Talk:Michael Ignatieff
Click below to see prior discussions. |
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| May 27, 2006 |
Archived and Trimmed
The previous talk page was getting really hard to read, due to both length and number of threads. I've removed most of the previous talk page and archived it to Archive 4. If anyone feels that I've snipped too much, please feel free to repost. Otherwise, I'm just going to bask in how blissfully short this page is. (For now, anyway...) 198.20.40.50 20:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Previous order of article
Here's the previous (non-merged controversies and ideas) order of the article. Discussion on how to merge the sections is below. 198.20.40.50 20:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
- Proposed Contents
- 1 Background
- 2 Recognition
- 3 Ideas
- 3.1 On Canadian rights culture
- 3.2 On equality rights
- 3.3 The Lesser Evil Approach
- 4 Political career
- 4.1 Leadership bid
- 4.2 Extension of Canada's Afghanistan mission
- 5 Controversies
- 5.1 Doubts about his national self-identity
- 5.2 Invasion of Iraq
- 5.3 Ballistic missile defense
- 5.4 Torture
- 5.5 Remarks about Ukranian-Canadians
- 6 Bibliography
- 6.1 Fiction
- 6.2 Non-Fiction
- 7 References
- 8 External links
- In fact, this was never *quite* the order, at least, not for more than a couple of hours. In this outline, "Political Career" is before "Controversies", while the opposite is true in the article. Is there any sense that they should be reversed? Joel Bastedo 06:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Combining Controversies and Ideas
Regarding my suggestion made under Invasion of Iraq, I'm thinking in particular of these three subsections:
- 4.2 Invasion of Iraq
- 4.3 Ballistic missile defense
- 4.4 Torture
With slight modifications, Torture could be combined with The lesser evil approach, while Invasion of Iraq and Ballistic missile defense could be combined in a subsection called something like "On foreign policy" or "Empire lite." How about this?
- 3 Ideas
- 3.1 On Canadian rights culture
- 3.2 On equality rights
- 3.3 The lesser evil approach (including 4.4 Torture)
- 3.4 Empire lite (Including a brief (one sentence) introduction of his idea of "empire lite" and a description of the implications of that idea in terms of American foreign policy, including 4.2 Invasion of Iraq and 4.3 Ballistic missile defense)
- 4 Controversies
Introductory paragraph explaining that several of his ideas have incurred criticism from human rights scholars and other observers, particularly those that seem to endorse American expansionism, with citations as appropriate. Then some kind of blurb saying that, with Ignatieff's entry into elected politics in the fall of 2005, new criticisms have been levelled against him from his political opponents, regarding his national self-identity, and his opinions on Ukranian Canadians (and possibly the ethics of his nomination?). Then we'd have the two remaining sections from Controversies to explain:
- 4.1 Doubts about his national self-identity
- 4.2 Remarks about Ukranian-Canadians
How does all that sound? Joel Bastedo 15:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it would read much cleaner. 198.20.41.74 21:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
- That sounds good to me. It seems like you've put a lot of thought and time into it. Sometimes it is easy to forget how much an article can suffer from disorganization. Although I think that it will require some care on the last part to avoid "POV" accusations. --JGGardiner 02:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. -Joshuapaquin 03:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- Appreciate the effort. Is the intended length on controversies going to be roughly the same? As much as reorganization would clean things up, my undue weight issue with the page is still based on the disproportionate size of the controversy treatment as compared to treatments elsewhere and with reference to the standards of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV#Undue_weight --Haligonian Lucullus 18:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
- I imagine it would be considerably shorter for two reasons. First, there is currently some repetition between the ideas and controversies sections. Second, some of what is now in the controversies section (notably the War in Iraq subsection) isn't really controversy (it's just an idea which many people disagree with), so although most of the information will remain, the recategorization will help provide the balance you're looking for. Joel Bastedo 22:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
- I've taken the liberty of starting the merge. At present, the "Nation Building" section needs the most cleanup. "Lesser Evils" could probably use a trim, too. Though I really like using the quote at the start of the section, like the rest of the ideas.
