MILLIONS spent by LDS Inc on new MMM book

[_beastie]

Trevor -

Do you think the authors adequately dealt with the possible influence of oaths of vengeance, or with the possibility that Eleanor Pratt identified some members of the wagon train as being present when Parley was killed?

[_Trevor]

Trevor -

Do you think the authors adequately dealt with the possible influence of oaths of vengeance, or with the possibility that Eleanor Pratt identified some members of the wagon train as being present when Parley was killed?

The authors place the desire for revenge among the major factors that contributed to the tragedy of the massacre. Oaths of vengeance are mentioned only in passing. In a footnote the authors refer us to Van Hale's work on the subject, and they say in the same footnote that evidence for the oaths is "mixed."

I do not recall, nor am I able to find a passage, in which it is suggested that Eleanor Pratt might have identified some members of the wagon train as being present when Parley was killed. The Pratt murder is discussed in the beginning of the book as one of the events that contributed to the mood of the Mormons at the time. I recall something about a rumor that connected people in the wagon train with Pratt's death, but only vaguely. I was not able to find anything that connected Eleanor Pratt with such a rumor, but there is a lot of stuff in this book.

Overall, the book makes more use of recent scholarship on violence than it focuses on any Mormon peculiarities that might contribute to the event (leaving aside, of course, prior crimes against Mormons). I found it interesting that they attributed the tragedy partly to "authoritarianism" but that they did not make much of a connection between this characteristic and Mormonism per se. Authoritarianism was sort of hanging out there as one of those things that somehow contributed to the disaster.

To the contrary, I thought they did a decent job of demonstrating, through facts, that the militia leaders were not terribly successful in recruiting people to participate in the atrocity. Some of those who knew what was coming (being close to the event geographically and through acquaintance) did not want much to do with it, and tried to avoid it. I think they said that only 20% or thereabouts of the local militia were successfully roped in. Lots of people bragged in the aftermath that they had avoided it by feigning illness, etc. In other words, if authoritarianism was a big problem, it is also interesting that a number of people creatively avoided its pull.

Having said that, I am not completely satisfied with the way they handle Mormonism. I understand why they chose to do what they did, and I do think it is kind of a judgment call, but given the opportunity to link characteristics of Mormonism with the crime, they made very little of Mormonism as a contributing factor. To offer one example of them not bringing in Mormonism where one might have expected it: small children from the party were spared. The reason they offer, which is attested in the documents, was that they "would not tell tales." At the same time, I have often heard that they were spared because of the theological assessment of their state of innocence. Now, this may in fact have little to do with why they were spared, but to omit any mention of this issue in the discussion seems to me to be problematic.

The authors stated that they were not presenting the material as a series of arguments with particular scholars. One might say that a similar approach was taken in addressing issues that have been used to implicate Mormonism as a belief system. So, one is not going to find a thorough grinding through of issues like blood atonement, oaths of vengeance, the Pratt murder, "Mormon authoritarianism," and the age of accountability. They seem to have deliberately chosen not to adopt a defensive posture about Mormonism.

If you see in the massacre an indictment of Mormonism, then you will probably not be satisfied with their efforts.

[_Daniel Peterson]

My initial reaction to this is that this is just a part of DCP’s overall approach to this thead, which is to seemingly attempt to clutter it with inane comments, perhaps as some sort of distraction. But what’s really sad about this is based on years of interacting with defenders of the faith on the internet, it’s a real possibility that DCP really hasn’t allowed the information I already provided to register in the first place. Sometimes I think that certain defenders of the faith approach difficult issues by trying to annoy the critic as much as possible by creating the “alice in wonderland effect” in the hopes that the critic will give up in disgust, or get so irritated that that he/she begins name calling, which the defender can then use as proof of the bad behavior of critics.

My reaction is, and has always been, that it's ridiculous to go on and on about an unseen book. You haven't provided much relevant "information," because you haven't had much, if any.

That there is a potential conflict of interest whenever employees or advocates of a given institution write a book about a negative or potentially negative subject connected with that institution is a given. It's obvious. The only real way to determine whether that potential conflict of interest has substantially marred the book, however, is to carefully inspect the book.

Calling attention to a potential conflict of interest is entirely legitimate. But to go on and on and on and on, absent even so much as a glance at the book, about the potential, even likely, conflict of interest involved in the book’s production begins to look like an attempt to poison the well.

Everybody involved with the production of Massacre at Mountain Meadows appears to have said, many times over several years, in print, in public lectures, and in private conversations, that every effort has been made to tell the story fully and honestly. Can that assertion be tested? To a large extent, yes. And the best way to test it is by careful inspection of the book.

