Talk:Jiddu Krishnamurti

Interminably long and pointless biography of no relevance to K's impact, teaching nor legacy

An extraordinary amount of space and time is given over to even the most mundane events in this mans private life, and Biographers speculations into K's psychic inner states are cited as given facts. For example, whether he was in love or not with Helen Knothe is speculation into the intimate private mind into Krishnamurti, which no one knows with finality. It reads as a biography discussing only the more paradoxical points of K's private life and pays little attention to his teachings or impact. I propose the biography section be abbreviated and consist of his Discovery and rearing for the coming world teacher, the dissolution, the shift in message and schedule of talks including public figures with the afterword and criticism section remaining as is.

Link disambiguation

I removed the boxes refering to ambiguous links as discovered by Wildbot, after fixing them (I hope). Thank you.

Further split proposal

As the article is currently over 200 kilobytes, I propose a split. Most of K's quotes in the footnotes and the main article could be moved to sections in a "Jiddu Krishnamurti philosophy" page and then linked here. The footnoted descriptions of "radical mutation" and "immediate liberation" could also be moved there. The result would be a more bio-focused page. Any comments or suggestions? Thanks. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 15:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is entirely to long. Users who come to this page seeking a general understanding of Krishnamurti's philosophy are definitely going to be overloaded with the amount of info contained herein. But, I say this knowing that I surely won't undertake the obvious mountain that is revising this entry. Sgcrooks (talk) 05:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

(forgot to add)-> Additionally, if he is (obviously) notable enough to warrant such an extensive article than I believe it is easily recognizable that it should be broken up into further splits. (sorry for the double entry) Sgcrooks (talk) 05:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. As you said, the revision or split decision is not going to be easy. A further difficulty is the fact that the bulk of this guy's life was basically his discources. It is hard to separate the two, so his bio should incorporate at least some of his philosophy. Any other comments from anyone will be appreciated. Thanks. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 15:42, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I've come to believe that a page called Jiddu Krishnamurti glossary would be a better idea. This philosophical glossary would contain terms that defined his discourse, the terms' evolution (if any) and the unique meaning he assigned them. Such as "meditation", "observation", "seeing what is", the singularity of goodness and love, etc. That way the bio could be shortened by just pointing to the appropriate terms in the "glossary" page. Comments welcome. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 16:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Reading the text through for the second time, I

• 1. perceive his message as a purely existensialist message, this time not vs. the Church (Kierkegard) or God Himself (Nietzsche), but vs. Theosophy, and his rejection of organizing information indicates the deteriorating aspect of organizing total experiences ("existence"),
• 2. the article doesn't organize as other biographies on Wikipedia, but might better:

• the biography should be short and sketchy,
• tenets of his philosophy should be in separate articles, now if the philosophy is building on his biography then so be it, but the philosophy can then be split in a before-part and after-part

Just a suggestion, the other suggestion being WP:BOLD! Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 12:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your considered response. Regarding *1, there is quite a bit of literature comparing K's philosophy to existentialism, and more specifically Sartre's flavor. I listed one in List of works about Jiddu Krishnamurti.

If you permit me though, I think that K appears to people who already "know" of some discipline or philosophy as the proverbial nail: to anyone in possession of the hammer of anarchy, buddhism, vedanta, existentialism, socialism, capitalism, hinduism, spirituality, information theory, psychoanalysis, etc. he's just the perfect nail. How could he not be? Lutyens wrote somewhere that when people would ask her what K is about, she wanted to snap back, "he is what you are about". And when he was asked in public about who he "really" was (oh boy) he asked the audience if they knew who they were. That makes people's heads hurt - better ruminate about Krishnamurti instead. It is for this reason that I think any page dedicated to his "philosophy" is just asking for trouble. Besides, how can you expound on a message that basically says that there's no utility in lingering on messages? He did that for 50+ years better than anyone I know. He was asked thousands of "clever", "deep", sycophantic, hostile, admiring, leading, innocent, idiotic, intelligent questions by thousands of people. If you have a question about K, he's probably considered it. People have tried mighty hard to find logical or conceptual flaws in his message, and from what I've seen noone has provided any proof of those, just opinions, moralizing, or beliefs. I'd like to know of such proof and post it, it would certainly spice up the page. If you think that you have a unique insight on him, good or bad, go for it, but prepare to be disappointed. Somebody may have written on it already, because in order to have a unique insight on him (or anyone) you probably must be unique yourself, and if that's the case why bother with K or anybody else? That's why I thought a glossary of the terms and their meanings would be better serving those who want to understand, and go beyond K.

