 | This is an essay on the policies on the neutral point of view and on reliable sources. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Sources may reflect criticisms of an entire society without losing Wikipedia's neutrality or losing reliability for Wikipedia, and editors need not agree with the sources to add or keep them. |
Critiques of society abound in several, perhaps all, fields of study that generate sources that may be sufficiently reliable to be cited in Wikipedia. They are no less reliable because they state critiques of society, or even are principally and not just incidentally critiques of society.
Principles[edit]
An article is no less neutral because its content is supported by citations from sources that principally state critiques of society, even if all of the sources in the article state the same critique, provided that the totality of the article reflects the range of sources that have been published and therefore all of the significant published views have been given weight in the article proportionate to their presence in reliable sources.
There may not be an article topic that can be sourced only to sources that uniformly state one critique of society, but that would be because there are multiple views in the sources for any notable topic and therefore the article should reflect that multiplicity of views. There would be no need to delete or avoid adding a source because it criticizes society, since the presence of that source would not disrupt neutrality in Wikipedia.
An example of a critique that may validly be cited would be of religion A by religion B. (An entire society may agree to religion A, so a critique of that religion could be a critique of the believing society.) That a criticism by religion B of religion A is in the article with a source authored by a theologian from religion B does not violate Wikipedia's neutrality respecting religion A, as long as other sources are also cited, when available.
Many social movements exist because of their critiques of society. Some social movements support the publishing of reliable sources within their fields, and they may qualify to be cited in Wikipedia.
Even hard sciences can be associated with critiques. For example, scientists who support principles of evolution and its public acceptance may criticize a society, or major parts of it, for rejecting the scientists' findings, while theologians who deny heredity by humans from nonhumans may criticize a society that the theologians believe has unduly embraced a belief in evolution. Sources from each perspective may be added with their content.
An editor need not personally agree with a critique to cite it in the article or to refrain from deleting it.