Talk:James M. McPherson

message: i removed this sentence, because it is opinion and can not be sourced.
However most competent historians would argue the presenations at the battlefields are slanted in favor of the pro-slavery, pro-white supremacy Conferderate States of America.
:That's a pretty broad statement. How do you back it up? "Most competent historians"? Who is deciding what a "competent" historian is here? What's your criteria? And do you have any facts on your battlefield assertions? DesScorp (talk) 17:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: most historians

message: The "gatekeeper" would like to see some references for these broad generalizations:
*1 the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy ... are largely seen as benign heritage organizations... -Seen by whom?
::Seen by their 100-year history. The only types who see the UDC and SCV as anything other than that are Ed Sebesta-type demagogues.
*2 The UDC and SCV were similarly offended by these comments. -There's one reference to one UDC chapter.
:And for source purposes that chapter is a representative link to the way the UDC and SCV responded. Digging up and linking each and every single individual SCV and UDC chapter would be an absurd exercise, even by your selectively stringent sourcing demands.
*3 Can you provide a source for the "outrage" of the SCV? 
:Your selective source stringency is showing again, willmcw. McPherson's comments dominated the SCV and UDC chapter newsletters for several months after the incident, most of which are in print - not the web. Just because you didn't find it on google doesn't mean it never happened.
*4 For any UDC chapter besides Virginia? 
See above.Rangerdude 06:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at his various blogs (he has several), its fairly obvious he tends to reside more on the left-wing side of the political spectrum. His blogs also link to several left-wing websites, authors, and blogs. DesScorp (talk) 17:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

text: It's fine to reduce those terms and refine the language to something more precise, but demanding several links for each and every facet of a commonly known incident among the UDC and SCV when the existing one suffices is excessive and goes well beyond the elimination of vagueness.Rangerdude 07:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: It may or may not be a guarantee of anything, but it is factually correct to note that the SCV and UDC have not encountered much of any criticism ala the Sebestas of the world until the last decade, and even then only from a small number of persons like Sebesta who are on the political fringe. Mainstream groups like their union veterans descendants counterparts and other geneological associations seem to have no problem with the SCV or UDC and often participate in activities together with them.Rangerdude 07:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: A press release is not necessarily hard to find (and in fact there were several print articles in the SCV newsletters at the time discussing McPherson). Online electronic versiosn of press releases for a controversy that happened SIX YEARS AGO, on the other hand, are not easy to come by for the very obvious reasons of time and the fact that elderly geneologists aren't particularly known for posting their daily activities on the internet, an especially not 6 years ago when the internet was still relatively new to most people.Rangerdude 07:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: It is NOT a wiki tenet either that I have to dig up and scan a newsletter for you from half a decade ago to personally satisfy your selectively stringent citation demands on a matter that is already documented beyond any reasonable person's standards on the existing source link. Use a little common sense. It's not as if this controversy is being asserted out of the blue with nothing to back it up - there's a very detailed link that sources it through the UDC and details the progress of the controversy (including a quote where McPherson himself acknowledges his UDC *AND* SCV detractors and tries to respond to them).Rangerdude 07:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I attempted to incorporate what you added into the existing article. If I have missed something you added, by all means tell me what it is and we can put it back in. However you came along and completely reorganized the existing article without any sound reason offered and with an apparent goal of doing the exact same thing you did on the Sebesta and neo-confederate articles: propping up your side of the issue while downplaying and covering up anything and everything factual that potentially makes your side look bad. For example, others have made material critiques of both McPherson's politics AND his scholarship. One of the critiques of the latter was specified and linked to (i.e. McPherson's allegedly poor handling of economic issues). Yet your edit removed that critique from the discussion of his scholarship, stuck it in the bottom of the article with his political views, and added a positive quote about his scholarship in its place. I have no problem with that positive quote about his scholarship, but there's no reason to remove and relocate negative statements about his scholarship as well.Rangerdude 07:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I accused you of a POV because you are pushing the same type of POV that caused us to go down this same path in the other articles. In all three articles where we've had these discussions they've been about your edits that try to weaken or remove any material that isn't favorable to your opinion. You now evidently have a favorable opinion of McPherson - which is fine in itself. But, in light of that opinion, you are conducting your edits in a way that minimizes discussion of and diminishes portrayal of facts, events, and critics who reflect unfavorably upon McPherson. As I have said many times, I have no problem if you want to load up the article with every friendly quote of praise for McPherson imaginable and talk about whatever good stuff you want to that he's done. But when you go through and cleanse out factually valid and adequately referenced material (and don't give me this garbage about scanning newsletter images for you from six years ago on a commonly known subject that can be directly inferred from the existing links I have given you) that reflects negatively on him, it IS pushing a POV. Rangerdude 07:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: McPherson and neo-confederates

