Talk:Harvey Mansfield

message: Does anyone know where I can get a transcript? MoodyGroove 03:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Affirmative action debate

message: On tone, the section of the article that contained the word "tyranny" in the title maintained NPOV throughout.  Would be nice if we had a cleaner way to work the words "lawlessness and tyranny" into the header, though.  The term was used to more accurately describe Greenwald's accusation.  On a related note, the OpinionJournal site simply republishes print editorials from the Wall Street Journal, and the linked article is Mansfield's editorial from the 2nd.  Clarifying ref. MrZaiustalk 13:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: After reviewing both articles, I don't understand why you would want to work the words "lawlessness and tyranny" into the header. As a biographical article, we should be concentrating on Mansfield's views, not Greenwald's. It's reasonable to mention criticisms, but we should be careful not to give criticism undue weight, especially considering the relative absence of Mansfield's political philosophy (not through the lens of left wing criticism). MoodyGroove 15:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not so much an issue of weight as it is accurately representing the criticism.  Certainly someone with access to Mansfield's work should expand the LEAD and other sections, but the sections focusing on controversy and criticism must accurately reflect criticism of the topic.  On the validity of Salon as a source, note that it is a well established, long running site that is currently owned and operated by the Washington Post. MrZaiustalk 15:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not aware that the Washington Post owned and operated Salon.com. It should probably mention that somewhere in the Salon.com article. Do you have a source? I will add a section on Mansfield's political philosophy as time allows. Greenwald's criticism was left in the article. I don't have a problem with it as long as it's not meant to stigmatize or injure and is presented in a responsible manner, with context, neutrality, and fairness of tone. MoodyGroove 15:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Quick note

message: I removed this section from the article:
:Harvey C. Mansfield must be thick-skinned to have set himself up for so much criticism from left-leaning types, such as the distinguished Martha C. Nussbaum, by publishing his book Manliness (Yale University Press, 2006). As is well known, one word in Greek ("andreia") means both courage and manliness, and this book is indeed an extended discussion of courage in its various manifestations. Because women at times manifest courage, Mansfield generously allows that women can indeed be manly at times, as in the women's movement. However, he is, properly speaking, ambivalent about manliness, because it can at times be directed toward extremely questionable actions, such as the terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in the United States on September 11, 2001.
:The part of the psyche that Plato and Aristotle refer to as thumos (or thymos) is the psychological dynamism that powers courage or manliness in its various guises, good and bad. (The Greek word "thumos" or "thymos" is usually rendered in English as "spirited" or "spiritedness." The Greek word "psyche" is usually translated into English as "soul," which is how Mansfield uses it in his 2007 Jefferson Lecture. But its meaning is arguably more clearly communicated by transliterating it as "psyche," as in this entry, rather than translating it.)
:In his 2007 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, Mansfield explores the dynamism of thumos and politics in great detail. Following Plato and Aristotle and the central tradition of Western philosophy, Mansfield describes thumos as part of our animality. Thus he works with the long-established body/soul (psyche) distinction, wherein the logos part of the psyche is distinguished from the animality of the thumos and eros parts of the psyche. Our bodies are also part of our animality, as Mansfield makes clear.
:As is well known, such distinctions are controversial among philosophic materialists, and so the thick-skinned Mansfield has been subjected to more criticism from left-leaning types, such as Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post and the humorist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times.
:The prepared text of Mansfield's 2007 Jefferson Lecture is available at the NEH website, along with biographical, bibliographical, and other information about Mansfield. (See the link below.)
It may all be true, but it's unsourced and appears to be original research and contains synthesis. I will try to improve and expand it with the links provided. In the meantime I would encourage the author to add citations and remove speculation like "Mansfield must have been thick-skinned" and so on. MoodyGroove 13:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Manliness and thumos section

message: Why are the books listed at the top of this article?  It is the nearly universal practice to list an author's publications at the end of wikipedia articles.  If anyone can adduce a reason for this idiosyncracy, I'm happy to leave it as is, but otherwise I'll change it in the next few days.--147.9.203.104 (talk) 20:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It happened because I used A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy as a source to explain Professor Mansfield's views on political philosophy and political science. Another editor subsequently renamed the section "A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy" and moved the other books and accolades to the top also. Feel free to change it. MoodyGroove (talk) 22:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Books" formatting

message: First, I'm not sure this section has the correct heading.  Mansfield's academic postings aren't "personal background" at all. 
Secondly, Mansfield spent two years in the early 1960s on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley, as indicated here.  That needs to be indicated somewhere in the article.
Finally, his marriage to Delba Winthrop was his second. His first wife, whose name escapes me at the moment (particularly embarrassing since I worked for her one summer in college) was the mother of his two children, Will Mansfield (who was actually a roommate of mine in college and who is now an economist) and Mary C. Mansfield, a very promising young historian of medieval France who, along with her mother and husband were killed in 1989 in an automobile accident.--BenA (talk) 12:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal Background 

message: His "real" grading system does seem to be controversial with students, etc., but the other two views listed-- a strong executive and gender roles-- don't appear to be on the same level of controversy as to merit inclusion in a "Controversies" section. The strong executive position is held by many people and according to the article, was only criticized by one commenter-- more citations/criticism are needed to indicate this is actually talked about as controversial. There is no criticism listed under the gender roles section or any indication this is controversial at all. It needs to be updated or split into two sections, one for the grades and one for the other views.--Gloriamarie (talk) 08:15, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Controversies" section

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060901213551/http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1997/dec/walking.html to http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1997/dec/walking.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070519000428/http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/Mansfield/HMabout.html to http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/Mansfield/HMabout.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070928020340/http://blogs.saintanselmcollege.net/2006/04/20/hmansfield060420/ to http://blogs.saintanselmcollege.net/2006/04/20/hmansfield060420/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070519000348/http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/Mansfield/index.html to http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/Mansfield/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160305183325/http://booknotes.org/watch/159774-1/harvey+mansfield.aspx to http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/159774-1/Harvey+Mansfield.aspx
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It seems that controversy around this topic seems to ignore a salient fact that makes the rise in grades predictable, understandable and justified at a place like Harvard is that, notwithstanding affirmative action, there has been an increase in the scholastic qualifications of students admitted to high end institutions like Harvard, Stanford and MIT in recent decades, with in some years 75% of the entering class having had perfect scores on their SATs. Thus it makes sense that the student body would have disproportionately higher marks than students attending colleges of a lesser caliber or Harvard students from a bygone era where a significant number were rich kids of mediocre academic achievement who focused on their social lives in clubs catering to their own, paying scant attention to their studies and being gratuitously awarded "Gentleman Cs" as a result.  And of course viewed objectively, which can be harder to measure in the more amorphous ares of the humanities, a "curve" is manifestly unfair if it does not correspond to what students' achievement actually is.  Thus if every student in a math class answers every question on a test correctly then they all should receive a top grade.  As with professional athletes and astronauts, excellence among all should be considered a basic qualification for retention and mediocrity should be viewed with disfavor; a student body of overachievers with mostly A grades should be a source of pride.  So I don't think Harvard has anything to apologize for; the curve was executed in the highly competitive admissions process.Tom Cod (talk) 21:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grade Inflation