This reads like an advertisement for this university. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Spikehay (talk • contribs) 02:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC).
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This reads like an advertisement for this university. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Spikehay (talk • contribs) 02:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC).
I agree. This page seems to abandon any sense of neutrality, and completely omits any mention of the various scandals that have plagued Naropa's history (Trungpa's well-known history of alcoholism, sexual liasons between administrators and students, etc.). I have a fondness for Naropa myself (as an alumni), but in the interest of providing a neutral POV, I think these things should at least be mentioned. When I Was Cool by Sam Kashner might be a place to start looking for references for anyone interested in tackling this.168.105.115.200 05:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that there is a lot of info on the school itself, but "scandals" need evidence. There needs to be proof to statements made and I think you'll find that the above statement does not come from a "neutral POV" as the author is an alumni. Additionally, the cited Kashner piece contains no evidence of any of the mentioned "scandals."
I will start a "Criticism and Controversy" section. As the previous, unsigned, comment indicates, material in this section is likely to be challenged and will need to be carefully written and sourced. Bertport 11:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Obviously this is a challenge for wikipedia because Naropa cannot be denied in that it is signficant and unique university and, yet, its very nature contrasts ultra rationality and factuality of the kind that wikipedia prides itself. Naropa is the object and the subject and that is always a tight squeeze for wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.57.255.242 (talk) 09:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
"Like the Dalai Lama and other exiled teachers, he continued to teach and transmit the wisdom of the Buddhist dharma." - The wisdom of the Buddhist dharma? Unless that can be restructured as something like, "Trungpa states his goal is to..." then that should definitely be struck for its non-neutral tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.73.20.205 (talk) 20:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, I took the time to remove any language that was clearly POV and advertising the school, yet leave factual information about degree program details or unique features of the school. There is probably more refinement to be done, but I think I got most of the problematic non-neutral and advert issues out of the article: at the expense of a lot of detail about the programs. I hope someone will someday add additional detail about unique features of Naropa, but I think this is a much better place to evolve the article from. I suggest that we now remove the advert and non-neutral banners, unless anyone has any objects. Please add them here. I'll remove the banners in a week if consensus agrees. Please also comment on any of my edits here, I'll watch this page for discussion and suggestions. - Owlmonkey (talk) 07:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Any news on the size of the school's endowment? I'm sure it must have some generous alumni.
First off, this change by PastorJennifer (talk · contribs) is copied as is from an amazon review by Dean Farwood and is a copyright violation. Deleting it. But more generally, Peter Marin worked for a few weeks at Naropa, and wrote that scathing critique in Harpers in 1979. But he's not a neutral commenter. Naropa is a religious university and the rest of the quote - which was omitted - follows:
The history of America has in fact had little to do with reason, consisting instead of wave upon wave of zealotry and ideology, and religious excess, generations of superstition and foolish beliefs, and a yearning for salvation and the ceaseless abdication of the stoic virtues necessary to democratic life: independent thought; the acceptance of human weakness; humility in the face of complex truths; the refusal to abjure either choice or responsibility; and the willingness to choose conscience and uncertainty rather than submission and safety.
His 1979 article in Harpers (included in his 1995 collection of essays) has some factual information that is citable, but his quotation is POV. - Owlmonkey (talk) 05:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I also removed the earlier quote by Marin as non-neutral, but added more details about the controversial incident with an additional citation, though it has plenty already and the Sanders citation is probably the only one necessary. The rest cite that one. - Owlmonkey (talk) 06:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been looking over the official site, and I find that much text here was originally plagiarised from that site. So perhaps my major cuts can be forgiven. (Also, there were some inaccuracies in the list of degrees.)--Dawud
This page apparently has a tendency to attract edits from Naropa partisans (whether volunteers or employees I can't say) which replace factual, neutral language with descriptions taken from their marketing department. Perhaps some sort of administrative intervention is in order...?
A word to the wise, Naropa people: propaganda that looks like propaganda, is bad propaganda. --Dawud —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.167.161.33 (talk) 10:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
While no one is denying that Trungpa’s life contained controversy, these events occurred over two decades ago and are already (and more appropriately) mentioned at length on his own bio page (a link to which is provided). If you still feel strongly about mentioning such events on the Naropa page, please leave the other content alone as it provides more accurate information about the institution than was previously listed (degree programs, for example, which were incorrect).
