Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. If anyone wants to smerge this, I'll be happy to userfy. - crz crztalk 22:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity[edit]

original research, essay topic -999 (Talk) 21:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per my nom. -999 (Talk) 21:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. What has happened with the Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf articles is that individuals from outside Wikipedia have brought a very vicious and personal fight into Wikipedia. These articles are the battlefield. A mediation request has been accepted, but no progress has been made. No Wikipedian has been able to de-escalate or to talk any sense to either party. The two groups are very well dug into their respective positions, and I am utterly skeptical that there will be any solution short of arbitration. Someone needs to take control of the situation, because the edit and ideological war does tend to spread to other articles and certainly does not do Wikipedia any good. Determining the status of this article without dealing with the conflict is pointless. — goethean ॐ 22:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. See also what was done in response to WP:BLP complaints about Views and controversies concerning Juan Cole at [1]. That page was on a living person and was explicitly created as a POV fork to try to avoid WP:BLP, but the cases are nevertheless similar: long tracts of quotes and original-research-narratives by Wikipedia editors with references almost exclusively to primary sources written by the person. The deviation away from the centrally notable, encyclopedic subject, the person, and the lack of secondary sources on the minute particulars that fill the article, inevitably leads to never-ending POV disputes. Wikipedia:Attribution and Wikipedia:Notability (under section "Notability as a reason for merging") are informative here. —Centrx→talk • 23:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that the text at Rudolf_Steiner#Rudolf_Steiner.27s_views_on_race_and_ethnicity is sufficient coverage of the matter. Accordingly, I suggest that the article under consideration be deleted. We can provide links to the extended debate in the footnotes and external links, although we should not link to waldorfanswers.org or waldorfcritics.org or similar sites. — goethean ॐ 23:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - POV OR. —Hanuman Das 01:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. What happened to the idea to merge it into the main article, rather than delete it entirely? The gist of the debate is this: The "Views on race and ethnicity" article is, in fact, essentially a POV fork, but it was created because agreement couldn't be reached in the main article on Steiner as to how to appropriately represent his very controversial racial views. Steiner's devotees want minimal if any mention of his racial views on wikipedia because it is very, very bad press for them. They know that even scanty quotes on Steiner on the topic of race strike outsiders immediately as appalling. They will not consent, in the main article, to even cursory coverage of this controversial aspect of Steiner unless it is to whitewash the overall offensive nature of his views. They raise inane, unscholarly arguments about how many quotes there are that are racist, noting he wrote so-many thousand lectures and in only, say, 10 of these lectures did he describe blacks as having overdeveloped sexuality and boiling blood etc. or describe the white race as the "spiritually creative race" or the "race of the future." Critics of Steiner cannot consent to this aspect of Steiner being hidden or buried in the main article; it is central to his worldview. This ultimately led to creation of the sub-article; this also pleases Steiner followers to some extent because probably fewer people will read the subarticle. Full and honest coverage of Steiner's racial views does belong in the main article; the sub-article should not be deleted, however, until that issue is resolved.DianaW 01:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- That needs to be done through reliable secondary sources, and Wikipedia articles are not the place for an agenda of "revealing the truth" about someone. —Centrx→talk • 17:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I understand that. These sources have been cited. (Yes - secondary sources, published in scholarly journals, by academic authors.) They are routinely deleted by the Steiner devotees; that's what the continual edit-wars are about. My comments pertain to keeping the material in the main article where it belongs. Anyway, I'm not sure what's wrong or questionable about "revealing the truth" about someone's racial views by quoting those views directly.DianaW 17:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 14:35, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article was created because the main article Rudolf Steiner was becoming swamped by enormous tracts of quotations from both secondary and primary sources on this topic - the same kinds of material that appear in this article. Though the article clearly does not conform to Wikipedia standards, if deleted, there is a clear and present danger (see above comment) that this swamping will recur. Thus, its only value is to prevent the main article from looking like this one! Hgilbert 00:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, this is a common issue that might need some solution. It is convenient to let the edit warring and epic POV disputes be on a separate page that no one will read anyway, to save the main article. —Centrx→talk • 19:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment and suggestion The issue of race, as it was understood at Steiner's time is a peripheral issue in his published works. About five of the appr. 3.000 published lectures by Steiner have the issue of race, as it was understood at the time, as their main theme. In total, the Dutch commission that in 1996 started to find, document and comment on all comments by Steiner on the issue of race, as it was understood at his time, found and document appr. 245 such comments in its final report from 2000. They probably constitute about 0.5-1% of his total published works, including the context for them. Of these, in the view of the Commission, 16 would probably constitute a violation of Dutch legislation on discrimination if expressed by someone in the Netherlands today on his or her own responsibility. Five of the 16 comments were made in 1923 during one ad hoc morning lecture to construction workers in answer to a question by one of the workers. The remaining 11 are spread out in the appr. 90,000 pages of the published works. For more on this, see here.

