Talk:Psychohistory/Archive 1

Critics of psychohistory

What about information on critics of psychohistory? Judging by the fact that its founder accuses mainstream anthropologists of advocating pedophilia, I'm sure there must be quite a few of them. Unfortunately, my cursory Google search could not find any -- is anyone familiar with any in academic literature?

Since psychohistory seems strongly influenced by psychoanalysis, and a lot of people think psychoanalysis is psuedoscience, I assume the same people would have similar views of psychohistory. I'm also sure that many historians would view as preposterous the idea that we can analyse the psychology of long dead historical figures at all accurately (as opposed to just taking together whatever lose pieces of information we can find to make a story that fits our ideology).

Actually, if you ask me most 'therapists' are pseudoscientists anyway, but thats another story... -- an.

In fact, none of the several psychotherapists I know of have heard of this guy; also, when I was in college I had a friend who majored in history and talked about "psychohistory" that he had heard about in a few lectures, but the term did not refer to the contents of this page, it refered more generally to historians using psychological theories to explain the behaorior of historical figures. In other words, this page seems to me to be promoting one man's business. Unfortunately, I am neither a trained psychologist nor a trained historian and am not in a position to evaluate this stuff seriously. I would have to do serious research (and I do not think a google search is real research) and I don't have the time. Anyone who does, however, should! Slrubenstein

The text in this topic seems almost derived from a sales folder. I have neither the expertise nor the time to delve into this, but I was, in another life, a psychology grad student, and I have never heard of this field. I question the NPOV of this text. ~Puffy_jacket

That psychohistory exists as a field of academic study and discussion surely cannot be disputed - follow the links provided. The page also includes a statement on the differences between psychohistory and history. Can you be more specific than saying that it ‘seems almost derived from a sales folder’. It sounds as though you disagree with the subject and wish it didn’t exist. Lumos3 09:52, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Here you go, from the link you provided to the international psychohistorial association:

"There are no formal training programs for psychohistorians."

"Psychohistorians are essentially self-taught."

"Ideally, the psychohistorian should be trained in both history and psychoanalysis. [...] many have no formal training in either area. Thus, psychohistorical scholarship is somewhat variable in quality."

I have, contrary to your speculation, no personal opinion about "psychohistory", but based on the links provided, "psychohistory" does not appear to be a legitimate field of study. Are you able to provide objective information not taken from sites run by self-taught "psychohistorians"? Are you able to provide external links that are not sites run by those promoting their own online classes in "psychohistory"?

I searched for the topic myself. The vast, vast majority of "psychohistory" hits were either:

• a discussion of Asimov novels
• a promotional mention of the "psychohistory" discussion list you linked to
• a promotional mention of the several websites you linked to
• the websites and discussion list themselves

I was unable to find one single mention of "psychohistory" by any legitimate scientific journal. Or one single mention of 'psychohistory" by any legitimate institute of learning.

That does not bode well. Please, if you know of a college that teaches a course in this field, link to it. If you know of a "psychohistorian" who has published, link us. As of now, this does not appear to me to be a legitimate scholarly field.

- Puffy jacket 17:44, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I agree PH is not mainstream but it has academic connections .

A Google search on ‘Psychohistory courses’ found lots, here a few

Courses

Boston University has a Pychohistory Course see http://www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2003/10-31/psycho.html And CAS HI 503 at www.bu.edu/history/crsinven.html

Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut has a course see http://www.wesleyan.edu/course/hist251f.htm

University of Nevada has a Department of psychohistory, http://www.unr.edu/planning/0304cycle/psychohistoryplan.pdf

State University of New York Rockland see HIS 213/4 at http://www.sunyrockland.edu/courses/h.htm

City University of New York See HIS 360 http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~history/cours.htm

References There is a bibliography of published works on Psychohistory see http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8623/literature.htm

Lumos3 01:56, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I have hade changes to the page in line with the objections already given . Unless more objection are posted I intend to remove the article from the list of articles with POV Lumos3 23:34, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Psychohistory is a valid, if not entirely recognized, academic field.

I recommend a book by Jacques Szaluta, "Psychohistory: Theory and Practice," Peter Lang Published it in 1999. I'm not trying to advertise the book, but it is a good overview of the evolution of the field. It is also important to note that Lloyd DeMause is mentioned, but he is no such thing as the "inventor" of the field as he claims. His presence on the web and the way he dominates the one or two listservs I've seen tend to skew the perception. Here is the publishers description of Szaluta's book:

"This work is the first comprehensive text in the field of psychohistory that presents both the theory and the practice of this interdisciplinary field. The presentation of psychoanalytic theory in this work includes the fundamental contributions made by Freud as well as the post-Freudian developments. Another unique feature of this work, because psychohistory is so controversial, is that the pros and cons are presented, thereby putting the field in better relief. This work accentuates how psychohistory differs from traditional history, and how psychohistory is more insightful in the study of the individual, the family, and the group. In sum, Psychohistory: Theory and Practice demonstrates how psychohistory is transforming the study of history and why psychohistory is so promising for our understanding of mankind."

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, Professor Szaluta was my History professor in college and wrote me a recommendation for Grad School. I do not see myself as a champion of psychohistory as I have serious doubts about the applicability of post-mortem psychoanalysis, but the field is definately valid.

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Notice of removal of The neutrality of this article is disputed warning This statement has been here for about 5 months now and the article has matured a lot since than and contains a statement of the field's marginal status . I propose to remove it within 7 days . Lumos3 21:58, 26 May 2004 (UTC)~

Wikipedia is a Weird Encyclopedia

Oh my God, I can't believe we have an article on this crap. This Lloyd DeMause guy, (who is the inventor of this neologism masquerading as a legitimate field of science), is the same whack job who reliably informs us that Japanese mothers "masturbate" their infants, that 60% of all children have been molested repeatedly, that 50% of all male children have been forced to touch their mothers' gentiles, and, oh, here's a nice one: Half of all Asian children are killed shortly after birth by their parents. You can always tell a DeMause written paper by the way in which he ingeniously sites other articles written by himself as source material. DeMause is nothing more than another paranoid, megalomaniac like L. Ron Hubbard, right down to the way in which he graciously credits Freud as a co-inventor of Dianetics, er, sorry, I mean Psychohistory. When I can stop doubling over in laughter, I'll consider what is going to be needed in the way of a critisim section for this article. The main Psychohistory link should be about Asimov's famous Foundation novels, with this nonsense pointed to by Psychohistory (pseudoscience) func(talk) 02:54, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a specific source for all these statistics which you claim are from deMause? That quote about Asian children, in particular, doesn't appear anywhere on the web except on this page and another site trashing deMause. It would be obviously NPOV to call it pseudoscience in the article title. Please do write a criticism section for this article; it needs one. There's plenty of criticism out there. (You'll have to make it a lot less POV than what you wrote above, though.) Pfalstad 05:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the Main Link to be to Asimov. I agree, although I have been an Asimov fan since high school, but who hasn't? (MartinGugino 01:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC))

Lloyd DeMause's claims on the abuse of children throughout history are certainly disturbing if true. There is however no shame in an author citing research done by themselves. A paper should cite all appropriate research so that the reader can check its validity. DeMause is a pioneer in this field so one would expect a certain amount of self referencing to his own earlier work. Lumos3 20:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What research? Have you read his papers? He doesn't research anything, he just makes up theories, ie: he projects his personal obsessions into a formalized set of opinions, and then calls it research. func(talk) 20:04, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, a lot of people think 99% of all Freud did was just made up, and don't consider psychoanalysis scientific. I'll be the first to acknowledge that it's not the most _falsifiable_ of theories, so it may not be completely straightforward to describe it as science. It seems closer to say, literary criticism or "theory" (in the humanities/critical sense). I'm not certain to what extent psychohistory itself pretends to be predictive; most of my readings of it seem to be explanatory and providing a context but falling short of prediction. Not that there's anything wrong with that...as I said, that's kind of what literary criticism and philosophy do. And a field may be semi-legitimate even when its most prominent proponent may be crankish. If this were not so, all of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy would be hub-bub (because of Freud). At any rate, I think people should find out for themselves. I've read some a few articles not written by deMause, and they didn't seem to be written by either lunatics, dimwits, or cranks. And the idea of applying psychological motivation to large-scale group behaviour is not by itself preposterous or patently asinine. Revolver 11:15, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

The Journal of Psychohistory was carried by the University of Oregon's library as an academic journal when I was a student there roughly 10 years ago, so either it's semi-legitimate (at least enough for the taxpayers of the state of Oregon to shell out for the stacks) or the standards at these universities have gone way down...take your pick. Revolver 11:21, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

In the article there's no mention at all of the uses and abuses of psychohistory. For example, in World War II some Allied propaganda attributed the rise of both Nazism and actual Nazi atrocities to allegedly high levels of homosexuality, sado-masochism and boot fetishism (!) in Germany - and the propagandists made no distinction between these, which they portrayed as manifestations of one and the same phenomenon. Worse still, long after 1945 there were apparently serious attempts to "explain" Nazi atrocities as a sudden outburst of (male) sexual perversion. Since "Psychohistorians" are practioners of a relatively new discipline which is widely regarded as suspect, it would be helpful to know whether they think such stuff has any real explanatory force at all. I regard such "explanations" as amusing light entertainment, nothing more. User: Norvo, 16:49 (UTC) 31 Jul 2005

Typo?

I'm assuming this in the references: "Sigmund Freud, collecting works" is "Collected works", but I'm noting it here just in case I'm wrong. --DanielCD 15:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

www.psychohistory.com

The essays I read on this site are biased and in some cases obscenely wrong in their assertions. Almost all the references and citations I saw are internal. I ammended the description so it won't appear that this is an objective site.

