The Subjectivity of Literature and History
Nathan Mejia
Mrs. Kirwan
ENG 3UL-05
13 December 2012
The Subjectivity of Literature and History “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it,” (Clive S. Lewis) was once said by the famous novelist, broadcaster and scholar, Clive Staples Lewis. Although this legendary man’s words are heroic, these words can be easily cast into the deep fiery pits of irretrievable lies by three significant men: The omniscient appearing founder, the scientist, and the simple desert handyman. Wikipedia is the largest and most popular general reference work encyclopaedia on the internet with an estimated 365 million readers worldwide, while it is also recognized internationally with a vast selection of languages to express the website’s multilingual diversity. (Wikipedia) With such a great reputation, Wikipedia still manages to prove C. S. Lewis’ quote completely incorrect by expressing the fallacies strewn across the internet. Wikipedia was founded and developed by a former philosophy professor Larry Sanger with his co-founder and financial manager Jimmy Wales after their launch of their previous encyclopaedia, Nupedia, did not turn out to be as successful. (Wikipedia) Wikipedia is often the reference website highly frowned upon in an academic environment due to the ability and privilege given to the website’s anonymous users to edit and manipulate data and information within each page. Although each page on Wikipedia has a reference area where other texts used to create the information presented are mentioned, these sources may not be applicable. This can occur in multiple different situations such as the information extracted from books turn bias when recorded into the Wikipedia article, or a connected website or database that has data that is
Mrs. Kirwan
ENG 3UL-05
13 December 2012
The Subjectivity of Literature and History “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it,” (Clive S. Lewis) was once said by the famous novelist, broadcaster and scholar, Clive Staples Lewis. Although this legendary man’s words are heroic, these words can be easily cast into the deep fiery pits of irretrievable lies by three significant men: The omniscient appearing founder, the scientist, and the simple desert handyman. Wikipedia is the largest and most popular general reference work encyclopaedia on the internet with an estimated 365 million readers worldwide, while it is also recognized internationally with a vast selection of languages to express the website’s multilingual diversity. (Wikipedia) With such a great reputation, Wikipedia still manages to prove C. S. Lewis’ quote completely incorrect by expressing the fallacies strewn across the internet. Wikipedia was founded and developed by a former philosophy professor Larry Sanger with his co-founder and financial manager Jimmy Wales after their launch of their previous encyclopaedia, Nupedia, did not turn out to be as successful. (Wikipedia) Wikipedia is often the reference website highly frowned upon in an academic environment due to the ability and privilege given to the website’s anonymous users to edit and manipulate data and information within each page. Although each page on Wikipedia has a reference area where other texts used to create the information presented are mentioned, these sources may not be applicable. This can occur in multiple different situations such as the information extracted from books turn bias when recorded into the Wikipedia article, or a connected website or database that has data that is
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