Voltaire as an egalitarian is about the funniest thing I ve heard in a long time of course he was not and harldy any of the Enlightenment philosophes were Does that diminish his statue as a thinker Of course not non conformity with 21st century sensibilities hardly matters in any assessment of an 18th century thinker As for the discussion of Voltaire s racism anti semitism we obviously must apply similar principles apply Throwing in a few decontextualised quotes about Voltaire s view on Jews and black people to demonstrate that he was a raving racist is simply meaningless If these issues are to be included in the entry at all which I doubt they warrant then surely they need contextualisation For instance Voltaire s discussion on Jews surely must be understood in the context of his general account of revealed religion and must be set in the context of 18th century censorship which often led writers to attack the Jews whilst actually aiming at their Christian off spring Similarly Voltaire s views on non white people can not be understood outside the context of his general framework of savagery barbarism civilisation and historical development If people started to read Voltaire in such contexts then they would start to understand that the question of whether Voltaire was a racist anti semitist egalitarian etc is pretty much meaningless and doesn t increase our understanding of him at all However given the above discussion I sort of doubt whether wikipedia readers editors understand enough history to appreciate this In any case I give it a go by deleting the presently pointless section on Voltaire s views on race