Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 January 31

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January 31

Catholic Churches becoming Orthodox

So there are formerly independent churches like the Greek Catholic and Oriental Catholic Churches such as the Chaldean Catholic Church which have returned into communion with the Pope in Rome. It doesn't work the other way around though, right? There are groups that broke communion with the Catholic Church in Rome and become their own faiths like the Protestants but has there been any case of churches which broke with Rome and joined in communion with another established church such as the Greek Orthodox Church? -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.209.14.47 (talk) 02:47, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The British Orthodox Church was founded by a former French Dominican priest and was until 2015, in communion with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Not a big outfit; according to our article they have five churches in the UK or seven according to their website. Alansplodge (talk) 11:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

69.209.14.47 -- The Roman Catholic church has a whole system of "rites", including the "Latin rite" (i.e. traditional Western European Catholicism and its offshoots), but also a number of others, so that Christians of non-Latin-rite traditions who join can for the most part keep their liturgical languages and traditional services, sometimes married priests, etc. There's nothing keeping Christians from switching denominations/traditions, but I'm not sure that Eastern Orthodox churches generally have "rites" in the same way. AnonMoos (talk) 21:16, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• I can't find a good online source, but the book "God's Playground: A History of Poland" by Norman Davies covers one major instance of Catholic to Orthodox conversion. The Partitions of Poland resulted in a lot of (Roman and non-Roman) Catholics ending up in the hands of the Czar of Russia. The largest, and the most victimized, was the Ruthenian Uniate Church. Under Czarist thinking, the only thing worse than a non-Russian was someone who seemed Russian but didn't conform to Russian stereotypes. So the Czarist regime brutally forced all the various Eastern Rite Catholics to convert to Russian Orthodoxy, including the priests. There are relatively few Uniates left in 2021, and basically all of them descend from people who either fled Russia, or who had to hide their faith for decades. --M@rēino 15:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Prominent United States politicians dying during George W. Bush's Presidency

Which prominent United States politicians died during George W. Bush's Presidency (January 20, 2001–January 20, 2009)? Futurist110 (talk) 06:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't mean a relatively minor United States politician such as Charlie Norwood, by the way, but rather someone with a major/significant profile. Futurist110 (talk) 06:11, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Ronald Reagan is the first one I thought of. His funeral was known in certain circles as the Reagasm. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 06:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh wait, from your earlier question I see what you are trying to do here. But, being president is a stressful job, and on the other hand you get constant medical attention and secret service protection. So just because someone dies in 2004 while not being president, doesn't mean they would have had the same death date in the counterfactual world where they are president at the time of their death. For example, Paul Wellstone died in a small plane crash in 2002 while serving in the US Senate. They wouldn't have let him on a plane like that instead of Air Force One if he had been president. I also thought of Sonny Bono skiing into a tree, but he died in 1998. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 07:05, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out a way to make the Curse of Tippecanoe work for 2000 if Ronald Reagan is indeed assassinated in 1981, as he almost was in 1981. As you pointed out, this question is indeed a continuation of an earlier extremely recent question of mine about this very topic: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#If_Ronald_Reagan_is_assassinated_in_1981,_is_there_any_realistic_way_to_get_the_Curse_of_Tippecanoe_to_extend_into_the_2000s? Futurist110 (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok, let's see. Reagan dies in 1981, GHWB becomes president but manages to lose to Mondale in 1984 (who Reagan beat in a huge landslide). Is that plausible? Idea is to move the country far enough to the left to elect Wellstone president in 2000, and he still somehow dies in 2002. By 2020, things are so different from how they are now, that there's no way to say who would be influential enough to become president then. Remember that Bill Clinton probably stays in Arkansas, so the whole Democrat party goes on a different path than it did in the 1990s-2000s. Who knows, maybe Trump's first candidacy slips from 2016 to 2020, and he gets elected. Hopefully his time in office is peaceful, but he is still vulnerable to the curse due to his age. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 07:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Anyone other than Paul Wellstone? I know that Jack Kemp comes close but isn't quite there considering that he died several months after the end of George W. Bush's Presidency. Futurist110 (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

