Gadianton wrote:Daniel Peterson violating the MAD cross-posting rule tsk tsk wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, this person thinks s/he is referring to something I'm supposed to have said.
It's true that I said that the adjective Mormon can refer to people, architecture, history, geographical areas, literature, doctrine, wedding receptions, and a whole range of other things. If anybody here can show me, though, where I ever suggested that disagreement with Mormon doctrine necessarily indicates or entails hostility to Mormon people, I would greatly appreciate the assistance.
I think strong disagreement and strong personal hostility are sometimes very difficult to disentangle, but I don't think they're by any means mutually entailed.
I was responding to this:
DCP wrote:While the term anti-Semite refers to a hostility to Semitic people, and never is used to denote opposition to "Semitic architecture" or Semitic history for the simple reason that such concepts scarcely exist, the term anti-Mormon cannot be presumed to have the limited semantic range that you wish to assign to it because the adjective Mormon is used to refer to a wider range of phenomena than merely the animate human or personal.
and to:
An anti-Mormon is opposed to Mormonism (and/or to Mormons). That's what the prefix anti- means. Very few Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Presbyterians, Sikhs, Jews, or Armenian Orthodox are anti-Mormons.
We also speak of anti-coagulants, anti-abortionists, anti-Communists, antilock brakes, antihistamines, antacids, anti-bacterial soaps, anti-logging activists, anti-Semitism, antitrust laws, the nineteenth-century anti-Masonic movement, and hundreds of other such things."
I'm honestly stunned that Dr. Peterson would admit this so frankly. The word "Mormon," according to him, refers to animate people, it refers to architecture, it refers to doctrine and many if not all things Mormon. Hence the term "anti-Mormon" refers to someone who is opposed to Mormons or Mormonism. This, in stark contrast to anti-Semitism which refers only to semitic people. Likewise, "anti-Communist" or "anti-abortionist" presumably are opposed to doctrines, not people. So if someone is opposed to the silly prohibitions against eating pork by an outrageous God in the Old Testament, this person would not be an anti-Semite for this reason alone. Yet if a critic opposes the architecture of the Provo temple, or opposes Smith's immorality, then the person is an anti-Mormon and must wear the badge, as S. Lloyd insists. He can't protest, as Dr. Peterson freely admits, that he wears the same label as one who plots to bomb a stake center or do bodily harm to Mormons.
Further, this unfortunate situation is by the apologists' design. Knowing how broad the term Mormon is, the apologists are banking on the implication from contra doctrine to the Carthage mob.
If it were not so, then apologists would be more specific in their "anti" label, perhaps coining "anti-Mormon" as those who wish to hurt Mormon people and "anti-Mormon doctrine" as those who oppose Mormon doctrine and so on. Since many other words prefixed with "anti" are narrow, the same precautions wouldn't need to be taken. As Dr. Peterson is freely admitting here.
There is an addendum to this little back-and-forth:
DCP wrote:Over on another board, a critic who is monitoring this thread and providing color-commentary on it for his fellow critics maintains that I am "freely admitting" that "if a critic opposes the architecture of the Provo temple . . . then the person is an anti-Mormon and must wear the badge, as S. Lloyd insists. He can't protest, as Dr. Peterson freely admits, that he wears the same label as one who plots to bomb a stake center or do bodily harm to Mormons."
I suppose it won't help to point out that I've said nothing of the kind. And it probably won't do me any good to say that I would regard it as ludicrous if anyone were to suggest that somebody who dislikes the architecture of a Mormon building (or even of all Mormon buildings) is, by that mere fact, essentially the same as the mob that killed Joseph Smith or equivalent to somebody who blows up a stake center.
Oh, really? He doesn't think it's "essentially the same"? Not even on a rhetorical/polemical level? Read on:
Daniel Peterson wrote: (Of course, I don't know exactly what "opposing the architecture of the Provo Temple" might mean. If the opposition were to take the form of plastic explosives, wires, a timer, and a detonation device, I would regard it as a bit extreme. But maybe that's just me.)
Uh huh. It's not "essentially the same" at all. Curious how DCP is conflating two separate examples used by Gad. Mere accident? Or sophistry? You be the judge!
My critic insists that "this unfortunate situation" -- by which he means the supposed collapsing of distinctions between killing Mormons and regretting the style of a steeple on a Mormon church building -- "is by the apologists' design."
Well, it certainly is. They (i.e., Lloyd and DCP) continue to insist upon the efficacy of the term. They refuse to utilize more accurate terms. They continue to want to have it both ways.
It seems to me, though, that "this unfortunate situation" is purely his own invention. Nobody here has said anything even remotely like what he claims. I certainly haven't.
For the record, again, I myself tend to use the word anti-Mormon rather sparingly and deliberately, and don't believe that it should be thrown wildly about.
Yes, probably since he knows that it carries the grievous weight Gad ascribed to it.
I often use critic or some other such word instead. That said, though, I believe that there are cases -- and more than a few of them -- where use of the term anti-Mormon is plainly warranted.
Yep. Since a quick search through any issue of
FARMS Review will turn up dozens, if not hundreds, of instances of it. DCP might not personally toss the term around, but he has no problem giving it his editorial stamp of approval.
