Talk:Fabian Society

Eyeless in Gaza

In Aldous Huxley's novel Eyeless In Gaza, a key character (Brian) joins a Fabian Society. The politics of the book generally reject socialism, and Huxley provides a critique of Brian's Fabianism. Is this worth mentioning in the article proper, or is it too obscure? It could serve to demonstrate the opposition to Fabianism amongst some intellectuals. --joe

Tony Blair

The man who led Britain into the Iraq war is a Fabian? Good thing Shaw and Webb are no longer alive because they would resign in protest. I certainly hope Mr. Blair loses the next election. His destruction of an already poor country to serve elite monied interests is unforgivable.

Query

The fabian society was formed in the 19th century and i dont know what it stands for. Don't ask.

Well, have you read (a) the article and (b) the "Purpose" section of their website? --rbrwr^± 12:41, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Eric Blair?

I believe that the inclusion of Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) as a Fabian is incorrect. Can anyone substantiate this one way or the other? -- 26 december 2005

Yes, I was surprised by that, and indeed a quick google reveals many pages claiming that he wasn't one. In fact he was explicitly critical Fabian and reformist Socialists. So if no-one can provide a reference for this I'm going to delete it.81.179.76.23 23:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)tarma_2002

I have heard that he was close with Huxley (Aldous, I think) and from him Eric learned of the Fabian Society plans/ideals and was so disgusted he wrote 1984 (whose title = 100 years after the 1884 beginning of the FS). Heck, the FS logo is a wolf in sheep's clothing! Eric more likely was trying to WARN people in advance of the plans coming to pass, rather than trying to persuade people to accept their gradual implementation. 142.229.99.86 (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

According to his autobiographical Spanish Civil War book, Homage to Catalonia, he was a member of the Independent Labour Party and fought with an anarchist faction. (From memory, so please someone check!) This hardly sounds like a Fabian. 91.85.42.236 (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

He fought with a Marxist militia, the POUM (Partido Obrera Unification Marxist - Workers Party of Marxist Unification) that was allied to the anarchists. He expressed sympathies for the anarchists political programme and considered moving over to their militia. I can't see any evidence of Fabian membership or sympathies quite the opposite. He attacks the Fabian leadership in Road to Wigan Pier. 202.89.136.8 (talk) 20:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Legacy

I was reading this article, when I got to section marked legacy. The final paragraph (Four of the...August 1894) of this section is gramatically incorrect and seems to be out of place in the legacy section. Does anyone agree? I don't want to change it without some sort of concensus. ghj

The sentence as it reads is nonsense. I presume the intent is that those four founded the LSE. That is not what it says now. Change away.Badgerpatrol 01:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

parititon??

I suppose parititon should be partition? Piet 10:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Mary Poppins??

I see nothing in the Mary Poppins article or this one to connect the Fabians and the children's story. Can someone clarify this please? thanks - Her Pegship 16:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not clear in what way (other than the author) "Pygmalion" is related to the Fabians, either. I searched the text and couldn't find the word "Fabian". But if we wanted a list of literary texts that genuinely do mention the Fabians then I know at least two.-JdSf

Loads more names

I added loads of post-war Fabians listed as leading members on their website. They all seemed important enough - near enough a who's who of labour politics. A Geek Tragedy 00:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Structure

Do we really need half the article to be about exactly how the Fabians elect their central committee? Is a clear definition of who can be an associate member encyclopaedic? Is it even remotely interesting? If nobody has an opinion, I'll remove it. In due course. In the fullness of time.

Rome wasnt built in a day, you know.

Nor saved, neither.

Hornplease 05:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Public Opinion?

Are there any criticisms of the society? They appear to have some controversial viewpoints so a section on common criticisms or public perception could be useful to balance the article, which seems to read like a brochure. --Phil153 17:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I think there needs to be more things in the history section. It's too succinct. Maybe more on books and studies written by founders of the Fabian Society...Zigzig20s 06:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Large trim

I've just removed a large amount of material from this article. Items that either has no sources or only primary sources were removed. To avoid violating one of the most foundational principles of wikipedia, freedom from bias, minimal material should be added that does not come from third parties. - brenneman 01:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

---

"At the core of the Fabian Society were Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Together, they wrote numerous studies of industrial Britain, alternative economics applied to capital as well as land. Their later admiration of Soviet Russia stemmed partly from Stalin's "efficiency" at acquiring this rent." Am I the only one to whom this seems unclear?

Gaiaspiritsumari 21:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

No, you're not the only one.

Tex 19:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

What about Virginia Woolf ?