Regarding *2, I believe it's too late now to shrink the biography, which I think is pretty much complete. I also think there are several aspects in his bio that are very rare and call for considerable explanation, hence the size. Any specific points you object to? Some of the philosophy-related quotes, especially those in footnotes could be moved to a new page, or/and point to jkrishnamurti.org.

Can you elaborate a bit on the way WP:BOLD could enhance or is lacking from the article? I see it as a non-interpretative biography.

Thank you again. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 15:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work, but there is a lot of extraneous verbiage that can be removed without changing the meaning. Viriditas (talk) 12:33, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I've started the most basic of cleanup, removing redundancy, fixing MOS issues, and cutting down on the excessive verbiage. Viriditas (talk) 07:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I definitely appreciate anything you do to make the article more concise and in accord with MOS, as long as it doesn't affect the substance. My main concern has been completeness, precision and neutrality. I'm not a great writer. I did change two items in the introduction. My rationale for linking savior was the fact that people did expect him to be a savior in the religious sense (this may not be obvious to people from cultures without messianic movements/religions). However, he rejected the idea of saviors in any guise, religious or secular. This is a small issue but if you feel the link is redundant I have no problem. Thanks again. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 17:05, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Viriditas, upon reading your comments Im a little concerned about exactly what kind of cuts you are planning to make. This article has been a long time in the making and I hope that you will discuss any major changes on this page before proceeding. Sach.b (talk) 20:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why you are concerned. Did my recent edits give you reason to be concerned? On what do you base this concern? Do you have reason to believe that basic article improvement, lead structure, and MOS compliance requires discussion or is best described as a "major change"? As far as the extraneous verbiage is concerned, the current article is 273,608 bytes and requires splitting and/or removal of extraneous material. Please remember, we are writing for the reader. I would hope that you would concern yourself with this issue. To begin with, I would like to point you in the direction WP:QUOTEFARM. This article has more than 20 blockquotes and numerous quotations, and that needs to be brought down to a manageable size. Some of the quotes are too long and can be trimmed to their essential points while others are probably not necessary at all and might suffice as a footnote. Viriditas (talk) 10:29, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Why the combative tone? The article averages over 1000 views a day, yet there have been very few concerns about its size or inclusion of quotes. My main thrust was to present a complete, accurate, neutral picture of the subject according to knowledge available today. I don't think that for an article of its size and type (see below) the number of quotes are excessive, and I carefully considered the Wikipedia guidelines re: lead sections relative to article size.

I appreciate the cleanup on your part, but as I said before, I don't believe that brevity trumps substance, clarity or completeness. Imo, some of your edits resulted in more ambiguous language and reintroduced fuzziness that had been previously dealt with. That certainly can't be helpful to the reader.

I tried to make use of Wikipedia's MOS as much as I could and I think the article is on the whole compliant. Last time I looked MOS was a guideline, not a requirement. MOS is also about style, and my main concern has been substance. Still if there are any specific points where MOS compliance is missing and would result in a better article, then they will have to be considered.

I don't understand this part of your edit summary:

"This article is sadly, in terrible shape and needs serious work"

????

