Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 August 20

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 20

Montreux Convention

This recent story[1] talks about the possibility of NATO members re-flagging their warships to one of the Black Sea States:

   Non-Black Sea NATO members cannot stay in the Black Sea for more than 21 days, according to the Montreux Convention. NATO has three members with Black Sea ports in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as two more aspiring members in Ukraine and Georgia. Bulgarian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Georgian navies have limited capabilities. Handing over to them some of other NATO members’ warships is an option under consideration. The ships could be reflagged to beef up permanent naval capabilities in the theater.

Is this actually allowed in the Montreux Convention? How does the Montreux Convention determine which nation the warship actually belongs to? Does it look at just the flag of the vessel? Or the citizenship of its crew members? Or the actual chain of command the ship is operating under? Mũeller (talk) 03:18, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Montreux is ancient history and its observance is little more than a convenient fiction. It is easier to preserve [sic] the status quo than to renegotiate a fractious matter where the Russians would almost certainly now use it as an excuse for jingoism at home and railing against Western aggressors. Maybe it should have been renegotiated and updated in the early '90s, when it would have been easier, but also not seen as necessary.

Already Montreux is in regular breach. It forbids aircraft carriers, yet the Kuznetsov has regularly transited. Like most such agreements, it's unenforceable and it only holds in place because parties on both sides agree that neither wants to rock the boat that much.

Which NATO members are likely to reflag an ex-US warship? Would they take such a warship outright (then have to train and crew it), would they place a notional commander on board over a US crew, or would they fill it with a mix of local matelot and a few specialist US 'advisers'? I would see Romania as the most likely for this, yet still most unlikely. In the past, Turkey has hosted anything and everything, under a range of covers. The 1950s ELINT and recon hosting is barely known even now, let alone the "minarets" that the US built. Turkey, under Erdogan though, is not a group that even a buffoon like Boris Johnson would deal with[2], (his attitude to Turkey is one of those very times that Biffo has held a sensible viewpoint.) yet as the US has now established such a clear lead in the global buffoon race, anything is possible.

A NATO-friendly Ukraine? That's the sort of action that gives Putin an excuse to invade even more of the country, to "rescue" it. Nor would Ukraine even benefit from NATO - no-one believes that NATO would live up to its core promise, to defend the territory of its members.

On the whole? We're screwed. We're all going to die. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:32, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm... I was curious and looked at the Kuznetsov and Montreux Convention articles - both seem to suggest that the trick of classifying the ship as an "aircraft cruiser" was accepted by Turkey and based on the language of the agreement, however confused that may have been. Though I don't understand why they can't make aircraft carriers modular anyway, not merely to get under the weight limit but to make them harder to knock out of action. Wnt (talk) 05:07, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Russians are like us

From a Western perspective, Russians are more like us that the Venezuelans or the Gulf States people, Russians are more like part of our family. The Russians are dangerous because they feel treated like the black sheep of the family. Has any scholar taken this position? Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:13, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean a scholar who is not Russian? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 04:18, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, mainly a Western scholar, but Russian viewpoints would be interesting, too. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:28, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like Atlanticism. Russians are opposed to this, not because of "the way the West treats them", but because they believe it threatens their sovereignty and power in what they believe should be their own sphere of influence (as explained in the Russian work Foundations of Geopolitics).--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 06:08, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Dugin is a crank who is way better known in the West than he is in Russia. 78.53.241.64 (talk) 07:16, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

The Western obsession with Dugin is a folie a deux in which the left-liberal Trump Derangement syndrome sufferers like to pretend that Russian policy is informed by Dugin because it reinforces their Russophobe stereotypes, and right-wingers like to pretend Russian policy is informed by Dugin because it gives them hope. Seriously, this is a guy who got booted from a provincial agricultural college (so much for being the eminénce grise behind VVP) and who goes on Alex Jones to sell Russia as a last bastion of Christendom to people who, well, watch Alex Jones. 78.53.241.64 (talk) 07:59, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

(EC) Not quite sure what that apparently-POV comment is even supposed to mean, but the OP can read about Dugin -- who has been active since the 1990s, long before Trump became the US President (why that's even relevant, I don't know) -- for him/herself if desired at Aleksandr Dugin and the links found therein. I brought it up merely as an example to show that Eurasianism exists (regardless of whether Dugin's name is well-known, his ideas are) and competes with the Atlanticism assumptions of the OP.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:02, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Count Trubetzkoy, "Europe and Mankind" is a much better exposition of earnest Eurasianism. Dugin is a crank and a LARPer. 78.53.241.64 (talk) 08:07, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, you didn't say Eurasianism merely "existed" in your initial comment, you implied "Foundations..." informed Russian policy and that Dugin spoke for all. 78.53.241.64 (talk) 08:11, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

