Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 April 24

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April 24

Honolulu Catholic sisters in 1859

So on May 4, 1859, ten Flemish and French nuns [1] from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary arrived in Honolulu and established a boarding school on July 9, 1859 and a day school later on (these were the precursor of Sacred Hearts Academy). What were the names of these nuns and their final fate (did they remain in Hawaii or return to Europe)? KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:05, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

What I've found is that the Mother Superior was named Judith Brassier (1834–1909).^{[2];[3] p. 21.} But she did apparently not have that position from the very start. Other snippets of info: the ten Sisters left Valpaiso, Chile, on the English ship Nelson, headed for San Francisco, bound for Hawaii.^[4] Another name mentioned, probably part of the ten, is Mother Henriette Aymer de la Chevalerie, a noblewoman whose family had lost property and suffered imprisonment during the Revolution; of the ten Sisters of the Sacred Hearts who arrived in 1859, six were choir sisters and four were lay; yet another Sister, also probably part of the 10 and superior to Judith Brassier who was her assistant, was the Sisters' Provincial Superior, Mother Maria Josepha George (d. 1877), Belgian by birth; Mother Judith Brassier, who succeeded her and remained the Superior for thirty-five years, until shortly before her death in 1909, was a Frenchwoman; ^{[5], pp. 131, 132 & 162.} I have only skimmed the last source.  --Lambiam 20:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Henriette Aymer de La Chevalerie died in 1834 but helped found the order. So Judith Brassier and Maria Josepha George. Let me know if anybody else find the name of the remaining 8 sisters. KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Bingo! Apparently two came from Belgium and three from the Kingdom of Hanover (now Lower Saxony), the rest from France.  --Lambiam 10:26, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

So they are Maria-Josepha George, Judith Brassier, Adeida Hemeing, Theresa Roulois, Sinise Morand. Odilia Lovels, Landeline Farard, Laurentine Loyer, Marthe Fournier, and Waltrude Kapmeyer. I didn't take the time to put correct accent in names. But I found the fate of the first two sisters. They basically lived and died in Hawaii. What was the fate of the 8 other sisters? Did they stay in their missionary posts or return to Europe? KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

About Kosovo...

I am not quite sure myself if this question is going to make sense but, I will ask anyway. I apologize beforehand if the following comes across as confusing in any way. Around two and half years ago, I asked on here a logic question about double standard and hypocrisy and the main reason I asked was the argument that Kosovo is unique and thus does not establish a precedent that got often brought up by most Western governments as a response to whataboutism from Russia and proponents of other cases of separatist secessions. While there were useful answers, I was not exactly satisfied and so, I will ask it more directly this time around.

Does the argument that Kosovo is sui generis and thus is is not a double standard to treat it differently from other cases of unilateral secession such as Catalonia makes logical sense? If it does, could you use the fact that every situation is inherently unique to a certain extent in term of context and situation to prove that all accusations of hypocrisy or any fallacious whataboutisms are inherently opinions? Or is the aforementioned argument just mental gymnastics to just metaphorically say "hurr durr The West is always right. Kosovo is unique and different because we say so and we are always right, why won't you get it? smh" since there is a huge gap in logic between "Kosovo is unique" and "We should treat it differently from other cases of secession"? 70.95.44.93 (talk) 17:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

What counts as a "sui generis" case would obviously depend on one's own opinion; so, whether it involves hypocrisy would depend on what one's own personal views are. For instance, one could refer to the post-World War II expulsions of Germans as a "sui generis" case that was justified but otherwise refuse to support ethnic cleansing, but whether one would be viewed as a hypocrite for this position would depend on whether or not other people will think that you've made a sufficiently strong case in favor of these specific expulsions being "sui generis" and thus more justified than other expulsions are.

Another interesting point in regards to Kosovo is that it was something described as being "illegal but legitimate" (or, alternatively, "illegal but justified"). This means that the West believes that there are certain actions that are contrary to international law but that are nevertheless legitimate or justified. (Of course, this raises the question as to why exactly such actions should be illegal in the first place; after all, shouldn't legitimate and/or justified actions actually be legal--similar to how it's legal for a good Samaritan to accidentally break someone's rib while saving their life?) The thing is, of course, that this opens the door for other countries--such as Russia--to likewise violate international law in cases that they consider to be justified--and then the West won't be able to criticize these countries (such as Russia) for violating international law because these countries are simply going to say "Yes, we did violate international law, but our action was nevertheless legitimate and thus justified and appropriate!" Indeed, one can refer to the Crimea annexation as being legitimate due to the fact that the majority of the Crimean population does appear to have endorsed it after the fact. (It's less clear whether a majority of the Crimean population endorsed it before the fact.) So, in at least some way, the Crimean annexation was compatible with the principle of national self-determination--which one can certainly view as a legitimate principle even if it is one that isn't actually universally recognized by international law. (The situation and political climate in regards to national self-determination right now is, of course, much more favorable right now than it was a century or two ago, but it's still by no means a universally recognized right according to international law.) Futurist110 (talk) 17:59, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, some has argued that Sudeten Germans collectively committed high treason and thus revenge against them are legally justified but then again, a lot of targets of ethnic cleansing had tried to do something similar if not the same thing. What I am trying to say is that since all accusations of hypocrisy rely on the opinion that two or more situations are the same, are they opinions in an of themselves?

