Talk:The Age of Reason/Archive 1

message: Well, I was 99% sure the correct title is simply "Age of Reason," without any "the." But the page images of an 1889 edition at
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/ageofreason.htm
show it as The Age of Reason so perhaps the issue isn't quite as clear as I thought. To be continued... Dpbsmith (talk) 01:13, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Title

message: :Paine became unpopular at the time due to this book.
Is this true?  The Deism page says that The Age of Reason popularized Deism in America.  Tempshill 20:32, ::*13 September 2005 (UTC)
I think it's true. The Wiki article on Paine says he became unpopular. "Popularized Deism" is relative; certainly the majority of the common people were still Christian and would be inclined to dislike him for Deism, so both statements could be true. Dreadengineer 17:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unpopular Paine 

message: I added two quotations from the copy of the Age of Reason at www.thomaspaine.org; I think they are good examples of the general focus and style of the pamphlet. Dreadengineer 18:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes

message: Paine criticized the entire Bible in this work, so the comment that he meant the Old Testament when referring to the Bible (which is correct in this case), is nevertheless misleading.  --Blainster 00:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problem with properly cited comments about The Age of Reason in an appropriate section of the article, but this quote includes an editorial insertion which is not part of Paine's text from the book.  Please limit quotations in this section to quotes from the author's text, not comments about it.  --Blainster 16:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But that is what the source says. If you want it removed, find a source that doesn't include the editor's comments.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 21:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bible as "Old Testament"

message: Book:
*Publication details for the 18th century
Themes and arguments:
*Secular millennialism
*Extension of critique of government to religious institutions
*Relationship to 18th-century deism; Paine's arguments were not novel
Style:
*Simple, dynamic language like that of Common Sense and Rights of Man
Legacy and effects of book:
*Made deism popular among the masses for the first time
*Brief deism resurgence in America
*Made Paine hated in America (post resurgence)
*Paine formed the Church of Theophilanthropy in France
*Elihu Palmer in America
*Freethinkers 
Awadewit Talk 20:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some topics that need to be covered

message: What do others think about having the "Creed" section? I thought it gave a succinct explanation of Paine's religious beliefs as laid out in the AR and it helped illustrate his tone. Thoughts? It is a very long quotation. Awadewit | talk 08:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Creed

message: According to Websters, "deistic" and "deistical" are both adjectival forms of deism. Which one should we use? Awadewit | talk 22:46, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deisitic / Deistical

message: :GA review (see here for criteria)
#It is reasonably well written.
#:a (prose):  b (MoS): 
#It is factually accurate and verifiable.
#:a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
#It is broad in its coverage.
#:a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
#It follows the neutral point of view policy.
#:a (fair representation):  b (all significant views): 
#It is stable.
#:
#It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
#:a (tagged and captioned):  b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales): 
#Overall: 
#:a Pass/Fail: 
Well done, I only have a couple of complaints, the very last paragraph reads like some of the lower quality high-school essay's conclusions that I have written/read. This certainly does not exclude this article from passing GA. For some reason I don't like the "cheaply" in the lede, but this is just an issue of personal preference. The entire article has the slant of POV, i.e. it reads like an essay that is trying to convince (instead of merely stating facts) the reader that TAoR was the source of the change in rhetorical style (among other things) in British and American society. However this particular problem is addressed for the most part by the copious in-line citation. These are just the things I noticed on a read through of the article; I in no way intend to offend the hard working editors who crafted this lovely article.
Now for the good part...GA pass, congratulations! :)--Cronholm144 23:00, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Really, it reads POV-y? What I tried to do was present the scholarly consensus. Most of what is written about AR is about its language. I didn't use all of the scholars' names in the article to make this explicitly clear because that can make the article difficult to understand for the reader - the "meat" gets lost amongst all of the names and titles. I tried to just present the views of AR that scholars pretty much agree upon (those are not really "facts" in the way you are thinking of so I'm sure that they sound "opinionated.") When there are strikingly differing methods or conclusions amongst the experts, I did try to make that clear. I basically extracted the summaries of the central AR research from my Master's thesis and expanded them for this article (with some changes to the language). I have been accused of using "essay style" before. It is very hard for me not to write that way, but I thought that I had achieved the right balance here. Might you point out some of the problem statements? Awadewit | talk 23:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

