Mike Quinn

[_rcrocket]

I ignored your initial question about where you've lied, because the question itself is an example of the very disingenuous techniques I've described here. What I've repeatedly said is that you use a disingenuous and opportunistic polemical style (yes, Crock, these are all words you should have learned in college). You contradict yourself repeatedly as you move from one argument to the next. There is obviously no concern for consistency behind your posts, which indicates a lack of sincerity in the views expressed: not even you could hold all those contradictions in your head as actual beliefs. You just grab on to whatever is useful in the moment, whether it is believable--even to you, or not; and shift to something contradictory as needed. This is fundamentally dishonest.

I really don't see myself as dishonest in terms of contradictions. I think the only contradiction you point out is my admiration for Dr. Quinn, on the one hand, and my contention that I agree with Dr. Newman's analysis that Dr. Quinn's academic credentials to be a tenured professor at a major university are thin. I admire and respect a lot of people whom I wouldn't trust in business or other relationships. My point a post above was that Dr. Quinn really never trained himself to be hireable. See his great article, Pillars of My Faith. http://www.sunstoneonline.com/magazine/ ... -50-57.pdf. He really saw himself as a dedicated Church employee, turning out works of history.

But, then, things went wrong and the only book published by an independent house is the queer studies treatise, Same Sex Dynamics. I wonder why he didn't have his other major works published by respected houses.

However, although this was not what I was talking about before, you've also deliberately misrepresented data, as when you claimed the Walker book Wayward Saints demonstrated that the University of Illinois accepts self-funded "vanity" works. Following up on your claim, I found that publication of the book had been "supported by grants from," three academic institutions, none of them named "Ron Walker," and that the University of Illinois offered no disclaimer that the book was accepted only because of money; rather, they presented the book under the imprimature of the University of Illinois Press just like any other academic work they publish.

I believe you charged me with a dishonest post before I attempted this proof. Oh well. In any event, for those who do publish in academia and understand the rigors of getting things published, I think they'll agree with me that the UofI is a vanity publisher for academics willing to fund publication costs. (I didn't want to earlier make this point, but so is Stanford -- shocking as it is. Juanita Brooks' Mountain Meadows Massacre wouldn't get published there until Stanford received adequate underwriting from Brooks-supplied sources. A number of universities are the same way.) But, as I also pointed out, it didn't seem to me that Same Sex Dynamics was published with Dr. Quinn-supplied underwriting, so I withdrew the suggestion.

So, as evidence of your dishonesty, we have:
1) Your disingenuous polemical style, which I've described at length above, and the record of which you've left scattered across the entire thread;
2) Your misrepresentation, even in your 'question,' of what I described above; and,
3) Your blatant misrepresentation of the Walker book as evidence that the University of Illinois Press sidelined as a "vanity" press.

I apologize for my style.
I don't feel I misrepresented anything. I questioned things and assumptions, and further asked a question I didn't know the answer to (was Same Sex Dynamics vanity published?).

I could list more, if I were willing to wade once more through the swill you would call "evidence" and "argument;" but I really don't have the interest. You've embarrased yourself thoroughly in this discussion, regardless of what your supporter thinks (note the singular).

I stand embarrassed. I hope to do better in my next exchange. But for now, I stand on my original proposition: I agree with the UofU that Dr. Quinn's credentials are too thin to be a tenured professor.

Having refuted your points and identified the dishonest techniques you've used and continue to use, there's nothing left for me to do with this discussion but let it stand as a monument to your sloppy and disingenuous polemics.
You may (and will) continue to post away, claiming to refute all this and laying out further "challenges" (I.e., red herrings), claiming victory if I don't respond. Fine. You may feel free to take pride in the "victory" of not having your final "arguments" responded to, because you, and they, aren't worth the time.

I don't believe in claiming victory. I condemn chest beating -- using words such as "having refuted your points". I hope that my words stand for themselves.

I would like to make a final point about your argument, and that of Harmony's, Scratch's, and the matrix guy. I think all of you rather naïvely argue issues of university selection and tenure without having a flippin' clue as to what it means to get tenure and get things published. There are anti-Mormons on this board who DO know these things and HAVE published but have been completely silent. The silence is deafening. Now, turning back to my dog-eared copy of No Man Knows My History ...

rcrocket

[_Coggins7]

Coggins

I ask again, what of Quinn's books have you read? I wonder because in a post above you were quite critical of his works. I will assume that no response from you means you have not read any of his books.

None, as of yet. I've read extensive excerpts over the years, as well as critiques of his work. I know he's a capable scholar, in a fundamental intellectual sense. Its the use he's made of that ability that is the problem. I think Quinn's general approach to making his arguments ranges from quite good to dabbling in inferentially weak generalizations and even innuendo and straw grasping when dealing with various issues.