- Great work! It's looking better already! Sorry, I started cleaning up the "Lesser Evils" section before I read what you said about liking the quote first -- feel free to undo my edits. But personally, I don't think that quotes should ever be left to 'speak for themselves' -- this is an encyclopedia, not a book of aphorisms, and I think we need to explain and contextualise, not simply regurgitate. I assumed that all the other sections with just quotes were waiting to be fleshed out or paraphrased. As far as the "Nation Building" section, I don't really know what it is about. Are "Invasion of Iraq" and "Missile Defense" subsections of "Nation Building" as the formatting suggested? (If so, I made a mistake by reformatting the headers, please correct.) But what does missile defense and the invasion of Iraq have to do with nation building? For that matter, what does the "casual aversion syndrome" have to do with nation building, and what does nation building have to do with Ignatieff? I wonder whether the "Nation Building" section can be rewritten or deleted? Joel Bastedo 06:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
- No problems with the changes. I had the quote first simply because that was the format as the previous Ideas. Personally, I'd prefer re-writes as well, but if we were going with straight quotes, I liked the stylistic similarities. As for the subsections / what-do-they-have-to-do-with-each-other questions, I think it's well summarized in the "Nation building" discussion, below. But basically, I was trying to find a way of tying together Ignatieff views on international relations. 198.20.40.50 21:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- OK, after a long break, I've finally gotten around to looking at this article again. Here's what I came up with based on these suggestions. What do you think? My concern is that, now that I've merged them, I'm not sure that BMD is really as related to international intervention as was suggested. I haven't edited this in the article, wanted to get some feedback first. —Joel Bastedo 01:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
International affairs
Ignatieff has written extensively on the subject of international development, peacekeeping, and the international responsibilities of Western nations. Critical of the limited-risk approach practiced by NATO in conflicts like the Kosovo War and the Rwandan Genocide, he has argued for a more active involvement and larger scale deployment of land forces by Western nations in future conflicts in the developing world.
In this vein, Ignatieff was a prominent supporter of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, a position that was controversial among Liberals.[1] He argued that America had inadvertently established "an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known." The burden of that empire obliged America to expend itself unseating Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in the interests of international security and human rights. Containment through sanctions and threats would not prevent Hussein from selling weapons of mass destruction to international terrorists, Ignatieff asserted, erroneously believing those weapons were still being developed in Iraq.[2] Moreover, according to Ignatieff, "what Saddam Hussein had done to the Kurds and the Shia" in Iraq was sufficient justification for the invasion.[3] [4]
In the years following the invasion, Ignatieff has reiterated his support for the war's aims, if not the method in which it was conducted. "I supported an administration whose intentions I didn't trust," he averred, "believing that the consequences would repay the gamble. Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences."[1]
Also controversial for many Liberals is Ignatieff's support for a ground-based North American Missile Defence Shield.[5] While admitting that opposition to the proposed shield is a popular position among many Liberals, Ignatieff has proclaimed the need for a principled commitment to coordinated North American defence. "We don't want our decisions to fracture the command system of North American defence," he told the party at a national policy conference.[6]
Citations
I've cleaned up a few of the references, but the article could use the help of a dedicated wikipedian or two to get some consistency in the format and style of the links. Any brave souls want to volunteer? 198.20.40.50 19:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Undue Weight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV#Undue_weight is the policy on undue weight; I think it's valuable reading given that this is still in large measure the "Ignatieff Controversy Article" given the title Michael Ignatieff. The policy seems fairly clear; random IPs and the Etobicoke Lakeshore NDP riding association are not prominent adherents. I'm not sure if there's a specific tag for 'undue weight,' but I can't find it if there is. --Haligonian Lucullus 15:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
List of articles by Ignatieff
Originally, I was planning to flush out the "List of articles by Ignatieff" but have discovered that he's a more prolific writer than I originally thought. Thus, there are lots of articles by him - maybe too many to list under this entry. So, here's the question: Which ones should we link to and/or list? I'm tempted to say "Important Ones", but that's a can of worms I'm not certain I want to open. So should we list all of them? Only ones that are on-line? Only the controversial ones (and risk undue weight)? I've included a version that goes back to 2002 - suggestions on where to take this would be much appreciated. Ideally, I'd also like to find a solution that doesn't involve triplicate "References/External Links/Biography" links. 198.20.40.50 18:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Nation building
This subsection was under the section Ideas. It didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the subsections, and the title doesn't seem to have much to do with the content. Perhaps someone can work on it to make it fit, if it's necessary?
