Talk:Albert Schweitzer

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[edit] Stance on racial relations

The following passage, purportedly from the first edition of Schweitzer's "African Notebook", may be found here and there on the web. I have been trying to validate its authenticity, and the wonderful Snopes people have made an interesting attempt:

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=501940

The investigator actually located a 1939 English edition of the book in the UCLA library, in which he failed to find this passage after a rather hurried skim. He says it would be worth checking the original GERMAN edition. Anyone?

""I have given my life to try to alleviate the sufferings of Africa. There is something that all white men who have lived here like I must learn and know: that these individuals are a sub-race. They have neither the intellectual, mental, or emotional abilities to equate or to share equally with white men in any function of our civilization. I have given my life to try to bring them the advantages which our civilization must offer, but I have become well aware that we must retain this status: the superior and they the inferior. For whenever a white man seeks to live among them as their equals they will either destroy him or devour him. And they will destroy all of his work. Let white men from anywhere in the world, who would come to Africa, remember that you must continually retain this status; you the master and they the inferior like children that you would help or teach. Never fraternize with them as equals. Never accept them as your social equals or they will devour you. They will destroy you." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.120.41.75 (talk) 14:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The title of the original book in German is Afrikanische Geschichten (1938, Hamburg and Leipzig) (and the first English edition was London 1938, NY 1939) and I have added it to the Bibliography, but have no access to it. But the (extremely doubtful) remark is attributed to a time not long before his death, which does not square with this source in any case. A categorical denial that Schweitzer wrote this "quotation" in any shape or form is made by Dr Lachlan Forrow, President of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (USA), here [1]. Eebahgum (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I partly reverted the edit by 66.98.152.31, since it violates the NPOV ("Sadly, this has been proven to be true; every area where Whites have left, has invariably degenerated to savagery again. This is not racist ranting, but the honest truth. Look at South Africa during apartheid and then look at the same country now; look at Rhodesia under the whites and how nobody starved, not Whites or native Africans. Now, under Native African misrule, the whole nation might well starve."). I left part of 66.98.152.31's quotation since it illustrates a maybe little-known side of Albert Schweitzer. From a quick google on "Albert Schweitzer" and racism it seems probable that Schweitzer actually made a statement like this. Nevertheless, it would be great if someone (66.98.152.31?) could add the corresponding citation. To give a more balanced picture of Albert Schweitzer I added the other quotation which I found on http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1864 (Section 5). Maybe someone who has access to the book could check and extend (publisher, year) the given citation? Ringler

I removed the remainder of the quote discussed above, which called Africans an "inferior race", said that Whites must be the Masters, and that Africans must not be treated as equals. Despite being frequently repeated in some quarters, this quote is a fabrication. I've read almost everything Schweitzer wrote that has been translated into English, and nothing remotely like it appears in print. To accomodate the removal of the fabricated quote and to provide some context, I altered the first sentence of the remaining paragraph. I also added a short paragraph discussing what some view as Schweitzer's paternalistic attitude. [This is my first Wikipedia entry, so forgive me if my changes to someone else's entry are a breach of etiquette.]

The anonymous editor has persisted in adding that material every few weeks. Frequently it is interesting to check out these anonymous people and see what other edits they have made. It quickly becomes obvious that some people have a big ax to grind. P0M 22:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Curate or pastorate?

Re: timeline section: Calvinists (Reformed) do not have "curates." he was either an assistant or associate pastor when at strausburg. --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kenneth claus (talk • contribs) . 16 April 2006

It is known that in French and English both words “vicar” and “curate” have an opposite signification: “vicaire” means “curate” and “curé” means “vicar”. Then Albert Schweitzer was not a reformed but a Lutheran “pasteur” and I know that among the Lutherans, at least in Alsace, there are “vicaires”. Therefore it is correct to say that Schweitzer had been a “curate”. Gustave G. 02:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schweitzer : German or French ?

The article shouldn’t mention Schweitzer as a German, since his passport was French. But the best is to make him an Alsatian. Like many people of this region in this time, Schweitzer tried in fact to find a way beetween France and Germany. Moreover this quite Alsatian position on nationality brought him to consider himself as a citizen of the world. So Alsace may be considered as his real fatherland.

