 ( talk) 13:46, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
There have been a couple of attempts to completely alter the POV of this article - in my edit summary I have asked the person concerned to bring any suggestions as to how (in their opinion) the article can be made more NPOV to this page. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
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I know we are all getting tired of this topic, and would like to move on, but I have some potential misgivings with the current section on eugenics, in particular the quote from Man and Superman. It is true that Man and Superman is the first time Shaw dealt with the concept of eugenics and the Superman in his plays. But ought we really to use it as our main quote? It is supposed to have been written by John Tanner, and whilst I concede that I am not sufficiently aware of how the views expressed by Tanner relate in detail to Shaw's, he is a rather flawed personality. I can understand why the quote is attractive – I do not remember Shaw using the now universally understood word "Superman" so freely elsewhere – but would it not be prudent rather to explain his position using material where he only wrote as himself? The section says that Shaw delivered speeches on eugenics in England. Are any of these preserved? I haven't read it, unfortunately, but if eugenics was as important to Shaw as the article on Wikipedia claims, surely he must have written about it in some of his extended political treatises? Sirion123 ( talk) 10:22, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
The section about his religious beliefs is sourced almost entirely from an Atheist publication. It seems a rather skewed or distorted view of what he may have actually believed, referencing some other more neutral source(s) would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.198.131.30 ( talk) 07:25, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
There needs to be a section that faces up to the fact that Shaw was a left winger who supported the Nazis. Otherwise, Wikipedia has the liberal bas it is accused of having. Why is there no section on that? There is a section on him supporting other left wingers, like Josef Stalin. Why are we shying away from the idea that he supported the Nazis (at least during the beginning of their reign)? Here is a link to a page that document it extensively. It is 11-12 paragraphs down the page. [9] Liberal wikipedia is letting Shaw off the hook because he is a hero to the left wing. I also noticed that there is no "talk" of it here on the "talk" page. This is clearly liberal censorship, as I'm sure someone has mentioned it before. If Glenn Beck were to support the Nazis, even if he let go of his support for them later, there is zero doubt that it would be mentioned in his wikipedia page. Wikipedia has a liberal bias, and I'm sure that what I am saying here will probably be erased soon as well, in the name of freedom of speech no doubt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.169.107.173 ( talk) 21:55, 15 March 2014 (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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Yes, he was Irish in that he was born in Ireland. But he wasn't Irish in the modern sense of the term. Ireland was still part of the UK when he was born there so his passport (if he had one) would probably say that he was British -- SteveCrook ( talk) 17:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Is Shaw British or Irish? Because the Nobel Prize Committee says he is British. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.154.56 ( talk) 02:20, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed this before with regards people born in Ireland: people say that his passport would have said British but the Act of Union 1800 states that the name of the state is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The idea of people being Irish or people being described as Irish or being from Ireland does exist before Irish Nationalism. I don't think it is an error to describe him as Irish —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.46.242.180 ( talk) 22:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
SteveCrook, by that logic then Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera were British then? Obviously not. Bernard Shaw has even referred to himself as Irish so I think that settles that dispute. As for the Nobel Prize Committee saying he was British, it is clear that they gave him a more "respectable" title at the time. It's like with Richard Harris. Clearly Irish but was labelled British by newspapers when he has accomplished something great! Yet described as Irish when he did something bad. Jamie Kelly ( talk) 07:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I think by putting 'Irish?' (with a question mark) is quite misleading because it seems to suggest that Shaw is not Irish at all it just seems very extreme. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.47.13.142 ( talk) 16:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
'When I say that I am an Irishman I mean that I was born in Ireland, and that my native language is the English of Swift and not the unspeakable jargon of the mid-XIX. century London newspapers. My extraction is the extrac- tion of most Englishmen : that is, I have no trace in me of the commercially imported North Spanish strain which passes for aboriginal Irish : I am a genuine typical Irishman of the Danish, Norman, Cromwellian, and (of course) Scotch invasions. I am violently and arrogantly Protestant by family tradition ; but let no English Government therefore count on my allegiance : I am English enough to be an inveterate Republican and Home Ruler. It is true that one of my grandfathers was an Orangeman ; but then his sister was an abbess ; and his uncle, I am proud to say, was hanged as a rebel. When I look round me on the hybrid cosmopolitans, slum poisoned or square pampered, who call themselves Englishmen today, and see them bullied by the Irish Protestant garrison as no Bengalee now lets himself be bullied by an Englishman; when I see the Irishman everywhere standing clearheaded, sane, hardily callous to the boyish sentimentalities, susceptibilities, and credulities that make the Englishman the dupe of every charlatan and the idolater of every numskull, I perceive that Ireland is the only spot on earth which still produces the ideal English- man of history.'