In fact, a lot of these articles seem to be projecting modern ideas into the past rather than actually deciphering the psychology of the past, the exact opposite of what such an endeavor should strive for. --DanielCD 15:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Child Abuse

• Why there is still denial in modern societies about the reality of child abuse

This is really loaded. It seems to be there's a rabid insistance on child abuse today rather than denial (depending on which society you are meaning). But this is far from as matter-of-fact as presented in the article. --DanielCD 15:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Areas of Psychohistorical Study

Care should be taken here, as there are groups that are out there trying to actually revise history, rather than examine history. These groups will claim to be doing "psychohistory" and be scholarly while actually trying to push an agenda. --DanielCD 15:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

I added an NPOV tag, as this article definitely needs more criticism of this idea. The articles from the site this article is based on are anything but objective. But this one site's POV seems to dominate this article with no alternate views given. Until this is remedied, the tag should remain. --DanielCD 15:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The trouble I see with the NPOV tag is that “Psychohistory” is rarely challenged in the academia. How then will it be challenged in Wikipedia? Though I don’t subscribe to all of psychohistorians’ claims, I don’t see anything wrong with the article (I wouldn’t see anything wrong with some balancing statements either). Cesar Tort 23:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the idea about Psychohistory. The focus from this one site is what I'm referring to. I mean just what you say, add some balancing statements. --DanielCD 23:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I have added some academic criticism I found in a google search. But why pick on Psychohistory, there are hundreds of articles on Wikipedia which describe a fringe subject and don’t give a "balancing" point of view. Take for example Psychogeography which is linked from this article. The same argument would put NPOV there as well. Psychohistory makes the outrageous claim that child rearing affects us in more profound ways than we care to acknowledge and makes most people uncomfortable when they first encounter it. This article describes the subject and does not sell it. I don’t think it deserved the NPOV tag. Lumos3 08:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Yes, there are lots of articles that are a little off. As long as there's some mention that there are contrary opinions, I think we can lose the tag. --DanielCD 22:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I see no reason at all why this article should be separated from Psychogenic mode. —Cesar Tort 18:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Psychoclass

I updated the redirect page to send Psychoclass to Psychohistory instead of Psychogenic mode. I noticed the word "psychoclass" appears nowhere in the article, although the word appears frequently in the writings of psychohistorians. Perhaps it should it be mentioned and briefly explained. -- Bookish 23:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely agree! —Cesar Tort 23:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Schreber

I would like to remove mention to Daniel Paul Schreber which is too controversial a subject among psychohistorians and trauma writers such as Jeffrey Masson and Morton Schatzman. Schatzman wrote a whole book about Schreber [1] and radically departs from Freud’s theory. Freud blames Schreber; current trauma writers blame Schreber’s abusive father. —Cesar Tort 16:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Schreber is mentioned only as an example of Freud doing a post mortum analysis. If there is a controversy here what is it? It would be better to mention what it is than to remove it for neatness. Lumos3 17:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I am only trying to say that there are some trauma writers who hate Freud’s ridiculous homosexual and blame-the-victim interpretation of Schreber. Freud’s bizarre theory is about a totally unproven and hypothetical sexual orientation of Schreber to his father. I know you have read Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good. Well: Schreber’s father was none other that the author of bestselling poisonous pedagogy books that drove Germany to groupthink's eliminationst anti-Semitism! The Schreber affair is too controversial and not really germane to psychohistory. It should be removed. —Cesar Tort 17:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Trauma writers who hate Freud's interpretation would probably also be aware that Niederland came to basically the same conclusion as Morton Schatzman. -- Bookish 18:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. But this is not explained in the text and a casual reader may erroneously interpret it as an endorsement of Freud’s views. —Cesar Tort 18:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who clicks on the Daniel Paul Schreber link would find out that Freud's interpretation is disputed. It gives prominence to Schatzman's Interpretation. I included the Niederland article in the References on that page, and added: He basically came to same conclusion as Morton Schatzman. By the way, I have a copy of Jeffrey Masson's When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals. -- Bookish 19:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Freudian psychoanalysis is currently out of favour in academic circles. Anyone who believes in the blame-the-victim interpretation before arriving at the page would probably be prejudiced against Psychohistory no matter what was written. I would say the Daniel Paul Schreber article is highly relevant to Psychohistory. BTW, I also have a copy of Jeffrey Masson's Final Analysis. -- Bookish 19:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh. Guau! Wow! (Ups! I wrote a word in Spanish! Hope you understood it, Bookish :) I really, really LOVE Masson. And F.A. is my favorite of his books! If you think readers won’t be deceived by that phrase into Freud’s crank views, let the phrase stay (it pretty much appears as a pro-Freudian phrase). The Niederland article is relevant, of course; but not mention of the Vienna quack. I only want disambiguation. —Cesar Tort 21:31, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure which phrase you mean. Did I miss something because it was clear to me because I wrote it? Here is the text:

However, one of the most famous studies among Freud's writings is a post-mortem analysis of Daniel Paul Schreber. Psychoanalyst W.G. Niederland published a re-appraisal of Freud's interpretation in 1959: "Schreber: Father and Son" (Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 28:151-169).

I read somewhere that this was one of the most discussed (and disputed) works by Freud. I don't know whether it's a fact. Can you let me know which phrase? Maybe it would be easy to re-word it. Maybe "well known" instead of "famous"? That would be OK with me. -- Bookish 22:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

let’s just remove mention to Freud in that phrase! —Cesar Tort 22:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That would defeat the point I was making. Please don't do anything for now, and think it over for a few days -- Bookish 23:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

fascinating flaming discussion!

Hey Bookish: Have you read the flaming discussion in the Talk:Early infanticidal childrearing archives? I printed and read them! I also learnt more there about the animosity between psychohistorians and anthropologists than in any printed text. Psychohistorians of course are right and anthropologists wrong! —Cesar Tort 22:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a brief summary of that debate should appear in the Psychohistory article? —Cesar Tort 22:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Did you receive The Emotional Life of Nations yet? He discusses the antipathy of anthropologists towards psychohistory. If you think a brief summary is appropriate can we discuss a draft here on the talk page? -- Bookish 22:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Amazon mail to Mexico is so slow... But I have finished deMause’s FOUNDATIONS and have printed and read the main chapters of his EMOL book thanks to his web page. I’ll post a draft soon... —Cesar Tort 22:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I am basically paraphrasing, copying and pasting the summaries in the flaming pages:

Early infanticidal childrearing is a psychohistorical model developed by deMause which purports that childrearing in the Paleolithic Era and in contemporary pre-literate hunter-gatherer tribes can be summarized by three basic ideas:

• children are not considered human

• infants are useful to parents as erotic objects

• children aren't considered useful to any adult in any other way

This particular model is a psychological concept that attempts to explain anthropological data, especially from primitive societies.

Anthropologists point out that speculating about the Neolithic is inaccurate since it's impossible to gain significant data about child-rearing practices from archeological remains dating to the Neolithic. Anthropologists also determined that deMause drew his analyses from anthropological data of modern hunter-gather societies.

In return, deMause and his followers accuse most anthropologists and ethnologists of being apologists for incest, infanticide, cannibalism and child sacrifice. They claim that what constitutes child abuse is a matter of objective fact and that some of the practices which mainstream anthropologists apologize for, such as beatings of newborn infants, result in brain lesions and other visible neurological damage. Other practices may result in psychosis, dissociation and magical thinking. They also claim that the extreme cultural relativism proposed by many anthropologists is contrary to the letter and spirit of human rights.

—Cesar Tort 23:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the anthropologists are 100% correct that no historical documents are available for the Paleolithic or Neolithic eras. What you have pasted so far is way too looooooooong! I worry that a good article could be spoiled if it incorporates a discussion that is specific to one single mode of childrearing instead of psychohistory as a whole. Also, it makes the subject look a lot more controversial. Is that what you want? Please check out James W. Prescott and the external link to "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence". It contains a large amount of psychogenic data from modern hunter-gather societies. -- Bookish 00:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I am satisfied with having discussed both subjects here in talk page. I have no strong feelings about leaving the article as it is. Perhaps you may simply want to add a line or two of the above to the article? —Cesar Tort 00:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

To introduce the controversy from anthropology, a line or two would be the right amount, if you feel it's necessary. I made quite a few minor edits yesterday aimed towards a neutral tone, and I made sure not to go beyond the facts. I don't want to add any more myself. As it's a controversial subject, it could easily be spoiled by digressions or a surfeit of material. -- Bookish 10:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

avoid future tagging

Not long ago this article was pov tagged. See DanielCD’s posts above: in my view, legitimate concerns. Perhaps what you may add should address such concerns to avoid future tagging? —Cesar Tort 16:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Rembrandt's painting

Cesar: I suspect child sacrifice is the hardest part of Psychohistory for most people to swallow. I think pictures make a bigger impact than words, so I added two things:

1. Rembrandt's painting of the sacrifice of Isaac, from the Old Testament. Alice Miller used it in The Untouched Key.
2. An external link to an article about Inca child sacrifice (with photographs) from Discovery Channel Canada.

It's probably not a good idea to link to any articles about religion, so I only included the painting. Do you remember double****.info? -- Bookish 18:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Rembrandt was a splendid choice, Bookish. Indians also used to sacrifice children here: and Mexican anthropologists are just as Neanderthals and totally lacking of compassion and empathy towards the victims as in the US and Europe. That’s why I liked the flaming debate I called your attention to. Verily verily I say to you that all of this is about a clash of psychoclasses!