message: # McP is "very politically active". The only specifics given are a petition (signed mostly by professors) opposing the Clinton impeachment and two columns in a magazine for professional historians. That counts as "slightly political active", if anything. Is there any other political activity? Is he a party committeman? Alderman? 
The point is that most historians who run historical organizations write about historical topics in their organization's magazine. McPherson has used it repeatedly to pontificate about modern political issues including twice on Bush and Iraq and another time on the Michigan affirmative action case. That isn't even a simple break from the routine of historical writing - its a consistent pattern. Nor is that the extent of his activism as discussed in the current article. He's also spoken out about modern confederate flag controversies such as South Carolina. There's also the Pacifica interview, which if you read the entire thing you'll find it was a political commentary show called Democracy Now! and the subject was George W. Bush. I'm certain there's plenty of other things he's done, but I don't think that list of repeated and constant modern political commentary is "slightly active" by any means.
# McP "...is a supporter of many liberal causes...". Which ones? Opposition to the rhetoric that led to the war in Iraq is not an especially liberal issue. (Moderates and Paleoconseravatives are opposed to it as well.) Let's list the liberal causes that he supports. There's room. 
You're straining at gnats to deny the obvious, will. Some paleo-conservatives may oppose the war in Iraq, but they don't typically speak out in favor of an Affirmative Action court case or sign petitions supporting Bill Clinton. It is also my understanding that McPherson himself is open about his liberal leanings. A quick google search immediately pulls up three favorable articles written about him by leftist organizations that identify his politics as "progressive" or "liberal"   
# "McPherson has also espoused the removal of confederate flag imagery..." Cite please. I did a search and it didn't show up.
Did you simply not read the Pacifica interview despite all our discussions of it?  He says very plainly at the end of the interview that he opposes the contemporary use of the flags and criticizes Trent Lott for defending it.
:"I do know that the issue of the Confederate flag in South Carolina and also in Georgia where the Confederate battle flag was incorporated into the state flag back in 1956, that those, that of those flags has a contemporary political agenda, and to the extent that any politician endorses that, I think Trent Lott did as well a couple of years ago, far more vigorously, I can't support them in doing that."
Rangerdude 08:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for fixing the "Rockford Institute" I'd fixed it to the correct Lewrockwell.com, but then somehow reverted myself in the next edit. I had used the description of Sebesta that the "Democracy Now" webpage uses for him. I don't know why it is important to say "self-described", when other people's terms can be be used to describe him. "Self-described" seems like a prejudicial formulation. NPOV please. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:20, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: self-described indicates that the description of Sebesta, "anti-neo-confederate," is a quote by Sebesta himself. Since Sebesta is a controversial figure who been described by any number of other sources in many different ways it presents a problem of how we identify him. Do we call him an "expert" as he is treated by Pacifica, a virulently left wing source? Or do we go to the other end and call him a "nutcase"? Or a "south hater" as the UDC calls him? The most neutral way around this problem is to quote Sebesta himself and note that he is the source of it. Another issue - the use of singular versus plural to refer to McPhersons critics is problematic. As was the case on the previous articles, using a specifically singular form is misleading because it implies that DiLorenzo is the SOLE person who holds that view, and that is inaccurate just as it is inaccurate to assume that only one UDC chapter was upset by McPherson's pacifica interview since their newsletter is the one on the web.Rangerdude 23:37, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I suppose we could go through the other mentions of groups and individuals, and change everybody to "self-described." The SCV is a "self-described genealogical society", "DiLorenizo is a self-described economist", etc. I think that it is fair and appropriate to give the guy the reference that he was given on the show since that is the context and the reason he's being mentioned. If you are afraid that it will be taken as a universally accepted description, we can say that he is "described by Goodman as a..." Regarding the number of critics, I'm open to including whatever number is shown to exist. So far, it's the VA UDC and DiLorenzo. Regarding non-web sources, what are they? do you have in your hands on an SCV newsletter expressing "outrage" over McPherson's statemetns? If so, what's the name and date and page number? What evidence, of any kind, do you have? -Willmcw 23:54, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No. The SCV is by its own structure a geneological society (as in you have to be a descendant of a soldier to join). DiLorenzo is an economist because he has a credentialed PhD in economics. McPherson is a historian because he has a credentialed PhD in history and so forth. Sebesta, however, has no special credentials in anything related to neo-confederate movements and nothing particular about him establishes any credibility he should have beyond the average guy off the street. Because of that he could be easily assigned any number of descriptions and has been called everything from an expert to a nutcase. You may prefer the former and I the latter, but both of those terms would connote a POV so calling him what he calls himself and noting that he is the source of that description is the most neutral way I can think of approaching it. Using Goodman's description of him also gives her very liberal POV undue credibility, as Goodman's view of Sebesta (she considers him an "expert") is NOT universally shared and would be disputed by many people who consider him a non-credible kook. If we let Sebesta speak for himself, however, we find that he describes himself (hence "self-described") as an "anti-neo-confederate" activist. If you remove wording that signifies it's what he calls himself then you leave the description unsourced and without context (aren't you the one who keeps demanding that every detail imaginable be sourced? Or is your selective citation stringency kicking in again?). As to critics being "shown to exist" your selective stringency is indeed kicking in again. Your "standard" - if it could even be called that - for showing something to exist is being able to dig it up on google, which for purposes of citations is a laughable methodology. Using your terminology suggests that DiLorenzo is the SOLE person to criticize McPherson's biases and one single UDC chapter is the SOLE membership of the UDC to be upset over the quote, and that is simply incorrect. A neutral terminology such as that I have offered leaves the issue of concurring voices open without imposing any artificial and factually inaccurate constraint. And quite frankly if you don't know that the SCV and other UDC chapters were upset at McPherson's quote, then you don't know anything about the SCV or UDC and thus you are unqualified to be writing encyclopedia articles about them.Rangerdude 01:03, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: FWIW, as the article is put together now, I think that the source of the criticism is clear enough. As long as we do not add back assertions from unnamed critics or impute emotions to organizations, I am satisfied with the handling of the Democracy Now, Politics, and Criticism sections. Overall, I think that the article could use a bit more of a description of his books and a photo or dustjacket would be cool. Thanks for helping to make this a better article. Cheers, -Willmcw 01:03, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More vague asertions 

