Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 January 9

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January 9

Need help finding a short story

Hi, I'm looking for a short story I read five years ago which is from the late 19th-early 20th century. It's about an Irish union organizer whose name is Mulligan(?), who's job is to organize workers at a port city and (I believe) loses his job. At the end of the story he gets his job back (I think) or resolves whatever problem it was he had, and the only other detail I remember clearly is some kind of port official talking about his case at the end of the story who (incorrectly) mentions the man's name as "Mullarkey". Would really appreciate if someone could help me find this. 70.185.254.48 (talk) 00:24, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

James Joyce? 49.226.162.124 (talk) 03:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't sound like it could be him. The story had a lighthearted, somewhat humorous ending, if that helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.185.254.48 (talk) 04:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a 'Rat Mulligan' in The Informer by Liam O'Flaherty. The story is about some Irish revolutionaries and the time of action is 1920's. But it's much longer than a short story. Omidinist (talk) 05:05, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Nope, that's not it at all. This was definitely a short story, and it was about a union organizer.

Organization whose initial is C

According to CIA website about Canada, it says that Canada is a member of an organization called "C". What does it stand for? [1]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.17.171 (talk) 00:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm getting a "404 Not Found" from that link. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

There was an extra bit at the end. I've fixed it. Still don't see the relevant part, though. Listed under Government>International Organization Participation. Stands for "Commonwealth", it seems. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

That was my next guess. Is there any standard abbreviation for the British Commonwealth? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Unless Britain has its own Commonwealth, seems to be "C". There was a Commonwealth of England, a while back. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:19, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The "British Commonwealth" is the former name of the "Commonwealth of Nations". StuRat (talk) 03:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

But not since 1949. Alansplodge (talk) 09:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

"C" looks standard for government, anyway. Apparently, business uses "Comm." and military uses "CW". InedibleHulk (talk) 01:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

No。 It is spelled out in full on pretty much every conceivable occasion. Like 'Olympic' - you almost never see that abbreviated. Matt's talk 03:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Incredible, above, gave the correct answer, but for those not familiar with the CIA World Factbook web site, here's one way to find it within the site. On the page that the original poster cited, every the section title is a link to further details about what it means. So the title "International organization participation" is a link to a page of definitions of terms starting with I, with parameters that jump you directly to the definition of "International organization participation". That definition isn't helpful, but the very next definition is "international organizations". And that contains a link to Appendix B: International organizations and groups]. Unfortunately, on that page (unlike the one Incredible cited) the organizations are sorted by full name. But the abbreviations are consistently in parentheses, so the final step is just to search on the page for the text "(C)". --65.94.50.4 (talk) 05:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

If you search my name for a C, you won't find it. I am a bit incredible, but truly can't afford to get sued. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:50, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, is that the explanation? We used to have User:FeloniousMonk and he may have had the same worry. Thincat (talk) 11:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The answer is in the CIA World Factbook Appendix. Click here, then on the letter C, the first item on the C page is Commonwealth. In the absence of any other meaningful international commonwealths, this would be the Commonwealth of Nations. 13:27, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Keeping Faith

In the Plot Summary section of Jodi Picoult's novel, "Keeping Faith, Wikipedia states that Faith has never read the Bible because she is a Jew. This is blatantly incorrect. Many Jew study the Bible. Many Jewish children are taught bible stories from the Old Testament in Hebrew or Sunday School. Many Jewish adults read the Old and New Testaments. Although, Jodi Picoult or her character, Faith, may not have read the Bible, it is very incorrect and misleading to state the a person has never read the Bible because she is a Jew.

Bobbie Levine Visalia, CA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.238.194.188 (talk) 07:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I haven't read the novel, so I can't give an accurate answer, but I wonder if "New Testament" was intended? I assume that only a small proportion of Jews have read this part. We need to know exactly what the novel says, but Google won't let me preview any pages. I've added a heading to your question. Dbfirs 07:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

In Judaism, "The Bible" refers to what Christians call "The Old Testament". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:45, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Many Jews have not read (all of) what Christians call "The Bible". --ColinFine (talk) 09:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

No? But at the climax of The Great Dictator, the Jewish Barber quotes spontaneously from Luke! —Tamfang (talk) 04:23, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

In the absence of comments from anyone who has read the novel, I've made a minor alteration to avoid the implication that Jews have never read any of the bible. Dbfirs 10:05, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

That unwarranted generalization, implicit in because, was certainly unjustified. Thanks to both OP and Dbfirs for the correction.

