Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 January 21

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January 21

Judge cartoon

Can someone help me find this cartoon (Victor. "When We Annex Hawaii." Cartoon, color lithograph. [New York], Judge, c.1893. Hawai'i State Archives. Kahn Collection. Also at Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Drawer Ills. press. Negative no. CP103.873, slide no. XS 31.155. Honolulu, Hawai'i) in the Judge magazines [1]? I look through the 1893 issues but can't find it. It could be in the other years as well from 1893 to 1898 but I can't seem to find just leaving through.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:28, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

How did food surplus create class division?

Since humans subsisted by hunting and gathering during the Paleolithic, there was no surplus food. After the Neolithic Revolution, agricultural surplus was created. According to Neolithic_Revolution#Consequence, surplus food production gave rise to class division: "Food surpluses made possible the development of a social elite who were not otherwise engaged in agriculture, industry or commerce, but dominated their communities by other means and monopolized decision-making."

Lets try to visualize this. There is an island with 100 inhabitants. They lived a hunter and gatherer lifestyle, suddenly they discovered how to grow rice. To cultivate, they needed tools. 25 of them worked all the day to grow rice. 25 of them worked to make the tools. 40 of them decided to protect the surplus food. 10 of them decided to supervise the entire territory and operation. They monopolized decision-making and forced their decision on others.

My questions is: Why would food surplus cause class division? Is it because food surplus resulted in conflict over the surplus and necessitated the creation of an oversight class and a professional worrier class? The oversight class would manage the resources with the help of the worrier class to prevent random conflict over resources? --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 12:13, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

One problem with your example is that, historically, you had agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers (if not fisher-folk as well) living in the same place. Throw that on top of the divisions you suggest, and things get even hairier. Add in the possibility that someone figures out that if the stars are in a particular arrangement (because of their natural shift during the seasons), crops grow better than at other times of the year, and you've got yet another possible class division or means of enforcing class division. Still, sticking to just your example, I have to raise the possibility of farms not being communal. If someone's crops do really well one year, they will be more secure during lean times (putting his neighbors at his mercy) and able to plant more crops next year (increasing their chances of having another good harvest). Ian.thomson (talk) 13:04, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] It may not necessarily cause class division, but it may enable it. Hunter-gatherers with no surplus mostly all have to do the same "work" (caveats follow), so no-one appears more "important" than anyone else (other than through family relationships), but the surplus enables specialisation (your toolmakers, etc.) which can lead to bigger surpluses (which is how "civilization" gets started) and once such differences appear, stratification will likely arise simply from individuals' differing personal levels of ambition.

Caveats: Even hunter-gatherers may have religious specialists resembling shaman, whose unusual position might lead to elevated status leading to "upper-classness", and hunter-gatherer societies are seemingly capable of considerable religiously oriented building feats, such as Göbekli Tepe, whose construction must surely have required some senior organisers.

Hopefully, a qualified sociologist will soon show up to give some better-informed commentary. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.12.94.189 (talk) 13:17, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The short version is that food surpluses create the free time for other folks to do things beside hunt and forage, including creating 'luxury' goods (which, in anthropology, does not refer to sports cars, but any goods which are not purely utilitarian). Food surpluses also allows people to stay in one place (or perhaps it only occurs once people start staying in the same place - it probably varies in different areas). Hunter-gatherers do not have strong centralized leaders in part because the person leading the band at any given time has only his powers of persuasion to enforce them. However, once luxury goods are available, someone can horde those treasures and, because the group is now more permanently settled, this hording is not limited by what you care to lug about with you. In other words, people can accumulate wealth. Matt Deres (talk) 04:51, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, just to continue from that: The accumulation of wealth and particularly the ownership of land, which food surpluses create/enhance, is the mechanism that creates social classes. When everybody has the same level of goods and land and everybody does the same kind of work (as you would see in small-band hunter-gatherers), you get simple egalitarianism (in the sense that wealth doesn't need to be distributed in order to be achieved - nobody owns anything). It's only after things can be owned that people begin to divide into the 'haves' and the 'have nots' (i.e. social stratification). Matt Deres (talk) 14:06, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

It also depends on what you own. It must have been harder to keep the talented tool-maker knapping your flint and flint exclusively for you than to convince young herders they just got the new job - that one famous (as being the job of the future). --Askedonty (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2017 (UTC) And then only later are hunters to learn about taxes.

• See hydraulic empire which strongly describes early Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and perhaps the Indus Civilization. μηδείς (talk) 03:18, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Bibliography book

what was the fist Bibliography book?--2001:B07:6463:31EE:F5B9:ACFC:2A54:A5FC (talk) 14:34, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Your question is hard to answer because the term bibliography is applied to several types of work. One candidate might be Callimachus' Pinakes. Deor (talk) 19:33, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Rory of the Hills

If I understand correctly this folktale Rory from p. 216 is the same as Rory of the Hills. Is he also the same Rory mentioned in the poem "The Irish Rapparees; a Peasant Ballad"? And was he actually Rory O'Moore? Looks like we don't have Rory of the Hills. Brandmeister^talk 21:20, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

This might be properly be included as a fictional character on the page for the name Rory if it links to an existing page, or on Talk:Rory if not. -- Deborahjay (talk) 18:00, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Squares for protesting

Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt and Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Israel are known for having people protesting for particular issue like anti-government and housing problem. What other squares in the world are known for having people protesting? Donmust90 (talk) 23:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 23:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Wenceslas Square, Taksim Square ... A lot of cities (and a lot of capital cities), have one or several squares where a number of public gatherings of that sort have been held. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:23, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Tiananmen Square, sadly. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Trafalgar Square, London; Place de la Concorde, Paris; Palace Square, St. Petersburg; Syntagma Square, Athens; Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Kiev; Azadi Square, Tehran. Sources: [2] [3]. --Antiquary (talk) 09:41, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Let's not forget the National Mall, Washington, DC; also Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. --Xuxl (talk) 15:44, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Also in the UK, Parliament Square in London (although a recent law has made protests harder there) and George Square in Glasgow (epicentre of Scottish independence rallies). Smurrayinchester 17:09, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Does LA or Chicago have one? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:35, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I suspect many of Category:National squares, since they are " the nation's center of ceremonial activity", may also play host to protests. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:33, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Anyone else think this category would be even more useful with an intermediate subcategory and page reassignments: National squares by country? -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:07, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

In South Africa: Greenmarket Square and the Grand Parade in Cape Town; Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg; Lillian Ngoyi Square (also the venue of a notorious mass shooting when it was known as Strijdom Square) and Church Square in Pretoria, have proven to be popular protest venues. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester:, I thought big protests in London are often held at Hyde park, where freedom of speech and demonstration is "guaranteed"? Not strictly in a legal sense, but very strongly by historical tradition, and no doubt any attempt to curb this tradition (such as requiring permits or the like for demonstrations there) would be vocally opposed as an insult to English history. How do parliament Square and Hyde park compare as popularity as protest venues?

Note also that the law you linked to regarding protests in Parliament square was since repealed (or rather, the sections dealing with protests were repealed) and replaced with the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. Our article on the new act and the rules it imposes is just a bare stub, so I don't know exactly how much more freedom one now has to protest there.

EDIT - the relevant laws regarding "prohibited activities" in parliament square are listed at [4]. Interpretation has been controversial, see issues raised at [5].Eliyohub (talk) 13:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Hyde Park, London certainly plays and has played its role in British democracy, particularly with regard to Speakers' Corner, but it is not a "square" in the sense implied by the OP (see Town square). Large gatherings still end up in Hyde Park, but the extent to which an event such as Pride London is a protest is debatable. The Royal Parks page here says "The 1985 Pride March, which started in Hyde Park, was like no other." Carbon Caryatid (talk) 20:24, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

At least you have a town square. New York has to shut down a big intersection just to have enough room for New Years celebrations. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

• I remember hearing that the park in Union Square, Manhattan was built to limit the available space for protests. The park is at the intersection of three major thoroughfares, 14th Street, Broadway, and Fifth Avenue. Unfortunately I cannot find a source. Giuliani erected further blockades there and across the city to hamper jaywalking, they were highly unpopular. μηδείς (talk) 03:15, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

The park at Broadway and Fifth is Madison Square. Union Square's Broadway & Park Avenue South. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I was being a bit sloppy, (I worked just North of the Flatiron Building 20 years ago) but here is what google maps indicates. μηδείς (talk) 22:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)