Your quotation from Elder Packer and, even more so, your quotation from Elder Oaks fall far short of establishing an official Church policy of suppressing relevant historical facts and falsifying the historical record. Yet you seem to believe that they demonstrate such a policy. An excellent test of your belief, in this case, is to carefully inspect Massacre at Mountain Meadows.

Everybody involved with the production of Massacre at Mountain Meadows appears to have said, many times over several years, in print, in public lectures, and in private conversations, that the leadership of the Church, from President Hinckley on down, has encouraged, even demanded, that the full story be told, accurately and without spin. Can that assertion be tested? Not directly, and not fully. But, indirectly, its plausibility can be examined. And the best way to do so is by careful inspection of the book.

Raising the issue of a possible record of institutional dishonesty is not out of line, provided that one has provided substantial evidence for the charge. (I don’t believe that you’ve offered any.) Otherwise, doing so may be merely slanderous. But, even if such substantial evidence has been offered, to go on and on and on and on, absent even so much as a glance at the book itself, regarding the possible marring of the book by possible institutional dishonesty begins to look like an attempt to poison the well.

Based on years of interacting with critics of Mormonism on the internet, I've concluded that a sizeable proportion of them simply don't register what I say, but, instead, filtering what I've actually said through their preconceptions, invent a simulacrum of me and my positions that they believe to be unspeakably inane and/or fundamentally disingenuous. Typically, I agree with them: Their straw man version of what I've said is transparently absurd.

[_Daniel Peterson]

My brother-in-law and his son are visiting from Oregon. We went boating and wakeboarding. Do you like boating, beastie?

You didn't answer my question.

I like boats. I like the water. Do you?

[_Mister Scratch]

My reaction is, and has always been, that it's ridiculous to go on and on about an unseen book. You haven't provided much relevant "information," because you haven't had much, if any.

That there is a potential conflict of interest whenever employees or advocates of a given institution write a book about a negative or potentially negative subject connected with that institution is a given. It's obvious. The only real way to determine whether that potential conflict of interest has substantially marred the book, however, is to carefully inspect the book.

I wonder about this. Presumably you haven't read, cover-to-cover, every single book that gets "the treatment" in the pages of FARMS Review, correct? And yet, I have seen you defer on tough issues (the use of the term "magic," for example) to reviewers. Does this therefore mean that you will issue opinions on books you haven't read?

Everybody involved with the production of Massacre at Mountain Meadows appears to have said, many times over several years, in print, in public lectures, and in private conversations, that every effort has been made to tell the story fully and honestly. Can that assertion be tested? To a large extent, yes. And the best way to test it is by careful inspection of the book.

No; this isn't accurate at all, in my view. We have been told that it took "millions of dollars" to put the book together. Which of us on the board, I wonder, has the "millions of dollars" necessary to fly to various historical repositories and archives?

Your quotation from Elder Packer and, even more so, your quotation from Elder Oaks fall far short of establishing an official Church policy of suppressing relevant historical facts and falsifying the historical record. Yet you seem to believe that they demonstrate such a policy. An excellent test of your belief, in this case, is to carefully inspect Massacre at Mountain Meadows.

Again, how can we test the belief if certain documents are off-limits to non-LDS or non-friendly scholars and researchers? To claim that the Church does not suppress history seems like sophistry. The list of suppressed or suspiciously "revised" materials is quite long, after all: the William Clayton materials; Church finances; the Book of Abraham materials; stuff pertaining to the lives of GAs; Elder Poehlman's "revised" talk; the BY manual which omitted any mention of polygamy; on and on and on. In addition to this, we have talks delivered by prominent General Authorities which reinforce the overall principle of suppression.

So, it starts to seem pretty strange that you would continue harping on this point about "inspecting the book." You would have to agree, I think, that it would be a totally fruitless endeavor to "carefully inspect" the book since, in the end, the reader won't gain access to all the relevant documents. Thus, I have to wonder what you are getting at. Your relentless refrain of "read the book!" begins to seem like a red herring.

It is all fine and good for folks like Trevor and James to have read the book. But it is plainly obvious that it would be impossible for them to "carefully inspect" all of the sources. This is the result of LDS Church practice and policy. You know this (or, I would think that you know this), and yet you still carry on with this rhetorical ploy of, "read the book! read the book!" I vote that you drop it, and simply concede the point to Beastie. Either that, or help persuade the Brethren to totally open up all of the archives for inspection.

Everybody involved with the production of Massacre at Mountain Meadows appears to have said, many times over several years, in print, in public lectures, and in private conversations, that the leadership of the Church, from President Hinckley on down, has encouraged, even demanded, that the full story be told, accurately and without spin. Can that assertion be tested? Not directly, and not fully.

Exactly. End of story.

But, indirectly, its plausibility can be examined. And the best way to do so is by careful inspection of the book.