A quick glance at 2005#Deaths shows Shirley Chisholm and Eugene McCarthy as the only two American politicians who died that year and were prominent enough to make the list. Both were way too hold to be credible Presidents at that time. You could look at the corresponding sections of other years, do some category intersections, etc. Reagan and Wellstone were two that popped into my head but I'm sure there were more. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 05:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think 2602 has the most plausible counterfactual history here; it's important to remember that one of the key factors in moving the U.S. political spectrum to the right was the rise of the New Democrats in 1992. Contrary to the characterization by the Republicans, on an objective measure, every Democratic administration we've had since 1992 has come from the center-right wing of the Democratic party. The Republicans need an enemy, so they characterize the opposing party in progressive terms, but if you look at actual policies and political acts of the Democratic administrations, they have been clearly center-right since, well, since the Carter administration. Johnson was the last truly effective progressive Democratic president (the Great Society, civil rights legislation, etc.) The centerpieces of Clinton's administration were all formerly Republican ideals, like welfare reform and law enforcement, i.e. the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (cosponsored by now President Biden), etc. Obama was a hawk, especially in the wars in the Middle East, hunting down Osama bin Laden, expanding undeclared wars in places like Yemen and Syria through the use of unmanned weaponry like drones and missile strikes, etc. His landmark legislation, the Affordable Care Act, was basically a national scaling of a Republican health care plan, Romneycare, all of its key points were initially Republican ideas from guys like Mitt Romney and Jim DeMint, etc. Biden comes from the same political tradition as Clinton and Obama as well. Without a major progressive wing, the Democrats have moved to the right over the past 30 years, and that has allowed (basically required) the Republicans to do the same to keep pace. The move to the right was initiated by the New Democratic movement, it came first in the U.S.'s move to the right, the responses to it like the Republican Revolution of 1994 and the Tea Party movement of the early 2000s were taken in large part by the Republican party as a way to differentiate itself from the Democratic party by itself moving even farther to the right. Those movements were not a reaction to the Democratic Party becoming more progressive; they were a reaction to the Democratic party becoming more conservative over time. --Jayron32 13:33, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Excellent summary and analysis, @Jayron32:! Maybe this helps explain why exactly there is such a strong grassroots movement among Democrats (the so-called Bernie Bros, named due to their support of "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders) to bring the Democratic Party back to the left where it originally was several decades ago–especially on economic issues! Futurist110 (talk) 17:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Can you plead guilty at an impeachment trial?

Purely theoretical question, but provoked by current events.[1] Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 06:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Nixon resigned rather than undergo an impeachment trial. That's the way to "plead guilty". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Nixon wasn't impeached. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 10:05, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Nobody said he was. However, the House of Representatives was debating on whether to impeach him when he resigned. --Khajidha (talk) 15:59, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The gentleman above me stated that resignation, as with Nixon, is how you plead guilty to impeachment. That is not correct because Nixon was not impeached. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 17:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

He resigned before the House could take their impeachment vote. But the votes were there, to both impeach and convict. So he resigned and avoided it all. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Still not anything like a guilty plea. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 18:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

More like nolo contendere? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:47, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Given Trump's current situation, it's not entirely clear that Nixon's resignation automatically shut down the impeachment and trial. I.e. he resigned and they let him off the hook, but in principle he could have been impeached and tried despite the resignation. It's possible that Ford's pardon would have stopped the trial though. Otherwise, maybe he could even be impeached posthumously now, after they finish with Trump, sort of like the cadaver synod. Lots of other living and dead former presidents also deserve impeachment and maybe they can eventually get around to them all. I've got a little list.... 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 05:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Impeachments are not subject to pardons. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I've seen variations of this argument all over the place lately and it strikes me as based on a misunderstanding of the process. Trump's impeachment did not occur after he left office. He was duly impeached while still president. It is just that because the event occurred so late in his term that the trial is taking place after he has left office. This is a very different situation than attempting to impeach Clinton or Reagan at this date. --Khajidha (talk) 10:26, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The gentleman above you placed quotation marks around the words. Thus indicating that he was using them in a figurative sense, not a literal one. His point was that Nixon's resignation was effectively an admission of guilt.--Khajidha (talk) 19:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Trump can't resign since he has already left office. His trial starts next week anyway. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 17:11, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

If he argues that the election was stolen, then in his mind he hasn't left office. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure it depends what you mean by "impeachment trial". If you mean an impeachment trial in the US Senate, like the one coming up for Trump, then the answer is not in a way comparable to a guilty plea in most or all US courts. Per Article One of the United States Constitution#Clause 6: Trial of Impeachment "no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present". If someone "pleads guilty" it may be more likely they will be convicted, but the constitution still requires the concurrence of two thirds of Senators present. While a judge can reject a guilty plea, they can generally only do so under certain circumstances. Nil Einne (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes I meant a Senate trial. I was asking if there was a way to skip past the trial and formalize the conviction. If he is convicted, he can't be removed from office (since he is already out) or sent to jail or anything like that. All that can happen is they stop him from running again, big whoop. But now it looks to me like he wants a theatrical trial where he puts on a Chewbacca defense and says the election was stolen, etc. I.e. it is fine with him if he loses (is convicted) and becomes a martyr to his supporters. He may actually want that, in which case he has outmaneuvered the Democrats again, lol. Anyway, thanks, this has helped me understand better what is going on. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 17:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I’m pretty sure there’s a summary judgment procedure, which would skip the formal trial, but would still require a vote. You should look into the actual Senate rules for impeachment. That’s where any of this would be spelled out. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 17:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