To be sure, I already know that Gorbachev dreamed of the Common European Home. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:08, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Gorby was a traitor and a Western cargo-cultist. 78.53.241.64 (talk) 09:21, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

I know that many Russians prefer Stalin to Gorbachev. But in the end the majority of Russians have abjured Communist ideology. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:26, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

The problem was widespread cynicism. By 1975 or so, no one who said "Comrade" meant it. The USSR was destroyed by the first generation that didn't know Hunger or War. 78.53.240.30 (talk) 09:30, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Could be true, but there are many Russians who still think that bourgeois freedoms are a plot by the Antichrist. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:33, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

The West is effectively post-Christian, though, so they aren't entirely wrong. And the Russians enjoy "bourgeois freedoms" very much, thanks. 78.53.240.30 (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

esp. the 10% of them or so. 78.53.240.30 (talk) 09:55, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that there are many people willing to be arrested for criticizing corrupt officials. They are often poor people, who suffer most from corruption. So the case for freedom of speech seems straightforward (I know for I lived in a Communist country and I had to be extremely cautious of what I say to others, I felt this as lack of freedom and being forced to partake in official deception). Of course most would agree that there are reasonable limits for the freedom of speech and what is reasonable depends upon the country. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:08, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Common Home, Stalin, Antichrist, free speech, is it non-sequitur day? 78.53.240.30 (talk) 05:22, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

The position above is very general (who are "us"?) and doesn't seem particularly uncommon to me. I mean, Trump didn't declare a travel ban on Russians. I suppose the counter-idea would be something like the Monroe Doctrine, but that is a geriatric idea, and more about the U.S. and spheres of control than being Western or "alike" I think. Wnt (talk) 11:57, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

The OP's opening premise is ridiculous. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:58, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's a bit more nuanced than "like us" versus "ridiculous." From a cultural perspective Russian art, literature and music is part of the Western tradition -- you can hear Tchaikovsky on the radio in Iowa, an American high school class might read a Chekhov short story, and so on. But other aspects are decidedly non-western. See our article on Western world for details and historical perspective. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:10, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

googling "Europe from Atlantic to Ural" will bring you lots of hints Gem fr (talk) 13:40, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Japanese work ethic

This is a very interesting read on Japanese work ethic and how it benefits construction project management - [3]. My question is does this sort of culture exist in other countries or even maybe certain companies or projects outside Japan? 82.132.213.13 (talk) 12:19, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Most project management approaches or work ethics have arisen by a process of natural selection, to be the most appropriate (although sometimes only a local maximum) for their original context. These can be effective in an appropriate context, but also (if applied inflexibly) can become a negative under different conditions.

Japanese approaches assume a stable company structure in a broadly cooperative environment, where gradual ongoing growth is expected. Such companies have often suffered in the cut-throat back-stabbing world of the UK or US, where they assume that all companies have a broad goal of the overall success of a community, without realising that post-Thatcher the British believe "there is no such thing as society" and will happily destroy an industry in order for one company to make a short-term profit at the expense of others.

My experience has mostly been through the British car industry and the arrival of the Japanese makers within it. Just In Time manufacturing became an important approach within this: effectively making a factory's scheduling problems into problems for its suppliers instead. The Japanese cope admirably with this and saw the benefits - but the British had a hard time, as they saw the shift in responsibilities and risk, but didn't care about the overall benefit.

Your cited piece talks about meetings being more efficient with a Japanese team - but I've never seen a Japanese team have a "meeting" as such. The decisions of the meeting had already been decreed in advance, and the team in the room were there to support them, not to decide them. As such, the Japanese model is well-organised and effective when things progress well, but it derails completely if situations change suddenly. Japan has not made the inroads into software development that one might expect from their achievements in production-based manufacturing, and this smiling rigidity is a big part of that. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:53, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

So in other words it works in japan but nowhere else? 82.132.213.13 (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Like most things, it works where it works. But to keep doing it, in an environment where it's not going to work, that's dogma rather than pragmatism. It certainly isn't guaranteed to work, whenever and wherever. This approach developed in 1960s Japan, from roots way back in Japanese culture. Under the 1950s-1960s Japanese situation of "let us all work hard together for a better tomorrow" then it works. But in the 1980s "Greed is good" situation, it's exploited by others. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Maybe Japan doesn't have the "greed is good" culture? 90.194.48.37 (talk) 15:54, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Or, stated more neutrally, they aren't entirely capitalistic. That is, they value tradition and everyone "knowing their place", rather than being a true meritocracy based on competition. This has some definite downsides. Their economy hasn't done all that well in recent decades. For one example of why, they have extensive protections for farmers to prevent foreign competition. Much like US auto companies before foreign competition, this has led to an inefficient agricultural sector in Japan and high food prices. StuRat (talk) 21:27, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