Desperate to be idiosyncratic in other words.
1. Sign your posts in discussion pages Mr. Anonymous.
2. What does "desperate to be idiosyncratic" mean - Shaw is simply making a point about nationalism (and, worse, racism) and contrasting it with legitimate national pride. Not especially idiosyncratic at all - more like a breath of sanity.
3. How does this impinge on our article - what changes would you like to make based on your perception of Shaw as being idiosyncratic just for the sake it (nonsense - but let that pass for the moment)? Dicussion pages are not intended as forums or intended for general discussions of the subject concerned. This discussion, to put it another way, is about this article, which in turn happens to be about Shaw. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 01:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Put it down to puckishness on my part that I felt like pasting the quote and getting in a little dig at the old chap. I've read a fair bit of Shaw and have no difficulty in grasping his tone, I just feel he tried too hard too often, but as you said, this doesn't belong in this discussion. Although I still think something about ancestry is important with the likes of Shaw, Yeats, O'Casey, Synge, etc, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.13.218.53 ( talk) 14:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Is the sentence "He supported the Stalinist regime, dismissing the reports on famine as falsehoods" really appropriate for the introduction (or the article as a whole)? Shaw's feelings towards the Soviet Union are better left for the body of the article and not in awkward and out of place sentences in the introduction. -Matt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.3.17.129 ( talk) 07:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Shaw was noted for taking extreme views, whether on vegetarianism (branding his own pre-vegetarian self a "cannibal"), the development of the human race (his own brand of eugenics, driven by miscegenation and marrying across class lines), or in politics (in spite of his own liberal views he is recorded as supporting, or at least condoning, the dictators of the nineteen thirties.
Talk:George Bernard Shaw/Archive 1#His name discusses this briefly. He's often referred to as simply "Bernard Shaw", although only in certain places, apparently. For example, in Australia, it's only ever "George Bernard Shaw", or occasionally "GBS". I distinctly remember the first time I ever heard him referred to as "Bernard Shaw", which was about 25 years after I'd first heard of him. At first I didn't know who they were talking about, then the penny dropped.
I certainly don't advocate moving the article to "Bernard Shaw", but I think we ought to make some reference to the fact that that's what he gave as his name, and what he's known as to millions of people. -- JackofOz ( talk) 04:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
He preferred to be called plain Bernard Shaw. "Don't George me" he used to say. 109.154.9.232 ( talk) 13:47, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Shaw is no longer the only person to have won a Nobel and an Oscar; Al Gore has won both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.134.39.36 ( talk) 15:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Al Gore also won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.172.254.60 ( talk) 16:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Shaw was against vivisection and he elaborates on this issue in length in the preface of Doctor's Dilemma. Do you think this deserve a place in this article? Tavanarasi ( talk) 10:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC) 81.214.255.101 ( talk) 10:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
In the BBC's weekly magazine, Shaw made a 1933 "appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. Deadly by all means, but humane not cruel..." His appeal would shortly come to fruition in Nazi Germany. As Robert Jay Lifton notes in The Nazi Doctors, "The use of poison gas—first carbon monoxide and then Zyklon B—was the technological achievement permitting 'humane killing.'"
