Talk:George Bernard Shaw

message: Not that it makes a huge difference but what do you think is dodgy @Tim riley? This is the frontispiece from his authorized biography. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: To my eye the artificial colouring is awful, and I am surprised to read of an authorised biography of GBS. Whose would that be − the main editors of the article must have missed it? It took my late co-editor much research to find what we agreed as the right image for the version agreed at FAC, and I honestly can't see the bogus coloured version as an improvement. Tim riley talk 17:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh I see what you're missing -- it's not artificial! This is a real color photo, just with very early tech. You can read more about the process at Autochrome Lumière. The biography says "authorized" on its title page; you can see that here, though Google didn't scan the frontispiece: https://books.google.com/books?id=twQBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false GordonGlottal (talk) 19:04, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if other editors prefer that image I'll go with the consensus. Tim riley talk 19:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colour image 

message: See here for the Fabian Tract - check downloadable photographs for confirmation - and here for To-Day. Harfarhs (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correction of publication titles 

message: Bernard Shaw was born in 1856; Josif Djhugasvili was born in 1879. In other words, GBS was twenty years Stalin's senior.
In 1929, Stalin's 50th birthday was widely celebrated and he began to acquire the status of a demi-god; soon he overshadowed his contemporaries -- many of whom he would eliminate in the Show Trials of 1936-1938 and the Great Terror of 1937-1938 -- and even supplanted his patron Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), 1870-1924, in the Soviet pantheon. Bernard Shaw was, and remained, an irreverent critic of the British Establishment: he knew French but no Russian.
A fuller account of his 1931 interview with Stalin, reference supplied in text, suggests that he egged on his friend Nancy Astor in her sustained attack on the Georgian "gangster" (as she called Stalin). Shaw insisted, for example, that the unfortunate and reluctant interpreter translate all her questions into Russian. As author James Fox notes, the two of them were subsequently impressed by Stalin's self-restraint. Privately, the dictator told his daughter Svetlana that the meeting had been "most disagreeable" and that Shaw was, in his opinion, an "awful man".
This doesn't make the 'revolutionary tourism' of his brief 1931 visit to the USSR, or his serial infatuation with a succession of Bolshevik and fascist dictators, any less reprehensible. It does cast his character and attitude in a more nuanced and different light.
John Crowfoot aka Rustat99 (talk) 09:11, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure why Stalin's age is of any relevance. Let us see if other interested editors agree with you. Tim riley talk 11:38, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  GBS and Stalin 

message: https://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/features-on-jewish-world/the-anti-semitism-of-george-bernard-shaw/2015/05/06/
»No doubt Jews are obnoxious creatures. Any competent historian or psychoanalyst can bring a mass of incontrovertible evidence to prove that it would have been better for the world if the Jews had never existed.«
»I think we ought to tackle the Jewish Question by admitting the right of the States to make eugenic experiments by weeding out any strains that they think undesirable, but insisting that they do it as humanely as they can afford to.«
General inhumanity:
»I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly-appointed board, just as they might come before the income tax commissioner, and say every five years, or every seven years, just put them there, and say, “Sir, or madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence?” If you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the big organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself…. I appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. In short, a gentlemanly gas – deadly by all means, but humane not cruel.«
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw
More quotes on Hitler (admiration for the Nazi regime) and Jews:
tickle me 15:30, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you actually read the article? If you do, you will see that Shaw called antisemitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". He was invited to write for The Jewish Chronicle, where he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." Tim riley talk 16:33, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

text: I know that I am late to this, but I have to add that the article itself is a dog's dinner of mangled quotes that does not do its own case any good. The quote above under General inhumanity might serve as a good example. The first part of the quote before the ellipsis is taken from a YouTube snippet that ostensibly is taken from a speech on capital punishment. The part after the ellipsis is taken from a speech called "Whtither Britain?", where he discusses possibilities of the future of warfare, and how the half-measures taken by the League of Nations was insufficient to meet them. These have been juxtaposed by right-wing ideologues looking to smear Shaw for the last decade or so. If a source uses it, it is a surefire way to know that they've relied on secondary sources that are… dodgy, to put it mildly. 45.13.191.45 (talk) 21:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  the-anti-semitism-of-george-bernard-shaw