QuestPC

RE:NPOV

I'm posting here so as not to clutter the WT:NPOV page with unproductive discussion.

NPOV is an ideal, not an achievable reality. However, setting your sights high and trying to become the impossible is the path to becoming the best that can be achieved, so I fail to see how this is a problem. If you prefer the Multiple/Sympathetic POV, try the Wikiinfo project. --tjstrf talk 04:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, that it looks NPOV only from the point of majority of internet users: middle class and elite of western society. Even in such rich country as USA, Internet is not so widespread among poor 30% of population, Also, only strict sciences (like math, physics, chemistrty) can be NPOV. I can't see how politicis, economics, phylosophy can be NPOV at all - they are too much tied to the culture of society, and it's strange to discuss which culture is better. Let's say mongols. By western (and even by russian) merits they are very primitive society, even today. But, only God knows, who will survive third world war, the west with their machinery, or mongols, who are living simple lives with their horses and nature. I hope you can think about this. Buddism is another way of percieving experiense. Some writers say that even Christianity was never real idea of Western world. QuestPC 04:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If you just want to argue systemic bias, you're stopping far too shallowly: The encyclopedia and intellectualism themselves are western ideas, and let's not forget that we're transmitting ideas through writing, and trying to be logical and objective rather than emotive, and a billion other things that are absolutely necessary for our existence but result in the carrying of an implicit bias. But as I said, ideal, not reality. Only omniscience could ever give you a truly neutral perspective, and if we had a God's-eye-view we wouldn't need to worry about NPOV at all because we could simply write The Truth instead.

In the end though, all of this discussion is meaningless, because there is no way to write an encyclopedia without either having an NPOV policy, or allowing POV articles outright. And I'll assume you agree that trying to be neutral is better than not trying. --tjstrf talk 04:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather say it's Ancient Greek ideas. I don't know whether you've heard about Lev Shestov and his brilliant work "Athens and Jerusalem". quote:Despite his weakening condition Shestov continued to write at a quick pace, and finally completed his magnum opus, Athens and Jerusalem. This work examines the necessity that reason be rejected in the discipline of philosophy. Furthermore, it adumbrates the means by which the scientific method has made philosophy and science irreconcilable, since science concerns itself with empirical observation, whereas (so Shestov argues) philosophy must be concerned with freedom, God and immortality, issues that cannot be solved by science. Spengler properly says that westerners during Renaissanse had too much pressure from Ancient world culture as being superiour to their own. But actually Ancient World and it's culture is far far away from being ideal. Spengler is amazing to realize that. Because Shestov is a Russian Jew, and Fromm is German Jew, they also don't have such "western complex of Ancient World superioriry". Some kind of knowledge is impossible to find by logical analysis. It can be found only via revelation. Revelation, that's the key, which the western culture is missing. As I said before, NPOV can be appiet to strict sciences, while politics, phylosophy, culture should be MPOV. QuestPC 05:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)