Shaw admired not just Stalin, but Mussolini and even Hitler. He despised freedom, writing, "Mussolini... Hitler and the rest can all depend on me to judge them by their ability to deliver the goods and not by... comfortable notions of freedom." Asked what Britons should do if the Nazis crossed the channel into Britain, Shaw replied, "Welcome them as tourists."—Preceding unsigned comment added by Thismightbezach ( talk • contribs) 09:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
This article contains far too many subjective comments by its various authors. Sentences such as it should be remembered that Shaw played a great role in Brittish literature or Shaw's writing style was so different that it's difficult to believe him the author (paraphrases) have no place in an article written for an encyclopedia. I cannot find and change them all, but I should like to point them out to any who may happen upon an example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homo Ergaster ( talk • contribs) 12:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
This supposed quote has just been deleted. I just googled it, out of interest, and it turns out to be a forgery. It comes from Volume 1, issue 8, of Genuine Islam, published by the "International Union of Islamic Propaganda and Service", Singapore, in 1936—see New York Public Library record, here. It seems that Shaw didn't write it; it was made up or, at best, a wilfully loose paraphrase from an informal interview between Shaw and Abdul Aleem Siddiqi. It's all a bit muddled, but a good starting point is Being an Unforgivably Protracted Debunking of George Bernard Shaw’s Views of Islam, here. Debunking probably wouldn't make it into the article as a reliable source, though, but then neither should Genuine Islam. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 06:12, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
According to her homepage this is just a collection of undergrad and grad school essays that she's posted on the internet for a while. There's no reason to treat her as a reliable source. Moreover, her essays contain individual citations to the scholarly literature so it's those references that should be checked and then cited to. On at least one occasion, in her "German Requiem" article, she cites a source stating that the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1866! So either her source or her citation is incorrect there; it would be wise since she does not appear to meet WP:RS any more than if she had put up her undergraduate essays on a geocities page, for such references to be checked rather than simply changing our references to match her citations without double-checking them. TheGrappler ( talk) 17:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I see that this contribution contains index marks to footnotes numbered in the mid two-hundreds (e.g., empty a good deal of respectable morality out like so much dirty water, and replace it by new and strange customs” (264). Freedom from “common ideals” (267),) whereas the article here only goes up to (84), at the time of writing. Does this mean that the edit has been lifted from somewhere else and, if so, can anyone identify where? -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 21:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
I have no interest in a WikiWar, but this section is frankly embarrassing. Reading Shaw's quotes and letters in the NYT or the preface to "On the Rocks" and it's clear that:
1) He believed in eugenics including the killing of the unfit without a hint of irony. 2) He vigorously defended Hitler, Stalin and Mao again without irony.
Now that doesn't necessarily detract from the value of his work, but for God's sake, why make Wikipedia look foolish when "Conservapedia" can just refer people directly to dozens of NY Times articles like this:
How silly to pretend that this stuff came from Glenn Beck. Beck is just quoting Snore the NYT. Pretending that this a Glenn Beck dispute and trying to push a false interpretation of is simply false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.248.20 ( talk) 23:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
George Bernard Shaw's comments on having people appear before a board to "justify their existence" were meant to be sarcastic. He was expressing his disagreement with some of the more vulgar eugenicists of his time. The linked source is a clip from Glenn Beck's extremely biased show on Fox News. It is taken out of context, and is a deliberate misrepresentation of Shaw's position.-- 108.28.48.21 ( talk) 15:37, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
If it's satirical, why is he using the exact same words ("are you pulling your weight in the social boat?etc") when justifying the "liquidating" done by the soviet police? 91.91.155.254 ( talk) 22:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
That U-tube clip from The Soviet Story is linked from here twice. As far as I can see they both fail WP:ELNEVER and so should be removed. I think the movie misunderstands Shaw's satire, but I'm suggesting de-linking only on policy grounds. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 21:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
I have deleted the eugenics section.
