Mormon Interpreter Guns for the MI

[_Johannes]

Sounds to me like a member of a rich right-wing church who loses his ability to think clearly when he sees the word "Marxism".

I take the comment about Socrates as standard-issue anti-intellectualism. Socrates wasn't one of those damn tenured radicals (except in Aristophanes' Wasps, which I'm guessing this chap hasn't read).

Rather than attempting to read the runes of the departure of the FARMS old guard, let me just pose this question. What would have happened to FARMS if its leading member had had the surname "Daniel C. Hinckley" or "Daniel C. McConkie"?

[_aussieguy55]

I found this response interesting -
"Yakov ben Tov
on October 6, 2018 at 11:00 am said:
Who do you write for Louis? From my experience reading your work and your numerous comments on related threads your audience is a group of mostly American Mormon men who have an interest in academically related subjects but have little to no training in any specific one. That provides you the opportunity to throw shade at people like Adam Miller and the people who work at the Maxwell Institute as if those good people are out to ruin the faith of Mormon members. You know that isn’t true, but you do it anyway. Partly because you and Dan Peterson were members of an elite group riding the coattails of Nibley at BYU, you guys were almost untouchable and were able to create a cushion around yourselves where any and all criticism was anti-Mormonism, so you continue to think and argue that if anyone within Mormonism presents an alternative faithful approach to the religion then they must be tearing down faith. That’s pretty sad, especially since Paul Peterson argues that BYU is anything but monolithic and you represent a tradition that fights against any kind of individuality unless it aspires to be part of the FARMS team.
You don’t actually care about what Adam Miller is saying, or the Latter-day Saint faith of the people at the Maxwell Institute, or whether or not they’re actually helping people in your own faith community. All you care about is your team.

Thank you, by the way, for sharing all of the details in your numerous online comments. You say things that often go unstated about who wanted the change in direction at the Maxwell Institute that helped me to understand better the misrepresentation of what actually happened in 2012, especially that it wasn’t a coup unless you think the Board and Samuelson were under Dan Peterson somehow."

[Guest]

Thanks to all for the interesting discussion. One of these days I'll get around to reading said book and perhaps will then provide some comments.

Until then, I am looking forward to Elder Holland's upcoming lecture at the Maxwell Institute, "The Maxwell Legacy in the 21st Century." I look forward to hearing his personal take on the Maxwell Institute's new direction, including the Board of Trustees' non-involvement in Dr. Peterson's firing as editor of Mormon Studies Review, and the future of the Interpreter Foundation. Perhaps he'll even weigh in on the Ghost Committee.

[_Darth J]

My first impression was that this Peterson thing is a case of Star Wars vs. Star Trek: a debate of no value to anyone but the participants, and even for them the only value to be derived is the mere fact that there is a debate at all.

Professor Symmachus, in the spirit of diversity and academic freedom that prevails here at Cassius U., may I offer some gentle pushback on your analogy here? I find it to be both too broad and too accessible to convey the scope of the conflict on which you are commenting and with which the OP is concerned. Rather, I would offer the following analogy, viz.:

In the mythos of Star Trek: The Next Generation, it is established that Commander Data, an android who yearns to be human despite his supposed lack of emotions, is unable to use contractions. In the episode "Datalore," which aired in 1988, Data encounters his android "brother," Lore, who has more human qualities like emotions and more natural speech patterns, but who also lacks a sense of ethics. Near the end of the episode, Data is asked if he is alright, to which he responds, "I'm fine."

Some Star Trek fans regard this as simply a screenwriting error. Others regard this as character development, in which Data's positronic neural net has acquired characteristics that are leading him to be more like a human. Both sides of the debate agree, however, that executives at Paramount are aware of this continuity issue and have been troubled by it for the last 30 years, unable to come up with a way to resolve it in the Star Trek canon. Indeed, many believe that the pending return of Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard is a sign that Paramount at last wants to provide a final and decisive answer as to how Data was able to use a contraction that one time.

Respectfully, I feel that the two proceeding paragraphs have more explanatory power as to what's going on with ChurchofJESUSCHRISTofLatterdaySaintsist apologetics than the reductivism of "Star Wars v. Star Trek."