text: *While I know that I do not write stellar conclusions, I do not think that the conclusion is all that bad (I read freshman composition papers all of the time and it definitely surpasses those!). Which part sounded trite to you? Triteness is the most common problem with poorly written conclusions - is that what you meant? Or did you mean it introduces a new topic (which I think is more acceptable on wikipedia than in an essay, since articles aren't supposed to be essays)? Awadewit | talk 23:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, I was accused of essay style months ago; I was hoping that I had fixed the problem. No one has said anything since, not even the person who made me aware of it in the first place. I think that what you are seeing as POV is simply the academic argument made about the text. It is not my POV. My POV on this text is actually quite different, anyway (hence the Master's thesis). I will remove the repetitious information from the conclusion - not all of it is a repeat, though, so I'll try to figure out how best to integrate it into another part of the article. I'm not offended by the high school comment - I just happen to know that it's not true. You might refrain from such comments, though; they may offend some people and are not particularly helpful. I have found in my years of teaching freshman composition and my extensive peer reviewing at wikipedia that it is best to articulate precisely what is wrong with someone's writing rather than simply accusing it of being "wrong" or "poor." Usually they do not know what is wrong with it or they would have fixed it themselves. You can't, for example, simply tell a student to "improve this draft," you have to tell them how and you have to point out the major problems with it. It's nice of you to say that this article is almost ready for FA, but I feel quite the reverse. It needs to be expanded (I have only the crucial elements in the article at the moment - it lacks "comprehensiveness") and I need to go over the prose sentence by sentence. I anticipate that this will take weeks, if not months. I know this because I have already written six FAs. :) Awadewit | talk 02:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: No offense taken, I assure you. Awadewit | talk 06:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: *Well, I think that these kinds of article are supposed to have a POV, actually. They are supposed to have a POV that represents the consensus of the scholarship. That seems to be the version of NPOV that literature articles take. If I were to explain each and every interpretation of AR, that would be a wildly inaccurate representation of the field, since some interpretations are not as common as others. The problems of POV in literature articles are actually quite severe; I can tell you that whoever edits the page is going to do so slightly differently. There will always be some overlap, but there will never be complete agreement on what readings of a text are important enough to include. Unlike mathematics, there is not very much agreement on the interpretations of texts - that is sort of the point, actually. No one gets tenure for repeating what someone else said. :) Awadewit | talk 06:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: *Again, I really wish you could point to some problems in the prose. What is generally meant by essay style at wikipedia seems to be the insertion of the editor's voice and an editor's own arguments into the text in the form of developed claim. I really do not feel that I am doing that here. I did everything I could to let others articulate the argument, but if I failed in that, I really do need to know where. Awadewit | talk 06:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Should I say "Many Britons and French alike were disillusioned..." or something like that? Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: That is direct from a source, both the emblematic part and the moderates disappearing. By the way, a history has to sound like a narrative a little bit, or it doesn't make any sense. A list of dates of crucial events during the French revolution would not explain the historical context for the reader. Readers have to understand the interactions between people and ideas. Such writing necessitates a narrative of some type - the key is to avoid a story with lots of linguistic trappings like metaphor, I think. My narratives are all standard histories of the period, by the way, often called "grand narratives" in the field. :) Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Narrative? No way - this is a statement of Paine's own professed motivations (I thought there was a quote in the article reinforcing this). Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: This is not narrative, this is actually a statement of fact (even the guillotine part - he was slated for death but escaped that fate through dumb luck). That the sentence joins together a series of events that happened sequentially into one sentence does not make it a narrative in the way you are thinking. Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, I am simply reiterating what Paine himself says; I am paraphrasing part of the AR - this is not narrative. Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, it is important for the reader to understand how events are connected to each other and this mini-timelime can be found in every source regarding AR. Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: *Again, this is not narrative writing at all (I am pretty much incapable of writing a narrative). This is a broad statement of the effect of Paine's book. You seem to think that any statement which makes a claim about change over time is a narrative. That is not accurate. It is precisely the cause-effect statements and the change-over-time statements that are interesting about history. Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: *Why does everyone always ask if you can start a sentence with a conjunction? I know that they tell high school students and sometimes college students "never start a sentence with a conjunction," but that is a rule that is meant to be broken. The only reason it is usually given in the absolute is because so few people can do it well. I tend to use conjunctions at the beginning of sentences to emphasize the contrast with the previous sentence or to make a particularly dramatic point. Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: It is nice that you don't think my writing is boring, but that is precisely what it is. I have seen good narrative writing and this is definitely not it. I will try to be more vigilant, though; as I revise, I will try to make sure that absolutely nothing else creeps in. My roommate is a physics-math major, so I very much understand where you are coming from. And, by the way, good writing can mean a lot of different things. There is not just "one way" to write well - but I'm sure you already know that. Awadewit | talk 08:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I do appreciate it. I thought the formulas were supposed to be things of beauty and elegance, so wouldn't at least that part of a mathematics page not be boring? :) Awadewit | talk 10:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks. I tend to be pretty thorough when I write an article; I can't imagine doing anything less. Awadewit | talk 06:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA review 

