Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 June 8

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June 8

Dancing Plague of 1518 Sources

Hi! Could I have some assistance in finding high-quality, reliable, secondary sources on the Dancing plague of 1518 that don't cite John Waller? I'm looking to better source the article, which over-relies on this particular author. Thanks! Tyrone Madera (talk) 03:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

A mention in A History of Madness in Sixteenth-century Germany (p. 33) by H. C. Erik Midelfort. Alansplodge (talk) 10:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Divine Punishment or Disease? Medieval and Early Modern Approaches to the 1518 Strasbourg Dancing Plague by Lynneth J. Miller, from Dance Research, the journal of the Society for Dance Research. Alansplodge (talk) 10:48, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

And a going back a bit, The Black Death and the Dancing Mania (1888) by Justus Friedrich Carl Hecker. Alansplodge (talk) 11:00, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Alansplodge, Looks like Miller also cites Waller, but the source looks better cited than most. Do you have more info on how many pages in Hecker's book are dedicated to the event? Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:35, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I am reminded of the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:43, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Wow, there's actually a lot of parallels there. Tyrone Madera (talk) 23:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

B-17 incident

Hello, I'm researching an odd B-17 incident I found described in an old book.

It concerns an B-17 that took off "in 1939" (no specific date given) from "San Diego" (no mention of Lindbergh Field or other airfield) bound for Hawaii. After losing radio contact with the plane "for a couple of hours" the San Diego personnel were amazed to see the bomber come in for a landing. After landing they discovered most of the crew badly burned and dead inside, with the exception of the copilot who brought the plane in. Unfortunately he was also burned and succumbed from his wounds without giving any explanation for the event. Allegedly, all the crew's sidearms were emptied but no bullet holes were found, either in the airframe skin or aviators.

The empty pistols part of the story makes me think this is some sort of urban legend possibly based on a real incident but I found no mention of any involving B-17s taking off from San Diego in 1939. The source (the book) is not very reliable, once referring to the airplane as belonging to the USAAF and once as belonging to the Navy. For this reason I suspect the incident (if any) might not involve a B-17 at all, just a multi-engine aircraft with a crew bigger than two.

Anything above rings a bell to anyone? 208.127.136.43 (talk) 11:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress mentions an incident in 1940 in a B-17 based out of March Air Reserve Base outside Riverside, California. The plane did behave erratically in flight and crash, no mention of mysterious empty guns or of anyone surviving the subsequent crash, however. That's the closest I can find.--Jayron32 11:22, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

[1] mentions a Martin B-10 bomber that had 3 crew members burn up on board and crash, there was one survivor who managed to parachute. No one knows what caused the fire. It was at Langley in Virginia, however, not San Diego. --Jayron32 11:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

[2] mentions an unknown bomber crashing near the Salton Sea in 1942. Details unknown, but a large number of crew died. --Jayron32 11:36, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

This discussion on Quora matches your incident closely, but calls it a cargo plane, and concludes that it is most likely bullshit. --Jayron32 11:42, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Aha! This seems to be the one! Thank you! 208.127.136.43 (talk) 11:45, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

This thread discusses possible sources of the myth. --Jayron32 11:45, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

this article attributes the story to two different science fiction authors, Robert Coe Gardner in the 1950s, and Charles Berlitz in 1988, and notes the likely source of modern tellings of the story is Berlitz. --Jayron32 11:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Charles Berlitz was not a science-fiction writer. He was the heir (or one of the heirs) to a successful language-teaching business, and dabbled in weird phenomena (kind of a third-rate Charles Fort, as far as that goes). AnonMoos (talk) 18:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Charles Berlitz didn't intend to be a science-fiction writer, but much of his purported non-fiction was sufficiently speculative, inventive and un-fact-checked (surely knowingly) that it could pass for bad science fiction. He had a good deal in common with John G. Fuller and Erich von Däniken: there ought to be a term to cover exploitative writers of this type. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 23:48, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Just collecting purportedly strange and anomalous incidents does not make you a writer of fiction. A lot of people would not think that what Charles Fort did was valuable, but at least he was the best in the world at what he did. Charles Berlitz fell far short of Charles Fort (I read two books by Berlitz in the 1980s, one mainly about the Bermuda Triangle, as far as I can remember, and the second on odd language facts). AnonMoos (talk) 03:31, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I thought it politer than calling him a bullshit artist. --Jayron32 16:22, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] Broadly I agree [with AnonMoos], and incidentally I describe myself philosophically as a Fortean (I've been reading Fortean Times since the 1970s, and attending various related symposia). Fort's objective was to compile and cite reports of 'strange phenomena' unexplained by current science (any purported explanations he offered were invariably tongue-in-cheek and merely meant to stimulate discussion), and if he had a fault, it was underestimating the frequency of such reports being hoaxes, but he did not, to my knowledge, deliberately endorse falsehoods.

My reading of Berlitz's works is that he knowingly reported evident falsehoods and delusions, and himself manipulated accounts and invented or misreported details, to present narratives and reach conclusions that he must have known were untrue, in order to sell sensationalist articles and books. The same applies to the other two individuals I mentioned above. There are of course other writers in the same vein, some of whom might to some degree believe what they're peddling (e.g. Zecharia Sitchin), and some of whom are apparently genuinely mentally disequilibriated (e.g. David Icke). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 16:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Culture in totalitarianism and democracy,

Is there a website or an information on how culture is practiced or being done in totalitarianism and in democracy?Donmust90 (talk) 15:30, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Donmust90, uh... that's the broadest topic I've seen in a long time. Could you be a little more specific? Elizium23 (talk) 15:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I mean, is culture being done freely or is it restricted in totalitarianism than in a democracy? Donmust90 (talk) 15:42, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Donmust90, that is still completely vague! How many worldwide instances of totalianarianism and democracy have there been through time? They all do things differently! Trying to generalize is useless here. It calls for far too much speculation. Elizium23 (talk) 15:45, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

A totalitarian regime will restrict the freedom of people. That is a defining characteristic of totalitarianism. Dissidents may organize clandestine cultural activities to circumvent censorship, such as samizdat in the former Soviet Bloc. They have to adjust their methods to the means available and the suppression methods of the regime.  --Lambiam 19:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by "culture"? Can you provide some examples of what you're talking about? <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 19:36, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe you should start with something a little less challenging, like the question of life, the universe and everything. We know the answer to that one. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:27, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

DonMust90 -- Maybe you could start by looking at the small and short book "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder, written in response to Trump's Nov. 2016 election, which attempts to give individuals advice on how to act to keep things from sliding further downwards, with a number of historical comparisons... AnonMoos (talk) 18:30, 9 June 2021 (UTC)