Will DCP Keep His Promise To BYU?

[Kishkumen]

Whether it's right or wrong, I predict that it will continue to happen based on basic Newtonian laws of interpersonal dynamics. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

The individual at issue uses "his life" as a means to condescend to others. Sometimes it's indirectly, such as when a random critic asks a question he doesn't wish to answer, and so he excuses himself by noting all the important things he has to do, implying that the critic is less important than he is, and so the question is unworthy of a response, as the asker is unworthy to ask. Sometimes it's direct, such as criticizing Gemli's credentials. FARMS was notorious for this, taking aim at the occupations and schooling of Brent M. Dan V. Ed A. And it comes up all the time in travel logs. His perfect pitch for grammar was brutalized at Taco Bell one day when a young black girl asked him to elaborate when he asked for "a couple" of tacos. How dare this worker from the underclass talk to an important Islamic professor like that? How could "a couple" mean anything other than two? He failed to consider that a fast-food worker might have equally perfect grammatical pitch, yet not knowing the educational attainments of every random customer hitting the drive-through, it's possible and likely that some customers would use the terminology imprecisely and so the worker must clarify every case.

A person who talks about his personal life constantly, and in many cases is doing so in order to either aggrandize himself, put somebody else down, or both, will naturally reap retaliation. Perhaps the retaliators are wrong, but I kid you not, if every known retaliator were to disappear from the earth tomorrow, a completely new set would replace them within months if not weeks, so long as the blog output remains unchanged.

I don't know that justification is required, although I understand that those making the justifications will seek to excuse themselves for filling what evidently is not a void in human activity. Moreover, "he did it first" didn't work well when I was five years old, and I doubt it really improves with age. I will say this, however, Gemli does about as well as anyone could expect in an environment that is hostile to his point of view. He is generally respectful, and he should be commended for that. Indeed, what Gemli does is a lot more respectable than some of what I see here, e.g., when people make comments about DCP's weight or obsessively pick apart his newspaper writing.

In being assholes to people whom we perceive to be assholes, we end up looking like assholes, and some may argue that this is exactly what we are.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

IHAQ, You're a good sport.

Let's not forget that Mr. Peterson attempted to doxx Lemmie based on 'Smokey's' bad information. As a result an innocent teacher was identified and targeted for harassment. I don't believe he apologized for that one. So forgive me when I side eye someone who claims DCP, a serial plagiarizer, doxxer, and liar is described as a genial teaching professor who is being besmirched. He's an asshole who's made a career out of being an asshole in attempt to keep people duped about his employer.

- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Kish, is this you on Lemmie's petty plagiarism thread?

Good heavens. Just when you think that you are done being baffled by the BS of classic-FARMS Mopologists. This is why they make such a rich field of study.

Look. If you want to keep flirting with a known turd monster that's your business. I'm not sure where you're coming from with regard to the pettiness thing, in that you're somehow now in a position to tut tut the board's behavior. Have you considered the idea that if DCP weren't such a shitbag he might never be mentioned on this board, that if he were actually just a humble academic teaching about Islam at BYU instead of waging a filthy war of words for 40 years people would react to him differently, if at all?

What you're doing is akin to bitching about people bitching about a public figure who does the wrong thing. Everybody Wang Chung is simply reminding the board that a BYU professor, a priesthood holder, and the main defender of the cojcolds took money in exchange for a product he hasn't delivered. That man has lied through his teeth about so many things over the years while promoting himself as a virtuous academic that it's astonishing 'some people' feel the need to cut him some slack.

That's not how the world works. He's not the victim here.

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

Look. If you want to keep flirting with a known turd monster that's your business. I'm not sure where you're coming from with regard to the pettiness thing, in that you're somehow now in a position to tut tut the board's behavior. Have you considered the idea that if DCP weren't such a shitbag he might never be mentioned on this board, that if he were actually just a humble academic teaching about Islam at BYU instead of waging a filthy war of words for 40 years people would react to him differently, if at all?

What you're doing is akin to bitching about people bitching about a public figure who does the wrong thing. Everybody Wang Chung is simply reminding the board that a BYU professor, a priesthood holder, and the main defender of the cojcolds took money in exchange for a product he hasn't delivered. That man has lied through his teeth about so many things over the years while promoting himself as a virtuous academic that it's astonishing 'some people' feel the need to cut him some slack.