message: Following the premature archivization of the peer review, here are some comments on the remaining issues:
*I think the new political/intellectual context section is a substantial improvement. Separating the general backdrop of deism from the more specific "Paine's intellectual debts" appears to work.
:*Do you think that "Paine's intellectual debts" should come earlier? I wasn't sure if the current placement was effective or not. Awadewit | talk 13:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm not sure, either.  The subsection is a bit different from the others in that section, so if it would make sense to work this into the "Intellectual context", give it a try.  My overall impression is that it works as it is now (since the "intellectual debts" follow after more thorough subsections detailing the structure/arguments), but putting it into the context section could work even better.  Sorry, no definite answers on my part here... --Markus Poessel 13:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Every time I try to integrate it, it feels too specific for "background". We'll see what others think. Awadewit | talk 02:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

text: *I forgot to change the title. It has been altered. This section is really quite difficult to write, as many of the topics overlap significantly. "Plain speaking", for example, can be considered a kind of vulgarity. I have separated it, however, from the general discussion because Paine's "plain speaking" seems to have Quaker roots. That does not necessarily mean that many readers would not have seen it as simply "vulgar", though. I will keep working on this. (By the way, I think just as many people know the older definition of "vulgarity" as know what Riemiann (sp?) geometry is. :) They would not be confused.) Awadewit | talk 13:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Much better already.  Still, my feeling is that what is currently the first paragraph should become the only introductory paragraph (perhaps with a longer list of stylistic techniques employed... satire etc.), and that everything that comes afterwards should go into one of the specific subsections.  The last paragraph before "Vulgar language" could may be become a catch-all subsection of its own.  I have no problem with having "plain speaking" in addition to "vulgar language"; it might work better if it were lumped together with the Quaker narratives to become a new subsection "Quaker influences" or some such, though.  As for Riemannian geometry, my main point was that, upon hearing the word, people will know they don't understand it; upon hearing "vulgarity", many will think they do, even if they don't (not if the word is used in this context, for example). --Markus Poessel 13:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *See what you think of the new arrangement. There is that little paragraph of miscellaneous that I don't really know what to do with. See if you think it works where it is. Awadewit | talk 02:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *It's certainly improvement, all in all.  But, reading this whole section once again, some sentences still seem to me displaced: if "vulgar"'s short for "well accessible for lower/middle classes", then the text that stands in no subsection yet (so far) at the beginning should instead be put into "Vulgarity" (or "Vulgar language"). In "Vulgar language", on the other hand, "irrev'rent tone"'s too early, since it has a section of its own - so move it there, and only keep those statements in the lead (the section's, not the article's, that is) that really give a summary, or else characterize Paine's style in gen'ral. "Paine's rhetoric had broad appeal" - if that's a consequence of vulgar style, this too should go into the "Vulgar language" part. The irony, and use of "we" – is there a word for tools of rhetoric in general?  If yes, a catch-all section with that word as title, following the present lot, could offer shelter to these paragraphs which, in the lead, look somewhat out of place. --Markus Poessel 19:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm afraid none of this is really that simple or straightforward. Wikipedia's artificial subsections make it quite difficult to write literature articles. For example, I can't discuss "vulgarity" only in the vulgarity section - it is relevant to other topics. Also, Paine's text had broad appeal, but not only because of its "vulgar" language. I'll think about this some more, but I really wish I didn't have to have subsections at all. They really hamper an explanation of Paine's language. Thanks for all of your help. Hopefully more tinkering will improve the article. Awadewit | talk 21:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

text: *I see what you are saying, but there are plenty of scientific terms that people think they understand, but they don't, such as "gravity". By the way, I just saw "vulgar" used in this way (without explanation) in an introductory literary criticism essay today, so I don't feel so bad. :) Awadewit | talk 02:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review revisited 