Noone has to read the entire article. I think the intro offers the main points in brief and a reader can stop there having gotten a very general picture of K's life and message. On the other hand, these are not easily summarized. His life was pretty unique in many respects, surrounded often by controversy, intense publicity, and extraodinary claims and events. There have been a lot of errors, misrepresentations, and (especially) omissions in this and other widely available sources. So, I'm sorry. If one wants to learn about Krishnamurti past the Introduction, they just have to make an effort. The subject, being unusual, difficult, and imo not fully or properly presented by many sources, cannot be scaled down into cliff notes just because people don't have the time. If you're interested, you'll have to find the time. There was a lot of work done in fact-checking, cross-verifying, and evaluation of sources from a number of people, in order to present salient facts as facts and salient opinions as opinions - as much as possible - and there may be errors still (even today, an error was found in the caption of the group photo - the second or third time the photo or its caption had to be edited). Also, reading the talk archives, there has been a lot of debate, some interesting, some ridiculous, about the article and its subject. I wanted to specifically address as many points as possible of the debate about Krishnamurti both in this talk page and elsewhere. That is one of the reasons for the abundance of sources, notes, and quotes. Every statement in the article should be supported. Being that his message is both striking and elusive, longer quotes or expositions are unavoidable, and references to the central concepts he introduced are called for. We can't just throw K terms like "choiceless awareness" or the singularity of consiousness out there like lobbing grenades, and expect people to know what is meant - it trivializes and minimizes the subject. How do you describe major concepts such as the "ending of thought" or the "non-existence of psychological time" in a sentence or two? K himself for decades tooled with the proper language to do so. Am I satisfied with the article in this respect? No, not at all, but I think that a good balance between brevity and clarity has been found, more or less objectively and neutrally. The debate about K and his message still rages, and apparently it is a serious matter of importance to many people. Hopefully the article's completeness appeals to them and is a help, along with its painstakingly achieved accuracy, precision and neutrality, which are still no. 1 for me. Until a page on his philosophy is created, with similar aspects of neutrality, accuracy and completeness, I don't think it is wise to reduce the current page.

Thanks. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:55, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

You have to understand, every SPA (an account that only works on one article or subject) has made the exact same comments and arguments you have made above. I've heard this response so many times now, I could have composed it myself. I'm not being combative at all, it's just that once you've heard a SPA defend their work as you have done, not once, not twice, but over and over again, year after year, there comes a point where you have to say, no, no, I'm sorry, but we write articles for the reader, in an encyclopedic style, not hagiographies at the behest of editorial preference that ignores virtually every policy and guideline, and seeks to declare that the article is perfect and finished before the real work has even begun. You did not address my single solitary example I offered, nor do I expect you ever will. The roadblock to improving this article lies not with other editors, but with the primary contributors who, whether because of special interest or prideful ignorance, refuse to abide by the simple standards that make this place work. You and others have made your obstructionism known and understood. Now you need to move out of the way and let others fix the problem you created. Viriditas (talk) 04:45, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The fact you've heard similar arguments before has nothing to do with this article. There has to be an examination of the article on its own merits.

Requirements are different from guidelines. The former are followed as far as I can tell, and if not, they will be. The latter (guidelines) are followed only when they don't diminish the article. There is no requirement for articles to be below a certain size (Wikipedia:Article size). The concern you raised, if I'm not mistaken, is about the size of the lead section and the number of quotes. I attempted to answer these above, so don't say I didn't. But let me repeat: according to wikipedia guidelines, for articles over 30k the lead section is proposed to max at 4 paras. (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Length). The article's lead section was very close to that. As far as the quotes are concerned you can see in the page you listed (WP:QUOTEFARM) this is also a guideline.

You talk a big game:

What in your opinion makes the article "unencyclopedic"?

How in your opinion does the article "ignore every policy and guideline"?

Where in your opinion did I declare the article "perfect"? (and obviously, it is not finished either, it's still being edited).

Where in your opinion is the "hagiography"?

Where in your opinion is the obstructionism?

Where in this case do you see "special interest or prideful ignorance"?

Which problem that, in your opinion, I have created, must be fixed?

What (in your opinion again) "real work" will begin when I have gotten out of he way? (as opposed to the phoney work you imply I was doing)

And finally, again what do you mean by this comment in your edit summary: "This article is sadly, in terrible shape and needs serious work"?

That's a whole lot of opinions and accusations without any supporting evidence.