In my limited Bible study group experiences, having participated in a Tanakh study group for a year of readings and midrash only once, ordinary Jews are better interpreters of Christian scripture than ordinary Christians are of Hebrew scripture. Recent extraordinary readings: Levine & Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford, 2011) ISBN 978-0195297706

However, the actual text of the novel is plain enough in this specific case. I haven't read Keeping Faith, but I googled for an ebook and searched it for "Bible" in less time than it takes to type this: here is what a supposed expert on Faith, her mother Mariah (wife of Colin), has to say in chapter 2 (~10% into book, no page # in ebook, sorry): "It has been years since Mariah has studied a Bible, and as far as she knows, Faith's never even seen one. She and Colin had put off their daughter's religious instruction indefinitely, since neither of them could consider it without feeling like a hypocrite." Faith was barely 7 years old at the time and still wrote letters backwards. Looks like an interesting book. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I've whittled that sentence down further and explained in the edit summary my reasoning. Bus stop (talk) 12:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvement. Paul evidently has better access to ebooks than I have. It looks as if the original editor of the article misunderstood the reason. Dbfirs 19:24, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Suborning sin?

I am looking for references for the following conundrum:

A priest who is also a diplomat in Renaissance Europe has been forced to send back two staff members to his home country to be investigated for treason. Naturally they will be interrogated (and tortured) for a confession and executed. So far so good: the priest, although conscientious and unusually religious-minded for a secular priest in this time period, is fine with the death penalty for treason, as it's standard operating procedure and traitors are the worst of the worst. But how does he conscion himself suborning others to commit treason against their masters to benefit his own master?

Note that I'm not looking for opinions from y'all; I'm looking for some reference from the era that he would rely upon to salve his conscience. I've searched for "suborn treason" and all I find is crap on American politics and old trial records. There got to be something; even if people "didn't worry about it too much" there would be some explanation of why they didn't meant to at least make their masters feel less guilty. Thanks. --NellieBly (talk) 22:40, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean by "suborning others to commit treason against their masters to benefit his own master"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:48, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

For example, if a Venetian diplomat stationed in Paris were to get secret information from the French King's private secretary, or the Imperial ambassador to England were to get secret information from the private secretary to the French ambassador. (Both real examples, by the way; King François's diplomats were pretty easy to suborn.) --NellieBly (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

To be clearer, I mean that by getting the French ambassador's secretary to pass on information to him, the Imperial ambassador is suborning that man to commit treason against King François - a treason that benefits the Imperial ambassador's master, Charles V. --NellieBly (talk) 22:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Insofar as I can interpret what you're trying to ask, you seem to be querying how a priest-diplomat could "square away" (with his own conscience) encouraging in-country diplomatic staff to commit treason against their own sovereign, thus putting themselves at risk of the death penalty. Am I getting close? Though not Catholic, there are multiple references available to 17th-centry opinion from John Williams, the Archbishop of York with regard to a "public and private conscience" and such ideas don't seem to be unique to him or his time (just an easy-to-search-for reference). Oath of Allegiance of James I of England might also be of interest to OP. During the 17th century, there are plenty of examples of Catholic diplomats (those from Rome itself and from other Catholic countries) disguising themselves as noblemen, merchants and other things in order to function incognito in England. Though not the same thing, lying about their true identities, lying to diplomatic staff, and eliciting "diplomatic information" all while pretending to have no interest in diplomacy was very common. Had those functionaries been caught discussing such matters with "papal spies", they likely would have been hanged as traitors despite their ignorance. Such "papal spies" operated in England for many years and justified their activities as service to God. Doing the same between two notionally Catholic states might be a different matter, but it might serve as a relevant reference. St★lwart¹¹¹ 00:05, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

That's my exact meaning. Thank you for the references and especially the reminder of public vs. private conscience. --NellieBly (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

It might help if you saw your hypothetical priest/diplomat as being exactly where he was and doing what he was doing as a career choice, rather than a vocation. We're talking about a period framed by Pope Alexander VI and Cardinal Richelieu. A diplomat/spy would do well not to be troubled by a conscience, and many who chose the priesthood as a career path fitted the bill. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 00:33, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

And written justifications for diplomatic duplicity long precede Machiavelli's The Prince in the genre mirrors for princes. But in an era of God-ordained principalities, rife with religious conflict, it does not take a Machiavelli to sincerely justify sending all one's political/religious adversaries to hell. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 00:48, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

That's certainly true, though we're not really talking about "adversaries" - a 17th-century priest is unlikely to have seen himself as sending treasonous collaborators to "hell". While he might have been sending them to the gallows, he would have been doing so for his king, his country and his God. He might have seen such actions as a "necessary sacrifice", or some form of involuntary martyrdom. While no longer the Middle Ages, many who chose the priesthood as a career still did so because they were the second son and for no other reason. In an era of religiously-motivated capital punishment, inquisitions, reformation, treason and wars of religion, conscience wasn't what we might think of it today. Cardinals hired brigands to take to the streets and beat Rome's own citizens to death in order to create enough disruption as to justify support for the status quo during papal conclaves. By comparison, "flipping" a foreign diplomat is unlikely to rate highly on the "guilty conscience" scale. St★lwart¹¹¹ 01:29, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• You should probably also look at Scandal (theology) and Casuistry. See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13506d.htm. μηδείς (talk) 05:15, 10 January 2015 (UTC)