Wha...? What does that even mean? "Indirectly, its plausibility can be examined"? If that's not sophistry, I don't know what is. We can indirectly examine the plausibility of the existence of extra-terrestrials. On the other hand, maybe this rhetorical gambit has some usefulness: Indirectly, I can test the plausibility of the theory that the LDS Church pays people to do apologetics.

Raising the issue of a possible record of institutional dishonesty is not out of line, provided that one has provided substantial evidence for the charge.

One does. See the above list.

(I don’t believe that you’ve offered any.) Otherwise, doing so may be merely slanderous. But, even if such substantial evidence has been offered, to go on and on and on and on, absent even so much as a glance at the book itself, regarding the possible marring of the book by possible institutional dishonesty begins to look like an attempt to poison the well.

Again: this overlooks the fundamental problem, which is that it is literally impossible for critics to check the sources. This is due to institutional secrecy in the LDS Church, and suppression of historical evidence.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

by the way, this thread, in my opinion, has added some insight into why DCP is often specifically targeted by exmormons upset by their experiences with apologists.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that he spends time talking with them. Case in point.

[_Daniel Peterson]

First of all, I would like to compliment Master Scartch on what I think may be the closest approach to discussion of a more or less substantive issue that I have ever seen from him. Certainly, it's the closest thing that I've seen from him in quite a while.

I wonder about this. Presumably you haven't read, cover-to-cover, every single book that gets "the treatment" in the pages of FARMS Review, correct?

That's correct. I doubt that there is a journal or magazine editor anywhere who has read every single book that his or her journal reviews.

And yet, I have seen you defer on tough issues (the use of the term "magic," for example) to reviewers.

An unfortunate choice of examples. I myself have, as it happens, published on the problematic use of the term magic. And I spent two months in an NEH seminar at Princeton University devoted to the topic.

Does this therefore mean that you will issue opinions on books you haven't read?

I publish them, yes. And I do tend to give some weight to book reviews by reviewers I have reason to trust -- on Mormon subjects as well as non-Mormon subjects, in LDS-related periodicals as in non-LDS-related periodicals -- as well as to movie reviews of films I haven't seen and music reviews of recordings I haven't heard. But I try to avoid pontificating on books, films, and CDs that I don't know at first hand.

We have been told that it took "millions of dollars" to put the book together.

You've been told by a journalist that the book may have cost "millions of dollars."

Which of us on the board, I wonder, has the "millions of dollars" necessary to fly to various historical repositories and archives?

Whenever I read a book on Ottoman Turkey, the rise of the Bolsheviks, the life of Thomas Jefferson, the expedition of Lewis and Clark, the Isma‘ili Shi‘ites of India, or the life of Adolf Hitler, I'm almost certainly reading a book drawing on library and archival resources that I will never see.

To claim that the Church does not suppress history seems like sophistry.

Sophistry is a kind of pseudoargumentation. To simply claim that the Church has no official policy of falsifying history and suppressing historical evidence -- which is actually a somewhat more sweeping claim than I've made on this thread, where I've limited myself, thus far, merely to saying that the quotes from Elders Packer and Oaks that beastie has adduced demonstrate no such policy -- isn't an argument. It's a flat statement. A direct contradiction.

So, it starts to seem pretty strange that you would continue harping on this point about "inspecting the book."

From my perspective, it's exceedingly strange to see people apparently struggling with the concept (which seems to me utterly noncontroversial) that actually reading a book is an indispensably important step toward answering the question of whether the book represents a serious, honest effort to deal with its subject. Other steps may be required, as well, but surely there can be no dispute that reading the book is essential.

You would have to agree, I think, that it would be a totally fruitless endeavor to "carefully inspect" the book since, in the end, the reader won't gain access to all the relevant documents. Thus, I have to wonder what you are getting at. Your relentless refrain of "read the book!" begins to seem like a red herring.

No, I would not agree that carefully inspecting the book would be "a totally fruitless endeavor." In fact, I think that assertion is manifestly ludicrous.

I vote that you drop it, and simply concede the point to Beastie.

Well of course you do!

Wha...? What does that even mean? "Indirectly, its plausibility can be examined"? If that's not sophistry, I don't know what is.

You apparently don't know what sophistry is. (That is, to be more precise, you don't seem to understand its definition.)

[_Dr. Shades]

From my perspective, it's exceedingly strange to see people apparently struggling with the concept (which seems to me utterly noncontroversial) that actually reading a book is an indispensably important step toward answering the question of whether the book represents a serious, honest effort to deal with its subject. Other steps may be required, as well, but surely there can be no dispute that reading the book is essential.