There have been so many article changes in the last few days that I didn’t notice if you added that sentence about psychoclasses? (BTW, I don’t understand the meaning of “double****.info”) —Cesar Tort 18:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I just added the word psychoclass in brackets: A psychogenic mode in Psychohistory is a type of mentality (or psychoclass) that results from, and is associated with, a particular childrearing style.

double**** is from something I wrote on your talk page about Christians in Wikipedia a while back. -- Bookish 19:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks then that the article is OK by now. Do you agree? —Cesar Tort 19:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it seems OK to me. -- Bookish 22:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Faculty Bios

From Bookish 21:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC):

At present, the article focuses on the work of Lloyd deMause, which is understandable, because there appears to be more material on the web by him, or about him, than any other psychohistorian. However, I did find faculty bios for the others mentioned in Notable psychohistorians section. I believe the article would appear less partisan if their academic titles were included, together with links to faculty bios. It would be also fair to arrange it in alphabetical order and add Bruce Mazlish, Emeritus Professor of History at MIT. Here is my suggestion:

Notable psychohistorians

• Rudolph Binion, Professor of Modern European History, Brandeis University (see faculty bio).
• Lloyd deMause, founder of The Institute for Psychohistory.
• Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist specializing in psychological motivations for war and terrorism.
• Peter Loewenberg, Department of History, UCLA (see faculty bio).
• Bruce Mazlish, Professor of History, Emeritus, MIT (see faculty bio).
• Charles Strozier, Professor of History, Graduate Center, CUNY (see bio at Boston University).

Good ideas. —Cesar Tort 22:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll wait a day or two to see if anyone else has a comment -- Bookish 22:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I used four different search engines to find out more about the psychohistory journal for university academics, The Psychohistory Review. I found only citations. The journal doesn't appear to have a publisher's website. Charles Strozier was the founding editor. I added a brief description of The Wellfleet Psychohistory Group to the Robert Jay Lifton article. It was all I could find using search engines. -- Bookish 15:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

deMause’s comment on this article

Yesterday I wrote this email:

Dear Lloyd deMause:

The Wikipedia article on psychohistory [2] is almost completed. I hope you will like it. Of course, you or anyone of your colleagues can edit it and make the changes you deem it necessary. Cesar Tort

de Mause’s reply (19 June 2006):

Splendid job. I have no changes to content. However two websites have changed recently: The IPA website is now simply http://www.psychohistory.us and the discussion group is http://www.psychohistory-historicalmotivations@yahoogroups.com

Lloyd

—Cesar Tort 14:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Cesar, thanks for contacting Lloyd. I updated the International Psychohistorical Association link. However, the psychohistory moderated discussion group at Topica still exists. The other link Lloyd provided is a login address, but there is a website for the group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psychohistory-historicalmotivations/

What do you think, Cesar? Do you want to add the website for the second group? There wasn't much information about it on the site. -- Bookish 16:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I’ve just seen the main page of this later group and have no objections about whether including it or not. Once I get the EMOL book I may add a brief paragraph below the “Evolution of six psychogenic modes” graph you introduced: the only colored graph in the entire psychohistory literature! —Cesar Tort 17:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the Topica list. Apparently, the new list will replace it. To play safe, I replaced the Topica link with a link to Psychohistory Discussion List at Psychohistory.com. -- Bookish 17:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

info added

I have now read Lloyd deMause’s books Foundations of Psychohistory and The Emotional Life of Nations. As promised above, I have now added info to make psychohistory theory more comprehensible —though undoubtedly more utopian for outsiders! I also removed a reference at the end of the article under the heading “Individual studies”:

Freud, Sigmund (1967). "Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Twenty eighth President of the United States: A Psychological Study", Boston, Houghton Mifflin in: Sigmund Freud, Collected Works, supplement, S. 686-692.

The above reference was only peripherally connected to the article content. Since present-day psychohistory was the product of an American scholar I standardized the text to American English. —Cesar Tort 00:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

A psychoclass for postmodern times

Mindblindness from the "postmodern times" pulpit:

Political violence of any other sort will disappear as well, along with religion itself, magical thinking, mental disorders, crime, jails, wars and other inhumanities of man against man.

That claim is far too grandiose. Few people will believe there is only one source for all those ills, even if it's true. Think about the readers. Religious people will be offended. Helping mode parents exist in the world today who are religious. They admire Jesus for challenging the status quo. Do you want to alienate everyone who hasn't yet accepted these ideas? -- 81.174.211.214 21:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Whether it's grandiose or not is irrelevant. Are you saying that it's an inaccurate description of what psychohistorians believe? If so, change it, but don't revert a whole bunch of unrelated stuff in the process. Pfalstad 22:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Norbert Elias' "psychohistory"

Norbert Elias had proposed the formation of a new discipline called "psychohistory" in his opus magnum about civilization. Discussing the subject of rationalisation in the context of European history, he underlined the importance of the rational and irrational aspects of people, their ideas and their habits in building their culture. In "psychohistory" he saw that such a study would become feasible, history would no longer just exclude psychologic facts, neither would psychology just occupy itself with current problems. Searching the net with the question in mind, if this discipline had since developped, I am decieved to find this...

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.176.186.2 (talk)

Next time please sign. Also, please remember Wikipedia is not a soapbox. If you want an open forum to discuss psychohistory issues, you are welcomed here [3]  :) Cesar Tort 06:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Mutilation

The bottom-right section of the table says:

Children's rights movement, deschooling and free schooling, natural childbirth, Taking Children Seriously and the abandonment of genital mutilation of infant boys.

Is that supposed to be referring to circumcision? If so it should simply say so. As it is it's neither clear nor POV. --Ptcamn 23:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't write it but, yes: I'll correct it. —Cesar Tort 00:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

wtf

this page completly overlooks the fact that psychohistory has not been a respectable form of historical analysis since the 1950's - expect future edits from me correcting this page -ishmaelblues —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs) 18:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Definition of psychohistory

Seems to me that your article is becoming a discussion about the development of the psique, along life (in childhood, as teenager, as mature person and as senior); to me the original definition en your article was:

"Psychohistory is the study of the psychological motivations of historical events. It combines the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present." And to give to this science a Social Relevance I would add: "...with the purpose of designing and applying methods to promote Humanity to a higher levels of Welfare & Development"

Therefore, what is all that crap about "Psychohistory derives many of its insights from areas that are perceived to be ignored by conventional historians as shaping factors of human history, in particular, the effects of childbirth, parenting practice, and child abuse. The historical impact of incest, infanticide and child sacrifice are considered."

189.166.31.247 (talk) 02:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC) MEXICO, AGS, Dagoflores

Attack on psychohistory

Recently this appeared on the talk page for Satanic_ritual_abuse:

“ Excuse the offtopic comment, but the phrase "a peer reviewed journal at http://www.geocities.com..." is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Anyway, DeMause's playground is not a peer reviewed journal, and it's amusing that you claim it is, given the fulminations from others every time an "Issues in Child Abuse Accusations" (Underwager's playground) article is mentioned here. DeMause, who has few relevant qualifications, invented a field called "psychohistory" which is unrecognized and practiced only by him and his associated disciples. He believes that all of human history can be explained in terms of child sexual abuse, and that at least 60% of girls and 45% of boys are sexually abused, many before the age of 5. He is, to be blunt, a kook, and should not be cited as anything but a minority view. ”

I totally disagree with the above statement and am looking for help to rebut it.Abuse truth 16:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Please remind that WP is not a place for soapboxing. However you are absolutely right. The above sentence: "He believes that all of human history can be explained in terms of child sexual abuse" is absolutely erroneous and only reflects ignorance about deMause and psychohistory. —Cesar Tort 05:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Archived

I have archived old discussions dating from 2002. The most recent archived posts of October and November of 2007 were rather soapboxing and have been targeted to be archived as well. (I didn't archive my own 2008 monologues about endnotes style by the way.)

—Cesar Tort 19:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscience?

I know Cesar Tort has put a lot of good work into cleaning this article up. But I am still not sure if it counts as a pseudoscience or not. Judging from the article it seems to be the invention of one guy, Lloyd deMause (try googling him) and his students/disciples. I am even more concerned about Early infanticidal childrearing - Slrubenstein | Talk 14:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Slrubenstein. I am glad to see you here. I have responded to you more fully in talk:Early_infanticidal_childrearing#sources. I know you were involved in the 2002 flaming with a ranting troll about whether psychohistory is a science or not. The subject is complex. These discussions have a better place in forums such as the one I linked above. And by the way, IMHO the editor who did the best job to improve the article was User:Bookish, now retired. He spent lots of time doing the color chart and the table. —Cesar Tort 17:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I appreciate your attempts to clean up this article. My concern is that "psychohistory" refers to two very different things (aside from Asimov's fiction). First, an approach, within academic history, by historians who appeal to psychoanalytic theory to explain the actions of historical individuals, following the model of Erik Erikson's Young Man Luthor and Freud's book on da Vinci. Second, a theory devised by a guy named de Mause and promoted through his web-site and self-published books and a self-published journal. I think it would be great to have an NPOV, NOR, V compliant article on the first "psychohistory," exploring not only its roots in Freud and erikson but its development and debates concerning its use among professional historians, providing an accurate and neutral account of all notable points of view.

Alas, I do not think this article is it. I think this article focuses virtually exclusively on the second - a non-notable fringe view that is not encyclopedic. Aside from promotional claims about de Mause in the article, just look at how many claims - including the color chart and the table - all go to the same footnote 5, a book by de Mause. Personally, it looks to me as if this article were written by de mause, or friends/followers of him. It really does not look to me like it was written by editors who surveyed the academic literature on "psychohistory" in an attempt to provide an NPOV account of notable views, emphasizing mainstram or majority views over minority views (i.e. applying the principle of due weight).

Frankly, I think it would be easier to delete this article and start from scratch - a summary of Freud's book and Erikson's book; debates among psychoanalysis about the validity of applying this method to historical figures; the reception of these specific works by academic historians; an account of the use by academic historians over the past forty or fifty years of psychoanalytic concepts, and an account of debates among historians about these attempts to use psychoanalytic concepts. This would be a great article! But it would have a very different form as well as content than this one.Slrubenstein | Talk 23:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. I copy and past what I have told you in another editor's talk page:

At least deMausan psycho-historians have published a lot, and are prominent enough so that other academics still criticize them. Even the book of Colin Heywood, who as I told you elsewhere has no ties with the deMause school, mentions his work in his A history of childhood. Curiously, it seems that deMause's historical data has been influential in that book (though Heywood differs from deMause's conclusions). —Cesar Tort 23:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you think about my suggestion, in the last paragraph of my previous comment, of how to reorganize the article/new plan? I think/hope it would accommodate the works to which you refer. I appreciate your knowledge of this area ... at the very least I hope others with complementary knowledge get involved in this discussion. But I genuinely believe the article needs at least a major overhaul. Different points of view must be more clearly delineated. As best possible, the degree of their notability (mainstream, majority, minority) should be identified. Points of contention and debates should be covered. Fringe views should be cut. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• "Frankly, I think it would be easier to delete this article and start from scratch."