Please note, however, that it is my unending esteem for your contributions that prompted me to offer my alternative take in the first place.

[_Darth J]

/snip

One of my true delights is to see MrStakhanovite offer a scholarly analysis of ChurchofJESUSCHRISTofLatterdaySaintsist apologetics. It reminds me of nothing so much as a scholar of film theory giving a detailed and serious analysis of Manos: The Hands of Fate. Or the facially sincere and in-depth customer reviews of that one wolf t-shirt on Amazon.

This is not at all a criticism. Quite the contrary; I find such things utterly illuminating and enjoyable.

Seeing my previous comment to Professor Symmachus about what I believe to be a disanalogy, some might similarly observe, "That's not really fair. The only reason Manos is even in mass consciousness is because Mystery Science Theater 3000 made fun of it." To which I respond: "Thou sayest."

[_Doctor Scratch]

As you imagine, Peterson gets a heroes welcome from the Mopologists in the comments, especially from Migdley.

Migdley says, referring to this statement about the new MI adrift, "Paul Peterson might not have gone far enough...

this collection of essays is a further indication of the “new direction” that was fashioned after the successful coup, which was driven by low motives–that is, by envy and petty personal hostility, and not even by some strange revisionist ideology, at least according to what was an abject apology issued by one of those involved in the plot to expel Daniel Peterson (and his associates) from the Maxwell Institute.

Wow!

I mean, I find this utterly fascinating. Mason's dare to suggest Mormonism could converse with Marxism as one of many conversation partners, has nothing to do with "revisionist ideology". Masons big tent, and Miller's nerdy speculations are evidence of envy and pettiness, and a plot to personally overthrow Cousin Dan.

This is just nuts. But I think Migdley's comments definitely indicate how Wyatt got this thing published so quickly.

Additional comments have been added:

Louis, you’ve said in past comments that Samuelson was part of this “coup” that you, Dan, and Bill like to talk about. How exactly is that a coup when you have the president of the university behind a shift away from polemics and toward respectable scholarship? Was Dan Peterson somehow in a higher position than anyone up top that wanted that shift? And how is a shift away from aggressive polemics toward kindness a bad thing? I really fail to understand where you guys have been coming from the last six years except to think that it’s all about the team.
Also, how do several essays written by Mormons that don’t work at the Maxwell Institute, that are writing to honor the legacy of Bushman, represent the Maxwell Institute? This could have been published jointly with the RSC and Deseret Book and been just fine. It’s more than a bit disingenuous to suggest that these essays somehow represent a shift at the Maxwell Institute. It would be a bit more truthful to say that you, Dan, and friends are still bitter about 2012 so this is another opportunity to remind your readers that you hate the Maxwell Institute, and that the shift that you guys see represented in this publication is not a shift at the Maxwell Institute but a shift in more respectful, academic research within Mormonism. You and the FARMS/Interpreter group may not like that, but this should show you how far you guys have removed yourselves from academia within Mormonism, to say nothing of scholarship outside Mormonism.

And:

“Yacov b. Tov”: “How exactly is that a coup when you have the president of the university behind a shift away from polemics and toward respectable scholarship?”

President Samuelson signed off on the change. So far as I can tell, he neither initiated it nor conceived it, and I’m relatively confident that he didn’t see its implications.

“Yakov b. Tov”: “You [Professor Midgley], Dan, and friends are still bitter about 2012 so this is another opportunity to remind your readers that you hate the Maxwell Institute.”

As I’ve pointed out, neither I, nor Professor Midgley, nor anybody else connected with the Interpreter Foundation commissioned or requested Paul Peterson’s essay. Nor did we tell Dr. Peterson what to write.

Incidentally, I note throughout your comment your contrast of the “respectable scholarship,” the “more respectful, academic research,” and the “kindness” that have emerged out of the New Maxwell Institute to the “polemics” and the “aggressive polemics” that it has replaced. I take it that you disapprove of us?

Interesting. Dr. Peterson is saying, in effect, that he thinks that Pres. Samuelson is either short-sighted or stupid. This is a direct criticism of Samuelson's judgment, in any case. A bit further along, he adds this:

There is little question that some among the current leadership of the Maxwell Institute heartily disapprove of Dan Peterson. (Note the spelling). That’s hardly news; it’s why he was shown the door.

