Now, as to what Daniel is doing... You don't imagine that it might be frustrating that the first discussion of the MMM book here would be about why we shouldn't expect anything valuable out of it? I mean, say what you will of the FARMS Review (Heaven knows I have), but at least they do read the books they write about.
HW: You used an interesting phrase, “Not everything that’s true is useful.” Could you develop that as someone who’s a scholar and trying to encourage deep searching?
DHO: The talk where I gave that was a talk on “Reading Church History” — that was the title of the talk. And in the course of the talk I said many things about being skeptical in your reading and looking for bias and looking for context and a lot of things that were in that perspective. But I said two things in it and the newspapers and anybody who ever referred to the talk only referred to [those] two things: one is the one you cite, “Not everything that’s true is useful,” and that [meant] “was useful to say or to publish.” And you tell newspapers any time (media people) [that] they can’t publish something, they’ll strap on their armor and come out to slay you! [Laughs.]
I also said something else that has excited people: that it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true, because it diminishes their effectiveness as a servant of the Lord. One can work to correct them by some other means, but don’t go about saying that they misbehaved when they were a youngster or whatever. Well, of course, that sounds like religious censorship also.
But not everything that’s true is useful. I am a lawyer, and I hear something from a client. It’s true, but I’ll be disciplined professionally if I share it because it’s part of the attorney-client privilege. There’s a husband-wife privilege, there’s a priest-penitent privilege, and so on. That’s an illustration of the fact that not everything that’s true is useful to be shared.
In relation to history, I was speaking in that talk for the benefit of those that write history. In the course of writing history, I said that people ought to be careful in what they publish because not everything that’s true is useful. See a person in context; don’t depreciate their effectiveness in one area because they have some misbehavior in another area — especially from their youth. I think that’s the spirit of that. I think I’m not talking necessarily just about writing Mormon history; I’m talking about George Washington or any other case. If he had an affair with a girl when he was a teenager, I don’t need to read that when I’m trying to read a biography of the Founding Father of our nation.
HW: Just one more question on that. In every church, in every person, there’s a shallow territory usually explained away through context. Many find information through the Internet — some would rather find things out about the Church history, doctrine through teachings, rather than the Internet, or other resources.
DHO: It’s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That’s an old problem in Mormonism — a feeling of members that they shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should’ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.
There are several different elements of that. One element is that we’re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn’t deal with anything that’s unfavorable, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.
On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don’t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn’t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that’s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven’t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives “Brother Jones” his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It’s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t. (Emphasis added)
Trevor wrote:Now, as to what Daniel is doing... You don't imagine that it might be frustrating that the first discussion of the MMM book here would be about why we shouldn't expect anything valuable out of it?
I mean, say what you will of the FARMS Review (Heaven knows I have), but at least they do read the books they write about.
harmony wrote:Funnily enough, I've not seen anyone say that we shouldn't expect anything valuable out of it. Exaggeration is Daniel's forté, not yours. Try to avoid it; it does your point no good.
harmony wrote:Daniel doesn't. At least not all of them. Didn't you see that post?
harmony wrote:The discussion is valuable, even if the participants haven't all read the book yet, because the problems aren't related to the content, but to the process of writing it. And Daniel's continual wailing that some of the thread participants haven't yet read the book isn't going to change those problems.
harmony wrote:You no doubt noticed how interested Daniel is in actually discussing the content: he had no comments about your points at all, but simply blew you off with a passing glance. Why? Because his agenda is not to discuss the book; his agenda is to deflect criticism of the church and the Brethren. And that is why this thread is 27 pages long, with only a handful of posts from Daniel that can be in any way construed as significant.
Daniel is simply being Daniel, deflecting any criticism of the church, no matter how justified the criticism. He is nothing if not predictable.
Trevor wrote:harmony wrote:Daniel doesn't. At least not all of them. Didn't you see that post?
And this is pertinent how? I talked about the reviewers reading the books, not Daniel reading every book that is reviewed by the FROB.
Trevor wrote:I was not attacking beastie. I was stating a simple fact. Look at how the thread began. Then tell me why any faithful Mormon would expect it to inspire a fair reading of the book from people around here. I am not saying Daniel is right. I am not saying beastie is wrong. I am saying, "let's look beyond that and try to understand each other as more than sparring partners in an interminable pissing contest."
Trevor wrote:harmony wrote:The discussion is valuable, even if the participants haven't all read the book yet, because the problems aren't related to the content, but to the process of writing it. And Daniel's continual wailing that some of the thread participants haven't yet read the book isn't going to change those problems.
And I am not completely disagreeing with you. I am pointing out that it might be understandable why others would be frustrated by this. I mean, it could be perceived as poisoning the well, no? Can we get beyond the technical right and wrong of this to appreciate how others might perceive things? I get frustrated when LDS fail to do the very same thing. As clearly they have many times on this very issue: the MMM.
And you know what? It bothered me not one bit that he did not engage me on it. I never expected him to. He has admitted that this is not the reason he comes here. He is fascinated with the collective obsession with Mormonism. He enjoys going the rounds with people the more irrational and obsessive they seem to him. Why then would he do more than acknowledge that I was not being unreasonable and then move on?
Finally, let me ask, is Daniel an apologist? Or is he something else?
harmony wrote:It's pertinent because Daniel complains that participants in this discussion haven't read the book yet. How will reading the book in any way impact the concept of the problems with the process? It won't. The process is independent of the content. Thus Daniel's complaint has no connection with your observation.