Do you remember this series of exchanges in which you were involved almost six years ago?:

“ Will someone please ban ARK? His non-stop slander, personal attacks, and foul language are damaging the Wikipedia community. [unsigned]

[...] He is correct in his assertion that deMause's theories deserve their own article -- even if he's amazingly rude in the way he treats others [...] user:JHK

”

• "Personally, it looks to me as if this article were written by de mause, or friends/followers of him."

I am neither user:Ark nor a deMause "follower". In fact, I have written a devastating critique of some deMause theories in my web page.[4]

However, I agree with what JHK posted in 2002: deMause's theories deserve their own article.

—Cesar Tort 01:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this a notable approach to history

This article seems to puch a fringe POV, in effect promoting one person's view of things. If there is a real branch of history called psychohistory, does this article provide an acurate NPOV account of it?20:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Note, i requested the comment. But subsequent research leads me to think the answer is "no." There is a mainstream journal, The Psychohistorial Review and this article doesn't draw on any of the vast number of articles it has published. Instead this article presents the fringe views of de Mause and The Journal of Psychohistory as if they were they only views! Slrubenstein | Talk 19:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The Psychohistory Review was put out for a couple of years, one-tenth the number of subscribers as the Journal of Psychohistory, then about 7 years ago stopped publishing. —Cesar Tort 19:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

---

In my view, the psychohistory of Lloyd deMause is indeed a notable approach to history, in the sense in which Wikipedia uses the term "notability". I am not personally involved in psychohistory — I am a mathematical sociologist — but here are some thoughts for your consideration. Psychohistory as put forth by deMause and his many psychoanalytic followers attempts to explain the pattern of changes in the incidence of child abuse in history. This is a perfectly respectable and non-fringe domain of scientific research. They argue that the incidence was much higher in the past, and that there has been an irregular history of improvement. This is an hypothesis that could just as easily have been framed by an epidemiologist as a psychologist. DeMause proposes a theory that society has gone through a series of stages in its treatment and discipline of children. Again, this is well within the bounds of social science. None of these questions are pseudoscientific. Even the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, a bastion of scientific epidemiology, is interested in these kinds of hypotheses.

Unfortunately, the way in which deMause and his followers explain and justify their theories makes very heavy use of psychoanalytic concepts. This strikes many as pseudoscientific. However, I would like to remind everyone that Freud's psychoanalysis was once considered the dominant scientific approach to mental illness. Tastes and opinions have changed over the decades, but Wikipedia is not about to eliminate every article that touches on psychoanalysis merely because its methods are now considered less than fully scientific. Psychohistory arose in the 1950s, and it must therefore be treated, in my opinion, as a continuation of Freudian analysis applied to entire cultures.

Psychohistory was 40 years ahead of its day in asserting that the incidence of child abuse is and was far greater than conventional wisdom assumed at the time. This is greatly to the credit of deMause and all the people who have contributed to the Journal of Psychohistory for the last 35+ years, no matter how psychoanalytic their methods. Alice Miller, a popular and influential author, wrote that the Journal of Psychohistory was "the first journal that didn't gloss over the facts of childhood". For all of these reasons, I believe that psychohistory is notable, and played a significant role in the history of science. — Aetheling (talk) 03:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC).

Is this a notable approach to psychology?

This article seems to push a fringe POV, in effect promoting one person's view of things. If there is a real branch of psychology called psychohistory, does this article provide an acurate NPOV account of it?20:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It's probably not NPOV, but realistically I don't think anyone could read this article and not realize that this is a pretty fringe discipline.P4k (talk) 00:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be an example (one of many) of a fringe research focus being portrayed as a broad field of study. That being said, as long as the article makes its fringe status known, I'm fine with it. Psychology is an extraordinarily broad area, and "psychohistory" seems to take an extremely small slice of it (freudian psychoanalytic principles, which are obsolete) and apply it to history. I don't think any formally-trained psychologists would consider this to be part of modern psychology. In addition, I am confused by the article: The introduction paints "psychohistory" in broad strokes (and makes it seem like a legitimate field of study), but the article then focuses almost exclusively on the killing of children. So what is the true definition of psychohistory? If it as broad as the intro suggests, then this article is too limited in scope and violates NPOV for only pushing one research agenda. If psychohistory truly focuses on infanticide, then it is even more of a fringe area than it lets on, and the article needs to state it as such. (Along these lines, the citations for courses on psychohistory lead to websites, some of which list the course readings--none of the readings are by this deMause fellow, and the courses seem to be about things entirely unrelated to this article.) -Nick^talk 01:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• "if psychohistory truly focuses on infanticide.."

Not necessarily. But it certainly is a major area of study, as you can see in Early infanticidal childrearing.

• "none of the readings are by this deMause fellow, and the courses seem to be about things entirely unrelated to this article"

I haven't checked that up. But I very much doubt that in academic circles the word "psychohistory" is being used aside deMause's or his followers' views.

—Cesar Tort 02:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is not that psychohistory is fringe, it is note, see my coment below. The problem is that this article presents only a fringe view of psychohistory. In short, it is inaccurate. Cesar Tort says that he coubts "psychohistory" is used in academic circles adie from the de Mauseian sense. He is wrong, I hopoe in good faith, but dead wrong. There is a great deal of research and scholarship in psychohistory, but none of it involves demause or his followers. Wikipedia articles have to limit themselves to notable views, and among those, emphasize the mainstream views and clearly identify majority and minority views. This article does the opposite. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• "There is a great deal of research and scholarship in psychohistory, but none of it involves demause or his followers."

What are you talking about? If there is a great deal of psychohistorical research unrelated to the content of the article, surely you can provide some sources.

—Cesar Tort 19:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Citation requests

I have no problem with Mattisse's requests of citations. However, his statement that "much of this article appears to be OR based on the writings of a few non-mainstream authors such as Lloyd deMause" is only partially true.

Whereas deMause is non-mainstream indeed, the article is pure regurgitation of what appears in his writings (and the writings of other psychohistorians). See for example what I have just posted here.

—Cesar Tort 16:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Cesar Tort is pushing a fringe POV. The mainstream journal of psychohistory is not The Journal of Psychohistory but rather The Psychohistory Review. If this article were based on sources from that journal it would look quite different - but would be encyclopedic an din line with current mainstream research. See also this. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

As stated above, the Psychohistory Review was put out for a couple of years, one-tenth the number of subscribers as the Journal of Psychohistory, then about 7 years ago stopped publishing. —Cesar Tort 19:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The issue is not how many articles were published, but hat their notability is. Articles in The journal of Psychohistory are more often cited by ... other followers of de Mause. Articles that were published in The Psychohistory Review are cited by a much wider circle of historians, and more often assigned in university courses on psychohistory. And tht journal is just one venue. there are other books and article in other journals on psychohistory (like the one I linked above) that either ignore de Mause or mention his theory as one marginal theory in the psychohistorical research. The issue is not quantity but notability. And this article leaves out the mot notable theories and research in psychohistory, which have nothing to do with de Mause. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I am responding to Cesar Tort's reasonable request for sources in the preceeding section. To improve this article so that it complies with our NPOV standards, I think it should draw on some articles that are sympathetics to the project of psychohistory broadly defined, but critical of de Mause's theories:

• Thomas A. Kohut “Psychohistory as History” in The American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 2. (Apr., 1986), pp. 336-354.

On Page 341, Kohut writes,

The reader is doubtless already familiar with examples of these psychohistorical "abuses." There is a significant difference, however, between the well-meaning and serious, if perhaps simplistic and reductionistic, attempt to understand the psychological in history and the psychohistorical expose that can at times verge on historical pornography. For examples of the more frivolous and distasteful sort of psychohistory, see The Journal of Psychohistory. For more serious and scholarly attempts to understand the psychological dimension of the past, see The Psychohistory Review.

I realize Cesar Tort may disagree with this assessment. But NPOV demands that we include multiple points of view including conflicting points of view and this is a notable, verifiable POV that should be represented in the article.

• Manuel, F. (1972), "The use and abuse of psychology in history." In: Historical Studies Today, ed. F. Gilbert & S. Graubard. New York: Norton

I think it should provide an account of important criticisms of psychohistory, namely:

• Gerald Izenberg “Psychohistory and Intellectual History” in History and Theory, Vol. 14, No. 2. (May, 1975),
• Barzun, Clio and the Doctors (Chicago 1974)
• Hans Ulrich Wehler, 1980 "Psychoanalysis and history" in Social Research 40
• David Stanard, 1980 Shrinking History

I think it should provide an account of alternate genealogies of psychohistory namely:

• Freud, on Leonardo Da Vinci
• Ernest Jones Psycho-Myth, Psycho-History: Essays in Applied Psychoanalysis. NY: Hillstone, A Division of Stonehill Publishing, [1974].
• Erik Erikson Young Man Luthor
• Peter Lowenberg 1983 Decoding the Past: The Psychohistorical Approach
• Peter Lowenberg, "The Psychohistorical Origins of the Nazi Youth Cohort" in The American Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 5 (Dec., 1971), pp. 1457-1502

For many, erikson and Loewenberg are the fathers of modern psychohistory, not de Mause. i am not saying the article should expunge itself of discussion of de Mause or his followers, but it must include these other views. More works to draw on:

• George Moraitis, "A Psychoanalyst's Journey into a Historian's World: An

Experiment in Collaboration," Annual of Psychoanalysis, 7 (1979): 287-320

• George Moraitis and Carl Pletsch, "Psychoanalytic Contribution to Method in Biography," Psychohistory Review, 7 (1979)
• Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud,

a study of the bourgeoisie in Western Europe and America from the 1820s to 1914.

