Talk:Ralph Nader/Archive 7

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Ethnocultural roots

There is a source which says Ralph's parents were Lebanese Maronites. The biography of Archimandrite Bassilios, Ralph's uncle, mentions both Antiochian Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox churches, but not Maronite. It would not be surprising for immigrants of that era to sort of fluidly attend parishes in different jurisdictions.

The Syrian Orthodox communion is Oriental Orthodox and would be closely allied with Maronites, while the Antiochan Greek Orthodox would be Eastern Orthodox; ethnically close but, in terms of doctrine and liturgy, separate. Elizium23 (talk) 18:14, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@B.Andersohn: if you're using info about Ralph's uncle to infer something about Ralph's own religious faith, then that's WP:SYNTH. Elizium23 (talk) 18:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@B.Andersohn: Seconding Elizium23 here; there is absolutely no information on Ralph Nader in that source your provided that states he was Antiochian Orthodox. Sometimes there are mixed Lebanese families, and reliable sourcing asserts him as explicitly Maronite. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:51, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti "a sort of fluidly re attending parishes in different jurisdictions"!! I'm at loss for words here... You clearly have no knowledge of the issue at hand...

The "Syrian Orthodox communions are Oriental Orthodox Christians and would be closely allied with Maronites"... maybe, BUT the Antiochian Greek Orthodox commuity is not "Oriental", unlike e.g. "Syriacs" or "Chaldeans" or even "Armenian Apostolics" etc.

Ralph Nader's community is actually "Eastern Orthodox" like the e.g. Greeks or Russians etc. You're confusing "Oriental" and "Eastern" Christianity here

Nader's community is also called the Greco-Roman "Meklite" Communion of Syria, Lebanon & Upper Galilee (old-fashioned, comprehensive name), and it has absolutely nothing to do with the Maronite Church ("Oriental Catholics") or the "Oriental Orthodox" Christians of Northern Syria or Eastern Turkey etc

Once again, you're totally confused

The article published by the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Church of America says that Ralph Nader's FATHER was a man named Nathra Nader Saffi, from a small village called Arsoun.

And that Nader Sr. counted many Greek-Orthodox priests and bishops in his family, including his own brother!

Finally, ALL French, American, and Bristish ethnographers of the early 20th C. describe Arsoun's Christians as being "of the Greek faith" or "Antiochian Greek Orthodox". You can check ....

@B.Andersohn: Yes, but if Ralph Nader is specifically described as a Maronite in reliable sources, you can't just say that's wrong because you have sources that describe other people as Antiochian Orthodox. Per WP:RS, your edit will be undone and the sources you deleted returned unless you can provide other sources that specifically describe Nader—not his family, not his ancestral hometown, but the man himself—as something other than Maronite. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti The Time magazine article you seem to rely on is clearly mistaken... But, on a different plane, why are you saying that particular article is more "realiable" than the DETAILED obituaries of several of Ralph Nader's family members = published by the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Church of America? The "logic" is hard to comprehend!! All that being said, I will also look for another article etc

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti SECOND SOURCE: "Ethnicity of Celebrities", 18 July 2016: "Ralph is the son of Rose (Bouziane) and Nathra Nader. His family was of the Antioch Greek Orthodox religion. He was the Green Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 1996"

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti THIRD SOURCE: REAGANLAND: AMERICA'S RIGHT TURN, by reknown historian Rick Perlstein, Simon & Schuster, 2021. PAGE 193: "Ralph Nader was born in 1934 to Lebanese American parents...They were Antiochian Greek Orthodox Christians" cf. Google Book, pg. 193. Clearly, @ Elizium23, @ Pbritti you're absolutely WRONG!!