Ah, okay. Well, I suppose there is something reassuring in the fact that they eventually came around and realized the truth, and they are now willing to admit it in public. I'd be interested in hearing his take on *why* they "disapprove" of him. He has said elsewhere that it's because the "new MI" was "abandoning" apologetics, though that's not quite accurate, is it?

As for Tom's observations re: Holland's upcoming talk--wow, that has to be a devastating blow to the Old Guard, to be openly disrespected in this way.

Meanwhile, it seems that the "Interpreter Radio Show" has been floundering. They failed to produce a program for Sept. 30th, and when DCP was asked about this by one of the shows few fans, he basically shrugged it off and claimed that he had no idea what was going on. The chain of consecutive broadcasts has been broken, in any case.

[_Gadianton]

I do not believe that the new MI is serving the Church's interests in an active way, or even BYU's. I have no doubt that the participants in the whole thing believe, irritatingly, that they are helping the Church, but in terms of BYU and the Church, they are simply permitted. To be more precise, they are merely tolerated. In terms of function, the vanguard of Mormon post-colonialism over at the MI is not really that different from the Old Guard—which is to say, they have no function.

This isn't Sic et Non, we embrace disagreement here and I insist that if someone thinks that I'm wrong about something that they stand up; let the fittest ideas survive. It's as always, a startling and interesting view you share, and you may very well be right. I've gone mainly off of what seems to be a fairly receptive ear liberal media has given to Patrick Mason, but that really says nothing of the output at the MI, does it? Quite frankly, I don't know. Holland's upcoming address should be interesting (thanks Tom!). Will his talk be so general that it shows he has no idea whatsoever about what they are doing?

I do think though, granting you are right, that so much the greater opportunity for Old School FARMS top get back into the game with something a little more than, "Everyone knows philosophy is dumb, therefore they are wrong".

[_Gadianton]

Socrates does belong to that 200 or so year period between Jeremiah and Plato where a Mediterranean philosophical tradition makes philosophical inquiry dependent on divine assistance. Take a look here at what Plato attributes to Socrates after he has been sentenced to death in the ‘Apology’ 40a (G.M.A. Grube translation):

I think you hit the nail on the head, Stak, and I regret I made the Bishop's interview question 1 about continental stuff, because really, it's exactly as you say, the problem is with philosophy in general. I believe Nibley referred to this as the "Axial period", and gave a few of the "Sophics" a free pass, because otherwise, Nibley also held the, "It's easier to make a stone talk than a philosopher shut up" view. And to be fair, this isn't a good guys vs. bad guys issue, I recognize that most of my fellow atheists likewise think philosophy is dumb.

Nibley also dropped Popper's name several times. The apologists do like academic philosophy if its useful for questioning the bounds of science.

[_Gadianton]

The comment section is still going strong over at the Mormon Interpreter. Here's something interesting from scholar Yakov ben Tov:

How the Maxwell Institute wanted to honor Bushman with a standalone festschrift volume, and he said no unless the topic was on the intersection of scholarly and spiritual lives of those within Mormon Studies that he had trained in the past. The entire theme of the festschrift comes from Bushman and what he wanted to see done, so it’s really a disservice and insult to Bushman that this review was not given more thorough scrutiny. But that’s been a theme the last couple of years, seemingly bent on going after good Mormon scholars like Terryl Givens, Patrick Mason, Phil Barlow, etc.

[_Tom]

Meanwhile, it seems that the "Interpreter Radio Show" has been floundering. They failed to produce a program for Sept. 30th, and when DCP was asked about this by one of the shows few fans, he basically shrugged it off and claimed that he had no idea what was going on. The chain of consecutive broadcasts has been broken, in any case.

Unfortunately, I caught part of the October 7 reboot. Brother and Sister Rappleye and the Brothers Smoot were broadcasting live from a temporary studio space (reportedly it was the elder Smoot’s supply closet in Provo). For some reason, they couldn’t accept listener phone calls, not even from the longtime listener and incessant caller who goes by the name Ray.