• Thomas A. Kohut, "Kaiser Wilhelm I1 and his parents: an inquiry into the psychological

roots of German policy towards England before the First World War," in John C. G. Rohl and Nicolaus Sombart, eds., Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations (Cambridge, 1982), 63-89.

• Peter Iver Kaufman "Social History, Psychohistory, and the Prehistory of Swiss Anabaptism" in The Journal of Religion, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp. 527-544
• Psychohistory: Readings in the Methods of Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and History edited by Geoffrey Cocks and Travis L. Crosby, Yale University Press, 1987
• Nancy Anderson, "No Angel in the House: The Psychological Effects of Maternal Death." Psychohistory Review 11 (1982)
• Kovel, J. (1970). White racism: A psychohistory. NewYork: Vintage Books.
• William McKinley Runyon Life Histories and Psychobiography (1982)
• Wm. McKinley Runyon, Psychology and Historical Interpretation (1988).
• The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism by Jay Y. Gonen
• Hans W. Gatzke "Hitler and Psychohistory" The American Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Apr., 1973), pp. 394-401

This is just a start but I think adding an account of these diverse works will not only enrich the article, it will ensure that it is NPOV compliant by providing views of psychohistory other than de Mause's I repeat, this does not require deleting discussion of de mause. it means putting psychohistory in a broader context, and is essential to comply with Wikipedia policy, namely WP:NPOV Slrubenstein | Talk 20:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I have never stated not to include critical content on deMause's views such as what Kohut, or whoever, wrote. That would be indeed a violation of NPOV.

However, Freud's views on daVinci; Erickson's on Luther and so on don't belong to his article, but to psychobiography.

On the other hand, yes, of course, we can use Psychohistory Review articles. (I didn't pay much attention to this periodical because it only appeared a couple of years.)

—Cesar Tort 21:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added the long Thomas Kohut quotation and removed two quotations by deMause. Article looks much more NPOV now. —Cesar Tort 15:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Impact factor of Journal of Psychohistory

I am retrieving a part of what User:Aetheling posted today in this talk page:

Some facts about psychohistory as a legitimate domain of inquiry:

• The International Psychohistorical Association, founded in 1977 by Lloyd de Mause, has annual meetings every year for 30 years. I have never attended, but friends tell me that they are well-attended by psychoanalysts, therapists, and authors from around the world.

• The Journal of Psychohistory (founded and edited by deMause) is listed in the 2005 catalog of journals held by 500 or more libraries around the world. Source: [5]

• The Journal of Psychohistory had an impact factor of 0.47 in 2001. In the list of all social science journals, ranked by impact factor, J.Psychohistory appears on page 17 out of 27 pages. In other words, it ranked higher than 37% of all journals in psychology in impact factor. It was very close to the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, and the Journal of Mathematical Sociology. (Impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of current citations to articles published in the two previous years by the total number of articles published in the two previous years, among all journals indexed by the Social Science Citation Index.) Source: [6]

• At Journal-Ranking.com, which uses a more broadly-based index of journal quality, the Journal of Psychohistory ranks #4662 out of all 8000 journals ranked. Within the category of "Psychology - Multidisciplinary", the Journal of Psychohistory ranked #52 out of 106. Source: [7]

For all these reasons it would seem that psychohistory — a discipline founded by deMause — has a legitimate claim to space within Wikipedia. Now let me turn to my view on the notability of deMause himself. [...]

—Cesar Tort 21:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

• "Cesar Tort says that he coubts [doubts] "psychohistory" is used in academic circles adie [aside] from the de Mauseian sense. He is wrong, I hopoe in good faith, but dead wrong." —way above.

As far as I know (I may be wrong but I doubt it), presently there are no other major "schools" of psychohistory. Isn't the work of 35 years of over 100 contributors to the Journal of Psychohistory notable enough to merit an article of its own? Yes: we can use the Psychohistory Review but, pace internet's Jstor, it's seldom mentioned by anyone in any journals or books I know of. It was only published for a few years, then abandoned. Nowadays there is one International Psychohistorical Association which deMause started and was president for many years; he is still treasurer and it is entirely devoted to deMausean psychohistory. The Institute for Psychohistory he founded 40 years ago now has 20 branches in 20 nations and these too of course follow and discuss his work. That's about it. What in the past was called "psychohistory", such as the work of Erik Erickson and the like, today has changed its name and is called developmental psychology or psychobiography. —Cesar Tort 05:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I have never said psychohistory in the de Mausian sense has no place at Wikipedia. As for notability, well, Journal of Psychohistory is in the category of "Psychology - Multidisciplinary" in The Web of Knowledge citation index. Just to get a sense of the scale, the second highest rated journal by impact factor, Annual review of Psychology, has an impact factor of 11.706. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Root document(s) of psychohistory journalism

A single document can generate ongoing cascades of historical psychology -- as example, an Atlas/Gazeteer published by Collier Company in 1907 shows peninsula sinkholes in Golden Gate Park in northern California labeled as "lakes". The city itself is labeled 'San Francisco' with a continuous Italian emphasis maintained therefrom. The Atlas/Gazeteer is out-of-print, making it a somewhat rare but also categorically 'banned' book; its contents, however, routinely filter into the minds of American continental populations beginning in early childhood with concomitant mental matches. The book is an occult influence, and can affect the outcomes of a wide range of endeavors including business scheme, social science research, and travelogue mentalities. Marcia L. Neil/beadtot 02:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.239.212.82 (talk • contribs)

page break (arbitrary)

==Perphaps it is unsuitable to put the part i have added to the intro, so i will put it into the criticism section. -ishmaelblues —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs)

Please sign your comments as it has been suggested to you in talk page. If you place such pov without proper sourcing as you did in the lead, it might be reverted as well. —Cesar Tort 04:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

As to this sentence you just added—:

• "No accredited institute of higher learning in the United States has a department dedicated to psychohistory."

—I wonder if you have read the article? ("Psychohistory is taught at a few universities as an adjunct to history or as a post graduate study. The following have published course details...")

—Cesar Tort 04:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

And now you added:

"and many in the history profession consider it pseudohistory. "

How many times should I tell you (see my edits summary) that you are confusing deMause's psychohistory with other uses of the same term? Of the above sources only one barely deals with the content of this article. I wonder if you have not already crossed over the 3RR?

—Cesar Tort 04:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I am awaiting a few hours to revert the above so as not to cross over the 3RR.

But now you just added in article: "Such qualifications cast doubt on the creditability of deMause's psychohistory."

This is your opinion. If you don't find a RS for this opinion, I will revert it as well.

—Cesar Tort 19:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

No the statement about his qualifications is a "not" statement, it means that the burden of proof is yours to prove a person gets a degree he is there for accredited by a recognized institute to have some expertise on a subject. When Lloyd deMause writes about history or anthropologic subjects it is your responsibility to provide qualification. It is the criticism section mind you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs) 01:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The statement "Such qualifications [i.e., he didn't finish his doctorate] cast doubt on the creditability of deMause's psychohistory" is an opinion since deMause himself created that field. Unsourced opinions must and will be removed. —Cesar Tort 01:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted as promised and please do not revert again. Please discuss in talk page. You have not addressed my concerns discussed above. If you want to say that psychohistory lacks value because deMause didn't finish his PhD you need a specific quotation from a RS stating this about deMause. —Cesar Tort 19:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, one of the footnotes you added corrupted the page, as you can see in the incarnation of this article before my recent revert. Be careful with the exact spelling in the templates when adding endnotes. —Cesar Tort 19:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

please do not revert source information it is agianst policy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs) 20:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Burden of evidence

User: Ishmaelblues has once more reverted without discussion in talk page. He wrote:

• "many in the history profession consider it pseudohistory.[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]"

Of the above, only a single critical chapter on "Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Historical Thought" in Lynn Hunt's book mentions psychohistory as understood in this page.

I'd like to ask to User: Ishmaelblues this question: Do you have a specific quote in which Hunt states that deMause's approach is "pseudohistory"? If not, the above-sentence must go. On the other hand, if you do have the source, it must be quoted verbatim and attributed to the author.

As to the other references, numbered above, I am copying and pasting what I wrote in my edit summaries, and you completely ignored, about my removals of these sources:

• rm - it's not clear from the abstract that "Naturalistic Psychohistory" is the same subject of this article

• rm - this source does mention deMause - in a footnote! Hardly a source for the claim that the source states psychohistory is pseudo

• rm - this source mentions the word "psychohistory" in relation to Freud: again, a subject almost unrelated to the content of this article

• rm - this source mentions the word "psychohistory" in a totally unrelated subject to the content of this article

You re-added all of these footnotes without discussion to support your claim that Demausean psychohistory is widely regarded as "pseudohistory". Also, you re-added this sentence:

• "Lloyd deMause does not have a degree from any accredited in institution in History [...]. Such qualifications cast doubt on the creditability of deMause's psychohistory."

How many times do I have to explain that, unless you are quoting a source which specifically states these very words ("Such qualifications cast doubt on the creditability of deMause's psychohistory") you are adding your own opinion in the article, against WP policies? It's OR by synthesis. Do you get it now?

I ask you again the question I asked in your talk page and you avoided to answer: do you agree with a form of mediation in this article?

Finally, read WP:PROVEIT please: the burden of evidence rests upon you. If you're really committed to adding the disputed info, per WP:PROVEIT dig the references and use them to source your statements. Take special attention to avoid synthesizing any of the sources into original research.

Changing subjects, thanks Arthur Rubin for fixing the broken link. Before your copyedit it made all the text under endnote #26 look corrupted (I also tried to explain this to Ishmaelblues without success).