OK, moving forward, what specific changes are still good to make? There are some things pointed out in the recent back and forth worth making, and I haven't looked at the article for a few months, here are some nits I have now:
Any thoughts on these specific points? In looking through the history, I think all of these issues I have were introduced by user Dawud between April 15th and April 19th, so I'm interesting in his feedback on these in particular. This is the version before those changes: [2] - Owlmonkey (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
If proof is needed of the actual degree programs, nobody knows better what Naropa offers than Naropa itself: http://www.naropa.edu/academics/undergraduate/index.cfm http://www.naropa.edu/academics/graduate/index.cfm 205.170.134.65 (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Egad, I still have to wonder about Dawud's motives. The language was obviously hostile and implying that Naropa lies about its non-sectarian status. (Indicating that "contemplative education" is simply code for "Buddhist indoctrination" being a prime example.) Is the term "Buddhist-inspired" really that difficult to comprehend? Essentially, the school appreciates the psychological and ethical benefits of meditative practices but in no way proseletyzes or promotes the supernatural. It is evident from both the original revisions and the current ones that Dawud dislikes Trungpa. Great; but leave the university out of it. Trungpa is dead and gone.
I believe my edits have restored a more neutral tone. My apologies if I accidently deleted the Merwin incident. I am not against it being mentioned. And, on a positive note, the re-structuring of the degree programs looks good and, mostly, accurate. 205.170.134.65 (talk) 16:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
So you consider it valid and relevant to have Naropa linked to a suicidal massacre by a cult (Jonestown) in Guyana? I don't think you can justify that. And if you think any of my edits were unreasonable, by all means specify which ones. My edits weren't NEARLY as heavy handed as Dawud's complete reworking of a page that we ALREADY considered a compromise (as illustrated above) so why are you, again, letting him dictate its content? Isn't a continual back and forth with the hopeful arrival at a semi-objective middle ground the whole premise of Wikipedia? The page, as it stood before Dawud's most recent onslaught, was one such middle ground. All you have now is one single individual's biased account. For example, Dawud presumes to know that when using the word "non-sectarian," Naropa really means "ecumenical." Is that so? Since Naropa considers "ecumenical" to be a word used almost exclusively by Christian denominations, it avoids such terminology due to its interaction with ALL world religions. Another example: Naropa no longer offers a degree in Lecoq-based acting (first paragraph, http://www.naropa.edu/academics/graduate/lecoq/index.cfm). But, since Dawud's text states that it does, I suppose you will continue calling this "valid" information without doing your own research, right? I am curious how other universities defend against misrepresentation by disgruntled students or ex-employees. Do they produce an official document for Wikipedia so that it will be "sourced" by an "authority"? Nobody can stop someone from debating a school (or it's founder's) history, but when it comes to policies and definitions of its offerings, nobody knows more about those things than the staff and faculty themselves. I don't know who Dawud is, but he certainly has no business telling Naropa what it means when it says "contemplative education" and such. Only Naropa knows what it is thinking and, unless he is their official spokesperson, he oversteps. 205.170.134.65 (talk) 22:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
It does seem customary to start articles about universities, after the lead, with a history section. And most of that section is about how the organization was formed, sought accreditation, who lead it, etc. The Merton incident we've discussed before. But the Jonestown comparison is not something that Tom Clark specifically brings up in his publication, which was twelve months after Jonestown, right? The comparison to Jim Jones was however raised by Eliot Weinberger [3] specifically when reviewing Clark's publication, but he seems to be making a different point. Not that Trungpa or Vajradhatu was dangerous because he, like Jones, would lead people as a brainwashing guru demanding "revolutionary suicide", but more because Trungpa was leading a pantheon of the world's best poets and intellectuals and was infusing a kind of fascism into literature in Weinberger's mind. He seems to me to characterize that as more dangerous. He takes the Jones comparison in a different direction, that Trungpa represents a new fascism instead of true rebellion, more compared to Mussolini's Italy, and therein was the problem. Anyway, I don't doubt that Jonestown increased the sensitivity in the west to new religious movements. But that Jonestown impacted the reception of Clark's work about Trungpa pre-supposes that the controversy was perceived then more in reference to a mind control cult than to Trungpa's impact on literary movements, and even Weinberger's comparison to Jones seems to say that the controversy was more interesting for its implications to the direction in the literary world then. I tend to agree with Weinberger that treating Tibetan Buddhist ideas as some kind of "secret" that one has to be part of an "in crowd" to have access to, thereby creating a form of elitism, fascist or otherwise, is problematic and I'd go further to say that it is not really the point at all. Though that might have been and may still be a problem, that is maybe a run-of-the-mill human problem as far as I can tell, and just egoic us-versus-them drama playing out again and again. It's spiritual materialism as Trungpa would characterize it, not particular to cults or charismatic leaders. And to that point I agree with Weinberger and I think Trungpa would as well, independent of the appearance of all kinds of structure and weird hierarchy in Vajradhatu (or in Tibet for that matter).