message: I don't see how the Age of Reason influenced Michael Moore at all. As far as I know, Moore doesn't usually comment on religion. If someone has evidence of this, cite it in the article. I'm removing it for right now.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krobilla (talk • contribs) 21:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The sourced statement referred to Michael Moore's style, which was influenced by Thomas Paine's style. I am reinserting the sentence. Awadewit | talk 00:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

text: *Did Michael Moore tell you that he was influenced by Thomas Paine? Or did you merely cite some completely irrelevant "Richard Porton" critique of Farenheit 9/11. What does some random essay on Farenheit 9/11 have to do with The Age of Reason?!  What in the world does Michael Moore have to do with The Age of Reason?!  I think it's pretty clear throughout your entire article that you are trying to taint the opinions of people who are curious about The Age of Reason. Either that or it's amateur hour at Wikipedia.  I'm very serious about this.  I believe that propaganda is best saved for Fox news not Wikipedia. Several people have removed your MM comparison but you keep putting it back up. Why are you, Awedewit, so insistent on comparing Thomas Paine to Michael Moore? Please don't try to claim you aren't doing so, it's obvious that you are.  What is your objective?Pitythafoo 09:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Please cease attacking me personally - it is not productive. If you read the three articles cited in the article, they all deal with Michael Moore's style, which is what I say in the article is Paine's major influence on twentieth-century American culture. A quick search on google will reveal how often this comparison is made. The Porton article, which is from a peer-reviewed source, actually says that the Paine-Moore comparison is common, which is why it is a good source to use - it is a published statement of the commonness of the comparison. Awadewit | talk 10:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Are you kidding me?! Are those references (socialist worker online; some small paper in Madison WI ?!) supposed to be taken seriously? If this comparison is so common, why has no one ever heard it and why do people keep trying to remove it and again, why are you so insistent on maintaining its inclusion?Pitythafoo 10:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I was trying to give easily accessible references on the web. But you seem to have missed the larger point - the reference I have had since the beginning is peer-reviewed and makes the statement that this is a common comparison. That is all I really need. I now have three sources. That is ample for this claim. There is nothing controversial about saying that Michael Moore's style is Paineite. Awadewit | talk 11:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The quality of your references is far more important than the quantity. As a masters thesis scholar you should know this. It's like someone writing an article about Darwin's, "On the Origin of Species" and citing some obscure quote from Kent Hovind to compare Darwin to a controversial figure.  It's very easy to find multiple references to support and irrelevant idea. You should know this. Citing a "peer reviewed" critique--that has been posted on an obscure  website--of the movie Farenheit 9/11 does not make the comparisons legitimate or even relevant. You are missing the larger point--this is not a common comparison and multiple people have tried to or at least sated a desire to remove the references to Michael Moore. However, you are extremely resistant to any edits to your article.  Your resistance simply bolster my opinion that you have a deeper agenda here and are not neutral in your article.Pitythafoo 18:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the quality of the source is more important - that is why I originally used only the peer-reviewed source that claimed many others had made the comparison (I only added the others at the behest of the reviewer yesterday). Actually, you seem to have a misunderstanding of the link to the peer-reviewed source - it is not actually posted there - that is just an abstract of it. That article is in a well-respected film journal and is an excellent source. I provided the link as a courtesy so that people could see the sentence to which the article was referring. To assess the validity of the source, you need to look at the journal itself. I am resistant to removing edits that are well-sourced and have been carefully considered without first hearing a good reason. If I hear a good reason to remove it, I will be happy to do so. Awadewit | talk 22:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Michael Moore

message: I think we'll all be happier if we let bygones be bygones, and if we don't fight over who is more dedicated to improving the article.  None of us owns the article, to be sure; but it's gracious and courteous to consult one other, here on the Talk page, when we wish to make significant changes.  We should give each other the benefit of the doubt, no?  We can all afford to be patient and let the article develop on its own pace; even if that's slow, it's better that the article creep always forward, rather than jerk forward and backward quickly.  I'm sure that we'll progress forward if we focus together on the material and less on the editors.
Forgive me, Pitythafoo, but I think you may find Awadewit a powerful and insightful ally, whose thinking is not too far from your own.  I'm sure that she will improve upon you with better acquaintance, and her energy will be something that you prize someday.  Months of acquaintance with her gives me confidence that she has no hidden agenda here, and that she would welcome your insights, suggestions or questions, if Talked over calmly and with references.  Please temper your temper, take a fresh look at the article, and in the calmness, distill your criticisms and questions into their finest, most scholarly form.   Serenely Willow 22:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Turning a new leaf