—Cesar Tort 06:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Reverted again. It's not only merely an opinion, it's logically invalid. Lloyd deMause's qualifications or lack of them is no basis for accepting or rejecting his theories. They stand and fall on their own merits, not his. More to the point, this article is about Psychohistory, and thus any criticism should be directed towards the theories themselves, NOT the people who promulgate them. Criticism of Lloyd deMause belongs on the Lloyd deMause article, not here.

78.32.151.60 (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Ditto! Thanks 78.32.151.60. I couldn't have said it better. I'll wait for a couple of days and revert the other paragraph ( "many in the history profession consider it pseudohistory.[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]") if no valid reason is given in talk page to keep it. —Cesar Tort 00:35, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Please do not revert sourced matiral as i have not done, this is the foundation of wikipedia Ishmaelblues (talk) 22:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You cannot claim that material is "sourced" unless you provide an external reference TO the putative source. You have not done so, therefore the entry is inadmissable, especially since the last sentance would still be no more than a statement of opinion, even if it had the most august of sources. In any case, as mentioned above, deMause's qualifications are utterly irrelevant to the validity of his theories, and in this article, it is the theories that are under discussion. It is an ad Hominem criticism, and as such, logically invalid.

Denorios (talk) 23:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

As I told you in your user page, I've already asked help from an admin. —Cesar Tort 01:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Qualifications have nothing to do with the validity of his theories? i think it has alot to do with itIshmaelblues (talk) 02:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

And now still another editor agrees with us and has removed Ishmaelblues's ad hominem paragraph, stating in edit summary "The assertions in this paragraph are *not* sourced, are unvarnished opinion, and plainly violate WP:NPOV".

Ishmaelblues: you haven't addressed my concerns at the top of this section: most of your footnotes are unrelated to the actual content of this page. The word psychohistory is used in many different contexts (even Isaac Asimov's novels). Please address those concerns. Otherwise the claim that most historians believe the contents of this page is "pseudohistory" will be removed.

—Cesar Tort 14:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Just added

the parts i just added cannot be removed they are direct quotes from University professors.Ishmaelblues (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• "The deMuse is Criticized for having 'no known credentials in psychotherapy' only having a graduate degree in Political Science."[8]

DeMause has never claimed expertise in psychotherapy. —Cesar Tort 22:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

As for the other arguement, the statement has 8 citations and cesar tort provided mild criticism of 4, this is not cause for reversal, that would be Vandalism Ishmaelblues (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is unresponsive to the issue. Do I have to repeat it again? What if I use sources criticizing Asimov's psychohistory as "criticism" of the content on this page? Wouldn't that be totally out of place? Take for example the source that criticizes Freud's psychohistory: it has little, if anything, to do with Lloyd deMause's psychohistory. Is this now clear? Most of your sources simply don't deal with the content of this page and therefore must go. —Cesar Tort 21:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The page is labeled Psychohistory not Lloyd DeMause's psychohistory, infact, i think this goes without saying that the two most famous psychohistory books are Moses and Monotheism and civilization and its discontent, i could find sources you want. You could start a new page labeled Lloyd DeMuse's Psychohistory, and a few of the citations could be removed that i have added but everything i have wrote and especially the last few edits are completly valid Ishmaelblues (talk) 21:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with you that Freud's views are quackery. That's why I am a big fan of Freud's critic Jeffrey Masson. However, since this article started in 2002 the objective was to present what psychohistory means today: the deMause school. I would recommend you to take all of these critiques of Freud to the psychoanalytical articles. They simply don't belong here. Do a little experiment: if you google the term "psychohistory" it will mostly hit the deMausean school as well as psychohistory (fictional). —Cesar Tort 22:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Long "criticism" section

With so many critical info added (some of it contested above) I wonder if we are following WP guidelines of style. Take a look at a much shorter version of this article in User:Cesar Tort/SRA list. —Cesar Tort 17:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

lets not remove valuable information because it is "big" honestly how does that sound, and telling by the extensive discussion section here i would have to say the length is appropriate

Ishmaelblues (talk) 13:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

If you address my above concerns about the meaning of "psychohistory" for the editors who started the page six years ago we'll have a meaningful discussion. —Cesar Tort 17:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I have and you have gotten rid of the citations refering to frued and someone else removed a quote specifically relating to Demause's psychoanalytic skills, the section has been picked over it is fine now, i would like to add the quote back infact but i can be swayed. the section is fine it is not too large do not remove further content from it please, i think me calling someone else in on this would be a failure on my part, i know you dislike hitorians and anthropologist but there are many on wikipedia and in the archieves of this page.Ishmaelblues (talk) 19:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• "I have and you have gotten rid of the citations "

In fact, you restored all of them. (And you have not replied to my objections: only reverted). —Cesar Tort 19:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

i have come to relize that you cannot exclude the greatest body of psychohistory to show a small part od it under the heading psychohistory, this is called a lie, i have had several professors teach me this, the article is called "psychohistory" so excluding Asmov, we must include the widest sampling of "psychohistory" avaliable to focus only on demause once agian requires a change to the name of the article Ishmaelblues (talk) 20:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't say "lie". Please be civil. In fact, before Lumos added the long sentence, most of the article dealt with deMause's use of the term. Other uses of the term were barely described in the article.

I have watched over this article for a long time. Maybe I sould unwatch it pretty soon...

—Cesar Tort 22:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

i think its good Lumos added that, its not a lie thats just a term me and some fellow students use in debates a great deal of the time to mean misrepresentation. A better way of putting it is as an analogy if we title this article psychohistory and then only include deMause's school of psychohistory that is like zooming in on the eye of the mona lisa and telling someone that IS the mona lisa.Ishmaelblues (talk) 23:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

But you are missing the point. Presently, most of what is known as "psychohistory" is not Freudian, but deMausean. Surely you must realize that 35 years of the Journal of Psychohistory plus 10 years of the Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology (a total of 15,000 pages of scholarly articles) plus 20 deMausean Institute for Psychohistory branches around the world plus the International Psychohistorical Association (31 years of conventions) adds up to "support" for deMause's work. The criticism paragraphs you added refer to another sense of the word psychohistory. —Cesar Tort 22:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Long block - violation of WP guidelines

The long quotation by Professor Donna T. McCaffrey in the Criticism section is mistaken. DeMause has never claimed to have invented psychohistory, ever. There were many psychohistorians like Fromm and others before him. Also, according to the Wikipedia manual of style, such long blocks of quotations should be avoided. Since it's also factually incorrect, I would propose to remove it altogether. —Cesar Tort 03:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

DeMause has written or said things than denied it before besides in the last paragraph above this section you argue he did indeed atleast reinvent the psychohistory, so i take that with a large grain of salt, other than that once agian because a section is too long or as you have originally put it "big" does not mean it is right to remove sourced information from it the criticism section takes up maybe 15% of the article at the absolute most.Ishmaelblues (talk) 20:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

i reduced the qoute down for you, it does flow better now. Ishmaelblues (talk) 20:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

DeMause very clearly makes himself the foundation of psychohistory in his free online book found here http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/contents.htm, ofcourse your going to ask me to find an exact quote, this is where interprtation comes in, if the professor in the article quote believes DeMuse is implying it in this writing that is her interpretation and we should respect it. Ishmaelblues (talk) 21:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

the book is called Foundations of Psychohistory where DeMause does not lay down the history of the discipline before he found it rather he lays down his principles as the foundation of psychohistory, what does that imply? DeMause is implying in some sense that he is the founder of Psychohistory, although he is not, he certianly has carved out his own little niche in the field. Ishmaelblues (talk) 21:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"It is my hope that this book will provide the theoretical foundations for the new science of psychohistory." DeMause i can provide other quotes but he clearly is writing himself in as the founder of psychohistory as a independent discipline, the professor quoted in the article is not wrong in reaching her conclusion that DeMause claims to have invented the discipline, it will stay in the article and the tag about her reliablitiy will be removed. Ishmaelblues (talk) 21:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You are still missing the point. The quotation you just copied and pasted into the article from Lloyd deMause—:

In a 1994 interview with deMause in The New Yorker, the interviewer wrote: "To buy into psychohistory, you have to subscribe to some fairly woolly assumptions [...], for instance, that a nations's child-rearing techniques affect its foreign policy".[32]

—was not critical at all to deMause. How do I know? Because I have read the whole article. You added it as if it was a criticism!

Cesar Tort 00:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

i am not missing a point this quote was added to DeMause's wikipedia article by another wikipedian, so are we both missing the point and you are right?Ishmaelblues (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

the title alone of source 21 should be provide enough of a "quotation" to justify the statement. If everything had to be a quote instead of a summary the all of wikipedia would have to be redone.Ishmaelblues (talk) 00:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• "his quote was added to DeMause's wikipedia article by another wikipedian"

You missed the point: *I* am the wikipedian who added that New Yorker quotation in the deMause article. By cutting and pasting it here in the criticism section you made it appear as if it were a critical remark. It was not. —Cesar Tort 01:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

OR by synthesis?