In contrast to your opinions, the article is extensively supported by proper sources, and I believe it uses neutral language/representation throughout. Again, while some wording/grammar/syntax changes you recently made were helpful, others, in your haste to reduce the article, resulted in diminished clarity. See "2011/03/23 edits by 65.88.88.173 (talk) 17:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)" below, in "Introduction". The edits referred to there are mostly about reintroducing precision you edited out. So how did you help the reader? A small thing, but indicative of your reductions, was the removal of the wiktionary link for wikt:tutelage and of the wikilink for savior. "Tutelage" is an unusual word that has a very specific meaning and is exactly applicable here. You have to allow for readers who are not aware of the word or who may confuse it with "tutoring". The wiktionary link can help, and they can come right back. That helps the reader. As for "savior" I mentioned previously that some readers may misunderstand the religious significance of the term in this case. Small things, but done with the reader in mind. For all your talk about the reader, your edits sacrificed clarity and precision for misapplied brevity. It doesn't bode well.

The article as of today has 188 followers and gets over 1000 views a day, yet considering its size and complexity, little or no complaints have been voiced since I took over editing following an administrative action almost a year and a half ago. Since that time I have responded to all reasonable concerns raised. You have to support your many opinions about the article with specifics before your accusations can be taken seriously.

Personally I have no problem at all with submitting the article to full editorial/administrative review.

Thanks. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I am here as an editor providing a review, along with all the other editors who have reviewed it. Looking through this discussion and the previous discussions in the archives, I see a pattern of ignoring the concerns that have been repeatedly raised, as you have done above. You have not addressed any of my concerns whatsoever, but continue to distract from them. The article does not work as an encyclopedic biography and will need to be modified. I'm afraid you are way too close to the subject to be neutral on this matter, and your responses to these and other concerns have been met with non-responses which is not acceptable. I will most certainly be providing further comments on this matter and I will also be submitting this article to peer review and to various noticeboards as it is not compliant with basic policy and guidelines. Again, we write for the reader; Wikipedia is not repository for hagiographies written by adoring fans and people who have a COI with the subject. Your comments reveal that you aren't the slightest bit interested in what we do here, and you will continue to ignore any and all concerns. Viriditas (talk) 23:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

1. FIrst of all, why did you change the layout of the talk page? You are not allowed to just go ahead and do that. I created the section "Further split proposal". If you want a section named "Outstanding concerns", don't incorporate the section I started in it without asking. In the past 18 months, I and others have edited the article mainly from two New York Public Library dynamically allocated IP addresses: 65.88.88.127 (research divsion) or 65.88.88.126 (central/branch division). I have also done a very few edits from other Library addresses. (65.88.88.x or 65.88.x.x and I think 10.x.x.x).

2. I was the first to raise the issue of splitting the article, before I created the section "Further split proposal". Prior to that, I had split the article into Jiddu Krishnamurti, Jiddu Krishnamurti bibliography and List of works about Jiddu Krishnamurti. This was done after careful consideration and a lot of work, not in haste. I had also proposed for quotes to be moved to footnotes and/or trimmed, and invited comments and suggestions. Two people (not editors of the page) did agree that the article should be split further, but offered no concrete suggestions. The consensus seemed to be that it was not going to be easy to do. So as far as my behavior is concerned, what you say above is both untrue and non-sensical.

3. The problem here is your attitude, which is uncivil, combative and accusatory. I ask you again to give evidence in support of all your various opinions and stop the personal attacks and unfounded acccusations. Also, do you actually read my responses?

4. While you're at it, how did you arrive at your opinion of COI? Also, what does the phrase "Your comments reveal that you aren't the slightest bit interested in what we do here, and you will continue to ignore any and all concerns"? Who is "we"? Which comments of mine are you referring to? Which concerns have I ignored? Again I was the one to raise the issue of splitting originally, but splitting is not an end in itself and cannot be allowed to damage the article.

Thanks 65.88.88.173 (talk) 17:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The accusation that the article is a hagiography is really hilarious. We have been working on making sure that it is NOT that for a long time. Most of the work has been done by 65.88.88.126. But if you looked through the archives you would see that there have been several confrontations with would be hagiographers. I'm sorry but that statement from you makes me suspect that you don't have a sufficient understanding of the subject. Please back up your criticisms with specific examples. Sach.b (talk) 16:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Outstanding concerns

