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Brian Victoria and other dubious sources

I think that in an article as long as the SG entry, with so many people editing, there will be, as a matter of course, a shortcut taken now and then, a source misinterpreted or misquoted. One might also expect that whatever mistakes there are, they would be tone neutral - not a preponderance of erring on the side of making the subject look bad (or good). But the SG entry is riddled with questionable and misleading source citations. For instance:

In an article entitled "Brian Victoria and the Question of Scholarship", (in The Eastern Buddhist 41/2), Kemmyo Taira Sato, with Thomsa Kirchner responds to Brian Victoria in what is evidently part of an ongoing written discussion on Victoria's views of Japanese Buddhists during the war.

Right away Sato notes that, after their discussion, Victoria changed some of his views about TE Suzuki - meaning, one presumes, those opinions were in error. In fact, he changed from portraying Suzuki as an "active supporter" of the war, to acknowledging that he "refused to engage" in promoting the war. Quite and error! Victoria evidently made further attacks on Suzuki.'s character, however, and Sato uses this essay to "point out questionable arguments and techniques Victoria used in his critique." Sato is especially critical of Victoria's habit - I say "habit" because Sato mentions that he had heard about this from a number of readers (p140) -- of misusing, misquoting, and misrepresenting sources and what they say. Sato gives a number of examples.

In his review of Victoria's work, Metraux (http://www.globalbuddhism.org/5/metraux04.htm) finds it necessary to include an entire section entitled "Victoria's Flawed Portrayal of Makiguchi Tsunesaburo". He says "Two other scholars, Dayle M. Bethel and Koichi Miyata (Bethel 2003, Miyata 2002), have already published articles attacking Victoria's conclusions. They correctly note that Victoria has quoted Makiguchi out of context and through their own examination of the texts that Victoria uses to draw his conclusions, they have skillfully provided longer versions of Makiguchi's quotes which when seen in context tend to negate Victoria's assertions."

Koichi Miyata concludes his long critique of Victoria with this: "I have responded to the views of Brian Victoria on four fronts. I can only imagine that in order to prove Tsunesaburo Makiguchi cooperated with the war effort, Victoria has shaped his arguments to fit his pre-established conclusion, willfully quoting only those passages of Makiguchi's writings that would seem to support it. I cannot imagine he studied all ten volumes of Makiguchi's writings in Japanese to reach this conclusion. While there is ample room for the frank exchange of academic views, including highly critical ones, it is important that a tendentious agenda, clothed in the guise of academic research, not stand challenged."

It is obvious that Brian Victoria manipulates his data, twisting it to support what are evidently his pre-conceived - conclusions. At least four noted academics have condemned him for it. He should not be used a a source.--Daveler16 (talk) 04:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Is the following remarks from Makiuchi's 'Corroborate Records of Life based on the Philosophy of Value of the Supreme Goodness published on August l0th,1942, under the heading, "The Instruction Manual Summarizing the Experiments and Testimonials of Life based on the Philosophy of Value of the Supreme Goodness," taken out of context? If so, how?

"'Sacrifice your own skin to slash the opponent's flesh. Surrender your own flesh to saw off the opponent's bone.' With their faithful implementation of this well-known Japanese fencing (kendo) strategy into actual practice during the war, the Japanese military is able to achieve her glorious, ever-victorious invincibility in the Sino-Japan conflict and in the Pacific war, and thus, easing the minds of the Japa- nese people. This should be held as an ideal lifestyle for those remaining on the home front and should be applied in every aspect of our daily life." 2602:306:CD27:DC29:8D15:5C52:5374:5C4A (talk) 05:10, 26 September 2014 (UTC) Mark Rogow 26 September 2014