really? Is their food prices are so high, why are their supermarket and restaurant prices so low? Does this mean someone is sacrificing their earnings in the middle? 94.118.17.26 (talk) 12:07, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Supermarket prices are high, relative to Detroit, based on this list: [4]. A gallon of milk is listed in the US$5.18-8.29 range while I just paid $2.29 for a gallon here (Meijer). Eggs are listed as US$1.64-2.74 a dozen, while I just paid 67 cents for a dozen large (ALDI) and as little as 25 cents per dozen last year. Onions are US$0.83-2.48 a pound, while I just paid 49 cents (local store). With restaurant prices you may have a point. Those prices are similar to the prices here. I also wonder how they manage it. Tax rebates ? Government subsidies ? StuRat (talk) 15:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

82.132.213.13 -- The article you linked to seems to be about Japanese engineers in a foreign country. Classic salarymen junior executives at Japanese companies in Japan have as much of an afterwork ethic as a work ethic, since long hours of after-work socializing and drinking are effectively mandatory. AnonMoos (talk) 02:47, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Marghi

What is the correct spelling between Marghi and Margi native to Federal Republic of Nigeria? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hilary Isa 27 (talk • contribs) 15:00, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

It is possible that both are "correct". Blueboar (talk) 15:12, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

See Margi language - "Margi, also known as Marghi and Marghi Central, is a Chadic language spoken in Nigeria." Wymspen (talk) 20:47, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Operation Breakthrough

In Operation Breakthrough why do the inuit wanted to save the whales? Aren't these folks whale hunters? --Hofhof (talk) 15:48, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Even if they are whale hunters, they don't hate whales. If they hunt whales, then whales are a resource. Preserving resources would therefore be in their interests. Bus stop (talk) 16:09, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

There's also such a thing as public relations. If they can be filmed saving a few whales, they can get away with the unfilmed killing of thousands. StuRat (talk) 21:33, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

"Killing of thousands", have you got references for that StuRat or is that a random statement intended to insult. Richard Avery (talk) 21:50, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

[5]. They list over 150 whales killed each year (mostly Minke) between 1995 and 2012, and averaged over 100 whales a year in the 8 prior years, all just in the Greenland zone. That adds up to over 3000, just there. StuRat (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

But the article says those were gray whales not Minke. My reading of Gray whale#Whaling which seems to be supported by B8-tome's source below is that the Inupiaq involved do not hunt gray whales in the modern day. There is some aboriginal hunting of gray whales mostly from the Russian side (with some controversy over the purpose of these hunts) although some Makah too. There was some from Vancouver Island but it's not clear to me there is any modern day hunt from there, in any case they aren't the people involved in the Operation Breakthrough case. Now reading the Operation Breakthrough article, I see no evidence that the Inupiaq involved had any idea this was going to blow up the way it did. They seemed to make efforts themselves and as these failed, word spread of the problem and it eventually blew up in the media. I see no evidence that the people involved would have cared about the lack of media coverage or made any attempt to spread word of this if they had succeeded. I would wager that they would actually have been far happier if they had simply succeeded and none of us were talking about it now because no one had ever heard of it although I admit this last sentence I have about as much actual evidence as you have i.e. zero. Nil Einne (talk) 13:52, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

I didn't claim they had rescued Minke whales and don't see how that's relevant. Rescuing one type of whale to provide PR cover for hunting another type still works. StuRat (talk) 22:08, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

No evidence presented for that. Actually there's no evidence presented that even saving Minke whales provides "PR cover" for hunting Minke whales. You might as well say they are saving sharks to provide PR to hunt kittens, even if both were happening unless you've provided evidence this actually helps it's meaningless. And even if there were evidence, this doesn't mean it's a significant reason why it's being done. And it's unlikely that the people involved killed thousands of whales even if you do include Minke whales. You seem to be making assumptions, again without evidence that the tribes are all cooperating on some global campaign.

Actually there's no evidence that even people who remember the operation even remember the involvement of aboriginal tribes. For all we know people may be much more aware of their involvement in hunting whales much more than they are aware of their involvement in operation Breakthrough and may make the same assumptions you have done that all the people involved are somehow cooperating so whatever one has done can be blamed on all of them.