And it seems like those who have read the book have delivered their verdict. For example, the fact that no mention is made of the Oath of Vengeance is indicative of the extremely problematic nature of the book.

[_Mister Scratch]

And yet, I have seen you defer on tough issues (the use of the term "magic," for example) to reviewers.

An unfortunate choice of examples. I myself have, as it happens, published on the problematic use of the term magic.

No; not really. Rollo Tomasi and I asked you to clearly state your position, and you repeatedly refused to state it. Instead, you deferred to articles published in the FARMS Review. You often do this when the matter of Quinn's scholarship comes up.

We have been told that it took "millions of dollars" to put the book together.

You've been told by a journalist that the book may have cost "millions of dollars."

Do you have any reason to distrust the journalist?

Which of us on the board, I wonder, has the "millions of dollars" necessary to fly to various historical repositories and archives?

Whenever I read a book on Ottoman Turkey, the rise of the Bolsheviks, the life of Thomas Jefferson, the expedition of Lewis and Clark, the Isma‘ili Shi‘ites of India, or the life of Adolf Hitler, I'm almost certainly reading a book drawing on library and archival resources that I will never see.

Kind of beside the point. Could you see this material? Or is it "off-limits" as per the order of some authoritarian organization? Anyways, your point is moot: the same criticism would apply if the materials pertaining to your examples were "off-limits", especially if said materials were being guarded by an authoritarian and secretive organization like the LDS Church.

To claim that the Church does not suppress history seems like sophistry.

Sophistry is a kind of pseudoargumentation.

Or deceptive argumentation.

To simply claim that the Church has no official policy of falsifying history and suppressing historical evidence -- which is actually a somewhat more sweeping claim than I've made on this thread, where I've limited myself, thus far, merely to saying that the quotes from Elders Packer and Oaks that beastie has adduced demonstrate no such policy -- isn't an argument. It's a flat statement. A direct contradiction.

To use your phrase: "Indirectly, [the] plausibility [of the statements] can be examined." And it is easy enough to put two-and-two together. We have public statements from GAs declaring, among other things, that "some kinds of truth" are not useful, and that full disclosure of history can result in the deaths of testimonies. Then, we have published statements from the likes of John Gee declaring just how "off-limits" Book of Abraham materials are. Is there an "official" policy somewhere? I don't know. It seems that, at the very least, there is an unspoken "official" policy. And the fact remains that a number of items of historical interest are off-limits.

So, it starts to seem pretty strange that you would continue harping on this point about "inspecting the book."

From my perspective, it's exceedingly strange to see people apparently struggling with the concept (which seems to me utterly noncontroversial) that actually reading a book is an indispensably important step toward answering the question of whether the book represents a serious, honest effort to deal with its subject. Other steps may be required, as well, but surely there can be no dispute that reading the book is essential.

Hey, I applaud those who are willing to put in the effort to read the book. Especially since there is zero chance of their being able to check up on the sources and verify whether or not it is a "serious, honest effort."

You would have to agree, I think, that it would be a totally fruitless endeavor to "carefully inspect" the book since, in the end, the reader won't gain access to all the relevant documents. Thus, I have to wonder what you are getting at. Your relentless refrain of "read the book!" begins to seem like a red herring.

No, I would not agree that carefully inspecting the book would be "a totally fruitless endeavor." In fact, I think that assertion is manifestly ludicrous.

In terms of fully verifying its accuracy, reading the book would be a waste of time. This is true, and will continue to be true until the LDS Church agrees to fully open up its archival holdings. I know that you're not so dense that you cannot grasp this very simple and obvious point.

Wha...? What does that even mean? "Indirectly, its plausibility can be examined"? If that's not sophistry, I don't know what is.

You apparently don't know what sophistry is. (That is, to be more precise, you don't seem to understand its definition.)

Sure I know what it is. I've read FARMS articles, haven't I? It is deceptive argumentation. You know: like telling people that "not one dime" gets paid to you for apologetics.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Lee comes out looking particularly bad because of the book's focus on his character and past behavior, the fact that it shows him as the real leader on the scene, and then ends with his execution. The last part coming after a jump of several decades. You basically find yourself going from the placement of the orphaned children to the execution of Lee.

As the authors explain in the outset of the book, the ending regarding the trial and execution are only included to end the current book, rather than to conclude the historical examination which will continue in another volume (and possibly 2?)

Unfortunately, the authors have not provided a clear chronology of the events of the first week of September, so it becomes difficult for the reader to really sort out the timing of different events. I am not saying that such a chronology would cast doubt on their argument, but it would have been much more convenient and convincing if it had been there.

I would have loved a good chronology in list form as an index. Perhaps one will be included in the upcoming edition of BYU Studies, in addition to other things that were left out of the book. Or maybe vol. 2 will provide one.