But Paul Bushkovitch said in Slavic Review that all the cool kids are doing it, mom!

By Tristyn Bloom

October 28, 2008

"On Wikipedia, objective truth isn't all that important, actually. What makes a fact or statement fit for inclusion is that it appeared in some other publication--ideally, one that is in English and is available free online. 'The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth,' states Wikipedia's official policy on the subject." - Technology Review

Sound familiar?

A: Claim!
B: Untrue!
A: C once made Claim.
B: Oh. Claim indeed.

As Garfinkel himself admits, Wikipedia's current policy is really the only sensible one, and if it's to be run at all, it should probably be run thus- yet this alternate conception of truth permeates more than Wiki talk pages. Go have a disagreement with someone, about anything at all, and see how far you get before "Well X would disagree..."

Name-dropping can be a helpful short-cut: it can give context, elucidate the unclear, unite opposing parties in mutual respect of a third, and/or make an opponent think twice about the gravity of that to which he objects. More often than not, though, it serves as one of two things: a stand-in for original thought, or a sheet hiding profound misunderstanding.

My friend Nicola once described a mutual acquaintance as sounding as though he learned his philosophy "phonetically". We've all met a man or two whose idea of rebutting an argument is to spit soundbites he clearly doesn't understand. This is acceptable discourse in a suprising number of arenas- conservatism is no exception. Barry Goldwater this, Edmund Burke that, Nisbet, Mises, etc etc etc. Anyone can say "fuck the state" (go on! try it!)- but, as I told some of my liberal housemates this past summer, "you don't get to!" Anyone can cross themselves before an Icon, but for some of us it's proper, and for some of us it's not.

So, no, not advocating for a radical change in Wikipedia policy, but rather, a changed attitude in its readers, and the realization that an unflagged Wiki entry isn't equivalent to a coherent, tenable world view.