Talk:Fabian Society

message: The fabian society was formed in the 19th century and i dont know what it stands for. 
Don't ask.
:Well, have you read (a) the article and (b) the "Purpose" section of their website? --rbrwr± 12:41, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Query

message: I believe that the inclusion of Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) as a Fabian is incorrect. Can anyone substantiate this one way or the other? -- 26 december 2005
:: Yes, I was surprised by that, and indeed a quick google reveals many pages claiming that he wasn't one.  In fact he was explicitly critical Fabian and reformist Socialists.  So if no-one can provide a reference for this I'm going to delete it.81.179.76.23 23:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have heard that he was close with Huxley (Aldous, I think) and from him Eric learned of the Fabian Society plans/ideals and was so disgusted he wrote 1984 (whose title = 100 years after the 1884 beginning of the FS). Heck, the FS logo is a wolf in sheep's clothing! Eric more likely was trying to WARN people in advance of the plans coming to pass, rather than trying to persuade people to accept their gradual implementation. 142.229.99.86 (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  According to his autobiographical Spanish Civil War book, Homage to Catalonia, he was a member of the Independent Labour Party and fought with an anarchist faction. (From memory, so please someone check!) This hardly sounds like a Fabian. 91.85.42.236 (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: He fought with a Marxist militia, the POUM (Partido Obrera Unification Marxist - Workers Party of Marxist Unification) that was allied to the anarchists. He expressed sympathies for the anarchists political programme and considered moving over to their militia. I can't see any evidence of Fabian membership or  sympathies quite the opposite. He attacks the Fabian leadership in Road to Wigan Pier. 202.89.136.8 (talk) 20:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Eric Blair?

message: I was reading this article, when I got to section marked legacy. The final paragraph (Four of the...August 1894) of this section is gramatically incorrect and seems to be out of place in the legacy section. Does anyone agree? I don't want to change it without some sort of concensus.
ghj
:The sentence as it reads is nonsense. I presume the intent is that those four founded the LSE. That is not what it says now. Change away.Badgerpatrol 01:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legacy 

message: I suppose parititon should be partition? Piet 10:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  parititon?? 

message: I see nothing in the Mary Poppins article or this one to connect the Fabians and the children's story. Can someone clarify this please? thanks - Her Pegship 16:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mary Poppins?? 

message: I added loads of post-war Fabians listed as leading members on their website. They all seemed important enough - near enough a who's who of labour politics. A Geek Tragedy 00:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Loads more names

message: Do we really need half the article to be about exactly how the Fabians elect their central committee? Is a clear definition of who can be an associate member encyclopaedic? Is it even remotely interesting? 
If nobody has an opinion, I'll remove it. In due course. In the fullness of time.
Rome wasnt built in a day, you know. 
Nor saved, neither.
Hornplease 05:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure

message: Are there any criticisms of the society?  They appear to have some controversial viewpoints so a section on common criticisms or public perception could be useful to balance the article, which seems to read like a brochure. --Phil153 17:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public Opinion? 

message: In my opinion, Virginia Woolf should be considered as a key member of the Fabian Society, 
Not only her husband Leonard Woolf !
 bpochat, 13 February 2008  —Preceding comment was added at 17:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about Virginia Woolf ? 

message: Where are people getting these members lists from?
I can't find any information anywhere on Blair and Brown being members.--Him and a dog 20:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Members 

message: According to Nicholas Hagger in his The Secret Founding of America, the Fabian Society was created as Freemasonic body based on the Scottish Rite Free Masons.  Yet no mention is made of this?  12:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fabian Society and roots in Freemasonary? 

message: All of my revisions have been reverted, with the comment to the effect that I had deleted paragraphs. To the best of my intention, I deleted nothing (bar the odd repetitive phrase); what I did was to re-organise  substantially, to move material, to create new sections, to remove wikilinks to common nouns as per WP:MOS, and so on, to improve the article.  If there are specific criticisms with this re-working, fine, let's hammer them out here.  A one-fell-swoop reversion is not assuming good faith. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the mass reversion? 

message: Has the Fabian tortoise logo ever been used in the UK?  The article says it has, but I'm a Fabian of many years standing and I don't recall ever seeing such a logo other than in this article.  86.177.121.176 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 23:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pulling that thing, it's pretty obviously an anti-Fabian satire presented here as an official Fabian logo. Carrite (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

text: The description clearly says it was created in 2008 by :User:Ldopa. Infrogmation (talk) 03:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  See here, on this pamphlet from 1951, which is the earliest appearance. https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:tik383teg - Lommes (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Tortoise logo