"provide the exact quotations IN THE TEXT, that all of those sources say it's "pseudohistory") " Basically i don't have to. the sentance the sources are supporting is not a quote, if you would like me to go through and add this tag to every sentance in the article that is not a quote and request one i will, but you cannot be a wikipedian if you are uncomfortable with a summary.Ishmaelblues (talk) 02:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Still missing the point. Here we go again. If those texts don't say that "psychohistory is pseudohistory", then your sentence is Original research by synthesis: a pretty commun error in unexperienced wikipedians. That's why exact quotations of each source is imperative: the only way to dispel suspicion that your phrase is OR (besides the eternal problem discussed way above that most of the criticism refers to non-Deamausean psychohistory, while most of this article is about it). —Cesar Tort 02:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

i have added two sources one states explicitly that psychohistory is "psuedoscience" the other uses different wording making a similar point.on psuedohistory once agian if everything needs to be an exact quote from a source we would have to redo all of wikipedia, and do not refer to me as inexpirenced while i havent been editing wikipedia as long as you have i have been here for over a year and my edit have been more diverse than your rather concentrated fields of expertise, also i have been trained repeatidly by higher institutions about sources, quotations, citations and everything you seem to bring up as an issue that is why i continually meet your demands even though they are not nessesary and beyond the required, do not call me unexpirenced, i will get a quote for the latter half of the sentance when i have some time later this week perhaps, even though the sources provided are ample.Ishmaelblues (talk) 03:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

i added a Jacques Martin Barzun refering to psychohistory as psuedoscience this guy is the definition of a good source you cannot agrue this one, ask anyone about the guy. i'm going to remove the tag now because i have a quote (even though you are really asking too much from this one little section). Ishmaelblues (talk) 03:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You added:

an eminent, leader within the historical community over the last seven decades, Jacques Martin Barzun put it "pseudo-historical"[21][22] [23] [24] [25]

Do you mean that in each and everyone of those sources appears the word "pseudo-historical" referring to psychohistory? If not, the phrase is OR by synthesis and should be either removed or rewritten. —Cesar Tort 05:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

i'm going to move those older source to a new sentance, but these demands you keep placing on this one little section is harrasment.Ishmaelblues (talk) 12:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

i have removed two tags because i have either satisfied it in the text or in the discussion page to which you have not refuted, please talk thing out on this page before taging, it the wikipedian way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs) 13:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Harassment? Does these references—:

Psychohistory remains a controversial field of study, and deMause and other International Psychohistorical Association scholars have had detractors in the academic community.[23] [24] [25] [26][27]

refer all of each specifically to deMausean PH, or to PH in general? In WP articles precision is important. —Cesar Tort 15:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

hmm your right about this one i'll change the sentance a bit.Ishmaelblues (talk) 16:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

now that all of the things cesar tort had issue with have been resolved i will remove the tag.Ishmaelblues (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

alright so why is the pov tag still on the criticism section?Ishmaelblues (talk) 22:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Do I have to explain it once more? —Cesar Tort 00:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

"Writing for the enemy"

Cesar Tort as you have said on arthur rubin's talk page plese do not say something like "writing for the enemy" this is wikipedia if you have an axe to grind do not do so here, please. i do not know how much you know about wikipedia but we do not have enemies here, please go somewhere else with this mentallity. Ishmaelblues (talk) 20:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't misunderstand me. "wp:Writing for the enemy" is Wikipedia slang; it's not my rhetoric. I am copying and pasting here my post in Rubin's talk page:

This discussion, of course, belongs in talk:psychohistory. I just want to respond here to: "You did not add most of the criticism" [Ishmaelblues]. If you see the history of the page, Ishmaelblues, you'll know that, after user:Slrubenstein asked me to take into serious consideration his criticism of the article, I wrote for the enemy. Yes: starting the criticism section was my idea and I added the material Slrubenstein called my attention to. On the other hand, I dispute the material you added, and gave my reasons there. But as I said, from now on I will discuss in that page [i.e., this talk page] instead of doing it here [Rubin's talk]. —Cesar Tort 19:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

—Cesar Tort 21:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC

not resolved?

Cesar Tort i have complied with every demand you have put on this very small section and for the last two weeks you havent found anything in need of revison in the section the pov tag will be removed, there is no reason to keep it the issue you brought up were resolved.Ishmaelblues (talk) 03:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You have not complied with my objections. Just one example among many others. This sentence's source—

Critics of the discipline consider psychohistory to be "pseudoscience"[21]

—is about Freud, not deMause. I agree that Freud's stuff is pseudo BTW. However, Freud is barely touched in the article, and that sentence misleadingly makes the reader believe that such criticism ("pseudohistory") is about Demausean psychohistory. How many, many, many times should I repeat the same thing until you get it? Furthermore, the section is very POVish. When I added the criticism paragraphs that Slubenstein pointed out, the article seemed balanced to us. Then you arrived and your paragraphs unbalanced it. Such POV must be either modified or removed. Otherwise the tag will remain. Ask for a third opinion (I mean: an admin) if you want to be sure if this appraisal is correct. —Cesar Tort 04:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

you bring up a good point we should have alot more about Freud in here, the article is incomplete, i'll have to add something soon Ishmaelblues (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

But making the arguemnet that because the article is incomplete the crictism section should also be incomplete is nonsense the tag will be removed if this is the basis of sustaining the label.Ishmaelblues (talk) 05:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ask for a third opinion before such unilateral decision. (BTW, if a Freud section is added, all Freud-related criticism of this section should be moved there). —Cesar Tort 05:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

but once agian this article is not entitled Demause's Psychohistory, it is just called psychohistory Demause is neither the most famous, earliest or preiminant psychohistorian, this entire article is baised and pov if this is not adressed, i want to see more about Frued and all the others who wrote in the hay day of Psychohistory

Source 21 does apply to Demause (even though it should not have to) because it specifically talks about the foundation of psychohistory and then labels it a psuedoscience in its current form encompassing DeMause, this will not keep the pov tag in place, and please add more information on other psychohistorians or this article will be labeled the same

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs)

What sort of tortuous logic is this? Source 21 is about Freud, who wrote a bit of "psychohistory" long before deMause published his first essay. Freud's "psychohistory" is so different to deMause's that one may well consider them opposing schools of thought. Jeffrey Masson and Alice Miller have pointed out the fact that Freud blamed the women and even some children he "analyzed". DeMause on the other hand sides the child. Freud's and deMause's psychohistories are as distant from each other as Isaac Asimov's "psychohistory (fictional)" with both of them. And please sign your comments. —Cesar Tort 18:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

good good now put that into the article! put a section on the different schools in the article that what it needs, otherwise it is baised.Ishmaelblues (talk) 19:43, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Had I read Freud I would do it. Unfortunately, the guy is so repulsive to me that, as far as I can remember, I read only one of his books (I think it was Totem and Taboo) 30 years ago, and it didn't impress me. However, since the word "psychohistory" is rarely, albeit sometimes, associated with him, who is notable according to WP standards, yes: this article has to mention his "psychohistorical" work. Hope another editor who has studied closely the Vienna quack does it. —Cesar Tort 20:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

good, since we see now thatit is the article and not the critcism section that is pov and missing large portions of releant information on psychohistory, i will move the tag until whom ever adds sections on other psychohistorian, considering 90% is on DeMause alone.Ishmaelblues (talk) 18:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. I had asked you to request for a third opinion —an admin— before doing these sort of unilateral changes. Tagging the whole article is a serious action. —Cesar Tort 21:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

oh i thought that was what you implied when you said 3 comments above, you say the article does not include frued or other psychohistorians because you do not like them.Ishmaelblues (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

as for the pov tag in the criticism section we have established that having criticism of freud is valid so unless there are anymore grievances the tag will be removed.Ishmaelblues (talk) 22:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I never said that "the article does not include frued or other psychohistorians because I do not like them". Please revise the article's history by clicking on the "history" link. You will find other editors started the article in 2002, four years before I arrived to Wikipedia (March 2006). I added the section "A psychoclass of postmodern times" in 2007 and the "Criticism" section in 2008. When I started to copyedit the article, User:Bookish added the table and graphic. Both of us found the article with scant reference to Freud —just like the present incarnation— precisely because Freud is not usually viewed as a "psychohistorian". I doubt he ever used the word. As to removing the section tag, I've told you many times that, to avoid edit warring, this step should be done with a third party. That is the way Wikipedia operates. Do you want me to request help from an admin on this matter? —Cesar Tort 00:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

well we resolved the question over source 21 a few paragraph up is there any other problems in th esection?Ishmaelblues (talk) 01:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We haven't resolved it since there's still the confusion of Freud ("pseudohistory" quotation) with deMause. Again, do you agree I take steps for an official mediation in this article? —Cesar Tort 03:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Agian this article is not about DeMause it is about psychohistory, that is why that source is in place, since the article is entitled psychohistory and the source is about psychohistory, there is not problem here, if you, however, see it as unfitting to the rest of the article you are admitting that this article is bais toward DeMause. So now that that is settled is there any other reason that the tag should remain in place after all the revision that has been done to it.Ishmaelblues (talk) 03:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This dispute can be solved by starting the Freud section and citing the critical source ("pseudohistory") to Freud's views. Since you added the critical source about Freud you should start that section. —Cesar Tort 18:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Cultural relativism

"Psychohistorians also believe that the extreme cultural relativism proposed by many anthropologists is contrary to the letter and spirit of human rights.[9]"

I realize that user:Slrubenstein already brought this up at length in the childrearing article, but it's still here. What do you mean here, Cesar? The above sentence gives the impression that "many anthropologists" propose cultural relativism as a system of moral values (or lack thereof), while I can assure you that this is not true. I've done some work in the anthropology of human rights - where this issue is fairly important - and there, as elsewhere in sociocultural anthropology, the phrase "cultural relativism" does not mean the same thing as either you or the person you're quoting thinks it does. This view of anthropologists as moral relativists is a view of anthropology from without, and does not represent the discipline itself. When anthropologists talk about cultural relativism, they (or we, if you like) are talking about a research methodology, the aim to understand and interpret cultural values from the POV of the culture from which they originate.

I'm not trying to just weasel out of this; this is not a moral stance. For example, there are people working in applied anthropology who are studying female genital mutilation from the point of view of the mothers etc who want to have it done to their children: not to write apologias for it, but to understand it so that it can be changed. If you understand that genital mutilation is an important part of initiation rites, you can take steps to try and institute other initiation practices, ones that do not involve genital mutilation.

The core tenet of sociocultural anthropology is that to interpret meaning, you have to see it from the inside. Understanding does not imply acceptance.