That's not how the world works. He's not the victim here.

Oh, I think there are plenty victims here, and those of us who spend hours focusing on the dark side of others are in danger of becoming victims of our own vindictiveness and inhumanity. Fortunately that is not all that goes on here, but it is enough of what goes on here, and it is as worthy of comment as anything, if not worthier, that I feel fine joining Dr. Shades in commenting about it.

And it is pretty predictable that my saying something about it has resulted in you taking the time to dig up something I said in the past to put me in the best light you can because you think I am being uppity, or some such. LOL. Yes, there are no winners in this game of tearing people down.

Another way of looking at what Dr. Peterson has done is that he has spent decades teaching young people Arabic, he has blessed many of the lives of his fellow believers as he covenanted to do, and he defended something that he actually believes in.

If your (or Everybody Wang Chung's) idea of highlighting his dishonesty is to say that he didn't finish a book for which he took a sabbatical, then that is pretty weak sauce, honestly. We don't know the circumstances involved there; we don't know how much of the project he completed; we don't know exactly why he didn't publish at the time; and, frankly none of it is any of our damn business. This kind of thing happens. All the time. Only people who don't understand that working on books is not the same as building a house on a tight schedule come up with these kinds of criticisms.

Sometimes, you know, projects don't work out. I have a folder full of articles I have drafted that have not been published. I don't consider them a loss. They have been important for my thought process. At the very least they represent me practicing to write the things that did get published. Some of them I will come back to in the future and finish. Some of them are slotted to go into a book I have yet to put together. If you ask me, as a fellow academic to Dr. Peterson, whether the fact he didn't publish a book at the end of the year is some kind of Scarlet Letter on his character, I have to laugh.

You just don't know what you are talking about, and neither does Everybody Wang Chung.

[Kishkumen]

A real sore spot for me in all of this is the consistent undercurrent of targeting academics, especially religious academics. We have a very skewed take on these issues, one that is informed by a lot of anti-intellectualism, resentment of academics, and intolerance for religious people actually being religious in anything but the quietest and most private way. Books could be, and probably are being, written on these subjects. It is instructive here. I see a whole lot of intolerance of religiosity, and a fair amount of hostility for scholarship that does not support certain viewpoints and ends. It infects almost the entire board and some of the best and most intelligent people among us.

[Chap]

If your (or Everybody Wang Chung's) idea of highlighting his dishonesty is to say that he didn't finish a book for which he took a sabbatical, then that is pretty weak sauce, honestly [...] frankly none of it is any of our damn business.

Well, it was actually two books. And it was DCP who told everybody who cared to read him online that he had 'promised' to finish them during his sabbatical. So I don't think people who note this fact are exactly trespassing on his privacy.

Many academics certainly do find out that book projects lead to new and interesting avenues of research that deserve to be followed up, pushing back the writing schedule but also leading to a better book in the end. It would be nice to think that is what has happened to DCP, but the evidence of his multifarious activities in fields other than academic research tends to point in other directions.

In any case, as the entire structure of Mopologetics appears to be shutting down (or being shut down), the activities of the old gang are markedly diminishing in interest. At its peak, however, it was really a gripping spectacle of what can happen when really intelligent people set out to defend the credibility of a system of belief that (to use the sig line of an Exmo poster who no longer appears here) 'is not only not true, it's obviously not true.' For personal reasons, I found it a very educative example that spoke to my own condition in a liberating way.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Kish,

On one hand it's hard to disagree with what you're posting, because you do have the moral high ground. I can't disagree with the ethical point you're making. Otoh, we're talking about this guy:

Dr. Moore wrote -

I now have 10 single-spaced pages in a Word file. It contains side-by-side columns, showing plagiarized text segments from multiple Interpreter articles dating back to 2012, authored by Daniel C. Peterson.

This includes:
* Unattributed, self-plagiarized articles from older Deseret News columns (slightly altered, mostly word-for-word, some up to 7 years after first print)
* Unattributed, self-plagiarized FARMS article, presented and then printed as if original work, 2 years after first print
* Examples of unattributed, stolen sentences and paragraphs from places such as etymonline.com and wikipedia.com

I can only imagine what might happen if this appalling pattern of academic dishonesty were perpetrated by another BYU professor who wasn't being paid to spend the majority of every working day engaged in the dirty work of Mopologetics. It must be good to have the brethren at one's back, but I doubt any of them are aware of the taint being leaked onto BYU and its valuable degree programs.

