Talk:James C. Scott

Why was this talk page deleted? And Does James C. Scott really raise sheep or is that a hack?

There's a nice oral history (+ transcript) with Scott in the UW–Madison University Archives, if you're interested czar 16:40, 13 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

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I changed one sentence. For context, the preceding sentence is: "In the case of last names, Scott cites a Welsh man who appeared in court and identified himself with a long string of patronyms: "John, ap Thomas ap William" etc."

The prior version of the changed sentence is: "In his local village, this naming system carried a lot of information, because people could identify him as the son of Thomas and grandson of William, and thus distinguish him from the other Johns and the other grandchildren of Thomas."

The new version of the changed sentence is: "In his local village, this naming system carried a lot of information, because people could identify him as the son of Thomas and grandson of William, and thus distinguish him from the other Johns, the other children of Thomas, and the other grandchildren of William."

There is an error in the prior version, as John is Thomas's son, not grandson. But is the new version correct with nothing superfluous? Gvros8 (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Can this be changed to the anarchism tab to better reflect his actual view points and work? 220.233.178.107 (talk) 04:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

I noticed this as well today 3 months after this comment. I wish someone would change it; I don't know how Mbarcy (talk) 09:03, 16 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I don't know how to either but I suggest someone do it bc it's a bit annoying. If no one does it I guess I'll try doing it later. scapegoat (talk) 15:54, 30 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

Ditto. Psychopomplemousse (talk) 16:52, 5 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Much of what has often been said about Scott, especially The Moral Economy of the Peasant and related writings, has been based less on Scott's actual writings than on what has been said about him by other scholars. Sam Popkin's book The Rational Peasant gave a very misleading impression of Scott's ideas that was especially influential. I intend to make a number of edits to bring the article more in line with Scott's actual ideas.

Popkin wanted to refute some ideas that he, and almost all serious scholars, regarded as unfounded. He wanted to persuade readers (and perhaps himself?) that the ideas he was refuting were influential. What he did was 1) Say that these were the ideas of a group he called the "moral economists." 2) Make it clear that he regarded Scott, an influential and highly respected scholar, as the most conspicuous example of a "moral economist." The ideas he attributed to the "moral economists" were in fact inconsistent with the actual ideas of James C. Scott. Ed Moise (talk) 19:58, 7 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Your edits are welcome. The Popkin section of the article isn't sourced properly so should be excised or rewritten. As a reminder, reliable, secondary sources are preferential to primary sources, wherever feasible. czar 21:16, 7 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

When the question is, what ideas were in the writings of James C. Scott, the only reliable sources are the writings of James C. Scott. Ed Moise (talk) 00:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I have discussed these issues with both Scott and Popkin. But my memories of what they told me cannot be regarded as reliable sources. Only Scott's writings are reliable sources on the content of Scott's writings. Ed Moise (talk) 00:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

"Reliable sources" has a specific definition on Wikipedia—see the linked page. There is plenty of independent, secondary source coverage of the ideas in his books. Using these secondary sources reduces original research on our part as editors. czar 03:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

There is something about Scott's writings that causes them to be misrepresented, frequently. Respectable academic scholars, the sort of people we could trust most of the time on most questions, people much more reliable than the average for the secondary sources I see cited in Wikipedia, do this a lot. I have never been able to figure out why. I was stunned by some of the misrepresentations by two different authors in The Journal of Asian Studies (a top scholarly journal) in the 1980s.

But the result is that it would be irresponsible ever to trust a secondary source to be reporting Scott's views accurately without checking, carefully, to verify that it is accurate. This will mean doing more research than we would need to do if we simply look in Scott's writings to see what they say. Ed Moise (talk) 16:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply