Dan Peterson's Poor Judge of Character: Redux

[_Kevin Graham]

Last year I challenged Daniel to rebuke Schryver's antics over at the MAD forum:

You won't even condemn the actions of Will Schryver, whose behavior was so abhorrent that the authorities at the Maxwell Institute threw him off their publication schedule because they wanted nothing to do with him or his antics

Dan responds with a perfect exhibition of denial:

I think Will Schryver has been unjustly demonized. - Aug 20, 2011

I'm aware of no real evidence for misogyny on his part - Aug 13, 2011

In case you're wondering whether Dan had actually seen the mountain of evidence proving William's bigotry towards women, Dan made it clear that he had read through the thread posted by MsJack, documenting William's long history of disgusting remarks.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

I've seen no serious evidence that Will Schryver is a misogynist.

I'll repeat that: I've seen no serious evidence that Will Schryver is a misogynist.

None.

Perhaps you folks should reprise a few hundred of the posts that were devoted to that endlessly fascinating subject here a few months back. They didn't convince me then, and they probably won't convince me now - Aug 13, 2011

I remember specifically predicting this would eventually come back to haunt him, Pahoran, and the others who refused to denounce Schryver's despicable antics. In hindsight, it really isn't surprising that the powers that be came to the realization that Dan Peterson was more of a liability than an asset.

Incidentally, this is the same guy who has for years tried to label me a bigot for simply stating facts about Mormon and Islamic doctrines. Of course, his argument is that it doesn't really matter what William Schryver says on the internet and it doesn't really matter how horrible his comments are, because according to Dan, he met Schryver's wife and daughter and he saw no evidence of "abuse." So that means Schryver must have been "unjustifiably demonized" by the rest of us. This is like saying a child molester mustn't be a child molester if he doesn't molest his own kids.

According to Dan Peterson's logic, calling a woman a C---T or accusing apostates of engaging in sodomistic orgies, is perfectly fine and shouldn't bear on the question of whether or not an organization named after a Mormon apostle should publish him.

But at the same time, folks like me, MsJack, Brent Metcalfe, Mike Reed, and a number of other internet personalities, must be maligned or ignored simply because of their disagreements with his views.

This is the same guy who attacked me for calling Wells Jakeman an idiot. Once you understand what a whack-job pseudo-scholar Jakeman was, and how Dan Peterson likened him to Einstein, suddenly it doesn't come as a surprise that he has decided to bond with William Schryver. This is the same guy who considers despicable characters like Lou Midgley, close friends.

[_moksha]

Dan responds with a perfect exhibition of denial:

I think Will Schryver has been unjustly demonized. - Aug 20, 2011

I'm aware of no real evidence for misogyny on his part - Aug 13, 2011

This use of apologetics, on Dr. Peterson's part, may simply have been a reflex action.

[_Kevin Graham]

This use of apologetics, on Dr. Peterson's part, may simply have been a reflex action.

That's what I thought at first too, but even still, so what? I remember MsJack asking him point blank what he thought of the evidence against Schryver and he responded by saying he saw no evidence of misogyny.

It is a classic example of irrationality taking over when you've blinded yourself to reason based on nothing more than loyalty to your friends. If he is willing to be this irrational to defend his friends, then it shouldn't really be surprising that he would do the same to defend his religion. I've seen this from Dan ever since I've known him. I've confronted him in the past with examples of some truly disturbing comments from his friends, and his response was always to attack me for bringing it up. Even in private email exchanges where there wasn't an audience, he simply didn't want to hear anything negative about anyone he called friend.

So Lou Midgley and Roper's various ambushes at conference talks? It doesn't happen in his world, no matter how many witnesses were there. John Gee lying and misrepresenting the KEP? Nope, didn't happen in Peterson's world. Hamblin's notorious "Metcalfe is Butthead" acrostic? No problem, it was just an inside joke. Midgley asking the Tanners, "are you still publishing that queer" (Quinn)? No problem, that's not bigotry at all.