I think Victoria is a valid source. He seems to be on much firmer ground when talking about Zen during the war, but he should be allowed. I would suggest the place to do that is the article on Makiuchi, where both sides of this question could be given a fair treatment. BTW, Mark, you should consider registering a user name. See Misplaced Pages:Why create an account? for the benefits. One benefit is that you would be able to edit this article, which is semi-protected. --Margin1522 (talk) 05:47, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I mean that if we have a good, full treatment in the Makiuchi article, then we can build on that in this article. Debating whether Victoria should be allowed when counterarguments exist just makes everything more complicated. We can't really settle it here. --Margin1522 (talk) 05:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I know Victoria is an ideologue but I think the instances we are using him are okay here. I am seeing two uncontroversial claims (Komeito supported the 2014 changes to the constitution; Makiguchi was a religious man, not a politician) and two direct quotations. Perhaps the quote beginning, "In a 1933 publication by this group, Makiguchi explained one of his educational principles" is WP:UNDUE, but otherwise I don't see what needs to be changed. Shii (tock) 14:56, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I've created an article on Brian Victoria. Right now it is mainly just a list of his own books and articles, with a link back to the Zen at War article. Hopefully the new article could be a place to discuss some of the criticisms mentioned above, along with his contributions in drawing attention to the connection with militarism, which previously had been neglected. The specific question of his view of Makiguchi I still think should be discussed in the Makiguchi article. Anyway, if we had a general discussion at the new Victoria article then we could just wikilink his name, without having to explain it all here. --Margin1522 (talk) 10:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The Prebish-Tanaka edited book, The Faces of Buddhism in America, does not address issues between the SG and priesthood on pp. 285-286. Nor does the citation name the actual author. Finally, nowhere in the book are the issues prioritized. So I'm deleting the sentence it is used to support. --Daveler16 (talk) 16:42, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

In the lede and "Public perception" section, corrected title of paper by Lewis: it is not "Legitimatizing religion", but "Scholarship and De-legitimatizing Religion". Also expanded quote before the elision as it's an important continuation of the point Lewis makes. --Daveler16 (talk) 16:53, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

That is not the title of the book.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 18:24, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

It's the name of the article. I cleaned it up so the name of the book is still there, but so is the article name.--Daveler16 (talk) 00:13, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I amended the 2nd paragraph in the "Repression during the war" section, because the citations were skewed. Nowhere on pp 98 or 108 of Makiguchi the Value Creator does Bethel say anything about someone being told his daughter had died as punishment for not joining the SG. Metraux's essay on the Rissho Ankoku Ron doesn't have a page number cited (reason enough, I think), but I've read the article and can't find a reference to the incident there either. That leaves Ramseyer, who describes the incident, but does not say it led to the arrests of Makiguchi and Toda - as an editor had implied. I included in the body of the article Ramseyer's exact words. I also added his exact words to the end of the paragraph, where we are discussing the Japanese government's commitment to religious freedom.--Daveler16 (talk) 00:34, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for your trouble, Daveler16. I was the one who originally added the citation to Ramseyer, but this was in order to appease Safwan back in January 2013. Safwan didn't understand Japanese and was angry with me doing research for the article. But the Saki and Oguchi source, which was written by two religious scholars, does state that there was a causal link between the events. I don't know how these false references sprang up next to Ramseyer. Shii (tock) 03:18, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

http://www.worldcat.org/title/soka-gakkai-sono-shiso-to-kodo/oclc/123356597 It's at Yenching... I can go pull the quote next time I'm there Shii (tock) 03:28, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I am befuddled to report that I am at the library now and this book has also gone missing. The second missing book in as many weeks. This is a shame, because the details of Makiguchi's trial are rarely reported by outside sources. Shii (tock) 18:07, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

In the Makiguchi section, the citation for Makiguchi's statment about the glories of the emperor has no page number. Please supply one, or this statement will be gone. --Daveler16 (talk) 22:37, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

The geisha incident

If I could also make a few comments on the geisha pararaph, this is also riddled with errors. The Japanese Misplaced Pages has a whole article on this (ja:偽造写真事件). What happened is this. A Shōshū priest attended Nikken's birrthday party and took a picture. Later he fell out with Shōshū, doctored the picture, and took it to SG. The woman in the picture was the wife of someone at the party, not a geisha. But SG printed the picture in 創価新報 (a different publication from Seikyō Shinbun), and said it was a geisha. Shōshū sued for libel and won, with damages of 3 million yen. SG appealed. The appeals court upheld the libel charge, but threw out the damages. So Seikyō Shinbun printed a story saying SG had won the case, because the damages were thrown out. They didn't mention the libel charges.
Note here that SG didn't doctor the picture. The priest did, and maybe SG believed what he said. That's what happens when you believe disgrunted former members of religious groups -- sometimes they make stuff up. Also SG never said that the libel charges were dismissed. They simply didn't mention it. So we have three mistakes in our article which should be fixed. As to where the mistakes came from, Yamada? This is what happens if you believe tabloid journalists. They leave stuff things out when it doesn't fit the story. So while the facts may not be exactly false, the way they write it and the stuff they imply is false. These writers are dangerous and every sentence needs to be checked against other sources.
So what should we do about this? I'm not suggesting the entire topic be thrown out. Fix it, and say that SG printed a libellous story about Nikken. Nikken tore down a 35-billion yen temple. Say both sides behaved deplorably and just leave it at that. – Margin1522 (talk) 08:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Gee, if only there was some kind of mainstream coverage of this libel case involving one of Japan's largest newspapers. Asahi Shimbun just received a full month of criticism and opinion articles just for retracting an article, and yet I see no coverage of the Seikyo libel case at other major newspapers.