To see how tangled the problem is :

Schweitzer was born a German in 1875. The Alsace region (French since Louis XIV) had just been taken by Bismarck in 1870 after German-French war. Schweitzer went to the German school, but he spoke French at home, and moved to Paris in 1893 to study philosophy and music. After that he came back to German Alsace, then to proper Germany. When Alsace re-became French in 1918, his nationality turned to French. He married a German person, but corresponded with her in French. Then Schweitzer established his hospital in a French colony, wrote books in German and receved Nobel price as a Frenchman. Apart from that, his cousin Anne-Marie Schweitzer was also the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre !

His biography made him one of this person beetween two worlds... but it seems he took advantage of it.

See this page from the Fondation Schweitzer in Lambaréné to consider the nationality problem

Both ... but officially German during 43 years (1875-1918) and French during 47 years (1918-1965).... so the best way to respect his origin and culture is to put "Alsacian"

Paris75000 19:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between citizenship and ethnic nationality. Someone may be a French citizen, but at the same time of German ethnicity. As his name proves (and his writings), he was an ethnic German (German people), so the article should mention him as a German. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.128.172 (talk) 23:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course the article must take account of Schweitzer's Alsace/Elsass identity, his German national birth, his French nationality later, and should also recognise his true character as above all a citizen of the world. Also that his wife was the daughter of a German Jewish pan-Germanist Germanistik scholar (Harry Bresslau whom the French drove out of his Strasbourg teaching post). In CATEGORIES the anti-nuclear activist label needs to be French, because Schweitzer had long become French by nationality (whatever his cultural origins) by the time nuclear bombs were invented and first used. When he was an anti-nuclear activist, he was already legally French. The real question is not about Schweitzer himself, but whether these category tags refer to ethnicity, cultural origin or legal nationality. I'll ask an admin. Eebahgum (talk) 21:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's any particular policy that's relevant here. It is certainly true that ethnic/national labelling is often a problem. I've seen this quite often at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. Do categories refer to legal nationality, self-identity, cultural origin, or what exactly? I think examples can be found of all of these. Clearly self-identity is the most readily verified. If Schweizer said he was an Alsatian, that's what he was. If he said he was a citizen of the world, giving undue prominence to legal nationality would be odd. I looked at the French and German articles and they seem to avoid making clear-cut claims about Schweizer's identity in the text and are generous with their categorisations. This route has the advantage of being readily sourceable and least likely to provoke reasonable dissent. The issue of chronology is a thorny one, but the point about him being a French or Alsatian anti-nuclear activist rather than a German one seems reasonable to me. The category system is less than ideal and will presumably be replaced by something better in time to come. I would not be too concerned about getting the categorisation perfect as the system is really not good enough in its present state to achieve that in complex cases such as this. The text is really what matters to readers. Hope this helps, Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with sentence(s)

The first two sentences under "Theology" read thusly:

"As a young theologian he published The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), by which he gained a great reputation. He later on met Vlad Zakharchenko and they wrote this book, he interpreted the life of Jesus in the light of Jesus' own eschatological convictions."

That second sentence is surely missing some content. From what I can tell, the name of the book he wrote with Zakharchenko, and some connecting words.

Probably a sloppy edit at some point cut them out.

I can't make any repair myself, knowing nothing on the topic. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will assist here.

Thanks

71.143.0.125 19:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)BLenz

[edit] Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.meaning.ca/meaningful_living/worthy_lives/albert_schweitzer%20.html (archive)
  • In Albert Schweitzer on 2007-08-21 12:15:25, 404 Not Found
  • In Albert Schweitzer on 2007-08-29 21:38:02, 404 Not Found

The web page has been saved by the Internet Archive. Please consider linking to an appropriate archived version: [2]. --Stwalkerbot 21:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The discussion about racial attitudes lacks objectivity

The problem with this section is that it presumes that regarding certain African nations unfit for decolonization makes someone a racist. This is a fashionable belief but it is certainly not without dispute, intellectual or otherwise. It is perfectly consistent that a person believe that colonization confers a benefit on the colonized and not in turn believe the colonized are inherently inferior. Those who do so believe would assert that some civilizations are more advanced than others and that a paternal attitude towards the less advanced is appropriate. Whether one agrees with this point of view is irrelevant. The tone of this section takes the proposition that colonialism is uniformly racist and insupportable as a given. This is not objective, and thus inappropriate for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnDavidBurgess (talk • contribs) 21:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I have swapped around the sections on 'Medicine' and 'Stance on racial relations' (renamed as 'Controversy in Africa') for a better chronology in the article. I renamed the section so that the title fits all of the content. The James Cameron reference cited by me gives some insight over the points JohnDavidBurgess makes above. Philip Cross (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)