-R2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.184.161.226 (talk) 08:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, 193.184.161.226. I just left a welcome message in your talk page. It'd be easier for you to edit Wikipedia if you register with a name or pseudonym. Welcome again! —Cesar Tort 18:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Added comments to your talk page. Could you please adress the thing I had concerns with? Your claim that many anthropologists propose extreme cultural relativism is unsourced as is - and I would argue that it's also a false assumption. The thing that (I assume) your source says is that the source believes that anthropologists are what they are, not that that is what the discipline actually is. It may seem like a subtle nuance, but I think it's a very important one. Especially as the sentence is phrased thus:

"Psychohistorians also believe that the extreme cultural relativism proposed by many anthropologists is contrary to the letter and spirit of human rights.[9]"

We are left with the impression that the item of belief is the opinion of the psychohistorians on the purported relativism, while the "extreme cultural relativism proposed by many anthropologists" is, in this sentence, logically and grammatically taken as a given. Especially as the claim is unsourced, I think the phrasing should be changed. -R2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.184.161.226 (talk) 10:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Slrubenstein has already edited that phrase. I also left you a link in your talk page which might throw light about some of my sources: Encyclopædia Britannica and this article. In Mexico, anthropologists really behave like Aztec apologists even in cases of human sacrifice: just as the unedited sentence that you disagreed about its phrasing. There are published statements of Mexican anthropologists virtually undistinguishable from moral relativism, the last that I remember in the September 2007 seminary on Aztec sacrifice, with 28 international specialists, celebrated in the Museum of the Templo Mayor. The organizer of the event even stated in front of the media about Aztec child sacrifice: "Undernourished children were sacrificed to eliminate the people who were a burden to society" ("Se sacrificaban niños desnutridos para eliminar a la población que es una carga para la sociedad" ), and another organizer stated that anthropological scholarship seeks "to distance itself from the Hispanists [e.g., Bernal Díaz] who consider it bloody and savage". Rationalizing child sacrifice in this way is pretty Nazi, isn't it? —Cesar Tort 17:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like misrepresentation to me. In any case, there are minority views within each and every scientific discipline. If you want to keep the phrase, I would prefer "some" to "many". I don't intend to argue on this exhaustively, but I feel that the majority view on the relationship between anthropology and human rights can be found here: http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/humanrts.htm. It's by the AAA, the biggest and most prestigious group of anthropologists in the world, and is representative of the attitude within the discipline as a whole. It replaced an earlier statement, made in 1947, that was considerably more vague on the subject of relativism and human rights. And no Godwin's Law, please. -R2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.134.97.139 (talk) 17:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to keep the old phrase. Since I am not an anthropologist, I'd recommend you to edit it instead (in case you still want to improve it). Oh yes: my Godwin's rant was only directed against my fellow countrymen (they're really nationalists, pro-Indian here), not to Wikipedians of course! :) Cesar Tort 17:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I'm happy to reach a consensus on this. I'm fine with the way you edited it. I agree that cultural relativism, as in the popular rather than anthropological term, can and often is against the spirit of human rights. What I argue is that most anthropologists don't represent that, and that claim is no longer present here, so it's peachy. -R2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.134.97.139 (talk • contribs)

"most anthropologists don't represent that". What would you tell me about a few deMause's quotations I just took the trouble to type in Wikiquote? —Cesar Tort 18:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Tag

the criticism section tag will be removed shortly, it has been up for months and cesartort has not brought forth anything to dispute in the section. Ishmaelblues (talk) 21:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

With due respect, the editor who has not replied to the main pro-tag argument (there's a confusion of attributing criticism to deMause which was directed against Freud) is not me. Again, ask another editor or an admin to give a third opinion on this dispute. Or even better: start a critical section on Freud's psychohistory so that sourced criticism on Freud is not mixed up with sourced criticism on deMause or vice versa (Freud's and deMause's "psychohistories" are as different from each other as Jungian and Freudian psychoanalysis). —Cesar Tort 23:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

We have an article on psychohistory and the criticism section is the same. if you want us to treat psychohistory as two different disciplines create two pages, until then what are the grievences agianst the criticism section?

Ishmaelblues (talk) 00:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I never said "to treat psychohistory as two different disciplines", merely that the sourced criticism that you added is mostly about Freud, not deMause. One article is fine for both "psychohistories". —Cesar Tort 03:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

one article seems to make sense to me too, one criticism section then also, since that is resolved are there any other problems in this section?Ishmaelblues (talk) 04:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I already stated what the problem is. If you want to include sourced criticism on Freud's psychohistory, a section is needed on Freud' psychohistory. Otherwise it makes no sense to criticize something the WP readership doesn't even know what it's about. Since Freud's "psychohistory" is his speculations of Moses, etc., a section is needed on that subject. Then criticism about that subject is understandable. Otherwise it looks like attributing, say, to Jung the Oedipus complex theory in the article of psychoanalysis, and then using Freud's critics to debunk Jung. Attributing to Jung the Oedipus complex theory is just wrong (as it is attributing to deMause speculations about Moses). Is it clear now? —Cesar Tort 06:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

so because the article lacks a full overview of psychohistory, the criticism section should also be writtn teleologically? in tunnel vision? your admitting there uis nothing wrong with the section, but rather the article is lacking! th etag will be removed, if you want to add more about freud to the article go ahead. Ishmaelblues (talk) 18:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm here because of this requrest on my talk page and I edited because I've got more words per minute than common sense. I've done a bit of editing, but I'm not very familiar with the field and it's rather unclear as is. There appears to be two major divisions of psychohistory - deMausian and some other, possibly unadjectived version. The former seems the more controversial. Criticisms, as well as methods, notable publications, notable psychohistorians and so forth, should be separated out and clarified.

Regarding a third opinion, I think a better option for now would be to undertake clarification, sourcing, attribution and separation of the different types. Right now I shudder to think of the question you would ask a 3O-giver. A way of dealing with the POV problem (basically the criticisms of psychohistory) that started this is to clearly attribute the criticisms to whoever said them, ensure their points are accurately summarized, and avoid weasel words like "noted historian", "expert" and other words that serve no real purpose except adding POV and weight to comments. Let the facts speak for themselves, don't try to inflate them by puffing up who said the facts with unnecessary adjectives.

Given the prominence of deMause and how the field seems to have split following his 'arrival', it may be worth creating an article dedicated solely towards his variant; it appears from the text that psychohistory is primarily a 'historical' topic in that there is not much interest beyond deMause and others of his school. If this is accurate, great (better if referenced). If not, then perhaps the page needs more editing. WLU (talk) 13:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

thankyou, everything is referenced, some many times over and attributed to their subjects the only problem is the article is incomplete, it does not cover freud and his following, the tag then belongs on the article itself for being incomplete, using tunnel vision. Ishmaelblues (talk) 14:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

good well keep the section as yo uedited it, i rather like it.Ishmaelblues (talk) 14:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

OK. I'm having some trouble understanding your post, I believe you're saying the page is OK but incomplete because it does not cover Freud. Unfortunately the only way to cover it is to expand through sourced content. I don't have the expertise or interest but I do agree that it looks like a discussion of Freud is missing and I encourage you to add more information about his involvement in psychohistory. WLU (talk) 17:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

disputed tag

Hi WLU. I am so glad to see you here! As I told you, I myself added the criticism section a few months ago. Most of the article deals with deMausian psychohistory and then, the first paragraph of the Criticism section is, suddenly, about Freud and psychoanalysis!:

Critics of the discipline consider psychohistory to be "pseudoscience"[20] and Jacques Barzun has called it "pseudo-historical".[21]

This is misleading the reader and the section should be tagged as "disputed" until further editing and clarification.

I don't care if someone wants to split the article. Please do it. But I do care that attributing criticism on deMause which has been directed on Freud is wrong. So I have added a {disputed} tag.

For the information of all concerned editors, I've just finished a chapter of a book (in Spanish) critical of deMausian psychohistory. I cannot include it here until it gets published in a RS (and even then I won't do it: I'll leave to another editor the task). I mention this just to make it all too clear that I don't swallow every deMause theory. On the contrary: sometimes I disagree very strongly with him. However, this is a far cry from attributing to him Freudian theories or criticizing him using criticism on Freud. As I said, that's misleading the reader.

Thanks again for your input, WLU. I hope other editors will cooperate here and that the page will be cleaned sooner or later.

—Cesar Tort 15:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

WLU resolved the issue please do not revert his work by readding a new tag, everything is factual it is sourced as you requested, we are not attributing the flaws of freud to demause everything is clearly labeled in this little section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishmaelblues (talk • contribs) 17:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Content and WP:NPOV are different. An article can be completely sourced (i.e. the content and coverage of the topic is fine) and still be NPOV if the summary of the sources is inaccurate or biased. The only way to resolve if the page is NPOV is for the editors who think it is, and isn't, to discuss their reasoning. So have at thee both of you as I've no real opinion. CT - what do you think is inaccurate about the section? IB, what do you think? I do think the page very much blurs the line between psychohistory before and after deMause - about half-way down the page it stops being about the former and becomes almost exclusively about the latter. That's a problem. Pages like this one don't get better unless knowledgeable editors put in the time; that's not me, but it sounds like that is you two. You may have to put up with m:The Wrong Version for a while, but if you talk it out you'll end up with a better page.

I say agan, what's wrong with the page right now? Are there any sources that can be used to fix it? Can and should the page be re-organized? WLU (talk) 17:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Just what you say: what is wrong is that the criticism section blurs the distinction between Freud's psychohistory (PH) with deMause's PH. For instance, the "pseudo-history" label was directed against Freud and it looks like it's directed against deMause. The disputed tag should remain until this confusion is ironed out. —Cesar Tort 18:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

WLO cleared up the confusion with his edit the tag will be removed, i thought he did a good job.Ishmaelblues (talk) 20:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not how it works (and that's not my userID); the tag is removed when all editors agree it should be removed because the issues are dealt with. Ask CT what he thinks, if it should be removed or not, then decide. If you both disagree, then dispute resolution should be involved - I'd suggest a request for comment. But I still think that judicious editing and sourcing by both of you would be the best way to deal with this. Make sure there is agreement to remove the tag before doing so. WLU (talk) 20:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)