In my opinion, Virginia Woolf should be considered as a key member of the Fabian Society, Not only her husband Leonard Woolf !

bpochat, 13 February 2008  —Preceding comment was added at 17:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC) 

Members

Where are people getting these members lists from? I can't find any information anywhere on Blair and Brown being members.--Him and a dog 20:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Fabian Society and roots in Freemasonary?

According to Nicholas Hagger in his The Secret Founding of America, the Fabian Society was created as Freemasonic body based on the Scottish Rite Free Masons. Yet no mention is made of this? 12:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sevenwiki (talk • contribs) 12:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Why the mass reversion?

All of my revisions have been reverted, with the comment to the effect that I had deleted paragraphs. To the best of my intention, I deleted nothing (bar the odd repetitive phrase); what I did was to re-organise substantially, to move material, to create new sections, to remove wikilinks to common nouns as per WP:MOS, and so on, to improve the article. If there are specific criticisms with this re-working, fine, let's hammer them out here. A one-fell-swoop reversion is not assuming good faith. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Series of edits reverted

I have just reverted a series of edits which turned this article into a hatchet job. Several whole paras of well-referenced text on the contemporary Fabian Soc was removed, and a piece of unreferenced abuse was added to the end of the lead section.

Personally, I have a lot of sympathy with libertarian critics of Fabianism, but this is an encyclopedia not a blog, and we have a policy of WP:NPOV.

I will ask the editor concerned to discuss these edits here if they want to. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like our messages crossed in the post; thanks for the ping. I repeat that I have not removed paragraphs, but re-arranged their order. I aded a section on notable Fabians. I removed a couple of phrases of repetitions about Young Fabians. I unwikified common nouns, and unlinked all but the first reference to many people (the Webbs were linked at each appearance). Etc. My work was not a hatchet job. If there are specific changes you object to, let us discuss them. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, it looks like I was mistaken on one point. But not on others:

Hostile quote

In this edit you moved to the top of the article the uncited quote "The ideology of the Fabians can be encompassed in the famous quote, " Fabianism feeds on Capitalism, but excretes Communism".{{Fact|date=January 2009}}

A quote that's hostile to the point of abusiveness probably shouldn't be in the article at all unless referenced to a very significant source, but why move it to the top, especially since it's unreferenced? It casts a negative slant on the whole article, but per WP:LEAD, "the lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article" ... yet I see nothing in the rest of the article to justify the excrement label which your edits placed in the lead section, let alone attaching that much weight to it.

Unlinking

• You unlinked a whole bundle of significant ideological terms in the first para: e.g. decolonisation, gradualist and reformist.

None of those are linked from any where else in the article, but they are important concepts when trying to understand the significance of the Fabians and the context in which they arose. Why remove them?

Category

You replaced Category:Edwardian era (which does exist) with Category:Edwardian period (which doesn't). Why?

Moving passages

On a re-reading, I note you are correct that some items were moved rather than deleted, and I was wrong to say they had been removed.

It's late now, and I haven't the energy tonight to evaluate your moves of passages (I'll do it tomorrow). But after spotting the changes above I was ready to see the whole series of edits in a negative light, which is probably why I didn't evaluate them all as thoroughly as I should have.

Meanwhile, can you explain whether I have misunderstood something about the first three points which caught my eye? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

At last we can discuss.

Unsourced quote

It didn't occur to me to see it as hostile. I view it along the lines of "The forest breathes in carbon dioxide and breathes out oxygen", a metaphorical statement more than a scientific one. The word used is the verb, which I see as innocuous; the concrete noun you extrapolate to (but surely not the abstract one) may be more loaded to sensitive ears. I moved the quote because I did not want to delete anything of any value as I re-arranged the article, and this sentence seemed a poetic encapsulation of the Society (with which, by the way, I have no affiliation at all). If its lack of source and potential offence means it should be deleted, so be it.

Unlinking

I unlinked some common nouns (common as in, found in a dictionary, as opposed to proper nouns; not necessarily common-or-garden words) as per my understanding of linking policy. I went through the article and unlinked some words (though not, I think, very many), and added links to phrases or words that I thought needed it: to welfare state here; fascism and Stalinism here; Nigeria and eugenics here.

In this substantial change I moved the link to reformism from the lede to the first paragraph of the body, tweaking the wording slightly ; I improved the links to the Prime Minister of Singapore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and socialist societies affiliated to the Labour Party; I changed the wording of visible links so that they appear in their sentences more smoothly, as with "The strategy named after him advocated tactics of attrition".