The primary source, Dan Stone [3], makes a highly controversial and poorly-argued [4] attempt to link Shaw and eugenics, which has been picked up by Glen Beck, the World Future Fund and Conservipedia: [5] [6] [7].
All of these sources use incomplete and out of context quotations.
"At a meeting of the Eugenics Education Society of 3 March 1910 he suggested the need to use a 'lethal chamber' to solve their problem."
The only available source for this claim is Dan Stone's book, linked above. He incompletely cites a Daily Telegraph account of Shaw's speech. Note that the entire speech is not available. In Dan Stone's quote, Shaw uses bouletic [8] terms like "should" and "would". Because Dan Stone is employing selective quotation, it is not possible to say whose desires Shaw is discussing. Shaw's? The eugenics community? Society? England? Russia? A hypothetical world Shaw is describing to prove a point? And unjust society? A just society? No context is given, so ALL of these readings are equally defensible. That's to say NONE of them are defensible without more context.
And given that Shaw's entire works paint him as a pacifist and proponent of human rights and decency, it is incorrect to be taken by Dan Stone's faulty logic and conclude without better and more extensive evidence that Shaw somehow supported Hitler and eugenics. Clotten ( talk) 23:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
( edit conflict)::Stone is not the only source for the section deleted (and there are many more which could be ref'd). Are you suggesting that Stone should be considered an unreliable source, or that this article should make no mention whatever of Shaw's views on eugenics, or is it your intention to re-instate the section in a more 'neutral' way? RashersTierney ( talk) 23:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Some material sourced from Glen Beck removed, as suggested. The World Future Fund isn't a WP:RS and material sourced from here also trimmed. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 08:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Umm, there is footage of Mr. Wells laying out his ideas to have a eugenics panel to kill unproductive members of society. There is no reason to conclude that any of this was intended ironically.those He calls for the extermination of those "swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people" in his Anticipations, and defends it in his autobiography, again without a hint of irony. He has long been associated with the Fabian Society, admitted here, which has its own connections to eugenics. This must be why the eugenics section is still up, despite Moonraker's frantic attempts to whitewash this article, and to present a balanced and unbiased view by removing anything that might be less than complimentary to Wells. More lines like "he endorsed that executions be carried out humanely" should be included by the Wells propaganda wing, as they will accelerate Wikis's descent into popular contempt. -Vision —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.197.236.146 ( talk) 19:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Since the issue begins to pop up in German wikipedia as well, I would like to express my surprise that Shaw is quoted on such an important issue from such an obscure source like The Soviet Story, which clearly does not fulfill WP:V. Apart from that omninous 1910 speech, which apparently has never appeared in print, Shaw discusses euthanasia somewhat sarcastically in his preface to the The Doctor's Dilemma and in his preface to the Webbs' ( Sidney & Beatrice) English Prisons under Local Government (1921). Thus Shaw argues provocatively within two distinct contexts. In one context, speaking of an overburdened health care system, he discusses the ethical question, whether and how "a choice between those worthy and those unworthy to be treated, and presumably saved" (as quoted by Archibald Henderson: George Bernard Shaw. Cincinnati 1911, p. 389) should be made, and concludes: "No doubt the higher the life we secure to the individual by wise social organization, the greater his value is to the community, and the more pains we shall take to pull him through any temporary danger or disablement. But the man who costs more than he is worth is doomed by sound hygiene as inexorably as by sound economics." (The Doctor's Dilemma, p. xciv) - just as sarcastically as he concludes "Treat persons who profess to be able to cure disease as you treat fortune tellers." (p. xciii) In the other context, treated somewhat superficially by Dan Stone, Shaw makes a case for abolitionism, claiming that imprisonment is no more sensitive than "the lethal solution" and that capital punishment does not lower the standard of humanity as continuing penalties do. He claimed that he was dealing "with a very small class of human monsters," about a tenth the number of whom were presently being executed. (p. xxxiv) This issue was of lifelong importance for Shaw, whose first paper read in front of the Zetetical Society in 1882 was on the virtues of Capital Punishment over Life imprisonment. (Holroyd, 1998, p. 75). Shaw picked up on this in a somewhat tasteless letter to The Times, published on March 5th, 1945, claiming that as soon as "the necessary work of 'weeding the garden' becomes better understood" there would be "State-contrived euthanasia for all idiots and intolerable nuisances, not punitively, but as a necessary stroke of social economy." (Brian P. Block, John Hostettler: Hanging in the balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain. Winchester 1997, pp. 102-3.) In short, there is plenty of source material available to treat the issue in a more contextualized way than suggested by The Soviet Story. For a much needed discussion of Shaw's complex relationship to Fabianism and