Use and interpretation of primary sources

It is not acceptable to base entire paragraphs around primary source interpretations without utilizing secondary sources to determine the proper weight and importance of biography information. Either the primary contributor(s) are not aware of this encyclopedic style or they have ignored it to push a singular POV. I will post subsequent examples for repair in this section as the problem is found throughout. Viriditas (talk) 23:42, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Be specific. And don't presume to know why other editors do what they do. Assume good faith. Thanks. 65.88.88.173 (talk) 18:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Quote farming

The use of quotes in this article is excessive and out of place in many sections, with more than 20 block quotes and numerous one or two line quotes, many of which can either be removed, moved to footnotes per guidelines, or modified and shortened. Viriditas (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This is being done presently. I think the remaining blockquotes are helpful as blockquotes as they reference some major points in the article. As for the remaining quotes in the body, it's debatable whether they should be moved. Thanks 65.88.88.173 (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Krishnamurti's discourses:

Although J. Krishnamurti is worshipped in the esoteric circles, his discourse is that of the Western philosophy... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alvaro Mernick (talk • contribs) 15:58, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

2011/03/23 edits by 65.88.88.173 (talk) 17:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Intro

1. Precision: K met CWL specifically at Adyar
2. Precision: Leadbeater, though a leading and influential Theosophist had no official position in the Society at the time. It is not correct to call him one of "the then-leaders" which may be misunderstood as an official position.
3. Clarification: World Teacher a messianic entity. Rm "expected" as this is obvious from the context.
4. Clarity: moved a sentence in final para. for better context. Replaced "material" with "spoken and written works" to account for the fact of transcriptions.

Childhood

1. Precision: Added westernized rendition to Hindu calendar, in footnote.

Middle years

1. Clarification: wording in note re: process

Later years

1. Readability: wording in footnote re: non-existence of psychological time
2. Consistency: in note re: UN talks.

Afterword

1. New material: Added ref to Vernon's analysis of K's discussion style in footnote, in the paragraph about K criticism as vague + assertive.
2. Readability: Changed wording in paragraph of David Skitt commentaries.
3. Precision: footnote on immediate liberation (attention). Replaced "sudden" w. "unpremeditated". "Sudden" (although probably not incorrect from a 3rd-person standpoint) may be misunderstood as "lacking intent".

Several other minor grammar, syntax + readability edits.

65.88.88.173 (talk) 17:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

2011-03-29 edits by 65.88.88.127 (talk) 19:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Intro

1. rm paragraph with specific aspect (re: K and semantics). intro is for overall general summary only.

Middle

1. + substance of paragraph removed from intro (about semantics).

2. + sources in footnote

Late

1. + source in note re: M Lutyens experience of "other".

List of refs

1. + refs for sources

65.88.88.127 (talk) 19:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment: adding Template:American English here

Since the article has been written in American English as far as I can tell, with all respect to other dialect speakers, I propose to add the Template:American English here, as a guide to future editors and for consistency. All comments welcome. Thanks. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Italics

Are all the italics necessary?

The process, for example, is incessantly italicized which makes one think the article is a polemic rather than an encyclopedia piece. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.175.109.15 (talk) 04:19, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

thanks for reading the article and for your feedback. there are two reasons for italics in the article.

1. per wp:mos, for some foreign terms that are not widely used (eg in toto), and also for novel terms with specific meaning. these usually are preceded by "so-called" or "called" or "named" (eg so-called Great White Brotherhood).

2. for emphasis either added or in the original. the added emphasis in the vast majority of cases concerns terms that have very specific meaning, that is maybe unique to the article. process is one of those. what is meant by the italicized process is different from the common term, which is also used in the article. similarly in other K-specific terms like observer, seeing etc. K used common terms with very uncommon meanings. we thought these should be italicized to distinguish K-specific philosophic concepts.

there's an effort to comply with wp:mos, but only when it doesn't interfere with readers' understanding. however nothing is written in the stone. ANY reasonable recommendation and contribution that enhance the article is welcome. thanks 65.88.88.126 (talk) 20:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

to add, please let me know if my response is unsatisfactory. what would you de-emphasize in the article and why? we can proceed from there. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 20:17, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I think some words could be without italics or in quotes. Also, descriptions of his philosophical ideas could be in plain text? I'll make same changes, and we'll see if there's any objections. Thanks. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)