message: If Eric Foner's "...marxist sympathies are well known and openly acknowledged by virtually all people who are familiar with him" then it should not be difficult to name one or two of those people. "unnamed critics" have no place in Wikipedia. Thanks, -Willmcw 02:06, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's no matter of "unnamed critics," will. One does not need a source to state that Ronald Reagan was a conservative, that Lyndon Johnson was a liberal, that Henry Wallace was a socialist, or that Eric Foner is a marxist. It is common knowledge to anybody possessing even the slightest familiarity with any of these figures. If you do not have enough familiarity to know this (and it is evident that you lack it on a great many of articles that you attempt to edit), you should not be trying to write an encyclopedia article on them in the first place.Rangerdude 02:13, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So you can't find even a single authority to cite? Maybe it isn't such common knowledge. If the critics are not named, they are "unnamed critics". -Willmcw 02:17, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No. I've simply decided that I do not desire to go on one of your deconstructive "source" finding errands over a fact that is common knowledge among anybody who knows the subject matter, which you do not. I no longer see any purpose in responding to the requests of other editors who contribute absolutely nothing new to the articles they attempt to edit and instead send others out on tasks under the threat of deletion. Rangerdude 02:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can't be bothered to support your assertions and cite your sources, then don't be surprised when the material is removed. That's the way Wikipedia works. Cheers, -Willmcw 02:51, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Marxist" Eric Foner 

message: More guilt by association. Being liberal is bad, as is agreeing with Marxists about anything. Can we have diLorenzo introduced a few more times - maybe we could find out more about him here than there is on his page? and I don't think this article is quite 50% criticism of the guy yet. Maybe we could say he has no economics credentials a few more times. Get crackin'--JimWae 05:58, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)
:Who are you addressing this to, Jim? DiLorenzo is mentioned in all of two paragraphs - one summarizing his criticism of McP's scholarship and the other his criticism of McP's political views. It only states that McPherson lacks economic credentials a total of once. And Marxist themes in McPherson's works are the subject of criticism over his scholarship - not a guilt by association thrown in their for no reason. Rangerdude 06:26, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: DiLorenzo is a nut in any case. The man manages to drag everything he writes around to criticism of Lincoln and the Civil War, including when introducing and editing essays by political philosophers decades dead by 1860; never has there been a more obvious case of axe-grinding and yet here we're projecting that on McPherson. Not to mention it takes a nut to support the Confederate States, since they openly and proudly seceded specifically to preserve and extend slavery. Rogue 9 (talk) 00:41, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Does this rant apply to you?

