Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 September 20

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September 20

Marx's ecclesiastic friend?

Did he have one? A book says he had one by the name of Thomas Munser who was German and who organised peasants in very large numbers. Reactionaries plotted and killed him and Marx broke into tears hearing the news of his death. My guess is that the guy who wrote the book (who is a priest) mistook Thomas Müntzer for a friend of Marx and used his imagination copiously. Or, am I wrong in my guess and there really was a priest friend? The book in question is the autobiography of Father Vadakkan and is in Malayalam --117.204.89.132 (talk) 04:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's a specific answer to your question (I don't think anyone ever kept a list of Marx's personal friends), but Marx himself was nowhere near as anti-religious as later Marxists, and there was a fairly significant Marxist movement among certain Catholic orders at one point (particularly in Germany and Latin America). It's not at all impossible for Marx to have had a religious friend who was butchered by reactionaries, since a lot of people that Marx liked ended up being butchered by reactionaries. --Ludwigs2 05:01, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems very unlikely that anybody would have been organizing large numbers of peasants in Germany during Marx's era. Given that the communists wrote extensively about Thomas Müntzer, it seems pretty clear that he's the person in question. Looie496 (talk) 05:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

However, it seems unlikely that Marx would shed tears (except possibly metaphorically) over the death of someone 400 years or so before him. And I wasn't talking about revolutionary organizing; Marxist catholics were much more into the 'brotherhood of man' aspect of marxism, and developed small enclaves and organizations dedicated to communist-style social organization. all very non-threatening, though it didn't stop a few of them from getting axed. --Ludwigs2 06:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Could it be that Marx was told the story as a child, and when he came to the part where Müntzer died he started crying? That is the only explanation I can think of. If the author claims that Marx and Müntzer were friends, I would seriously question the veracity of the author and any other fact contained in his book. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

(OP here). The author's knowledge is certainly questionable. However, if one wants to say that he is plain stupid on this they have to confirm that there existed no friend of Marx by this name. Marx and Engels had repeatedly referred to this 16th century priest in their works. Marx's friends and relations are well-documented. So, if there had been a friend by this name he would have been mentioned in Marx's biographies and reminiscences about Marx. If there was such a friend who is not mentioned in such works, our erring author who lived in the 20th century also wouldn't have known such a person. So, I guess one can say with near certainty that the author mistook the 16th century rebel priest for a friend of Marx. --117.204.83.197 (talk) 23:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

While that may be an explanation as to how the mistake came about, it does still not exempt the author of the charge of sloppy research. It would not have been difficult for him to discover his error, any decent printed encyclopedia would have had an entry on Müntzer. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Plainclothes nuns

Are there any Catholic nuns who don't wear some sort of habit? What about monks? LANTZY^TALK 04:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Garments for monks and nuns are determined by their particular order, and vary. Most orders have "formal" garb for religious purposes, some have obligatory garb that ought to be worn at all times, others allow the sisters and brothers to dress as they like outside of official events or jobs. Generally speaking, anyone who joins a monastic order is likely to want to display the fact when doing anything related to the order's purpose, so you are more likely to see habits and robes when you encounter one in a religious setting than if you encountered one on the street. Priests tend always to wear the collar in public, nuns from conservative orders usually wear some abbreviated version of the habit in public, otherwise all bets are off. --Ludwigs2 04:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Once again, a note on regional variations. Here in Texas and across the Deep South, I haven't seen anyone of any denomination wearing a clerical collar outside of church services, or an identifiable habit, for at least the last 30 years. All that is as gone with the wind as fedoras and beehive hairdos down here, as far as I can tell. Had one college professor, a nun, in the mid-1970s who wore conservative pink and yellow pantsuits with a cross necklace; can't remember anything visible like that since then, although I'm sure there are nuns in Texas. Somewhere. Textorus (talk) 08:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

All I know is that this is a broad and complicated question, whose answer differs between the different orders. Vatican II (the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960's under Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI) encouraged or permitted many monks and nuns (including enclosed ones) to engage more closely with outside society; this included adopting dress that separated them less from the lay world and that hindered them less in performing their works of mercy. —— Shakescene (talk) 11:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of OR (though this isn't an article): a relative has in the past been employed by the professional associations for leaders of Catholic religious orders in the U.S. I agree in general with Ludwigs2's remarks, though the part about "priests tend always to wear the collar in public" is perhaps too sweeping.

Non-Catholics may not be aware of the distinction between secular priests (those "belonging" to a diocese, the typical parish priest) and religious priests (members of an order such as the Jesuits, the Marists, the Dominicans). Some male orders have both priests and brothers (e.g., the Franciscans), others only one or the other role.