By my count I have added more links to abstractions than I have removed. If any of the words I unlinked could do with re-linking, fine, let's discuss. If "important concepts" are alluded to in the lede and then not taken up in the body, that needs to be rectified. The ones you mention would seem to be good candidates to be added, with a sentence each, to the section on principles and policies.

Category

Unfortunately, I can't get either Category:Edwardian era or Category:Edwardian period to exist. The article on the Edwardian period sits within two categories, Category: History of the United Kingdom by period and Category:20th century, neither of which is ideal for this article. The Society was formed in the C19 and was arguable most influential in the early (20, but is still thriving in the C21. How best to categorise it I do not know, and welcome constructive suggestions.

Deletion of material

You said immediately above that "some items were moved rather than deleted", which is an improvement on your first accusation that "Several whole paras of well-referenced text on the contemporary Fabian Soc was removed". I did not intend to remove any serious material, and if any paragraph went missing in action, please could you point it out specifically? I am not sure from the wording whether you are withdrawing the whole charge or not; do you think that some items were moved and some deleted? I am not a person who goes around wantonly removing sourced material.

An explanation of the moves

The article seemed sloppily structured and I tightened it up, taking it from three over-long sections (and two subsections) to nine (and one). The history section I split into pre- and post- the formation of the Labour Party. The version you favour lists Young Fabians as a subsection of Legacy, which makes no sense to me at all. Indeed, the word "legacy" implies that something or someone is no longer on the scene, so I did away with that title, but not with any of its material. I created a section for the current state of the Society, one for notable Fabians, one for the LSE, and so on.

I will defend my version as better than the one you reverted to. It is far from perfect, and I usually have no problem working with other editors to improve articles of mutual interest. All of my edits, which I made in a series, were explained in the edit summaries. Your reversion was not explained, except for saying that I had deleted sourced text and had added an abusive sentence to the lede. The first of those is, I believe, not factually accurate, and the second is a matter of opinion that had not occured to me. I contend that my work has not "turned this article into a hatchet job", as you asserted. You imply that my work has made the article more blog-like and point-of-view. I utterly fail to see how. I have never been accused of such things in all my time on Wikipedia, and I am not happy about it now. You admit above that you were mistaken on one point. I hope this lengthy rebuttal may cause you to change your mind on some of the others as well. BrainyBabe (talk) 03:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The opening and unsourced quote is hostile and inappropriate for the lede. I think if I had spotted that I would have done the same full reversal. Other changes do make sense on close reading. How about proposing something a little different? --Snowded (talk) 08:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Snowded, for saying that my changes make sense. (For anyone else who is curious, I suggest that it might be more straightforward to look at the two versions side by side, rather than just the diff: this is the structure I created; this is what was reverted to.)

I'm not quite sure I understand you correctly. Are you saying that because someone moves one sentence within the article, you would take that as good reason to revert a whole series of other edits, that encompass other matters?

When you suggest that I propose "something a little different", do you mean the sentence that I moved, or my general re-organisation of the article? An anonymous editor, nothing to do with me, has removed the offending sentence. (And has made other tweaks, mostly helpful.) I think the re-organised structure that I boldly implemented is as good as I can get it, but with feedback from you and others, I am sure it can be improved. Thanks for your support. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If you move a hostile sentence (especially one that is uncited) into the lede then don't be surprised if you get reverted and I said "other changes" which does not mean all. I suggest you summarise a few proposals and get agreement --Snowded (talk) 14:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your swift response. I am still surprised about the response to moving one (contentious) sentence. If I saw something had been moved into more prominence and I didn't like it, I'd move it back, or remove the sentence to the talkpage, or possibly delete the sentence. I wouldn't revert a long series of edits, complete with their edit summaries. It seems over the top.

I am not clear what you mean by "other changes" and "a few proposals". If you are referring to the unsourced sentence, I'm not particularly interested in rephrasing it, and anyway someone else has removed it; good riddance, as far as I am concerned. If you are referring to the article structure, what I propose is here. To summarise,

   * 1 Formation
   * 2 Early policies and activities
   * 3 20th century
   * 4 Links to the Labour Party
         o 4.1 Influence on Labour government
   * 5 Criticism
   * 6 Young Fabians
   * 7 Current state
   * 8 Link to London School of Economics
   * 9 Notable Fabians
   * 10 See also
   * 11 References
   * 12 Bibliography
   * 13 Notes
   * 14 External links

If you are referring to other matters such as linking (i.e. level and types of wikification of common and proper nouns), my suggestions are immediately above. If you are referring to something else, please say what. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Brainybabe, I'm sorry about being slow in getting back to you again. I knew I'd need a bit of time at this, and hoped to get clear time before I went away, but that didn't work out, so am I grabbing a few minutes after my day's business.