Did Russia ever admit that they do not subscribe to international laws or some something similar rather than just using whataboutism to justify their actions in the last 12 years?

Also, would you agree with the assertion that international laws are a combination of "The strong/winners make the rules" and "screw the rules, I make them"? I mean, whenever I see arguments surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict, the argument that Israel violated international law by occupying the West Bank or intending to annex some parts of the territories it had conquered got brought up like no tomorrow but this is far from the first time an act of unilateral annexation got later internationally recognized and widely accepted as fait accompli. Let's not even get to debate surrounding right of return (Sudetenland, Operation Storm anyone?), the fact that China could legally do whatever it want with Hong Kong and Taiwan according to international laws, and claimant of prisoners of war status by unlawful combatant in violent domestic conflicts (IRA). 70.95.44.93 (talk) 18:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that any argument based on ascribing something "collectively" to a group of people only defined by a common ethnicity must be rejected. Consider that among the ethnic Germans expulsed some had actively resisted the Nazi occupation and had lost family members because of that, and that also German-speaking Jews had to face expulsion.  --Lambiam 20:37, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Not so much a matter of logic but one of semantics, I think that the term "hypocrisy" should be reserved for a contradiction between someone's sanctimonious presentation and their actual selfish motives and behaviour. If one rejects the sui generis defence, the situation is that of a double standard, which one may regard as wrong, but which is not necessarily hypocritical. For the rest, in legal arguments precedents play an important role, so situations that are different but have some aspects in common are being compared all the time. It is not unheard of that one party argues that some precedent applies, while the other party rejects that argument as comparing apples with oranges. There is no foolproof method for deciding who is more right, but logic is not a victim here. But in claiming that every situation is sui generis because there is always some difference is an instance of the sorites fallacy.  --Lambiam 20:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

70.95.44.93 -- For good or bad, "Operation Horseshoe" was the final straw in influencing many NATO and/or western nations to arrive at the conclusion that Serbia could not be trusted with control of Kosovo, and did not deserve to rule over Kosovo. There has been no Operation Horseshoe in Catalonia. A situation somewhat parallel to Kosovo could be Nagorno-Karabakh. The vast majority of ethnic Armenians have a strong aversion to being ruled over by an Azerbaijani-run government, and would not have the slightest degree of confidence or trust in an Azerbaijani-run government's good intentions toward themselves -- and vice-versa for the vast majority of ethnic Azerbaijanis with respect to an Armenian-run government, of course. The international community has not formally recognized any special status for Nagorno-Karabakh, but it has also not strongly pushed for restoring the situation as of the breakup of the Soviet Union, since under current circumstances that would mean a violent ethnic cleansing of Armenians from the territory... AnonMoos (talk) 21:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

By the way, one special exacerbating factor with respect to the Sudeten Germans was that they were basically located in the mountains, looking down at the Czechs in the valleys (not to mention surrounding the Czechs on three sides). An entity of Czechoslovakia minus Sudetenland would be completely militarily indefensible. In the bitter aftermath of WWII, it's not surprising that the Czechoslovak government concluded that if the Sudetens remained, they would be a perpetual focus of irredentist mischief, and a source of weakness for the Czechoslovak state. AnonMoos (talk) 23:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

While Catalonia is, just like you said, not even remotely comparable to what happened in Kosovo especially when it comes to the former's privileges, I still see the comparison getting predictably brought up in debates regarding it along with the "sui generis" response from the Western governments that is likewise echoed by the government of Kosovo itself. In any case, the fact that many of the countries that recognize "Kosovo" fall back on the "sui generis" argument means that they are not definitely not going to extend the same treatment to other separatist causes and that goes for all Post-Soviet de-facto states including Nagorno-Karabakh. The main reason most of these conflicts occurred in the first place is because Soviet Union, bound by its ideals, not only embraced state-building along ethnic lines but also did it poorly by drawing bad borders and including one autonomous entity in another for no reason. I mean, come on, if these regional ethnic minorities do not accept their fate in unitary states like the Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia after Trianon or decide to voluntarily assimilate like the ones in France, then I cannot imagine how any of these conflicts would ever be resolved without at least Operation Storm 2.0 or Benes decrees 2.0 happening. 70.95.44.93 (talk) 00:47, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