@B.Andersohn: now hold on. Only Reaganland is a reliable source of the sources you've cited. WP:SHOUTING is against policy, so you'll need to quit that, and please sign your comments. As best I can tell, more books identify Ralph Nader as Maronite than they do as Antiochian Orthodox (see Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Time: The Middle East). ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@B.Andersohn: yes, I may be confused by the bio of Bassilios. "Antiochan" only appears once in that article, and most of the other churches are described as "Syrian Orthodox". Spot-checking those specific parishes indeed reveals that they are of Antiochan jurisdiction (EO) and not Syriac (OO). So it's safe for us to establish firmly that Ralph's uncle was Greek-Orthodox of Antiochan (EO) jurisdiction. And, it's entirely possible that several sources are incorrect about the Nader parents' Maronite (OO) affiliation. @Pbritti, do they go any deeper such as mentioning what parish they attended or anything?

I don't know if we'll delve into a real detailed picture of Ralph's faith life here, and so at this point I'd like to suggest B.Andersohn stop fighting us and screaming that we're lying about the Maronite thing. The only thing we can do is hold up both sets of sources and say "either, or." There will be no definitive conclusion about this if equally-reliable sources cannot be reconciled. Elizium23 (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Per @Elizium23: I'm actually rather content citing Reaganland, Theory, and Time with a revised passage that reads something like "Ralph Nader was raised Maronite[citations] or Antiochian Orthodox[citation] by Lebanese parents." We can you around with it if you'd like, B.Andersohn. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:50, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

It's actually useful information if the Naders hailed from a majority-Greek village. We could use that as background information for the family to say that's the faith of their neighbors. But we can't simply contradict established and reliable sources that insist they were Maronite. That would be WP:SYNTH.

Of course there may be another way. If there are public records, such as sacraments or census records, they could be researched to see about Ralph and his parents. Of course these sources would be invalid for Wikipedia's use, but it could settle a bet! Elizium23 (talk) 18:53, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Since the ecclesial source references Nader directly, I definitely think we could put that somewhere, too. Presumably the New York Maronite eparchy would have the records on Nader; a simple email would probably do the trick. As said, couldn't be cited but it could be used to inform which sources to trust. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:56, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Elizium23 @Pbritti

Dear Pbritti & to a lesser extent Elizium, I'm at loss for words here...

1) You seem to imply that mistaken = faulty articles written recently by some minor Time magazine journalist are more "valid" than official bios & obituaries of Ralph Nader's family published by the Antiochian Greek Orthodoxy Church of America. Strange approach...

2) You say there are more books describing him as "Maronite" = factually not true.

Ralph Nader's "real" = full name" is Raphael Nader Saffi, Nader being a middle name. The name was "Americanised" in the 1940s according to his uncle (see obituary sent earlier)

Now, I have already sent/referenced three rock-solid sources showing that Ralph Nader's parents were Antiochian Greek Orthodox Christians i.e. Melkites in the etymological sense = not "Maronites" or "Oriental Orthodox" = very different ethnocultural categories

Will send you a fourth one later today B.Andersohn (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is a strange approach, but that's how Wikipedia works. If you decide on a basis to assail the general reliability of each publication and its editors, then by all means, bring them up. It wouldn't be the first time that journalists got a detail wrong about the Orthodox faith(s). Collect your own sources to your heart's content, but I don't expect we'll be able to set aside the ones which say "Maronite". Elizium23 (talk) 15:59, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Ahh, here we go. There should be a way to resolve this now. Nader was a prolific writer and he indeed wrote an autobiography focused on his childhood called The Seventeen Traditions. So far I'm unable to access a full-text eBook online, but a review asserts that his parents were "from an Eastern Orthodox tradition". So if this review is accurate, there is hopefully an unambiguous statement by Nader in his own words about his own family, and that would clinch it, and we could dump Time in the rubbish bin where it belongs. Elizium23 (talk) 16:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti Cted... Here's a fourth legitimate source = by which I mean authored by serious academics & archbishops who knew Ralph Nader and his parents "The First 100 Years: A Centennial Anthology Celebrating Antiochian Orthodoxy in North America" by Archbishop George S. Corey

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti ... George Corey writes: "Perhaps the most famous [member of the community] is consumer advocate Ralph Nader", Centennial Anthology (1995), pg. 75 That book was also published "officially" by the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Church of America itself. There's absolutely NO such document issued by e.g., the "Maronite" community, or any of the "Oriental" Syriac Orthodox churches etc. You’re mentioning the need to check "Maronite church records" seems surreal!

