Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 August 6

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August 6

IS THIS TRUE?

Hello, Wikipedians I was watching the documentary Nostradamus:500 Years Later on Youtube and one of the comments said that based on the fact that Nostradamus allegedly refers to Hitler as Hister that Hitler`s last name was Hister, I would like to know if that was actually the case? THANK YOU. -- 02:21, 6 August 2021 98.113.197.52

"Hister" was an old alternative name of the Danube river which appears in Nostradamus' writings. Some interpreters have equated it with Hitler, but there's only a vague resemblance between the words. Hitler's alternative surname possibility was Schick(e)lgruber... AnonMoos (talk) 02:47, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Is that the one narrated by Orson Welles? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:49, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

It means that Nostradamus did not predict Hitler. DuncanHill (talk) 04:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

In other words, it's Histerically wrong. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:44, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if Nostradamus also predicted the waving flag on the moon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:35, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

The three quatrains in which the word Hister is used are II-24, IV-68 and V-29. They could conceivably refer to World War II, but none is particularly clear. The second of these specifically mentions "Rhyn et Hister" (the Rhine and the Danube) which makes it even more unlikely that it refers to an individual. But all of Nostradamus' quatrains are like a Rorschach test: interpreters see in them what they want to see, and most have made the easy assumption that Hister refers to Hitler, even if nothing else in the text supports this. Xuxl (talk) 13:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Century VII, Quatrain 35 foresees me to a tee, no doubt about it, sad! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

In other words, interpreting Nostradamus is an open forum for cranks, kooks, creeps, fanatics, con men and every variety of get rich quick artists. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:49, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Aye, I'd hate to be the guy you're vaguely alluding to, my friend! InedibleHulk (talk) 06:21, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Which quatrain predicts Wikipedia? I’m sure there is at least one. Blueboar (talk) 11:42, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, just did find one, and I suppose I shouldn't be proud the less that the one said to predict 9-11 appears only a few (yet more than twelve) other quatrains later. Not every authority seems to be approbative nonetheless. Taken and Machn-t'ed from https://books.openedition.org/pumi/39161?lang=en As early as 1550, this discursive economy of suffering and aggression took hold. With eschatological suggestiveness, when it was biblically predicted that, during the month of January 1555, "many false prophets will deceive the people". But the same site offers a much better booty to any editor interested by the subject at large and, prefereably, also able in the French language: One of them, Michel Jeanneret, shows that the biblical canvas (littera-allegoria or tropologia-typologia-anagogia) has, since the beginning of the sixteenth century made its time, and that readers, tired of the directivity of a quadruple reading, wished to choose within diversity: so prevailed an unequivocal meaning which was itself double-edged insofar as, if the four senses could seem tyrannical to more than one, the uniqueness of an interpretation could in turn remain binding. [1]. Yes, that's serious information. --Askedonty (talk) 12:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Attentisme

I want to write a good article on this topic - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentisme . What good, complete, and accessible sources are there on this topic? --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 13:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi Vyacheslav84, that's awesome. You might look at the references in Agenda-setting theory. Are you planning to stick just to politics, as in the French article? Because in English I think a more wider use of the term occurs in medicine. If you name the article "wait-and-see policy" or "wait-and-see approach" you will probably have to discuss the medical context as well. Here are a some starting references for the political context: International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration, Routledge, updated 2019 (you'll probably need access to a library with institutional access). The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems, University of Chicago Press, 2005 (partly viewable online). Public Policy as Inaction: The Politics of Doing Nothing, SSRN, 2014 (you can request at WP:RX if it is for writing a Wikipedia article). 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

In a British political context, Henry Campbell-Bannerman famously said in a 1907 speech in reference about Irish Home Rule:

...but if you ask me how the policy of the Liberal party is affected and what they are prepared to offer Ireland in the near future, I can only reply that you must wait and see. [2]

The phrase "wait and see" was then adopted by his Liberal colleague, H. H. Asquith, initially in the 1910 budget debate. which was "unfairly but damagingly presented as evidence of his preference for delay and apathy". [3]