eugenics one might refer to Mike Hawkins: Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: Nature as model and nature as threat. Cambridge 1997. There is also a German dissertation on that topic (Sören Niemann-Findeisen: Weeding the garden. Die Eugenik-Rezeption der frühen Fabian Society. Münster 2004), but it is not very instructive on Shaw. -- Assayer ( talk) 19:32, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I looked at Shaw after researching Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel, listed as a "eugenicist" on his Wiki page. By the looks of it, people are deleting the label of "eugenicist" from Shaw, as people did for awhile from Carrel, because they view it as a slur. This is much like noting someone as a "slave promoter" in that it is a slur by today's standards and yet it was widely accepted in the 18th C. Eugenics was a popular phenomenon embraced by many in the scientific and other intellectual communities in the late 19th early 20th century, while opposed by some others (notably G. K. Chesterton.) Making information difficult to find helps no one to understand the times and the rise of movements like these. Because many people come to this article because of their historical interest in eugenics, and because the article contains a major section about it, the word should appear in the opening of it just like it does in the Carrel article. Kris ( talk)
Slight misquote there: I thought it was an improvement on the previous, but I still don't think it should be there. It gives undue weight to the topic and doesn't meet the WP:MOSBIO guidelines. A WP:3RR reminder to contributor's talk page. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 13:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
The synopsis of this "tale" gives the (quite incorrect) impression that the Black Girl herself is treated condecendingly, specifically that she is "misguidedly" searching for a god in the form of a human being. In fact the story is very clearly an allegory - the "Girl" is an unusually intelligent person of great force of character; her "travels" are metaphorical expressions of her intellectual assessments of differing views of God. I have added nothing to the synopsis, it (rightly) needs to be short, and I don't want to substitute my POV for the original editor's here, but I have cut the (to me) offending words. Anyone who thinks I'm wrong - read the "story" (it is really an agnostic tract rather than a short story) and see what you think. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 21:17, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
A recent edit has pointed out that the play contains no references to lethal gas. This is true. Why, though, would it do so in this comedy of a reverse Don Juan? I suggest that this statement is superfluous and propose a revert. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 09:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
OF COURSE the reference to "Shaw" from the song (from A little night music) refers to GBS. The reference to "dialogue" clinches it, but since he is by far the most famous person called Shaw that anyone could think of there is a very good chance indeed that ANY reference to the name anywhere refers to him. Like Shakespeare, or Beethoven. references to the surname alone so obviously refer to a certain person that it becomes necessary to prefix any reference to another person of the same name with their initials or given names - just to make the distinction. The trouble is that piling up every casual reference to Shaw in songs and things (if we seriously started to list them) would rapidy get to ridiculous lengths. Put it another way - a discussion of Roll over Beethoven may well be aposite in an article on Chuck Berry - but probably NOT in an article on Beethoven himself. In a detailed discussion of the Sondheim song, the reference to Shaw would be far more notable than the other way round. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 21:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi! I was just wondering if there are any Shaw fans out there with a book or two on him who could create a stub page for his play The Millionairess? It obviously wasn't one of his major works, but Katharine Hepburn starred in a production of it on the West End and Broadway in 1952 (the reason I'd like there to be a page on it, because I'm working on her article and this is related), and a movie version of it was made in 1960 with Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, so it surely meets notability criteria. I don't mind making it myself but it would be very scarce because I don't have any books on Shaw to get information from. -- Lobo512 ( talk) 15:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Was knighted. Ireland was part of the UK, United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland back when he was born & the majority of his life. He was therefore a UK citizen by birth. His acceptance of the Knighthood would therefore indicate that he was happy with such a situation and had no issue with being referred to in such a way. 86.145.144.171 ( talk) 20:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Since when is common sense unencyclopedic? Pointing out the obvious does not need citing - but we often do it. Just look at the articles for the days of the week for instance! -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 09:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
It's nice to read that Shaw eventually changed his mind about Brahms. I recently read that Shaw hated Shakespeare's plays. If this is true, shouldn't it be included in the article? WilliamSommerwerck ( talk) 14:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Could someone with access to Holyroyd determine more exactly what Joan was sculpted?