Then to the other additions: did Ösel Tendzin really cause noteworthy negative publicity for Naropa, to the extent that it deserves a mention in the history of the organization? could be, but is that backed up somehow? And was Trungpa's relationship really questioned with regard to Naropa and if so when and in what context? Naropa is certainly tied intimately with the evolution of the Vajradhatu organization but it changes over time. Maybe we could create a section specifically about the evolving relationship over time between the organizations. The new book "Warrior-King of Shambhala" by Jeremy Hayward describes much of the early history as a first hand account.
So then what of the Bhagavan Das characterization? It's hyperbole for sure. But was Naropa really a party school in the 1970's? How then to really relate to the "party school" characterization in a neutral way? For comparison, the University of Florida is ranked as the #1 party school by The Princeton Review. That seems like a credible measure. But the same publication doesn't even include Naropa in its party school rankings. So maybe it's just fallen from the ranks? OK, I'm being facetious, but my point is that we shouldn't make the blanket accusation as an implication, unless it's backed up generally. For example, I can easily find people describing neighboring CU as a "party school" (eg. "Boulder Rattled by Charges Against Football Team" in NY Times 20 Feb 2004), but nothing of the sort for Naropa. Any second sources for Naropa, that support or discredit the claim that it was a non-stop party there in the 70's? It sounds dubious to me, or more just Das' experience. Hayward talks about Naropa a lot in his new book, because he was a director there, but perhaps he wouldn't make the characterization for that reason. Any other related sources that anyone has seen?
How about this to start, we move the single, interesting Merwin incident back to where it was — at the end. We start a new section about Naropa and Vajradhatu over time, using Hayward, and flip the Jonestown comparison to be about how Weinberger specifically thought unlike Jim Jones the influence of Trungpa via Ginsberg on the poetry and literature circles was creating a kind of elitism counter to his view of poetry holding a revolutionary role, the Merwin incident being a demonstration of that. I'm not sure what to do with the Das comment though, or where something like that fits in, without some discussion of the seriousness of academics at the university or it's evolution to accreditation or something else in contrast to a party mentality. But as a single point it seems quite odd to me, even without really knowing what it was like there in the 70's (or now). - Owlmonkey (talk) 23:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Want to point out, for future reference, that user DAWUD has a history of drastically altering pages on various religions with little regard for any content but his own. Note the sections on his Talk page [4] titled "Criticisms" (regarding Bahai,) "Jesus," "Taoism," "nomination of Godic religion" (perhaps a religion of his own creation,) and "Bohammed" (a swipe at Islam?) This is not an honorable legacy ... and one the senior editors of this page should keep in mind when he takes similar actions here. 205.170.134.65 (talk) 21:52, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The controversies section describe activities sponsored by Vajradatu and took place off campus, not sponsored by Naropa University. Vajradatu had separated from Naropa University. Cite this in an article about Trungpa or Vajradatu, but not here. This would be a good spot for controversy on campus, but not 100 miles away. Donalds (talk)! —Preceding undated comment added 07:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC).
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