The problem was that you moved an unsourced, highly abusive hostile quite to the top of the article. As Snowded also agrees, that made it look an attempt to grossly unbalance the article by casting the Fabians in a negative light from the outset, so I took a quick look at the other edits ... and a cursory scan of those other edits, it appeared that a lot of material had been removed.

If I had had time, I would have done a more thorough examination, but I didn't have time then, so I was left with a choice. Did I try to try to select the best version of the previous lot? No, I didn't have time, and if I had restored a version I hadn't checked fully that would leave me responsible for any flaws, and when I checked the second most recent edit and found that crucial conceptual words had been de-linked in the lead, I reckoned that there was likely to be a lot more problematic stuff in the other edits. So the choice was either to leave it as was, or revert the lot and discuss ... and given the appalling change to the lead section, I reverted the lot and left an explanation and left a note on your talk page. That way, the appalingly negative lead was reverted, and we could discuss the rest.

Many editors would just have reverted the lot with a terse edit summary saying something like "rv. POV edits", but I didn't. If I encountered something like this again, I would do exactly the same thing, go back to the last version and before the editor who introduced the howling flaw, and discuss later.

I'm puzzled that you don't understand why that unsourced "quote" was so bad. It's not just the verb "excretes", it the fact that it say "excretes communism". That's nonsense, because the Fabians are deeply hostile to communism, and it their circles "communist" is a smear term. It's abusive verb before a smear noun, which is all rather bad news for a NPOV article.

As per my initial comment, I don't particularly like the Fabians, so I;m not out to defend them at all; I have written about them a few times myself in other places, and I have little good to say about them. But Wikipedia isn't about our own views, it's about NPOV, and I'll stand bt that principle whatever I personally think of an article's subject. And I'm afraid that the bottom line is that moving that quote in the lead gave it such prominence that it grossly unbalanced the article. I don't care how good all the rest of your edits were; that piece in the lead should have pressed the "rollback needed here" sensors of any editor who seeks NPOV.

Now, I'm sorry, I'm not going to have time to evaluate all the other edits this week, so I'll just note on the smaller points that I created the Category:Edwardian era, which didn't actually exist at the time you changed it to the also-nonexistent "Edwardian period".

If you like, I can look again at the rest in about 10 days time (when I'll be back at my desk) and give you my views then, but it would be quite unreasonable for me to ask you to wait that long. So if you want to go ahead with the rest of your changes, I can review them properly then. Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest (Brainy Babe) that you wait for a review, but if you are going to make changes do the non-controversial ones first. BHG is right by the way, if I had found them first given then opening quote I would have reversed with a curt comment! --Snowded (talk) 08:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I have waited for a review, at Snowded's suggestion, but there have been no substantial changes to this article in several days. I don't know which of the changes I have suggested would be deemed non-controversial, and have no wish to get involved in edit wars.

I thank BHG for the thoroughness of her explanation, and for creating a helpful category. If only that thoroughness had been extended to the first interaction, of actually reading what it was that she reverted! I cannot agree with a policy of "a cursory scan" and a whole-sale reversion. If I had not time to consider an editor's multiple contributions, but considered them potentially problematic, I would glance at the individual's talkpage or contributions, determine that they were not a habitual trouble-maker, and resolve to come back to the article when I had a few minutes' leisure, to do it and them justice.

I think I've proposed and explained a lot of useful revisions (of structure, linkage, and -- my first additions -- an example of the Fabians' work) and have had little feedback on my ideas. Constructive criticism on the proposed improvements would be welcome, but, without that, any further attempts for me to edit this article feel like a joyless endeavour at this point. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Tortoise logo

Has the Fabian tortoise logo ever been used in the UK? The article says it has, but I'm a Fabian of many years standing and I don't recall ever seeing such a logo other than in this article. 86.177.121.176 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

I'm pulling that thing, it's pretty obviously an anti-Fabian satire presented here as an official Fabian logo. Carrite (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The description clearly says it was created in 2008 by User:Ldopa. Infrogmation (talk) 03:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The actual logo is The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, [1] the wolf representing communism and the sheep representing bourgeois democracy. --84.71.4.113 (talk) 17:39, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

See here, on this pamphlet from 1951, which is the earliest appearance. https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:tik383teg - Lommes (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Socialist?

Wouldn't it be better to classify them as social democrats or social liberals? I see nothing here about permanent state ownership of the major means of production. -MBHiii (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Bertrand Russell

There needs to be a citation for Russell's entrance and reason for leaving given his opposition to much of their beliefs. He seems to be more in line with George Orwell than with the Fabian Society. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 20:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I searched his autobiography, there was a letter where someone described him giving a speech at the Fabian Society, as well as references to contemporaries who where Fabians, such as HG Wells, but he never says he joined. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.61.194 (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

New section

I've added a new sub-section dealing with the Society's apologist stance towards Stalinst Russia/Bolshevik atrocities. I'm sure that this can be expanded. Jprw (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Emblem/logo

I just came across a claim in a newspaper comments thread to the effect that that the official emblem or logo of the Fabian Society was originally a wolf in sheep's clothing. Whatever one's view of Fabian policies, it seems wildly unlikely that any political organisation would openly portray itself as a wolf in sheep's clothing. On searching Google Images for examples of the emblem I found numerous copies, but all of the sources were on nutjob sites (extreme rightists or conspiracy theorists). The emblem itself seems stylistically 'right' for the period (late 19th century) but that does not prove that it was an official emblem. It might merely be a satirical image from the same period, for example in a cartoon or pamphlet opposed to the Fabians. If, however improbable it might seem, the emblem really was an official emblem of the Fabian Society, one would expect to find it on pamphlets and other publications of the Society itself. I have not found it in any online copies of such documents, but I may have a root around the next time I go to the London Library. Meanwhile, someone else with more authoritative knowledge of the Society may want to comment or include something in the article.109.154.232.197 (talk) 19:48, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

[Added by the same commenter] I think I have traced the origin of the 'wolf in sheep's clothing' logo. In 1910 George Bernard Shaw, himself a member of the Society, designed and commissioned a stained glass window which included in the background a 'coat of arms' portraying a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' with the letters F S on either side of it. An account of the window is here http://www.lse.ac.uk/alumni/LSEConnect/LSEMagazine/pdf/summer2006/FabianWindow.pdf The window portrays leading members of the Society in medieval or Elizabethan-style dress in the act of forging a globe of the world on an anvil, illustrating the text 'remould it nearer to the heart's desire' (a phrase from Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayam). The purpose and meaning of the window are not entirely clear, but it is evidently at least in part humorous, as H G Wells is shown in the corner cocking a snook at the other participants. The choice of mock-medieval clothing may be an allusion to the infatuation of some socialists with the Middle Ages, which Shaw did not share. The phrase 'Pray devoutly but hammer stoutly' appears to be from a poem 'The Hermit' by Thomas Parnell. So far as I know the phrase had no official status in the Fabian Society. As for the 'wolf in sheep's clothing', it seems likely that it was intended by Shaw as a visual joke, alluding to the way in which the Fabian Society was viewed by its conservative opponents. Shaw was, after all, known as a humorist. I have still found no evidence to suggest that it was ever an official emblem of the Fabians. Moreover, the status of the window as a whole is unclear: it has recently been installed in the Library of the London School of Economics, but the linked article does not say anything about its location between 1910, when it was made, and 1947, when it was installed in a conference venue. 109.154.232.177 (talk) 16:23, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

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POV

In may places this article reads like it came directly from a Glenn Beck "exposé" - to take two examples,

• the wolf in sheep's clothing "coat of arms", which is satisfactorily explained here on the talk page, is put forward in the article as an actual "official"/"original" coat of arms that was suppressed "because of its obvious negative connotations".

• "Aflaq's ideas, with those of Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Zaki al-Arsuzi, came to fruition in the Arab world in the form of dictatorial regimes in Iraq and Syria."; it's not up for debate that the present Baathist parties in Iraq and Syria were dictatorships, but to say "the ideas game to fruition as" is like saying that Milton Friedman's ideas "came to fruition in the form of the torture chambers in Chile" - both are assertions that it could be interesting to see defended in depth in the appropriate forum, but not encyclopedic at all.

Looking above, it seems like there was a clean-up in 2009 that took care of similar issues.

2601:647:4204:EA10:E9E9:EB7E:2338:3D32 (talk) 15:39, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Today, it reads like a promotional pamphlet for "The Fabian Society: it's a beautiful thing!" Much more criticism is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.117.82 (talk) 15:56, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Whether "criticism" is encyclopedic or not I'll leave to Wiki-policy experts; I'd be fine with "more criticism" if the criticism came from the realm of fact -- unlike the two examples above. 2601:B00:C580:22A0:31A4:5000:F0BB:3291 (talk) 21:47, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

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