This
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Please hyperlink Saint Joan to the correct article. 75.247.185.157 ( talk) 23:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Is it possible to include detail of his long friendship with his neighbour Apsley Cherry-Garrard? His support and encouragement gave much to the success of 'The Worst Journey in the World'.
Limhey ( talk) 22:45, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
This quotation (from both Time and the New York Times) appears to be a transmission error. The contemporary NYT correction is paywalled, but is cited here. The doctrine of Creative Evolution is a major theme in Shaw's work, notably Back to Methuselah but also other plays going back as early as Man and Superman, so the emendation makes enormously more sense than the typo. Due to the inaccessibility of the correction, I'm not sure what the correct thing to do is here, so I leave it to an actual Wikipedian to fix the article text, but it certainly shouldn't stand as written now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.149.135 ( talk) 13:46, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
There have been a couple of attempts to completely alter the POV of this article - in my edit summary I have asked the person concerned to bring any suggestions as to how (in their opinion) the article can be made more NPOV to this page. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
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I know we are all getting tired of this topic, and would like to move on, but I have some potential misgivings with the current section on eugenics, in particular the quote from Man and Superman. It is true that Man and Superman is the first time Shaw dealt with the concept of eugenics and the Superman in his plays. But ought we really to use it as our main quote? It is supposed to have been written by John Tanner, and whilst I concede that I am not sufficiently aware of how the views expressed by Tanner relate in detail to Shaw's, he is a rather flawed personality. I can understand why the quote is attractive – I do not remember Shaw using the now universally understood word "Superman" so freely elsewhere – but would it not be prudent rather to explain his position using material where he only wrote as himself? The section says that Shaw delivered speeches on eugenics in England. Are any of these preserved? I haven't read it, unfortunately, but if eugenics was as important to Shaw as the article on Wikipedia claims, surely he must have written about it in some of his extended political treatises? Sirion123 ( talk) 10:22, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
The section about his religious beliefs is sourced almost entirely from an Atheist publication. It seems a rather skewed or distorted view of what he may have actually believed, referencing some other more neutral source(s) would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.198.131.30 ( talk) 07:25, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
There needs to be a section that faces up to the fact that Shaw was a left winger who supported the Nazis. Otherwise, Wikipedia has the liberal bas it is accused of having. Why is there no section on that? There is a section on him supporting other left wingers, like Josef Stalin. Why are we shying away from the idea that he supported the Nazis (at least during the beginning of their reign)? Here is a link to a page that document it extensively. It is 11-12 paragraphs down the page. [9] Liberal wikipedia is letting Shaw off the hook because he is a hero to the left wing. I also noticed that there is no "talk" of it here on the "talk" page. This is clearly liberal censorship, as I'm sure someone has mentioned it before. If Glenn Beck were to support the Nazis, even if he let go of his support for them later, there is zero doubt that it would be mentioned in his wikipedia page. Wikipedia has a liberal bias, and I'm sure that what I am saying here will probably be erased soon as well, in the name of freedom of speech no doubt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.169.107.173 ( talk) 21:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)