But the first time I made a comment about Islam and its founder encouraging slavery of non-Mulsims, suddenly I was a spiritually deficient bigot who deserved to be put on permanent ignore. The only consistency with Peterson is his willingness to shift the goal posts to a staggering degree, whenever the object of criticism is a fellow LDS loyalist.

[_MsJack]

I don't believe Dan's release as editor of the MSR is the result of any one factor. I'm sure it is something that has come over a long period of time as a result of a lot of different factors. That said, I have wondered whether or not his continuing support for and sponsorship of William Schryver, even after my misogyny thread, was one of those factors. The leaked e-mail from Dan indicated that the cancellation of Schryver's publication was a point of conflict between the two men.

According to Dan Peterson's logic, calling a woman a C---T or accusing apostates of engaging in sodomistic orgies, is perfectly fine and shouldn't bear on the question of whether or not an organization named after a Mormon apostle should publish him.

In fairness to Dan, I believe he indicated somewhere that he did not believe that William had called harmony a c--t. He seemed to buy into William's insistence that this was a lie on the part of his detractors.

However, there were plenty of other sexist things William said which Dan apparently sees as "not misogynist." An example that EA used:

Will didn't just use sexist epithets. That'd be easier to ignore. Will habitually insulted female posters by going after their sexual attractiveness to him. He continually engaged in hoary gender stereotyping and the language of sexism because he knew it would upset the female posters.

Take this thread I brought up as an example recently.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9756&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=105

In it, Will is busy arguing that natural selection is a tautology, among other ignorant things about evolutionary theory. The Dude, JSM, and myself are mainly the people replying. Beastie chimes in some posts as well. How does Will respond to her?

You’re in completely over your head here, baby. You don’t have a freaking clue what is even going on. You’re just here for what you believe is a circle-jerk pile on, with me as the target.

But if you’d like to attempt to disprove my assessment, feel free to restate, or even directly quote, those instances where anyone has demonstrated that "natural selection" (absent the influence of external forces, such as described above) amounts to anything more than "those who reproduce best are selected." I’m quite confident you cannot do it. The best you can hope for is to play cheerleader for someone else who might try. So grab your pompoms, beastlie baby, and cheer on your boys.

I am convinced that no single group of humans can be more wilfully blind and dogmatic than is the overwhelmingly majority of LDS apostates. Fortunately, catastrophic events, such as the one presumed to have deselected the dinosaurs, can forcibly bring reproduction to an end. That’s what will happen to apostates at the second coming. And, believe me, deselection will never have come more deserved.

That's sexist as all get out, and a dime a dozen post from his history. That's Will. It's not just him occasionally calling someone a b-word.

Back when I initially got the news that William's publication had been pulled, I had hoped that Dan had been part of the nixing. Dan had always said in public that he was not a fan of sexual humor (which William swims in), and he seemed to have been very consistent on that. He had also never struck me as misogynist himself (and I'm still not calling him that). I had hoped that, somehow, in spite of his high degree of posting here, Dan had been honestly unaware of his friend's bad behavior. I was so very wrong.

This time two years ago, there was so much about Dan on which I was naïve. I've crossed a long way from being the freshman who sat with him in a room in the FARMS building, recorder in hand, and interviewed him for a paper I was writing, turning off the recorder to swap personal stories on our background. I see so much more clearly now, and it's a view that fills me with sadness.

[_RayAgostini]

Will Schryver is a "disgusting misogynistic character" who should be disowned by all decent-minded people, but a six year campaign to slander and defame Dr. Daniel Peterson is, well, nothing worthy any serious attention.

I'd rather be called a c--t, or a prick (I have, actually), than be subjected to what he has. And you're right, Ms.Jack, there's zero evidence that Will used that word (though you seem to think otherwise?), even though it was used several times by other posters here, who get off with a slap on the wrist.