Again, the "magic world view" is intended as a smarmy intellectual backhand to believers in general, as the "demon haunted world" was intended by Carl Sagan with respect to the origin and development of religion. I find Quinn's claims to be a true believer to be fairly disingenuous. as even if true in some basic doctrinal senses, his personal agendas have led him on a continual literary assault against the Church for quite sometime. I think much of this is founded in a desire to pressure the Church into accepting, as some other Protestant denominations have done, open homosexuality in the Church and in the Priesthood.

If the Church is true, then human beings may accept what it teaches or not, but they cannot alter or modify its teachings to suit themselves through political or literary pressure.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

His great production of Mormon buggery sort of sealed his fate -- queer studies really has limited appeal. He's your hero? A queer studies success?

Careful, Bob. Your homophobia is starting to show.

[_Coggins7]

Careful, Bob. Your homophobia is starting to show.

Rollo, is formatted pc can't really necessary?

[_Coggins7]

By the way, I've still never figured out why I cannot use the term "can't" without the system here inserting the hyphen.

Any ideas?

[_Coggins7]

"As far as the urges going away, you might contact Evergreen. They are experts in helping men to overcome their urges, no matter how primal."

Its also true, for those who are motivated. The APA altered its traditional hostility to reparative therapy several years ago because of the undeniable empirical evidence of its effectiveness for a certain demographic.

[_rcrocket]

His great production of Mormon buggery sort of sealed his fate -- queer studies really has limited appeal. He's your hero? A queer studies success?

Careful, Bob. Your homophobia is starting to show.

"Queer studies" is a university and library descriptor for a sub-category of the study of humanities. I think the selection of the phrase to be rather queer, but I didn't select it.

My reference to buggery -- well, perhaps. I should have used the term "gayness" instead. Sorry to have been offensive with the term.

rcrocket

[_Blixa]

I think all of you rather naïvely argue issues of university selection and tenure without having a flippin' clue as to what it means to get tenure and get things published. There are anti-Mormons on this board who DO know these things and HAVE published but have been completely silent. The silence is deafening. rcrocket

If you are refering to me, and you are probably not since I'm not an "anti-mormon," I've been silent because I can't take what you've said between insults seriously. I've been on hiring committees, I have tenure, I've published, I have a good handle on how academia works. I don't see how sharing any of this would make any impact on the kind of "discussion" you seem to desire.

[_Coggins7]

For the most part, anything labeled as a "studies" program is, in essence, not really an academic discipline at all, but a political ideology and political program wrapped in the hallowed robes of academia. They are primarily systems of indoctrination, not education, ensconced within the humanities and social sciences. There may by exceptions, but I think the rule generally holds.

Queer Studies grew out of the older Gay and Lesbian studies, and, like Black Studies, Latino Studies, American Studies, Peace Studies, Post-Colonial Studies ad nauseum, represents the colonization of the humanities by a truly malignant ideological anti-intellectualism that sees the traditional Liberal Arts as oppressive and in need of subversion and destruction.

[_rcrocket]

I think all of you rather naïvely argue issues of university selection and tenure without having a flippin' clue as to what it means to get tenure and get things published. There are anti-Mormons on this board who DO know these things and HAVE published but have been completely silent. The silence is deafening. rcrocket

If you are refering to me, and you are probably not since I'm not an "anti-mormon," I've been silent because I can't take what you've said between insults seriously. I've been on hiring committees, I have tenure, I've published, I have a good handle on how academia works. I don't see how sharing any of this would make any impact on the kind of "discussion" you seem to desire.

Since I am not tenured, and don't work for a university (except as a lawyer; I work for several), let me pose some questions:

1. Should Fawn Brodie's five published best-selling biographies be discounted somewhat because there were published by textbook publishers (and, for No Man, a popular publisher) rather than university houses? When I mean discounted, when a hiring committee looks at a resume would they look askance at these to any degree?

2. Would a hiring committee place more emphasis upon published books rather than essays in journals? I mean, is a published book at a university publisher a more significant event in an academic's life than a published essay at a university journal? (It would seem so, wouldn't it, because authors like to publish in journals advance chapters of their books, right?)

3. Do you know if the academic rigor (in terms of peer review) of a Signature Books book would be less than that for a book on the same subject published by a major university?

4. Do you agree with Dr. Newman's published statement that Dr. Quinn's credentials are too thin (for the reasons he stated; please rely upon the WSJ's characterization and not how I characterize it here) to be offered a tenured position? Why or why not?

5. Is there a tenured queer studies professor at any state university anywhere in your state? I'd be interested in seeing his on-line credential and comparing them to Dr. Quinn's.

Thanks.

rcrocket