- Nation building
- As a human rights scholar, Ignatieff has written extensively on the subject of international development and peacekeeping. Citing Kosovo and Rwanda, he has argued for a more active involvement by Western nations. More specifically, he has been critical of the "casual-aversion syndrome" practiced by NATO; that air strikes are used more often than land deployment because they present a limited risk, rather than an effective means of peacekeeping.
Joel Bastedo 18:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe this is crazy, but what if we combined this with BMD and Iraq to form a single section on "International affairs"? -Joshuapaquin 00:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- It's not crazy at all. I think, though, that his position on Iraq has been high profile enough to merit its own subsection, whether as part of an Ideas or an International Affairs section. Joel Bastedo 05:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, that's true. I mean, in a way, all of Ignatieff's writings are tied into IR - at first glance, it seems that what separates BMD/Iraq/Nation building from the other Ideas sections are that these are normative issues, whereas the rest (e.g. "Canada has a distinctive human rights culture) are positive matters. The "Lesser Evil" is sort of a grey area in that it has both philosophical bases and immediate policy implications.
- I'm kind of inspired by this section] of Ignatieff's profile at contemporarywriters.com. They break down his major writings and give a summary of each. Their article isn't organized by the abstract interpretation of a reader; it's organized by the actual printed volume. Not a bad idea for talking about his literary work.
- One more thing - I decided to check out an article on another academic who has become reknowned for political involvement - Noam Chomsky. Let's just say that the results there are definitely less than ideal. -Joshuapaquin 15:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- When I merged the sections, I was envisioning something along those lines - the "As a human right scholar..." bit was originally under "International Development" or something to that effect. "Nation building" isn't the best title for it, but I was trying to find some way of including it under the same category as the Iraq war and the ballistic missile defense. They fit the same theme, at least within Ignatieff's writings. But I like the contemporary writers / Noam Chomsky style. So I'm game for a re-organization / re-titling. 198.20.40.50 21:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- Ah, ok, I see where you were going. So the content under "Nation building" was intended as an introduction to the subsections dealing with International affairs? For balance, then, I suppose we should have a similar introductory paragraph for the ideas dealing with Rights? Mind you, this article is already too long, so maybe there's a better way. Joel Bastedo 02:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
- When I merged the sections, I was envisioning something along those lines - the "As a human right scholar..." bit was originally under "International Development" or something to that effect. "Nation building" isn't the best title for it, but I was trying to find some way of including it under the same category as the Iraq war and the ballistic missile defense. They fit the same theme, at least within Ignatieff's writings. But I like the contemporary writers / Noam Chomsky style. So I'm game for a re-organization / re-titling. 198.20.40.50 21:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- It's not crazy at all. I think, though, that his position on Iraq has been high profile enough to merit its own subsection, whether as part of an Ideas or an International Affairs section. Joel Bastedo 05:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe this is crazy, but what if we combined this with BMD and Iraq to form a single section on "International affairs"? -Joshuapaquin 00:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Pro-Iggy influence on this article is obvious and laughable
Please know you're not fooling anyone. 70.48.204.147 00:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Some editors feel Iggy's views are bizarre to say the least
And whether you agree or not, the references which might cause some people to believe that can't be just swept under the carpet because the "constant editors" here seem to want to put Iggy's views in the best possible light by rationalizations and psuedointellectual dismissal. 70.48.204.147 00:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Iggy's first wife's comments
Susan Barrowclough, Iggy's first wife, and mother of his children, likely knows him better than most other sources quoted in the article. Her statements are not slanderous in any way and since her phone number is also included in one of the sources; any efforts to continue to revert her comments should be seen as pov pushing. 70.48.205.4 02:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. If her comments are true then we should leave this in the article. FellowWikipedian 02:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
References to Ignatieff's first marriage to Susan Barrowclough need expanding
13 lines in John Kerry's article is devoted to his first wife and their children. Last autumn there were about a dozen google and yahoo references to Iggy's 15 year marriage to Susan Barrowclough, who is an actress and writer in her own right. Now there is only 1 reference I could find for their marriage. Here are some more links related to Iggy's first wife and her accomplishments which may be useful for the needed inclusion and expansion of this 15 year segment of the candidate's personal history.[1][2][3][4] 70.48.205.4 02:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Also look here. FellowWikipedian 02:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Definitely this article can include more about his first marriage and children, but I'm really really wary of using Wikinews as a source (the article is "Under development", and it seems sketchy to me to publish Ms. Barrowclough's telephone number on the internet). In fact, the guy who claims to have spoken to her doesn't even have a user account there. Also, the links provided here don't really say anything except that she exists and has had a career. To quote "the policy in a nutshell" for Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons:
- Be very firm about high-quality references, particularly about details of personal lives..