The Akahata source for this has gone missing from the Harvard library for some reason, so I'm afraid I won't be able to pull the correct quote and details until next year.

However, Yamada was not making stuff up but in fact used a named source on the details of the trial:

奇妙な事例で言えば、創価学会が「全面勝訴」と報じる創価新報の写真偽造事件も同じだ。「これは日顕法主があたかも芸者遊びをしているように他の男性の参加者を写真から消し、その偽造写真を創価新報が大々的に報じた事件です。宗門側はこれで学会を訴、え、一審で宗門側の勝訴。しかし、二審では、奇妙なことに学会側の違法性を認定した上で〝名誉毀損をされたのは日顕法主であって日蓮正宗ではない″として、宗門の訴えを退けるのです。実は創価学会は、月刊ペン裁判の時は、池田本人を証人として出廷させないために、〝池田への名誉毀損は即学会への名誉毀損だ″、つまりトップ＝組織という主張をしていた。それが写真偽造事件では、全く逆に、個人と組織は違うという主張を行なったのです」（ジャーナリストの乙骨正生氏）

Shii (tock) 12:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, OK, but that is a rather nitpicking point. SG arguing that the organization lacks standing in this case while arguing the opposite in a different case. Sure, lawyers will spend forever arguing about standing. But there is nothing more boring to a lay audience than arguments about standing. We don't have time to go into every last detail about this case and how the Seikyō Shinbun reported it. In any case, this passage doesn't answer the three objections to our paragraph:

• We got the publication that carried the photo wrong.
• We say that SG doctored the photo, when that isn't clear.
• We elide the fact that Seikyō Shinbun did in fact have grounds for saying that SG won the appeal. If that's important, which it isn't.

IMO all we need to say about this story is that SG published a doctored photo of Nikken, got sued for libel, and lost. That is plenty. – Margin1522 (talk) 17:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough Shii (tock) 19:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Sections that could be shorter

Looking at the bare links in the notes, a lot of them are to elementary schools. Instead of fixing all of these, I'm wondering if we really need to list all the schools. Can't we just say that SG has established many schools in Japan and abroad and then link to SG's own list? The Soka University of America description could be shorter.

The academic research section is fine to have, but do we need to spend a couple of sentences defining each type of research? Approaching it like that makes it sound like an essay on research methods. I think it might be better and shorter if we could incorporate some of that into the descriptions of the work being cited. – Margin1522 (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm kind of taking the current "academic research" section as a guideline for future sources to read; it probably shouldn't stay in the article longterm because it is more an essay about religious studies. Shii (tock) 01:13, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The reason why I list down all the school is because of all the negative information that is written by the editor in the introduction page. Even the history section is filled with negative articles. By listing down all the school that is establish in the world, this may let the reader understand why Soka Gakkai is very negative at the same time managed to establish the education institution in 8 countries ranging from kindergarten to university. If it is really a brainwashing cult, how come there are 7 countries (exclude Japan) that have Soka Education Institution. Why the 7 countries never ban these institution for trying to brainwash the children into becoming "quasi-fascist", "fascist", "militant", "overzealous", "manipulationist" and "authoritarian".

Another thing, there are reason why I added in the article with the links. The previous editors had the habit of deleting those article that do not have any links at all. Hence the long list of note as some editors like to delete those that do not have note at all. Kelvintjy (talk) 14:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

There are Wahabi schools in many non-Islamic countries. Why are they allowed to spread their violent brand of Islam? Politics and money.2602:306:CC5C:DB99:6C76:B447:A579:6814 (talk) 03:55, 17 October 2014 (UTC) Mark Rogow 10/16/2014

Thanks, Kelvin, I understand why you did this and appreciate the work that went into it. But this list is never going to be complete, and I think that if we could make the same point in just a few sentences, it would improve the article.