User:DuncanHill is our resident expert on this era and may be able help more, but "wait and see" is about the only thing I can remember about Campbell-Bannerman from my history A-level some 45 years ago. Alansplodge (talk) 21:30, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, well yes CB did use it, but it was much more associated with Asquith (not least by the OED) - he used it several times in the Budget/Lords confrontation, and I think it was seen as rather clever at the time, suggesting he was keeping his cards close to his chest (or even up his sleeve). His lack of "push and go" in the War led to it taking on a more negative implication. I recall that Tommies on the Western Front took to calling the rather unreliable French matches "Asquiths" as once struck one had to wait and see if they would actually light. Once your name comes to be attached to something that threatens to interfere with the soldiers' smokes, you're on your way out. Asquith was never really a leader, in the inspirational sense, and in wartime people do need someone they can believe is straining every sinew. Asquith's "Balliol style", the appearance of "superiority" and effortlessness, just wasn't suited to the times, and I think by 1914 he had come to believe in the image rather too much. The mention of CB does make me regret that he didn't live on (I think he was both a better PM and a better man than Asquith, and he was certainly a better party leader - "He never took himself as seriously as he took the things he believed in", which is perhaps rather the opposite of Asquith) - I think he would have seen the wisdom of the proposals that would have left Asquith as PM and let LlG run the War, and perhaps could have prevailed over Asquith's amour propre and over-estimation of his support in the Party and the country. Hey ho, if wishes were horses. I'm not sure how much that helps our questioner. Now, for some reason the phrase "wait and see" also reminds me of Stanley Baldwin, but I'm not sure if that's actually a thing or just reflects my feelings about the wasted "MacBaldwin" years. But that's another story. DuncanHill (talk) 23:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Alansplodge -- British politicians kept waiting and seeing and waiting and seeing on Irish Home Rule until finally WW1 broke out before Home Rule had been implemented, with ultimately very unfortunate results for all sides. It's possible that some bloodshed might have been avoided if politicians had felt a greater degree of urgency. AnonMoos (talk) 00:20, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair, or accurate, to say "British politicians kept waiting and seeing and waiting and seeing" on Home Rule. Ireland took up a huge amount of political time and effort in the decades before the War. It split the Liberal Party almost fatally in 1886 (thirteen years later Lloyd George was nearly murdered by supporters of Chamberlain, who led that split). Other parts of the UK, particularly Wales, were neglected (take a look at the Irish land reforms of the era and compare them to the situation of the Welsh, or indeed of the English, tenant farmer or labourer). Until the House of Lords veto was broken in 1911 (and that took two years and two general elections, and was preceded by years more of other beneficial legislation lost) there was no possibility of getting any meaningful form of Home Rule through Parliament. All in all while I don't think you'll find anyone who feels the history of Home Rule was a happy one, I don't think it can be characterised in the way you did. DuncanHill (talk) 01:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

You know more than I do about the details of the party politics of the time, but it first became a major issue in UK politics in 1885, and still was not in place in 1914. This 30-year delay is not very impressive to me, considering the severe consequences of not implementing it before the outbreak of WW1. AnonMoos (talk) 02:09, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Although pushing it through in 1914 would probably have started a civil war. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Alansplodge (talk) 09:47, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

P.S. As far as I can tell, the 1960s section of the French Wikipedia article seems to be a little different from the other sections (based on the word "attentat"?). AnonMoos (talk) 00:37, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

The article in term of contents seems to be mostly standing since nearly a full decade. I would interpret the heading "paronym" tag in the article at the light of the same remark you do, then yours is very probably as much worth as mine (my second is "attelage"). --Askedonty (talk) 08:16, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe this: Frank Zappa et l'Amérique parfaite: Zappa, T3: "Cette chanson, très codée, égratigne l'égale passivité de trois générations d'attentistes à Los Angeles : les hippies californiens des années 1960, ..." other possible themes being not possibly related, such as Africa banana growing businesses, radically reforming the education system and a few other. --Askedonty (talk) 16:11, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

For the medical usage, we have an article watchful waiting. 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 20:11, 7 August 2021 (UTC)