In anti-Waldorf propaganda they constitute the main focus of the "criticism", and is the primary reason for their appearance in the article, budded off from the Steiner article.

The allegation that they play any significant role in Waldorf education is contradicted by empirical research on Waldorf pupils in Sweden, comparing several hundred Waldorf students there (grade 9 and 12) to corresponding students in Swedish public schools. Among other things the research showed that the majority of the pupils in both types of school repudiated Nazism and racism. However, the proportion of pupils who suggested anti-Nazi and anti-racist solutions, i.e., solutions that involved counteracting or stopping Nazism and racism was considerably greater among the Waldorf pupils (93%) than among pupils at municipal schools (72%). It indicates that similar research in other countries would come to similar results, and that the heavy focus on the allegations of racism in anthroposophy and Waldorf education primarily is an expression of anti-Waldorf propaganda, not reality.

One possible consequence of this would be to delete the separate article on "Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity" and reflect the description and discussion dedicated to the issue in the main article on Steiner to the actual importance it plays in his his works, in quantitative terms being on the order of 1%, as reasonable. Thebee 12:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Above, we see the problem here. One or two authors don't understand what racism is and why it is important to identify racist philosophy especially when it is the foundation philosophy for a SCHOOL. Steiner invented Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy elevates one race above another. Anthroposophy is taught to Waldorf teachers directly (including the racist material). Waldorf teachers teach Anthroposophy to the students indirectly (including the racist material). The two authors will never admit this - it's literally against their religion - and furthermore, they don't believe the material to be racist. The edit wars here are often focused on disputing the reliability of sources that identify Steiner's racism and hiding the Anthroposophical affiliations of sources that refute it. One author, in particular, believes his own original research website to be a legitimate supplement of Wikipedia.

The problem we have with second-sourcing the material is that second sources aren't acceptable to either side. The "Dutch Commission" that TheBee talks about was not an unbiased commission, it was a commission exclusively made up of Anthroposophists (a fact in the article, the inclusion of which was hard-fought). Nobody who wasn't an Anthroposophist was on the commission. So we have Anthroposophists excusing their guru, Steiner, of racism. Big surprize!. Learned professors confirm Steiner's racism, and those, according to the Steiner revisionists, require labels like "Skeptic", or the inclusion of more articles by more Anthroposophists that obfuscate the information presented. The intent seems to be to bore people into not reading the article. That's why Steiner's own words have been provided here - because they are indisputable.

The information contained in this article is absolutely relevant to who Steiner was. Steiner was a philosopher. Racism found its way into his philosophy. He was a political activist who promoted assimilation of the Jews and took a political stance on the housing of black troops in France after WWI. He wrote articles published in activist magazines. He promoted social reform - even proposed a plan to the League of Nations - while holding and promoting racist views. That's at least as important as a good portion of the material that is currently on the main article (meeting with an herb gatherer) - most of which is branched off in other Wikipedia articles such as eurythmy, Waldorf, bio-dynamics, Anthroposophy and almost two dozen other articles.

Wikipedia has become a place for Anthroposophists to advertise Steiner and his mediocre accomplishments. If the race and ethnicity article is deleted, at least a dozen more need to be deleted as well. Clearly, the material contained in this article needs to be merged into the main Steiner article before deletion is considered. It represents who Steiner was in his time, and the bulk of the controvesy surrounding him today (as demonstrated by the various reports and studies cited by TheBee). The controversy about Steiner's racism rages on because of Steiner's influence in Waldorf. It is essential that this part of Steiner's biography not be buried simply because Wikipedia does not have room for controversy. Pete K 16:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.