You see, everyone? This is why this article is so hard to improve. It's averaging about 400 views a day and I think it ought to be better, and could be. But the presence of this offensive language is making it very difficult. I'm planning to make one last proposal to get "brainwashing cult" out of the lead, and to rewrite the section where it is mentioned, if it's mentioned at all, to make it clear that this is by no means the opinion of any of our sources.

If it fails again, then we will have to go to dispute resolution. I've never done this, but I understand that the editors on both sides of the dispute have to state their positions. If it comes to that, I hope the editors involved will be willing to step up and do that. – Margin1522 (talk) 19:28, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I actually see the discussion on this page as remarkably cool and I appreciate the work of everyone who's put in an edit or opinion over the past few months. Right now we have a kind of critical mass of information and the article is too long. But there is enough good prose and well-sourced information to provide for a GA.

That being said, Kelvin's list of schools can be easily transformed into paragraph form without reducing the quality of content offered. Shii (tock) 19:38, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Lewis isn't the only source that describes SG with respect to brainwashing, as the Japanese text fro Furukawa and Yanatori show, for example. The preoccupation with not having any negative material in the article is in error.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 20:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Margin, the current “brainwashing cult” sentence in the intro is extremely irresponsible. I’m happy to participate in any dispute resolution.

I know earlier some individuals were opposed to changing the intro based on the wiki guideline that the lead should be a summary of information in the article. I’m sorry, until there is a “brainwashing cult” section in the article, we should take it out of the lead.Lionpride82 (talk) 19:05, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Josei Toda

I have been working on revising the Josei Toda page. I think it is far superior to the antecedent article. I would like to remove the qualifications that precede the article concerning the lack of appropriate citations. I would also like to embed a "see main article" citation at the top of the Josei Toda section of the SG article.

Before taking these actions I would like to kindly request your feedback.

Thank you, BrandenburgG (talk) 20:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

You have done well, and I like your use of quotations in your citations. However, please take note that some of your citations have caused errors you need to follow a more standard format. I recommend the one described here, which will let you keep the quotations: Misplaced Pages:Citing_sources#Short_citations. Simply put the books you used after the footnotes section, rather than putting them inside footnotes.

I agree that the new Josei Toda article deserves to be prominently linked from this one, but the section we have here is about the Gakkai under Toda's leadership and not about Toda as an individual, so I don't think we should rewrite it. Shii (tock) 21:09, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Shii, that the books cited should be listed in their own section, and the broken named references need to be fixed. You might want to look into the {{sfn}} template. Or even without that, when you list the books in their own section, you can define the ref names there. I have some other things to take care of today, but maybe later I can do some to show how that would work. My impression right now is that it goes a bit overboard on the quotes in the footnotes. But that can always be reviewed later. As for the cleanup template at the top of the article, anyone can remove that. If you feel it has enough cites now (it sure looks that way), you can go ahead and remove it yourself. – Margin1522 (talk) 21:21, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Any further POV questions?

Since May there have been a lot of Gakkai members (or friends of Gakkai members) editing this page, which had a lot of negative material added to it from questionable sources. It is now mid-October and there has been a lot of editing done. I would like to hear from everyone what they think remains to be done before the article is sufficiently NPOV. I don't know if I will continue editing in the future but it would be good to establish a version of the article that is considered NPOV by both sides. Shii (tock) 21:17, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Here is what the Soka Gakkai teaches about the DaiGohonzon : http://www.gakkaionline.net/Dai-Gohonzon/index.html 2602:306:CC5C:DB99:6C76:B447:A579:6814 (talk) 04:27, 17 October 2014 (UTC)Mark Rogow 10/16/2014