His conviction would also open him up to civil suits. Say by the family of the police officer killed in the riots. Perhaps even by the government for damages to the Capitol. --Khajidha (talk) 19:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

He remains susceptible to civil litigation also if acquitted; see Goldman v Simpson (1997).  --Lambiam 13:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Let's examine the assertion "All that can happen is they stop him from running again, big whoop." That's a Very big whoop. The disqualification of Trump from the 2024 GOP primary race would transform that race and upend its assumptions. Trump would also lose his federal office space and staff, his annual pension, his million dollar a year taxpayer funded travel budget, and his 24/7/365 Secret Service security detail. These are major punishments, no matter how wealthy Trump claims to be. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:50, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Not directly related to the question, but I'll ask it here anyway. Is Trump required to be physically present at the trial? Has he said anything about whether he plans to attend? --Viennese Waltz 08:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the Constitution requires the presence of the one on trial. Whether Trump will go or not will depend on his whim when the time comes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It would probably go better for him if he doesn't show up. --Khajidha (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

People go off-track because of the use of the word "trial", which causes them to assume impeachment is just like a judicial criminal trial, governed by all the same rules and precedents, when it's emphatically not that. The accused can "plead guilty" in the sense of exclaiming, "I did it! It was me! I'm guilty!", but that means nothing as far as the impeachment process is concerned. There is nothing akin to entering a plea of "guilty" with the court in a criminal trial, as far as I am aware. Any such thing would, if it existed, exist in the Senate's rules for trying impeachments, but I suspect SCOTUS would not like such a thing for doing a kind of end run around the explicit wording of the U.S. Constitution, which specifies that conviction requires a vote by the Senate. --47.152.93.24 (talk) 17:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Per 47.152, an impeachment trial is more akin to a standard parliamentary vote (with some special rules) than it is to a court trial. The Chief Justice of the United States presides over the "trial", and there is a prosecutor team (the "House managers") and there is a defense team usually, but in terms of process, the only constitutional requirement itself is the vote. The First impeachment trial of Donald Trump was about as perfunctory as one can get. Since the Senate gets to set the rules for the trial itself, the McConnel-controlled Senate in that trial refused to allow any witnesses or to introduce into the record any additional evidence beyond what was presented in the initial arguments by the House managers; most of the trial consisted of wrangling over this very issue; initially McConnell floated the idea of holding the vote on the very first day they received the articles of impeachment from the House, the "trial" in that case would have consisted of a single up/down vote on the articles; it's not clear that he couldn't have done just that. McConnell could have likely formally received the articles, called for an immediate vote, and been done with it. The only thing stopping that was that it wasn't clear that enough members of his own party would have been satisfied with that process (especially the moderate Senators like Romney, Murkowski, and Collins) even if they did vote to acquit in the end. --Jayron32 13:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Unseen characters in books?

Is it possible to have unseen characters in books? Books don't actually show anyone anyway. Would a character who is referred to by others, but whom the book never mentions actually doing anything in the present, count? JIP | Talk 20:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia thinks so: see the first sentence of the article you linked. Makes sense to me. --142.112.149.107 (talk) 20:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

That first sentence limits the use of the term to "theatre, comics, film, or television", thus not including the works of Dostoevsky. The rest of the article remains confined to these media. It may make sense to extend it to literature in general, but we cannot deduce that "Wikipedia" agrees with such extension.  --Lambiam 12:03, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The first sentence is as follows: "An unseen character in theatre, comics, film, or television, or silent character in radio or literature", showing that the term "silent character" is more common when discussing literature but refers to the same concept. --Khajidha (talk) 18:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

So, for example, if a book says "Alice said she thought Bob would be coming" but doesn't actually say "Bob got on the train to meet Alice and the rest of them", Bob would be an unseen character? JIP | Talk 20:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Sheridan explains it in his 1779 play "The Critic": AnonMoos (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

SNEER.