P.S. To put it a different way, it's possible that the perception that aboriginal hunters are just hunting a small number, what they need for themselves, something they've been doing for hundreds or even thousands of years and genuinely care about all animals compared to the evil Japanese etc who are doing it for commercial purposes when no one even wants the meat and who don't give a flying flip about animal suffering is a factor in acceptance of aboriginal hunts. But even if this is the case, that's still a very far cry from saying that being involved in one well publicised rescue operation which also involved multiple government significantly helps the former perception.

And even if it did, that still doesn't demonstrate that the people involved whether on a conscious or unconscious level considered this PR when deciding to help, even more so since as I said below, we don't know that they had any expectation their involvement would even be known (and as I said above, we don't actually know it's well known). The problem which I've been trying to make clear is these make an assumption anyone doing something perceived as positive does it at least in part for the PR and not simply because that's how they genuinely feel.

Yet we plenty of other examples in real life where people do stuff without considering any positive PR. I'd even wager that you StuRat must be one of the only people on the RD who has evidently never done anything without at least partially considering the positive PR i.e. most of us have real life examples we can draw from where we're fairly sure we weren't considering PR. (At least the only way I can interpret your responses is that you've never done something without PR reasons being a factor since the only other interpretation seems even more offensive. Since AFAICT you're not claiming it could have been a factor although I have no evidence that it was, but instead are claiming it must have been a factor even though your only evidence is both whaling and saving whales happened.)

Nil Einne (talk) 07:35, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

People aren't going to categorize kittens with sharks, since kittens are cute, harmless, warm mammals and sharks are ugly, potentially deadly, cold-blooded fish. Whales are far more likely to be lumped together. As evidence, there's my source, which does list kill numbers for multiple whale types. I challenge you to find a source that list both shark and kitten deaths together on a chart. StuRat (talk) 15:01, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Even Greenpeace supports Aboriginal whaling. (Source) —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:EC30:98E9:F083:2A5E (talk) 22:00, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Yep, and good PR is critical to maintaining that support. StuRat (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Source: [6]

They were "Eskimo whalers, who hunt other species of whales".

Source: [7]

' "Eskimos do not take more than they can use, and they do not like to see animals suffer, he said.

"This is the basis of our culture, the subsistence way of life," he said.

Now, he said, Barrow's Eskimos probably will use the icebreaker channels to go hunting for bowhead whales. :"The village is allowed to take five each season to feed its people." '

B8-tome (talk) 23:14, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, this behavior isn't unique. When a deer falls through the ice here, first responders spend extra time to rescue it, versus just shooting it and dragging it from the water. Then, during hunting season, the same rescuers might very well shoot the same deer, when it no longer serves a PR purpose. StuRat (talk) 23:28, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

When the deer falls through the ice it might also be out of hunting season, besides the fact that other restrictions might apply (pregnant, non-adult, quota). It's not just PR. B8-tome (talk) 23:41, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

I believe they are allowed to shoot deer out of season when there's a need. When the deer can't be rescued, that's exactly what they do. StuRat (talk) 23:44, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Sure and if a cat or dog gets stuck it will be put down if it's too severely injured or if it's found to be impossible to rescue it. It doesn't mean that all the rescuers involved are primarily thinking of the PR. People do weird shit for a lot of reasons, often completely unrelated to PR. Arguably some of these decisions are nonsensical e.g. fusses often consuming certain animals like cats or dogs regardless of how humanely they are raised and slaughter while the same people often turn a blind eye to sow crates and other fairly inhumane practices while gobbling their bacon or steak, but there's often zero evidence people are doing these things because they're thinking of the PR and actually at least some reasons to think they're not thinking of the PR. Instead they're doing the things they're doing because humans are weird emotive animals who often have complicated motivations and thoughs based on their education and background and often don't apply pure logical thinking, or attempt to but aforementioned factors get in the way. P.S. Other than the cat/dog consumption thing, I'm intentionally not commenting on whether any of these actions or thoughts are rational or logical. And even the cat/dog consumption thing is irrelevant. The point is that saying because something isn't rational means it's definitely being done for PR reasons is frankly just dumb. It's the sort of thing that Ohio IP says but most of us know makes no sense. And B8-tome has already provided a source demonstrating that the people involved may have motivations which have nothing to do with PR for their actions, even if they did hunt gray whales which there's no evidence they do anyway (and again whether or not these are rational/logical is beside the point). Nil Einne (talk) 14:10, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Compassion for animals is not unusual. It is the norm. Humans like caring for animals. They enjoy feeding animals. People have warm feelings for animals. Of course not all animals fall into this category. And animals can be fearful, that is, can induce fear in humans. But when an animal is cute and does not pose a threat to a human, I think compassion is the default emotion induced in humans. Bus stop (talk) 14:12, 21 August 2017 (UTC)