As you are probably aware (and maybe tired of hearing) I think it would be most helpful if the article were more about the Soka Gakkai, and less about what Nichiren Shoshu thinks about the SG. The "Separation section is absolutely necessary,and differences could be delineated there; but I think including the words "Nichiren Shoshu" or "the priesthood" in the sections about SG teachings are nothing but judgements, and aren't really about the Soka Gakkai. Much progress has been made in ths regard, but I think still more can be made. Shi, I hope you're not leaving us VERY soon?--Daveler16 (talk) 18:00, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I also think the article is better than it used to be, and that we can start thinking about removing the neutrality tag. The obvious thing that still needs to be done is the words that some readers find offensive, especially "brainwashing" and "cult". There is no difference between "Ikeda-centric ethos" and "cult of personality", except that one is an insult and one isn't. Not that we can't mention this language, but we need to make it clear that this is language used by SG's enemies, whatever their agenda may be, and that it isn't endorsed one way or the other by Misplaced Pages. That in itself will make it less offensive and less likely to trigger allergic reactions. (Sorry I've been busy with other things and still haven't gotten to suggesting a rewrite. I still want to do that.) – Margin1522 (talk) 18:37, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, great points so far. I agree that the "cult of personality" label is something that needs to be clearly stated as an antagonistic criticism and not as the neutral perspective of NGOs and scholars. I do think something like it (maybe that "gnostic-manipulationist" thing) should stay in the article because it is a concern widely held by the Japanese public, but it shouldn't be a claim Misplaced Pages is making.

One way to address Daveler's concern could be to move the "history" section lower in the article, which might coincide with a larger rewrite. Up until the rewrite began I understood SG to be the result of a fierce split with NS. I now understand that post-1991, SGI thinks of its history primarily in terms of its three leaders, and its relationship with NS is something that is in the background and not as important to self-presentation (since SG was always keeping the faith when NS supposedly lost it). Accordingly, the messy "beliefs & practices" section should be rewritten to explain why people come to SG and the message it gives to its members. For example, here's a really dumb question: the five concepts on this page seem to be key to SG's social message, but none of them are on this Misplaced Pages page. Has anyone seen a source out there that explains this? It would be way better to start the article with this religious message than with the history of the group.

Logistically, I will be on vacation starting in mid-November and won't be editing Misplaced Pages then, so I don't think I could participate in a rewrite unless if there was significantly more collaboration here over the next month. The article is now a rather large project that seems to be at the very limits of what is possible for volunteer editors. Shii (tock) 19:35, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's a point. Maybe we could explain something like, why is Herbie Hancock a member? Moving the history section is an option. It's fine if it's still on centered on controversy, there was a lot of controversy. And I think it's OK if it takes time. We have lots of time. – Margin1522 (talk) 20:12, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Shii, the reason why "The five concepts" is not explain in this Misplaced Pages page is that it is from a primary source. Right now there is no secondary source of "the five concepts". You want us to only put in secondary source as you all had said that primary source is an "Advertising" source as said by most editor who even used the BOLD method to delete the articles. So anything that is from the primary source or those without source are deleted from this Misplaced Pages page. Even it is the key to SGI's social message, it will be deleted as it is from the primary source. Kelvintjy (talk) 09:19, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

There is no need to be so petty about this. First, I have already said, simply elaborating Misplaced Pages policy, that SGI sources are acceptable for self-description of religious views. They are not acceptable to define the narrative of SGI's history; we do not allow any religious group to determine history.

Secondly, BrandenburgG has already given us like three dozen academic publications, so I was hoping the five concepts were mentioned in one of them. Shii (tock) 15:45, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Shi: I have been slow, but I am working on the Beliefs and Practices section. While doing so, I had a thought similar to yours (but for a different reason) that Beliefs and Practices should be placed before History. My rationale is that, while there may be academics and historians who use Misplaced Pages, most visitors are probably laymen who have heard about SG one way or another, and want to know what it teaches as their primary interest. Moving that section up would make it easier for them. --Daveler16 (talk) 15:16, 18 October 2014 (UTC) ：That would not be encyclopedic, and Misplaced Pages is not intended to serve the aims of proselytizing for religious organizations. Furthermore, the beliefs and practices have developed over time.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 18:08, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think being encyclopedic contradicts "knowing your audience". Here is a good example, where "doctrine" is the first thing after "Overview", and there isn't a Hostory section at all.

Another thing comes to mind, Shi: citations that are incomplete, or are interpreted by an editor, or don't say what they are alleged to say. A few mistakes in this regard is understandable; perhaps some of the 215 footnotes are superfluous? A question: if a source is dubious, but contains the quote or statement it is being used to support; and there are academic papers questioning the author's scholarship or contradicting the statment - can those be placed in the article? I'm thinking specifically of Mr. Victoria and his work on Makiguchi. His research in general has been questioned, and his research on Makiguchi specifically has been chalenged. Can this be mentioned in the section on Makiguchi? Thanks.--Daveler16 (talk) 22:51, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

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