I have access to the book via Archive.org. Page 103 says exactly what Elizium23 found in the book review but says he was raised Methodist (ironically an "M" church we hadn't even considered!). The quote is "The public schools and especially the churches helped newer families like ours assimilate into the community; our family had been embraced by the Methodist Church, even though we came from the Eastern Orthodox division of Christianity." There is also reference to him attending Christmas services at an Episcopal parish. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:45, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

That's funny, Pbritti. Would you concur that his own attestation is enough to eliminate the "Maronite" sources as erroneous? I believe that his irreligion in adulthood would militate against attaching categorization as any religion. Elizium23 (talk) 16:48, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Wholly agree with that assessment; we can drop reference to him being a Maronite but should assert with this autobiography and other sources that his family were Antiochian Orthodox. His irreligion can also be traced to his family. More can be found on page 105: "Though we did attend Sunday School at the local Methodist church, our real education in the meaning of charity came from the secular tradition or our parents and grandparents." ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:50, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti Your comments seem to show you don't know much about the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Church of America = Ralph Nader's community. "Melkite Romano-Greek Orthodox" a.k.a "Syro-Lebanese & Upper Galilean Greek Orthodox", or simply "Antiochian Greek-Orthodox Christian" are all synomyms. The Antiochian Greek Orthodox community is an ETHNO-CULTURAL, ethno-religious concept, which you fail to understand! ...

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti for start, you may want to read a few article about the concept of "Millet" in Ottoman law, which would have informed Ralph Nader's parents and their culture. Then read the biography of Rev. Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, who was one of America's most famous Methodist theologians back in the 1910s & 1920s. When asked about his "ethnicity", A.B. Rihbany always replied he was of "Antiochian Greek Orthodox" origin, or "Greek Orthodox Syrian" background etc.

@ Elizium23, @ Pbritti I guess what I'm trying to say here = "Antiochian Greek Orthodox" is about Ralph Nader's culture, his upbringing, the way he was raised in a small Greco-Levantine Orthodox parish near Winchester, Connecticut, and his family's "ethnocultural" origin.

You totally miss the point with your comments about "Maronites" and "Methodists" etc. Ralph Nader is a self-proclaimed "secular humanist" = this is not about "theology" or "religion" in the narrow sense

@ Pbritti You say ironically "there is also reference to him attending Christmas services at an Episcopal parish", failing to understand that's perfectly logical for the childern of poor Antiochian Greek Orthodox immigrants growing up in New England, New York and Philadelphia back in the 1920s and 1930s etc. For your information, the "American Episcopal" communion is v. closely related to Britain's Anglican "High Church". Upon arrival in Ellis Island, poor Antiochian Greek Orthodox immigrants from Jaffa, Nazareth, Damascus, Beirut were famously told by their elders that "here in Amreekah, for the time being, they could worship safely in Episcopal and Russian-American churches". Later on, donations from Episcopelian communities in Boston and New York (and the Russian embassy in DC) allowed the (Syro-Lebanese) Antiochian Greeks to build churches of their own etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by B.Andersohn (talk • contribs) 15:31, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 March 2023

Public Citizens statement that Ralph Nader has left in the 1980's comes from a press article. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/07/nader-unrepentant/

So the needed citation has been found Absurder2021 (talk) 14:31, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Lightoil (talk) 00:54, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

At the end of the ""Nader's Raiders", Public Citizen and Center for Auto Safety" section, there is a 'citation needed' tag. The provided link affirms Nader's involvment with public citizen Absurder2021 (talk) 19:10, 6 April 2023 (UTC)