message: This article needs to be cleaned up - there are significant grammatical mistakes throughout, and some NPOV work could be done too. I can't do this right now because I'm at school, and I'll probably forget by the time I get home, but it needs to be done. – ugen64 16:20, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: We still need a source for the SCV's outrage. Thanks, -Willmcw 06:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SCV Outrage 

message: I immediately tried to confirm the context of these arguments, regarding McPherson's comments, as the article is definitely NPOV in its present form.
The only remaining online segment from the "Democracy Now!" radio show is McPherson responding after Ed Sebesta had already made his arguments about various groups, including the Museum of the Confederacy, being "neo-Confederate". 
It is harder to shade exactly whether McPherson (and Sebesta) were referring to the HISTORICAL reason why these groups were formed, or whether they were referring to the PRESENT makeup of such groups, because the earlier segment from Sebesta does not exist where we can listen to it, or read its direct transcript. 
In other words, was Sebesta claiming that a group such as SCV was started in the 1800s with "Neo-Confederate" aims, or is he claiming that today the group has these motives? Therefore, is McPherson agreeing that historically, these groups were "neo-Confederate", or was he agreeing that they currently have a motive of "white supremacy". Context is important in making these accusations, and certainly in how they are discussed here.
Far from what was previously written in the article, which claimed that McPherson accused board members of being "neo-Confederate," he went out of his way to compliment the museum and note that they had made strides in putting together a professional museum that could compete with any major museum in the US. What he specifically argued was that there was a "dimension" in which some hobbyists and museum supporters/board members could be considered "celebratory," while others 
would be considered "genuinely historical." 
This is the full, unexpurged commentary on that radio segment:
MCPHERSON: I do think though, that the Museum of the Confederacy, as it exists today, is in a different category. Its founding motives, back in the 1890s, at the same time that the United Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were founded, its founding motives were celebratory. But over time, and especially in the last decade or two, it has become a much more professional, research-oriented, professional exhibit-oriented facility.
Q: 
...(asking about the Lone Star Ball)
MCPHERSON: I, I can't ... I think the motives of people who fundraise money for the museum, and who attend balls in period costume and so on, probably range from celebratory to genuinely historical. So there is a dimension to that. But I do think that the Museum of Confederacy is now a research and professional museum in the same category as other highly regarded museums around the country.
Some of its supporters, I'm sure, some of its sponsors, some of its members of the boards of trustees, are undoubtedly neo-Confederate. I do know that back in 1992 and 1993, the Museum of Confederacy had a special exhibit on slavery and on the relationship of slavery and the Civil War, which the Old Guard in Richmond, who identified with the Confederate heritage, were very angry about, because that exhibit made all the same kinds of points that Sebesta or I, or I would make about the Civil War, that slavery was at the root of the conflict that led to the war.  That slaves played a major part as labor force for the Confederacy, but also a major part of soldiers for the Union. They've also had a good exhibit on Reconstruction, and on the creative, positive roles that blacks have played in Reconstruction. They have, they have moved away from the celebratory pro-slavery heritage that was involved in their founding.
Additionally, the linked webpage that calls for a boycott of McPherson appears to be a Virginia chapter of SCV only. Did other chapters call for a boycott? Is there proof that this boycott was system-wide? Did the Daughters of the Confederacy join in the boycott? Any other group? This organization (SCV) is one that has had divisiveness and a split on other issues. There have been controversies regarding racism and. The way the article currently stands, there's almost as much about the Virginia chapter of the SCV as there is about McPherson - who is the article about? Perhaps this really belongs in a larger article regarding controversies about these Confederate organizations, rather than McPherson.
Politely,
67.10.133.121 06:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I encourage you to edit the article to better summarize the available sources. -Will Beback · † · 08:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV - If you're going to damn McPherson, damn him with what was actually said, don't omit anything or shape the article to POV. 

message: I offered some cited material from McPherson at the Gettysburg Campaign wiki site on the subject of R.E.Lee and his military strategy in Maryland.
An editor strongly suggested I get another source to maintain "a neutral point of view without giving undue weight to a singular author's point of view." Are you kidding?
Since when is it nessesary to "back up" McPherson? Is this also required when citing Douglas S. Freeman, Shelby Foote, Allan Nevins, Bruce Catton and others among this pantheon of US historians?
To say "it's a good idea to get more than one source" is nonsense. If an editor thinks another is needed, let them go and find one that suits his or her.
Too many "award winning" editors at Wiki as it is, too few real contributors. 36hourblock (talk) 21:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  McPherson as a source: Lacks neutrality? Undue Weight? 

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thread_title:  External links modified