Just as some religious (male or female) feel more comfortable or more professional in a distinct form of dress, whether a traditional, pre-Vatican II habit or a modified, more recent version, others find that distinction places too much of a barrier between them and the communities they serve. The dowdy blue-skirt-and-jacket, mini-veil look for sisters, for example, can be hard to find even at a motherhouse -- except on TV or in the movies. --- OtherDave (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Chinese Christians

I wish to know more about how Chinese Christians practise and integrate their two cultures. --59.189.217.187 (talk) 08:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on Christianity in China, if that's any help. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You might also be interested in OMF International, which started life 150 years ago as the China Inland Mission. They have a lot of experience in integrating the two cultures. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, Lottie Moon is a pretty central figure. --Jayron32 00:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

What's the smallest element copyrightable/trademarkable?

A single letter? One note? 76.27.175.80 (talk) 14:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

First, copyright and trademark are totally different. You can trademark a single note. You can trademark a single letter. You can trademark a color. You can trademark totally common words. (Apple, for example.) Etcetera. Trademark just means, "I am using this logo/name/noise/brand in a specific commercial context." It doesn't require any creativity at all. It just requires you to associate it with commercial activity and be the only one doing it. So if your company's commercials always have a clarinet playing C-flat at the end, you can trademark that, no problem — but it only matters in situations where a rival company selling a similar product might be using the same note (you don't get to ban orchestras from playing the note, for example). If your company is named "X", that's fine, as long as no one else has the active trademark in your domain. If you stop using the trademark, you lose it. You can search the US Patent and Trademark Office trademark database and find all sorts of one-letter trademarks. The company Orange in the UK has trademarked the color orange for the purposes of telecommunications advertising, for example. That doesn't mean no one else in the world can ever use the color orange, it just means that if you are running a telecommunications company, your logo cannot be made to be confusing with their logo.

As for copyright, in US copyright law, you need to be able to make an argument that there is artistic creativity in the work in question. That's going to be hard to do with something that is extremely short, if you are copyrighting the text itself and not the presentation. There's no hard-and-fast "lower-end" but a haiku could probably be copyrightable, and that's a pretty minimal length, although as you can see that it is still long enough to allow a near-infinite amount of variation. We discussed this a few months ago, too. Of note is the USPTO's guideline that says that you cannot copyright "Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents."[1] --Mr.98 (talk) 14:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your intelligent answer, Mr98. As a side note to what you were saying above, it seems like Vonage would clash with Orange as Vonage is a telecom company and they use a lot of orange in their commercials and packaging. 76.27.175.80 (talk) 14:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I would not be surprised if the two companies had worked out some kind of agreement on this matter. These kinds of things are rarely left for chance amongst big corporations, because the stakes are very high. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

My only disagreement with anything Mr.98 said above is his last statement, because human error and the Peter Principle rule, even at large corporations. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It is not correct that there is any requirement for artistic creativity. In the US, with a few exceptions, all works are copyrighted automatically, without the author having to do anything. Copyright is violated when somebody copies the specific expression of a copyrighted work. If something similar is produced independently, there is no copyright violation. These rules don't apply to trademarks. Trademarks have to be assigned in order to be valid, and even an accidental duplication constitutes infringement. Looie496 (talk) 21:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

In the U.S., however, there is prescedent for unintentional copyright violations. Even if you coincidentally violate copyright (i.e. your infinite Monkeys come up with the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.), you can still be liable for doing so. See My Sweet Lord and Cryptomnesia. --Jayron32 00:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Your cited sources support the claim that unintentional copyright violations that relied on a copyrighted work still have liability, even when these were subconcious. They don't support your claim if you just coincidentally violate copyright, such as if your infinite monkeys come up with the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., you will be liable.

Of course, in most situations, it's likely to be difficult to prove you didn't subconciously violate copyright even if you are able to convince a judge or jury you didn't conciously and intentionally violate copyright. If the similarity is great enough, the judge or jury is going to think "well this is similar enough, the person must have been copied in some way even if perhaps they didn't do it intentionally or realise they were doing it".

But to use an example, if there is some Truman style reality show, and this persons entire life is clearly recorded and it's proven they never read the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (including any abridged or modified versions), nor was anything done to them to try and stimulate the conditions that may lead to such a work, and it's also proven they entirely by themselves came up with a work or multiple works that are similar to that of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., I don't see anything in the sources you've provided that show this will be a violation of copyright in US law. (I'm not saying it won't be, simply that I don't think the cases where it's been held that the person did rely on the copyrighted work, they just didn't do it conciously, necessarily have a bearing on a case where someone really does not rely on the copyrighted work at all.)

The monkey's thing is a somewhat different case, since in this example, it seems likely someone is doing the selecting of the work, likely a publisher. It's possible this publisher would be liable as even though technically the work itself didn't rely on a pre-existing copyrighted work. In other words, perhaps it would be argued by selecting the work because it was the same as a pre-existing copyrighted work this violates copyright. The monkeys couldn't be liable because they are monkeys but even if they could be, it's not clear they would be liable.

