Talk:Walter Russell Mead

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Mr. Mead's intellect is astounding as is the clarity with which he expresses his ideas. His writings are a necessary read for a student of American Foreign policy who wishes to analyze its past and make accurate predictions for its future.

Sorry, I have to disagree. Mead makes many assumptions about the international system that quite frankly are enormous stretches. To say his writing is supremely clear is absurd and while I do not doubt that he has a tremendous intellect, it fails to show itself in his writings.

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His book Special Providence is a rather simplistic and systemless approach to understanding American foreign policy. He seems to have intelligent "gut" assumptions about the direction of American policy, and an impressive knowledge of the facts surrounding those assumptions but provides little in the way of explaining the question of why those directions are taken.

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Some indications from Mead indicate that he seems to think that it's more important to create a "useful mythology," than actual history in his works.

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The supposed "strong" critique of Mead's book is simple-minded ideological wankery. It's just one long complaint that Mead doesn't do enough to promote the reviewer's ideology or to condemn other ideologies as evil. Calling it strong isn't NPOV and is laughable to anyone who's a grown up so I'm changing that description to something more accurate

Very slanted tone

Could someone please rewrite this article so that it reads less like a press release from the desk of Mr. Mead and more like a balanced article. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.44.133 (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is an excess of unsupported opinion ("famously wrote") and a paucity of verifiable fact. The phrase "regularly writes for" (various publications) seems to mean "has occasionally had articles published in." We learn from the article that unspecified people think he is important, and that his ideas have been criticized, but little about his actual ideas. Snezzy (talk) 12:43, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

This is a talk page, not a general discussion page

Please see Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines for instructions on the appropriate use of this page. PStrait (talk) 21:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Does not write for Washington Post

A search of "Walter Mead" comes up with nothing at WaPost. Reference 3 is a 2003 WaPost editorial coauthored by Kissinger, hardly sufficient. – Eric — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.85.97 (talk) 03:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not co-authored by Kissinger. It's an op-ed piece (not an editorial), and the byline gives his title as "Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy". Snezzy (talk) 12:47, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

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Influence on high school and college debate

I feel inadequate to fix this problem, but I was disturbed that Mead's long running importance in policy debate competitions is ignored here. The scope of his conclusions are a favorite impact to disadvantages. (If you're not a debater, a disadvantage creates a logical chain from a proposed plan to a bad reaction.) Mead's impacts end dramatically in world war. For example, here's a list of "Big Debate Impact Cards" with Mead quoted from his 1992 article "Depending on the Kindness of Strangers" and his 2009 article "Only Makes You Stronger." Another example cites his conclusions that economic decline causes regional strife that escalates to global wars

Mead has also worked with debate camps - so he is aware of how his academic works are used in debates.

Maybe we could we add it under Publications with a subheading of "Influence on high school and college debate?"

At this point, I can clarify that this is demonstrative of his impact, but I doubt there is a clear cite to be made that makes this not my conclusion/research. I can also clearly express that his impact is larger than most - maybe all, if we're looking at old school disadvantages from the last thirty years - but again, there's not a clear third party to cite as proof that there is a brightlight in favor of Mead having this added to his section over the million other authors cited in debates.

TL:DR Mead is very important to academic debate, but I am unclear on how to present that on Wikipedia. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.132.7.5 (talk) 20:15, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

References

Degree(s)

There is nothing in the article about his studies, if there were any, after his undergrad years at Yale. Does Mead have any other degree besides a B.A. in English literature? If not, what is his qualification in the field of political studies and especially foreign affairs? I think this needs to be clarified in the article. Niemandsbucht (talk) 07:57, 10 August 2023 (UTC)