You're essentially giving a pass to a guy who is pathologically dishonest, who attempted to doxx Lemmie based on a DezNat's information, has spent years attacking folks, and has tacitly encouraged others to do so either in a professional setting or on his personal blog. He's never apologized for any of his wrongdoing. In fact, his ethos is so thoroughly corrupt he believes himself to be just. It's akin to taking people who complained about Trump's comments and malfeasance to task over their moaning about Trump. You're not wrong, but it also feels really weird that you'd ally yourself with someone like that.

Also, with regard to your notes. Do you publish anything from your notes without attribution? #doubt.

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

Well, it was actually two books. And it was DCP who told everybody who cared to read him online that he had 'promised' to finish them during his sabbatical. So I don't think people who note this fact are exactly trespassing on his privacy.

Many academics certainly do find out that book projects lead to new and interesting avenues of research that deserve to be followed up, pushing back the writing schedule but also leading to a better book in the end. It would be nice to think that is what has happened to DCP, but the evidence of his multifarious activities in fields other than academic research tends to point in other directions.

In any case, as the entire structure of Mopologetics appears to be shutting down (or being shut down), the activities of the old gang are markedly diminishing in interest. At its peak, however, it was really a gripping spectacle of what can happen when really intelligent people set out to defend the credibility of a system of belief that (to use the sig line of an Exmo poster who no longer appears here) 'is not only not true, it's obviously not true.' For personal reasons, I found it a very educative example that spoke to my own condition in a liberating way.

Hey, Chap. Yes, this is not about trespassing on his privacy in that way. If he announces something publicly, then it is public knowledge. It is something else, however, to pursue the matter obsessively in a harassing way.

I am with you when you characterize the activities of FARMS/MI in its conflicts with critics as, collectively, "a gripping spectacle," and I felt that sense of liberation when I realized that I did not have to agree with the apologists or the LDS Church, for that matter.

[Kishkumen]

You're essentially giving a pass to a guy who is pathologically dishonest, who attempted to doxx Lemmie based on a DezNat's information, has spent years attacking folks, and has tacitly encouraged others to do so either in a professional setting or on his personal blog. He's never apologized for any of his wrongdoing. In fact, his ethos is so thoroughly corrupt he believes himself to be just. It's akin to taking people who complained about Trump's comments and malfeasance to task over their moaning about Trump. You're not wrong, but it also feels really weird that you'd ally yourself with someone like that.

Also, with regard to your notes. Do you publish anything from your notes without attribution? #doubt.

Giving a pass? No, I don't think so. Recognizing that the person in question is a human being with his good points and bad points. I think the basic issues regarding his weaknesses have been trotted out sufficiently to get the idea. Less attention by far has been given to his genuinely good points, and that may have something to do, ironically, with his tendency to toot his own horn. Perhaps it suppresses in others the impulse to draw attention to what they see as good in what he does. I don't know.

Look, I would like to be an ally with anyone in the good that they do. I don't think of myself so much as an ally to people in an indiscriminate way as an ally in good causes. Here the cause would be recognizing the humanity in us all with its good and bad points. I don't think that everyone's caricature of an MDB personality represents who they are anymore than I see Dr. Peterson's Mopologetic persona to be the sum total of who he is. Just about everyone I have ever interacted with in my life has made me raise an eyebrow or just downright annoyed me deeply. At the same time, I like to look for the noble and praiseworthy in all of them, even people I really don't like.

I don't dislike Dr. Peterson, honestly, and I see plenty in him that is praiseworthy. It is not that I ignore the problems. Of course they are there. We have seen people focus on them incessantly in this forum. But I don't really think it is necessary to take an eye and a tooth when we feel someone has done the same to us or those we care about. I am pretty sure that Brent Metcalfe, Dan Vogel, and Ed Ashment are just fine and in fact thriving in the world. They don't need us to take a pound of flesh for them. In fact, I doubt they want us to.

By way of admission, the person who drives me to distraction, and probably should not, is actually John Gee. I really don't get that guy, and his attacks on Robert Ritner and others make me see red. That said, I try not to let this consume too much of my life.

[dastardly stem]

Thanks Kish. Good points. I'm in agreement.