International Fraud/Scams

I recently was frauded by a company in the UK. It is odd that it is a real company and is still opened. They have no phone number or way to contact them except by e-mail which they do not respond to. I am not sure who I would report this to in the UK police/coppers/etc. I am out 14.000 that was wired to the persons bank account. The other thing is the place is still opened and has the same name Proceed Shipping LTD in Maidstone Kent. Would you please tell me who I should get ahold of with a phone number and a # for the police if able. Thanks 68.8.19.164 (talk) 22:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Contact numbers for Kent, UK police. DroneB (talk) 23:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• If the business is still open after the scam was over, and the scammer had you wire money to a personal bank account, the scammer might not have actually worked with or for the company but was spoofing their email address as a cover. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Report fraud to ActionFraud Tel: 0300 123 2040. Searching for "Proceed Shipping Ltd" seems to show a number of solid business reports, and no mention of scams, so I suspect that Ian.thomson is right, and that your scammers have spoofed them. --ColinFine (talk) 14:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Question about the AD calendar system

I have a question about the AD calendar system--the people who originally created it wanted the first year after Jesus's alleged birth to be year 1, the second year after Jesus's alleged birth to be year 2, and so forth, correct? However, wouldn't that be wrong from a purely mathematical notation perspective? Please let me elaborate on what I mean here:

If, purely hypothetically, Jesus was born on January 1, 1 AD, then the year 1 would have been the first year of his life, but he would have still had an age of between 0.00 and 0.99 years throughout the entirety of year 1. Ditto for the year 2 AD, where Jesus would have had an age of between 1.00 and 1.99 years throughout the entirety of year 2. And so forth. So, if we actually want a system that measured the amount of time since a hypothetical birth of Jesus on January 1, AD 1, shouldn't we transform the year AD 1 into the year 0 instead? That way, whereas Jesus would have previously turned 1 year old at the start of the year 2 AD in this hypothetical scenario, he would have now turned 1 year old at the start of the year 1 AD in this hypothetical scenario due to the years on this calendar being moved backwards by one year. This would seem much simpler to follow, no? So, using such a system, the year 1900 would become the year 1899 since at the start of the year 1900 in this scenario, there would have only passed 1899 years since Jesus's hypothetical birth. So, if we actually want to graph and plot the distance between Jesus's hypothetical birth in this scenario and a particular event, shouldn't we graph and plot Jesus's hypothetical birth date as 0.00 and then add whatever number of years we want to increase to it? In this case 0.00 + 1899.00 = 1899, thus changing the year 1900 into the year 1899? The same, of course, would also work in regards to moving time backwards--as in, subtracting years before Jesus's alleged birth date in this scenario.

Anyway, what do all of you think about this?

For the record, this question is kind of random but it originated because someone on a particular forum insisted that the 19th century should end in the year 1899 instead of 1900 and that astronomically has already made a correction in regards to this by creating a year zero. My rejoinder to this, of course, was that if the people who created our current calendar would have actually believed in the concept of a year zero, then they would have labelled year 1 AD year zero instead, labelled year 2 AD year 1 AD instead, and so forth ... up to the point of labeling year 1900 AD year 1899 AD instead.

So, year, what are your own thoughts on all of this? Futurist110 (talk) 23:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Dionysius Exiguus devised the "era of the incarnation". He was actually more concerned with Easter calculations, and did not use the concept of zero in the same way that we're familiar with today... AnonMoos (talk) 23:45, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

You are confusing "first year" with "age 1". You are only one year old after completing an entire year of life. However, the entire time from birth to the anniversary of birth is your "first year". --Khajidha (talk) 23:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I know that. I was simply talking about how we should devise our calendar naming in regards to year numbers if we will treat years as being comparable to ages--as in, having the first year after Jesus's alleged traditional birth year be year 1, the year after that be year 2, and so forth. Jesus's alleged traditional birth year would, of course, be year zero since Jesus would not have actually had any birthdays in this specific year other than of course his very literal birth day. Futurist110 (talk) 00:15, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Not only is there no "year 0" in the BC/AD system, not only do we not know what day Jesus was actually born on, but also the calculation of when year 1 was, was likely off by several years. So it's kind of irrelevant. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 00:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