- -Joshuapaquin 02:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Wikinews articles get published either the day its made or the day after. FellowWikipedian 02:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- That doesn't ease my concerns about the content, I'm afraid. -Joshuapaquin 03:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Joshuapaquin must have mistakenly removed this topic heading as it addresses the need for article expansion covering the subject's first marriage and children, which Joshuapaquin agrees needs to be included.Here are some links to more info regarding Ms. Barrowclough [5] and I suggest we include a section in the article itself with a section title like the one referenced above "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry#Family first wife". 65.95.151.241 12:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Er, yes, the fact that anyone can "verify the contents of that interview" is exactly what I'm afraid of. Did Ms. Barrowclough give permission for any internet user to just call her up and chat about her marriage? Look, the policy of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons is big on protecting privacy and making sure that anything negative - for example, an insinuation that the article subject abandoned his family and now avoids them - must be very well-sourced. This isn't. If we can't get anything better for this section, I'm going to call in some admin help to ensure adherence to policy. -Joshuapaquin 12:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Joshuapaquin, you seem to be on this article 24/7. Please allow some other editors a few moments to correct their edits. Perhaps you could help with this aspect by working on the expansion of the article into including more information on the first family which you yourself say is needed? 65.95.151.241 13:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Er, yes, the fact that anyone can "verify the contents of that interview" is exactly what I'm afraid of. Did Ms. Barrowclough give permission for any internet user to just call her up and chat about her marriage? Look, the policy of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons is big on protecting privacy and making sure that anything negative - for example, an insinuation that the article subject abandoned his family and now avoids them - must be very well-sourced. This isn't. If we can't get anything better for this section, I'm going to call in some admin help to ensure adherence to policy. -Joshuapaquin 12:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Joshuapaquin must have mistakenly removed this topic heading as it addresses the need for article expansion covering the subject's first marriage and children, which Joshuapaquin agrees needs to be included.Here are some links to more info regarding Ms. Barrowclough [5] and I suggest we include a section in the article itself with a section title like the one referenced above "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry#Family first wife". 65.95.151.241 12:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- That doesn't ease my concerns about the content, I'm afraid. -Joshuapaquin 03:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Wikinews articles get published either the day its made or the day after. FellowWikipedian 02:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- Definitely this article can include more about his first marriage and children, but I'm really really wary of using Wikinews as a source (the article is "Under development", and it seems sketchy to me to publish Ms. Barrowclough's telephone number on the internet). In fact, the guy who claims to have spoken to her doesn't even have a user account there. Also, the links provided here don't really say anything except that she exists and has had a career. To quote "the policy in a nutshell" for Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons:
If Susan Barrowclough is notable in her own right, then she deserves her own wiki article, rather than a paragraph in ex-husband's, no? I know nothing about her, so I just cut the info from this article and put it as a stub in her own. Please expand it if anyone has more to add. I certainly do not feel obliged by the John Kerry article to go on at length about Ignatieff and Barrowclough's private familial difficulties -- Americans are notoriously fascinated with the dirty laundry of their public figures; that does not mean that Canadians -- or Wikipedia -- ought to follow suit. Joel Bastedo 19:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- No. And Bastedo has no consensus for his censorship in this regard. Even Joshuapaquin says above "Definitely this article can include more about his first marriage and children" so Bastedo's deletion edit is disruptive and without any support whatsoever. 67.71.121.206 23:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- And please,Bastedo, do not try to engineer confrontation between americans and canadians here; your anti-american comments are unwelcome, inappropriate, and, at the least, deflective of the matter at hand. You should apologize for those comments,imo.67.71.121.206 23:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't mean to sound anti-anybody. First, let me rephrase: I don't think we ought to model the content of this article on that of an American presidential candidate. Ignatieff is a scholar, a Member of the Parliament of Canada, and a contestant for the leadership of the Liberal Party. It would be better to model the content of this article on the articles of other comparable figures from those fields. As has been discussed here previously (now in archives), none of the other leadership contestants' articles go into detail about private lives. Where relevent, the names of spouses and children are usually (but not always) provided. I think that's all we need.
