Talk:Richard Topcliffe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details. | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. | |
| This article falls within the scope of the Interfaith work group. If you are interested in Interfaith-related topics, please visit the project page to see how you can help. If you have any comments regarding the appropriateness or positioning of this template, please let us know at our talk page.
|
||
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article. |
||
[edit] Psychopath
I see there are two links to a source for this term. The problem I have is that it's a 20thC. diagnosis based on partly known actions of a 16thC. torturer. We try to get away from descriptions of catholics as devoted (see Talk:Adolf Hitler) or fanatical, protestants as zealous, and puritans as stern - because they're just cartoon tags that tell us nothing about the real people. But this example is even worse - to describe him as a psychopath is to assert that he had a psychiatric condition which prevented him from sharing ordinary human feelings. Even to describe him as sadistic would assert that he took pleasure from his torture. The terms are anachronistic, and the evidence to back them up isn't available. Why not just describe him as cruel? He undoubtedly was that.--Shtove 15:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Although the link says he was a psychopath, the offending sentence in the article says he gained a reputation for being a psychopath, which makes it anachronistic as Shtove says. Any objections to removing the sentence? Glow worm64 18:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Unless there are objections, I am going to shorten the sentence to remove the word "psychopath". Glow worm64 08:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
- Nah, go ahead.--Shtove 12:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