But pray is not Queen Elizabeth to appear?

PUFF.

No not once--but she is to be talked of for ever; so that egad you'll think a hundred times that she is on the point of coming in.

SNEER.

Hang it, I think it's a pity to keep her in the green room all the night.

PUFF.

O no, that always has a fine effect--it keeps up expectation.

I doubt the concept can be meaningfully applied to most narrative, and I don't think it plays much of a role in literary analysis for narrative texts. Whether it would make sense to make such a distinction certainly depends a lot on a work's narrative techniques (perspective etc): if you have a single, coherent narrative perspective throughout the work, giving the reader the impression of following a "scene" from some narrator's eyes, then yes, you might say that a character that is never explicitly shown within this viewpoint is "unseen". But what do you do about works that employ switches of perspective, flashbacks, frame narratives, stories-within-a-story and other such devices? In One Thousand and One Nights, would the only "actually seen" characters be the ones of the frame narrative (Shahryar and Scheherazade), and would we really want to say that all the myriad others that are part of the stories-within-the-story (or stories-within-a-story-within-a-story and so on) are "unseen"? One thing to help you refine your question: you say you're interested in characters "whom the book never mentions ... doing anything". Now, in narratives, "books" never "mention" anything at all. It's narrators that mention things. Once you're aware of that, your question mostly boils down to: which narrator? Fut.Perf. su 21:23, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

In the play Waiting for Godot (whose script could be read as a book, or easily rewritten in book form), would you consider Godot to be a character? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.40.9 (talk) 02:40, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes I would, because he is significant to the plot, even though he never actually shows up in the entire play. It's obvious in the context of the plot that he exists, and is known to the protagonists, even if he never actually does anything in the play. JIP | Talk 03:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film belied his name by showing up very briefly in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

An example is the character of Mrs. Newsome in The Ambassadors by Henry James. We learn a lot about her, so that we can almost visualize her, prim, always proper, never yielding; she is ubiquitous throughout the text and exerts a major influence on the protagonist, but remains out of the scenes, never making an appearance in person. She is called here a "mysterious and unseen character".  --Lambiam 12:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Another example is "Mrs Harris" in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit--never seen but continually referred to by Sarah Gamp. Deor (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU --Your friendly Ministry of Love officer 47.152.93.24 (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• An argument can be made that Sauron remains an unseen character for The Lord of the Rings; he's only referred to historically in the War of the Last Alliance, and obliquely through his avatar, the Eye of Barad-dûr, but we never actually meet the title character of the work during the events of the book itself. The question as to whether he even had a corporeal form during the events of the book was never really sufficiently answered, as far as I know. Neither does he appear in The Hobbit, where he is referred to as "the Necromancer" --but never met during the events of that book.--Jayron32 18:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Jayron32 -- Not sure that it's explained within the "Lord of the Rings" itself, but back in the Second Age Sauron could assume a pleasant-looking form, as when he called himself Annatar "lord of gifts". However, after he was caught in the downfall of Numenor, it took him a while to return to Middle Earth, and he could then only manifest himself with an evil appearance... AnonMoos (talk) 03:52, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Tolkien himself wrote volumes of background and exegetical works for the universe he created. But that doesn't mean that Sauron appears in corporeal (or any) form as a character in The Lord of the Rings. --Jayron32 12:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, Pippin the Hobbit has a fairly direct encounter with Sauron through the palantir of Orthanc in The Two Towers ("Book III Chapter 11"). AnonMoos (talk) 16:40, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

There is also the "present" moment, in the narrative, when Sauron realises he's doomed:

"The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him [Frodo], and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.

From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgûl, the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom."

But I get Jayron's point. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if this relates to your query:

The protagonist of the Old Testament is not seen by any of the scribes. The character is mentioned some 6k times. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

This character - indeed quite a character, one who revengeth, and is jealous and furious - is depicted as rather active in the very beginning, rarely taking a rest, and as speaking to several other characters, including the first one to appear. Quite a few see the glory of the character (a manifestation perhaps not unlike the Eye of Barad-dûr).  --Lambiam 23:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Au contraire mon frere. Yahweh appears several times in person (in deity?) in the Old Testament. He walks with Adam, he wrestles with Jacob and dislocates his hip, he speaks to Moses at the Burning Bush. Definitely a seen character. His actions are directly described in several places. --Jayron32 12:25, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

He also turns up seeking to kill Moses. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:06, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The TV Tropes article has a "Literature" section.--Pacostein (talk) 20:23, 4 February 2021 (UTC)