- Second, if a brief biography of Michael Ignatieff really requires more information about his personal life than that provided for comparable Canadian public figures, so be it. However, I challenge anyone to justify including a list of universities that use articles written by a public figure's estranged wife in a biography of said public figure! Besides being completely irrelevent, this can only be the product of original research. My edits in this regard having nothing to do with NPOV, but with trying to maintain relevance. —Joel Bastedo 01:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
- And please,Bastedo, do not try to engineer confrontation between americans and canadians here; your anti-american comments are unwelcome, inappropriate, and, at the least, deflective of the matter at hand. You should apologize for those comments,imo.67.71.121.206 23:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Joel Bastedo might work for Ignatieff's campaign?
This constant editor (on this article) began editing November,2005 (the same month Iggy was nominated to run for MP) and has been consistently editing the article with pro-Ignatieffpov ever since and with no respect for consensus at all. Just today in Canada's major newspaper was an article concerning how some of the Liberal campaigns are trying to influence wikis and this contributer seems to be trying to do that right here in a most blatant way. In fact, Joel shows no other interest at all in politics in his contributions, which only began when Iggy was nominated to run for parliament.67.71.121.206 23:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC))
- Gee, ya think this might be a little more credible if you weren't an anonymous editor? Well, actually, it wouldn't be, but at the very least it would reduce the irony level. -Joshuapaquin 01:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
- If user 67.71.121.206 had read the discussions associated with those edits, he or she would know that I am, in fact, Ignatieff's mom.
- Seriously though, as I have said previously, I have no connection to Ignatieff or his campaign, and if I were a member of the Liberal Party, which I am not, I do not think I would support Ignatieff's campaign. I have simply been trying to give the article an encyclopaedic, neutral view point, and through extensive collaboration with other editors, I think it has come a long way. —Joel Bastedo 01:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
- PS — If Igantieff has been paying me to bolster his Wiki Image since November, I've been going about it in a curious and I think rather inefficient way. Before June 17, my edits were limited to articles on the War of 1812, the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act, and similar articles about North American colonial history. Ah, but maybe I was inserting pro-Iggy POV into the Battle of Beaver Dams? Who knows to what lengths these wiley politicians will go to boost their image! If someone doesn't put a stop to my POV edits soon, Wikipedia will be recording Michael Ignatieff leading a contigent of happy Ukranian-Canadians onto the Plains of Abraham. (And that's common knowledge, no citation required!) —Joel Bastedo 02:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
- ^ a b http://www.novak.com/weblog/stories/2004/03/17/michaelIgnatieffOnIraq.html
- ^ http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/burden.htm
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060330.wignatiefftext0330/BNStory/Front/?&pageRequested=all&print=true
- ^ http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20060407.shtml
- ^ http://www.peacemagazine.org/archive/v16n4p26.htm
- ^ http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/Features/opeds/030405_ignatieff.htm