Nil Einne (talk) 19:03, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that while the Berne Convention does indeed mean that copyright immediately applies to things which are eligible for copyright, there is a limit to what can be copyrighted. My understanding is that "artistic creativity" (or rather "threshold of originality") does play a role in that determination. For example Feist v. Rural determined that mere collection of names and phone numbers are not eligible for copyright. However, the bar to originality is set extremely low, and pretty much any deviation from a straight collection of facts renders the work copyrightable (at least those portions which are original). -- 174.24.192.84 (talk) 02:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed with 174. This is what I meant by creativity ("originality" is the more correct term and I always forget it). Agreed as well that it is a low bar, but there is a bar (and one that would come into play when considering the lowest unit of copyrightable information). It has nothing to do with the automatic registration clause (I'm not saying you have to make said argument before being awarded copyright — what I meant is, if it is going to be legally upheld, those conditions must be met). Note there are some queasy areas — see e.g. Bridgeman v. Corel. Don't know about accidental infringement problem. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

'

Three points. First, there is a creativity, sometimes called "artistic" component that's absolutely necessary in U.S. copyright law. See Feist v. Rural for a full explanation. It's absolutely correct though that it's small. Second, the My Sweet Lord case is a clear example of how a random arrival at the same work is in fact not a copyright infringement, unlike patent law. That decision is the emblematic example of the "subconscious infringement" doctrine, which is, right or wrong, probably the same, but technically, if you could prove you never had access to the work, then it's not infringement. Finally, the Berne Convention isn't binding in the U.S. insofar as it hasn't been enacted in Title 17 [and other applicable parts of the Code]. Shadowjams (talk) 05:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

(But the parts relating to automatic registration have been enacted, which is all that matters for our purposes here.) --Mr.98 (talk) 11:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It's true that registration isn't required anymore nor are most of the other formalities (things like the copyright symbol, renewal, etc.), but they're still important at the damages stage and for proof of copyright. There is no automatic registration, but there is automatic protection. But neither of those formally affect the creativity component (which is constitutional). If I understand you, I think you're saying that as a practical matter it's not very relevant, in which case I agree. Shadowjams (talk) 07:00, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

US City in Canada

I'm trying to find this on Google maps, but it either isn't clearly identified or missing... Around the Great Lakes region, there is a U.S. city that is only accessible by either going into Canada by land or by water. In other words, it is disconnected by land from the mainland, but is not an island. It is merely a lake-front city inside of Canada. Does anyone know which city this is so I can use it as an example in a completely different topic? -- kainaw™ 17:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You're not thinking of Sault Ste. Marie are you? Not sure of one like that but which can be reached directly by land from Canada. Or does that river count? There's someplace like that in the Pacific Northwest though I think... WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Point Roberts, Washington and the Northwest Angle are both this sort of thing. — Lomn 18:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Northwest Angle is what I was looking for. Thanks. -- kainaw™ 18:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I thought so. But, to make it clear, it's not a city. In my road atlases the only place marked within the area is a village called Angle Inlet, which is so small that none of the atlases even shows a population for it.

Point Roberts is a similarly situated location on the west coast; and there is also the Alburgh Peninsula in Lake Champlain, which is a weaker example because it has road bridges connecting it directly to the rest of the US. Both of these have substantially larger population than the Northwest Angle, but still no cities. --Anonymous, 18:32 UTC, September 20/10.

Since the followup question (below) is about access by road, rather than access by land, it should perhaps be noted that because there is no road along the Alaska Panhandle, there are three cities or towns on the Panhandle that can be reached by land within Alaska from the main part of the state, but not by road -- to get there by road, you have to go through Canada. Two are Skagway and Haines, which are only about 20 miles apart by water, but about 340 miles apart by road. The third, much smaller and farther south, is Hyder. (And the state capital, Juneau, is also on the mainland but isn't connected to anywhere by road!) --Anonymous, 17:50 UTC, September 23, 2010 (copyedited later).

Canadian city in the US?

Are there any reverse examples? Canadian towns (not on islands) that can only access the rest of Canada by road via the US? ---Sluzzelin talk 18:49, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

From List of enclaves and exclaves, we have: St. Regis Mohawk Reservation and Campobello Island. -- kainaw™ 19:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Except that Campobello I. is not an example, being, you know, an island. The other one's real, though, and I did not know about. Damn Wikipedia for exposing my ignorance again! --Anonymous, 22:50 UTC, September 20/10.

Campobello Island is only accessible by land from the United States. That is why it is an example. -- kainaw™ 03:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Of "Canadian towns (not on islands)"? --Anon, 05:45 UTC, September 21, 2010.

I found that page AFTER asking the question above. -- kainaw™ 19:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

just so we all understand why this is, the US and Canada settled the details of their border using a modified version of Pokemon playing cards. a couple of the midwest representatives had some highly evolved water-types that skewed the outcome. Or at least, that's what I've heard... --Ludwigs2 20:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

In the east they used the somewhat inaccurate Mitchell Map and in the west they used surveys of the 49th parallel... AnonMoos (talk) 23:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, fascinating list! The article on Akwesasne has a little map showing the borders. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC)