Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 July 22
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July 22
editUrho Kekkonen as a KGB agent?
editSomeone at the German Wikipedia keeps adding information to the de:Urho Kekkonen article that he worked as a KGB agent during the Cold War, each time without any sources. There have been requests at the Finnish Wikipedia to remove this information, so I did just that. I am Finnish myself and have never heard of Urho Kekkonen working for the KGB. Is there any truth to this? JIP | Talk 04:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- One of the key policies of Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. In other words, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not, what matters is what reliable sources have to say on the matter. If there are reliable sources that say he was, then it can go in the article. If there are also reliable sources that say he wasn't, those can go in the article too. If there are no reliable sources either way, then it can't go in the article. --Viennese Waltz 08:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- The logical flaw which turns up so often is the assumption that "being true doesn't matter". Being true definitely matters. If a normally reliable source contains an untrue statement, then it's not a valid source. The word "verify" means "to make true". And the way to make it true is through valid sourcing - of which personal opinion by itself does not qualify. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:40, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's a good point. A source that makes a demonstrably false claim is ipso facto not a reliable source in regard to that claim, whatever its other merits. A good example is here, where Simon Heffer copied an error by Philip Magnus, and the error was reproduced on Wikipedia by editors who didn't interrogate the sources. DuncanHill (talk) 11:14, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- To reiterate what Bugs and Hill said and to counteract a misconception made explicit in VW's post, the concept "Verifiability, not truth" does NOT mean that truth is irrelevant. Verifiability includes truth as a condition. The statement "verifiability, not truth" means that truth is, of itself, insufficient. Which is to say, something does not merely need to be true, it needs to be verifiable also in order to include it in Wikipedia. If something were not true, it would not be verifiable in the first place; to be verifiable is to be shown to be true. If something turns out to be false, writings that claim that it is true do not verify it, instead those sources are themselves essentially "unverified" by the falseness of the incorrect claims they make. --Jayron32 12:53, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- But how are you supposed to establish truth in a case like this? Simple: you can't. What you can do is present the conflicting claims as evidence, supported by a neutral point of view. It's fine to say "X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent, while Y [reliable source] says that he wasn't." If written this way, the article would demonstrate verifiability, but not truth. --Viennese Waltz 14:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Absolutely, because the statement which is true is "This source says X" and not "X". If the truth value of a subject is undetermined, instead say something you can verify is true: We can verify that the source has that writing so we say that. --Jayron32 16:51, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Then why are you accusing me of a misconception? My second post was merely a reiteration of my first. When I said "it doesn't matter whether it's true or not" in my first post, I was referring to "X", i.e. (in this case) the claim that he was a KGB agent. As I made clear, the truth value attaches to the existence or otherwise of reliable sources on the claim, not to the claim itself. --Viennese Waltz 17:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- There is a truth value on the claim itself. We use reliable sources to establish what that value is. We don't write known falsehoods merely because we find it written down somewhere, for example. Verifiability is more than just "written in a source". It is "true and written in a source". We care about being true, so much so that we need people to prove that what is written is true (i.e. verifiable) when they write it here. --Jayron32 19:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- You seem to be contradicting yourself. First you agree with me that it is acceptable for the article to say "X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent, while Y [reliable source] says that he wasn't." Such a formulation says nothing about the truth value of the claim one way or the other. Then you say that verifiability means "true and written in a source", even though it is clear that it is not possible to decide on the truth or otherwise of the claim. --Viennese Waltz 20:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- If the statement we are writing in Wikipedia is "X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent", and the source does actually say he was a KGB agent, then we know the statement ""X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent" is known to be true, and the citation verifies that. However, if there is not widespread agreement that he was a KGB agent, we could not say "He was a KGB agent" because THAT statement cannot be verified. --Jayron32 18:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, I know. That's what I have been saying all along. --Viennese Waltz 20:26, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
- If the statement we are writing in Wikipedia is "X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent", and the source does actually say he was a KGB agent, then we know the statement ""X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent" is known to be true, and the citation verifies that. However, if there is not widespread agreement that he was a KGB agent, we could not say "He was a KGB agent" because THAT statement cannot be verified. --Jayron32 18:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