message: Wouldn't it be better to classify them as social democrats or social liberals? I see nothing here about permanent state ownership of the major means of production. -MBHiii (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel like you might be North American. Just a guess, nothing else. Know that "socialism" is not reduced to the extreme left, reformism (gradual move towards an alternative to capitalism while respecting the democratic and republican [in regards to the republican principles of the enlightenment] institutions) sort of, you know, exists. Recent debates around the term are principally caused by two factors: 1. liberals (capitalists) and neo-liberals, mostly from US-Canada 2. Communists (revolutionary socialists, as opposed to reformist socialists), mainly from countries with strong fundamental perceived structural issues (I.e Eastern Europe or North America), with the crux of the issue being the term democratic socialism, used by father priest Trotsky (a revolutionary socialist) and by reformist socialists (who consider the other approach unrealistic and undemocratic). The strong anti-communism of some regions of the world also makes for some simplifications, painting revolutionary socialist communism and reformist socialism (which is often simply ignored in these analysis) on an isolated far-left extreme, when in reality the goal of long term (reformist) socialism is extremely widespread. Encyclopédisme (talk) 13:02, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Socialist]]?

message: There needs to be a citation for Russell's entrance and reason for leaving given his opposition to much of their beliefs.  He seems to be more in line with George Orwell than with the Fabian Society.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 20:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bertrand Russell 

message: I've added a new sub-section dealing with the Society's apologist stance towards Stalinst Russia/Bolshevik atrocities. I'm sure that this can be expanded. Jprw (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: New section

message: I just came across a claim in a newspaper comments thread to the effect that that the official emblem or logo of the Fabian Society was originally a wolf in sheep's clothing.  Whatever one's view of Fabian policies, it seems wildly unlikely that any political organisation would openly portray itself as a wolf in sheep's clothing. On searching Google Images for examples of the emblem I found numerous copies, but all of the sources were on nutjob sites (extreme rightists or conspiracy theorists).  The emblem itself seems stylistically 'right' for the period (late 19th century) but that does not prove that it was an official emblem.  It might merely be a satirical image from the same period, for example in a cartoon or pamphlet opposed to the Fabians.  If, however improbable it might seem, the emblem really was an official emblem of the Fabian Society, one would expect to find it on pamphlets and other publications of the Society itself.  I have not found it in any online copies of such documents, but I may have a root around the next time I go to the London Library.  Meanwhile, someone else with more authoritative knowledge of the Society may want to comment or include something in the article.109.154.232.197 (talk) 19:48, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: [Added by the same commenter] I think I have traced the origin of the 'wolf in sheep's clothing' logo.  In 1910 George Bernard Shaw, himself a member of the Society, designed and commissioned a stained glass window which included in the background a 'coat of arms' portraying a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' with the letters F S on either side of it. An account of the window is here   http://www.lse.ac.uk/alumni/LSEConnect/LSEMagazine/pdf/summer2006/FabianWindow.pdf  The window portrays leading members of the Society in medieval or Elizabethan-style dress in the act of forging a globe of the world on an anvil, illustrating the text 'remould it nearer to the heart's desire'  (a phrase from Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayam).  The purpose and meaning of the window are not entirely clear, but it is evidently at least in part humorous, as H G Wells is shown in the corner cocking a snook at the other participants.  The choice of mock-medieval clothing may be an allusion to the infatuation of some socialists with the Middle Ages, which Shaw did not share.  The phrase 'Pray devoutly but hammer stoutly' appears to be from a poem 'The Hermit' by Thomas Parnell.  So far as I know the phrase had no official status in the Fabian Society.  As for the 'wolf in sheep's clothing', it seems likely that it was intended by Shaw as a visual joke, alluding to the way in which the Fabian Society was viewed by its conservative opponents.  Shaw was, after all, known as a humorist.  I have still found no evidence to suggest that it was ever an official emblem of the Fabians.  Moreover, the status of the window as a whole is unclear:  it has recently been installed in the Library of the London School of Economics, but the linked article does not say anything about its location between 1910, when it was made, and 1947, when it was installed in a conference venue. 109.154.232.177 (talk) 16:23, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emblem/logo 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In may places this article reads like it came directly from a Glenn Beck "exposé" - to take two examples, 
 
* the wolf in sheep's clothing "coat of arms", which is satisfactorily explained here on the talk page, is put forward in the article as an actual "official"/"original" coat of arms that was suppressed "because of its obvious negative connotations".
* "Aflaq's ideas, with those of Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Zaki al-Arsuzi, came to fruition in the Arab world in the form of dictatorial regimes in Iraq and Syria."; it's not up for debate that the present Baathist parties in Iraq and Syria were dictatorships, but to say "the ideas game to fruition as" is like saying that Milton Friedman's ideas "came to fruition in the form of the torture chambers in Chile" - both are assertions that it could be interesting to see defended in depth in the appropriate forum, but not encyclopedic at all.
Looking above, it seems like there was a clean-up in 2009 that took care of similar issues.
2601:647:4204:EA10:E9E9:EB7E:2338:3D32 (talk) 15:39, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether "criticism" is encyclopedic or not I'll leave to Wiki-policy experts; I'd be fine with "more criticism" if the criticism came from the realm of fact -- unlike the two examples above. 2601:B00:C580:22A0:31A4:5000:F0BB:3291 (talk) 21:47, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

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