[_Kishkumen]

This is the same guy who attacked me for calling Wells Jakeman an idiot. Once you understand what a whack-job pseudo-scholar Jakeman was, and how Dan Peterson likened him to Einstein, suddenly it doesn't come as a surprise that he has decided to bond with William Schryver. This is the same guy who considers despicable characters like Lou Midgley, close friends.

I think you have really hit on something here. What we see at work here in the vestiges of FARMS that lived on in the editorial staff of the Review was a little clique of apologist-warriors who were also ideological bedfellows. As much as they are the intellectual children of Hugh Nibley, they are also the spiritual children of Ezra Taft Benson, who implicitly equated Soviet communism with the secret combinations in the Book of Mormon.

Moreover, it is my considered opinion that, truth be told, Will Schryver did more to bring about this setback, and potential downfall, of Daniel Peterson than any other single person in his association. As others tried to pull Dr. Peterson forward into the current times and the expedience of dialing it back a few notches, Will, as he boasts, was filling Dr. Peterson's head with conspiracy theories and parables about the modern sons of Mosiah. You see in all of this a bunker mentality, one that reflects Schryver's own paranoia and narcissism.

Doctor Scratch may have been a clearinghouse for information on the Maxwell Institute, but it is Schryver who held forth day after day on MDDB, spinning his tales of betrayal, turncoats, enemies, conspiracies, and secret actors working against Mormonism. All of this helps bring along the disastrously ill-timed attack on John Dehlin, and the paranoid backlash of the Deseret News piece (which Schryver takes credit for). I might add that Peterson was not the only victim of Schryverology; he was merely the most prominent one.

Of course, all of this will be laid at the feet of the alleged external enemies as it usually is. But any objective observer will see in Daniel's blog and his posts over the past month on MDDB a growing anxiety and paranoia filled with images of Obama the anti-christ and Dehlin, son of Mosiah. He is the victim of his own apocalyptic scenario, which, much like other apocalyptic scenarios, is usually most disastrous for the people who indulge in them (Waco, Jonestown, etc.). Others look on in amazement wondering how this person could go off the rails so spectacularly, but I think the signs are all there. And Schryver was the evil genie spurring him on for his own selfish purposes.

[_RayAgostini]

I think you have really hit on something here. What we see at work here in the vestiges of FARMS that lived on in the editorial staff of the Review was a little clique of apologist-warriors who were also ideological bedfellows.

And you, of course, are not an "ideological bedfellow" with anyone. You're totally objective and independent.

[Guest]

So, Kevin, who is on the Schryver hitlist of personal/Church enemies. They are, after all, almost identical, aren't they?

Blair Hodges?
David Bokovoy?
Brian Hauglid?
John Dehlin?
Don Bradley?

I know these are some of the people he has run down over at MDDB. But have they all made his suspect list for this awful reversal?

Are these the people that Schryver blames?

I know that the emails I have been fielding from BYU mention John Dehlin, calling him individually, particularly, and repeatedly, with plenty of venom attached, "despicable" and "reprehensible."

He must be at the top of the list.

But perhaps the Bushmans make the list too?

Maybe Terryl Givens?

The apostle who intervened on Dehlin's behalf?

Exactly who is in this long list of so-called "fifth columnists" who do not belong to the one and only true church of Schryverology?

[_RayAgostini]

I know that the emails I have been fielding from BYU mention John Dehlin, calling him individually, particularly, and repeatedly, with plenty of venom attached, "despicable" and "reprehensible."

He must be at the top of the list.

Maybe they got brainwashed by the MI and the despicable editor of The Review? Maybe Dan emailed them all and told them, "I order you to think like me!"

Plausible.

[_Kishkumen]

By the by...

I thought you all might enjoy my response to the BYU email that spoke of Mr. Dehlin in such a Christian manner:

Dear XXXXXXX:

I view the verbal savaging of one's coreligionists in quasi-academic publications to be a despicable and reprehensible activity. Notice the difference. Hate the sin and love the sinner. You hate the sinner.

Good day,

XXXXXXXXXX