There is a year zero is astronomy, though--as per my post above. Futurist110 (talk) 00:56, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

That's fine for astronomers. Does anyone else use it? <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 01:07, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Why would we do that? It is completely contrary to how we number things in general. For example, the first game of the World Series is Game 1. It is Game one from the opening to the ending. Just as the first year of the AD calendar system is year 1. From beginning to end. --Khajidha (talk) 00:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Just use East Asian age reckoning then you don't have to worry about them being different. Nil Einne (talk) 02:14, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

If you look at the way that Dionysius Exiguus proceeded, in various Easter calculations the 19-year Metonic cycle governing the phases of the moon was combined with the 28-year cycle of the Julian calendar (after 28 years, the same sequence of calendar dates, i.e. month, day, and day of the week, repeats). So such Easter calculations involved a repeating cycle of 19 x 28 years, or 532 years. He then noticed that the beginning of a 532-year Easter cycle (525 years before the year he was writing) was a pretty good approximation to the birth of Jesus (we now know it was probably a few years late). He did not start with the "year 1" as you're assuming he did; he started out with the beginning of a 532-year Easter calculation cycle. It's not even too clear what he may have thought the exact birthdate of Jesus was. Of course, A.D. dating itself was not really used until the life of the venerable Bede over a century later... AnonMoos (talk) 04:20, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I think there is specific terminology to refer to the two different methods of counting years (i.e "numbering each year, starting at 1" as is used in the calendar, and "how many years have passed" (i.e. starting at zero), but I can't remember what it is. -- 09:08, 27 April 2020 Wardog

The first Easter was celebrated in about AD 30, so why would Dionysius want to calculate a hypothetical 532-year cycle from a non-existent Easter thirty years before? The exigency of the moment was that the current cycle was due to run out in seven years, and Dionysius needed to extend it fast. At the same time he felt it would be respectful if the years of his extended cycle were to date from the beginning of the cycle nearest the Incarnation. He wrote a book to explain this, noting in the preface:

Nonaginta quinque igitur annorum hunc cyclum, studio que valuimus expedire contendimus, ultimum eiusdem beati Cyrilli, id est quintum cyclum, quia sex adhuc ex eo anni superant, in nostro hoc opere praeferentes;

[Ninety five therefore of years this cycle; it is with zeal that we hastened to strive to put in order the last of these of blessed Cyril, that is the fifth cycle, because six now from this year show, in this our work presented;]

In his table the last year of Martyrs was 247, followed by year 532 of Christ; the cycle was unbroken allowing for the fact that the year of Martyrs began on 30 August of the preceding year. After the change, the discrepancy between lunar and solar years in the first year of the cycle continued to be zero - Dionysius entered this as nulla in his table alongside all the other numbers - the first use of zero in the west. His table continued to the year 626. The attraction of extending in 95-year increments is that usually (though not always) the date of Easter repeats every 95 years.

His reasoning then is as good as it is now:

sed magis eligimus ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi annorum tempora praenotare, quatenus exordium spei nostrae notius nobis existeret, et causa reparationis humanae, id est, passio Redemptoris nostri, evidentius eluceret. [but rather we elect to account the times of years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the beginning of our knowable hope might exist for us, and the cause of human reparation, that is, the passion of our Redeemer, might clearly shine forth.] -- 13:11, 27 April 2020 89.243.10.133

Easter was not "celebrated"[sic] in 30 AD; rather, 30 AD is one of the plausible candidates for the year of Jesus' death. And the point of the 532-year cycle was not to calculate Easter dates far back in time; rather, when you're using a 19-year cycle and a separate 28-year cycle, then they'll both begin or end in the same year once every 532 years. That's why it's not a coincidence that the first A.D. date in the table was 532 A.D. (though A.D. reckoning was not used much beyond Easter calculations until the time of Bede, as I said). A 95-year cycle contains 5 of the 19-year lunar Metonic cycles. Under the Julian calendar, there's a 75% possibility that a 95-year interval will contain 24 leap years, in which case the number of days will be evenly divisible by 7 (i.e. 4957 weeks). However, there's a 25% probability that it will contain only 23 leap years, in which case the total number of days in 95 years will not be evenly divisible by 7. The only way to get guaranteed exact repeatability of Easter dates using the assumptions of 6th-century A.D. Easter calculators is to go to a full 532-year cycle. AnonMoos (talk) 13:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)