- Sometimes sources will reveal the truth clearly, sometimes they won't. A simple example would be the Hall-of-Fame pitcher Chief Bender, whose exact birth year is unknown, so more than one possibility is indicated. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- You seem to be contradicting yourself. First you agree with me that it is acceptable for the article to say "X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent, while Y [reliable source] says that he wasn't." Such a formulation says nothing about the truth value of the claim one way or the other. Then you say that verifiability means "true and written in a source", even though it is clear that it is not possible to decide on the truth or otherwise of the claim. --Viennese Waltz 20:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- There is a truth value on the claim itself. We use reliable sources to establish what that value is. We don't write known falsehoods merely because we find it written down somewhere, for example. Verifiability is more than just "written in a source". It is "true and written in a source". We care about being true, so much so that we need people to prove that what is written is true (i.e. verifiable) when they write it here. --Jayron32 19:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Then why are you accusing me of a misconception? My second post was merely a reiteration of my first. When I said "it doesn't matter whether it's true or not" in my first post, I was referring to "X", i.e. (in this case) the claim that he was a KGB agent. As I made clear, the truth value attaches to the existence or otherwise of reliable sources on the claim, not to the claim itself. --Viennese Waltz 17:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Absolutely, because the statement which is true is "This source says X" and not "X". If the truth value of a subject is undetermined, instead say something you can verify is true: We can verify that the source has that writing so we say that. --Jayron32 16:51, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- But how are you supposed to establish truth in a case like this? Simple: you can't. What you can do is present the conflicting claims as evidence, supported by a neutral point of view. It's fine to say "X [reliable source] says that he was a KGB agent, while Y [reliable source] says that he wasn't." If written this way, the article would demonstrate verifiability, but not truth. --Viennese Waltz 14:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- To reiterate what Bugs and Hill said and to counteract a misconception made explicit in VW's post, the concept "Verifiability, not truth" does NOT mean that truth is irrelevant. Verifiability includes truth as a condition. The statement "verifiability, not truth" means that truth is, of itself, insufficient. Which is to say, something does not merely need to be true, it needs to be verifiable also in order to include it in Wikipedia. If something were not true, it would not be verifiable in the first place; to be verifiable is to be shown to be true. If something turns out to be false, writings that claim that it is true do not verify it, instead those sources are themselves essentially "unverified" by the falseness of the incorrect claims they make. --Jayron32 12:53, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- That's a good point. A source that makes a demonstrably false claim is ipso facto not a reliable source in regard to that claim, whatever its other merits. A good example is here, where Simon Heffer copied an error by Philip Magnus, and the error was reproduced on Wikipedia by editors who didn't interrogate the sources. DuncanHill (talk) 11:14, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- The logical flaw which turns up so often is the assumption that "being true doesn't matter". Being true definitely matters. If a normally reliable source contains an untrue statement, then it's not a valid source. The word "verify" means "to make true". And the way to make it true is through valid sourcing - of which personal opinion by itself does not qualify. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:40, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources (and often more than one). When surprising or controversial information is only supported by a single source, it is best to either attribute the information (in text) or to omit it. Blueboar (talk) 11:39, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Lets find JIP some sources. Here are two in English to start with, and each uses many sources itself: All of the President's Historians: The Debate over Urho Kekkonen is a scholarly article that looks into the question. President Urho Kekkonenof Finland and the KGB is by Kimmo Rentola, a history professor at the University of Helsinki, and says the issue is “unavoidably ambiguous”. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Opposition to the deportation of Jews from Slovakia
editFrom Who All “Collaborated” with Nazism in Europe?:
- With only a single dissenting voice in the Slovak parliament, the great majority of the country’s Jewish population was expelled to German-controlled territory, from which only a comparative handful returned alive.
I wanted to know about that "dissenting voice". The Holocaust in Slovakia says:
- On 15 May, parliament approved Decree 68/1942, which retroactively legalized the deportation of Jews, authorized the removal of their citizenship, and regulated exemptions.[129][143][144] Opposition centered on economic, moral, and legal obstacles, but, as Mach later stated, "every [legislator] who has spoken on this issue has said that we should get rid of Jews".[145]
- Čarnogurský said[citation needed] that he abstained from the vote on Decree 68/1942, which legalized the deportation of Jews from Slovakia.
So, was there a "dissenting voice" in the Slovak parliament? Who was it? Čarnogurský? What was the voice's position? Thanks in advance. --Error (talk) 18:28, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- Error The Slovak State's parliament did not record who voted for a particular bill, so there's no record of who voted for this legislation, only the total number of votes in favor. Therefore there have been controversies in which certain deputies said that they didn't vote for the law (not just Čarnogurský, also Janos Esterhazy), but it's not possible to say from the documentary evidence who did vote for it. I forget where I read this and it's difficult to find sources online, but apparently there's more information in the book Eduard NIŽŇANSKÝ Politika antisemitismu a holokaust na Slovensku v rokoch 1938–1945 Banská Bystrica, Múzeum SNP 2016, 496 s., ISBN 978-80-89514-40-3, as well as the sources cited at János_Esterházy#Deportation_law. Ward says the following: (t · c) buidhe 20:14, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Although it sanctioned the deportations and tightened exemptions, the measure also gave the latter a stronger legal basis. The legislation was a compromise between the radicals’ plan to deport all Jews and the moderates’ desire to move more slowly in the interests of the economy and converts. Some moderates, such as Sivák, also sincerely desired to protect Jews as a whole. In the most irrefutable example of his complicity in the deportations—but a mark, as well, of his commitment to the policy of exemptions—Tiso signed the law. (Ward p. 233)
National Journal
editCould someone with access to the National Journal help me read what's in this link? I need to verify this information:
Nate Morris is married to Jane Mosbacher Morris, founder and CEO of To The Market. They were married on New Years' Eve, 2011. Her father worked for the Overseas Private Investment Corp during the George W. Bush administration and she is granddaughter of former United States Secretary of Commerce, Robert Mosbacher Sr.
Thank you, Sdrqaz (talk) 20:58, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
- If nobody here can help, try Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. Alansplodge (talk) 11:30, 23 July 2021 (UTC)