Online Apologetics and "Collateral Damage"

[Guest]

As you well know, he was forced to rewrite it

I don't know that. I know otherwise.

You're wrong.

after--if I recall correctly, he got caught bragging about about it.

You don't recall correctly.

And he wasn't.

You can still see put the pieces together if you look at the rewritten review.

You can speculate. The pieces aren't all there to be "put together."

Another way that apologists ridicule opponents is highlighting trivial errors in their writing—through the apparently malicious use of “sic,” for example,

There's nothing "malicious" about putting [sic] after a quoted error. It's the standard way of indicating that the error existed in the original quoted material.

Finally, apologists have a penchant for describing their work with metaphors of violence: blowing away zombies;

I believe that Bill Hamblin and I are responsible for using the "zombie" image. And I can promise you that it had nothing whatsoever to do with "violence." Our joke about a hypothetical movie entitled Bill and Dan's Excellent Adventure in Anti-Mormon Zombie Hell referred to the fact that certain anti-Mormon arguments (we particularly had in mind fundamentalist Protestant anti-Mormonism) keep coming up over and over and over again no matter how little merit there is in them and no matter how often they've been refuted. The emphasis wasn't on violently "blowing them away," but, precisely, on the fact that they can't be "blown away" because those who advance them are too unaware to know that their arguments have been destroyed. Protestant scholars Paul Owen and Carl Mosser make essentially the same point, more discursively, in their well-known article "Mormon Apologetic Scholarship and Evangelical Neglect: Losing the Battle and Not Knowing It?"

stomping out weeds

Somebody somewhere may have used such an image, but I'm not familiar with it. On the other hand, I used a metaphor once of weeding a garden. Perhaps, in order to support the theme of "violence," that had to be transmogrified a bit?

Apologists implicitly invoke the threat of divine destruction for their enemies when they compare detractors to Book of Mormon apostates Nehor or Korihor, or to New Testament dissemblers Ananias and Sapphira, all of whom met violent ends.

Having edited/published one or two such references, and perhaps used one or two myself, I can say that their "violent ends" never played any role in my mind. (Of course, I'm probably lying. And, really, who should you believe about my internal mental states, my critics or me, a habitual liar?)

although it’s not the same thing to savage a person’s book as it is to kill them with a machine
gun, . . . the nature of the feelings that motivate both acts is qualitatively the same.”

I think that's simply ridiculous.

Regarding John-Charles Duffy, by the way: Though we've even shared the platform at academic meetings (notably at the John Whitmer Historical Association's annual meeting, in Springfield, Illinois, a few years ago), he has gone out of his way to avoid shaking my hand or speaking to me. Which, I suppose, proves that I'm a very hostile person.

One thing I liked about his article, though: The cartoon of me as "Dannibal Lecter." My friend Dan Wotherspoon, then the editor of Sunstone, kindly sent me the original. (This will prove to Master Scartch not that I have a sense of [often self-deprecating] humor, but that I revel in viciousness and cruelty.)

[_John Larsen]

That made it seem as though you had read the review in question and saw the butthead thing. As you pointed out, you saw it discussed elsewhere, as I suspected and noted to Gad above.

I read the rewritten review. I have not seen the original--as you pointed out they are rare. So? The evidence of the original is ample. What is your point?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Bill Hamblin should have been fired for that juvenile prank.

What a ridiculous comment.

[_harmony]

Bill Hamblin should have been fired for that juvenile prank.

What a ridiculous comment.

It's obvious that you don't live in the real world, Daniel. Out here, people get fired all the time from high ranking positions for embarrassing or even giving the appearance of embarrassing their company, their company's staff, their company's rivals, etc. Out here, staff is expected to exhibit professionalism, and when they don't, they're written up and occasionally summarily fired.

Your lack of experience outside of academia is showing. In the real world, we don't have tenure. We have no expectation of being employed tomorrow, if we do something stupid today that makes the company in any way look bad.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

As you well know, he was forced to rewrite it

I don't know that. I know otherwise.

You're wrong.

So what happened "otherwise"? Are you actually defending Hamblin's "Metcalfe is butthead" insert?

One thing I liked about his article, though: The cartoon of me as "Dannibal Lecter."

That was a great cartoon. Didn't they also use your likeness for the "FARMS drives the bus" cartoon? That was another classic.

[_Daniel Peterson]

A hearty welcome to Mini-Scartch!

It's been a long time since the last of our interminable exchanges.

I haven't missed them a bit.

It's obvious that you don't live in the real world, Daniel. . . . Your lack of experience outside of academia is showing.

Is it?

The years of working construction for the family business in California had no impact? My brother the construction contractor, my nephew the home-builder, and my in-laws the mechanical engineers, etc., leave no trace? The Walmart workers and fast-food waiters and others in my student ward, in a weak economy, haven't managed to penetrate my dense skull? My long-standing interests in politics and economics (I almost went that direction for my doctorate) haven't influenced me? My own investment interests don't interest me in business? I'm in a cocoon, reading nothing beyond, say, ancient and medieval philosophy?

You know me so well.

Out here, people get fired all the time from high ranking positions for embarrassing or even giving the appearance of embarrassing their company, their company's staff, their company's rivals, etc. Out here, staff is expected to exhibit professionalism, and when they don't, they're written up and occasionally summarily fired. . . . We have no expectation of being employed tomorrow, if we do something stupid today that makes the company in any way look bad.

So you believe that a private and essentially invisible joke, never published -- a joke that so mortified Brent Metcalfe that he went to the news media to tell them about it as soon as he heard about it, since they hadn't heard -- should have resulted in the firing of the teller of the joke?

In the real world, we don't have tenure.

But in academia -- which, incidentally, is no less "real" than non-profit fundraising and corporate law and carpetlaying -- we do have tenure and similar protections. They're designed to protect academic freedom. Some critics fault BYU for allegedly lacking academic freedom. I take it that you join John Larsen in believing that it has too much?

[_Sethbag]

One can innocently claim that including [sic] is just the standard way of indicating that an error existed in the original quote, but I personally find that its use is often a way of sneering at one's opponent.

There's really no need to point out each and every error or misspelling. I've seen many places in various FARMS reviews where seemingly any possible error is highlighted using this technique, as a way of implicitly deriding the quoted work, or placing the reviewer in an implicitly higher position looking down on the quoted work. It can be used maliciously, and I think the criticism of FARMS reviews using it to sneer at opponents to be spot on.

What would you think, DCP, if critics posted all kinds of quotes from Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or any other of the early LDS leaders, using [sic] to point out each and every deviation from standard English? Would you not find a reason to object to this?

ps: by the way, I know this practice of mine might well not be appropriate in an academic setting if I were writing a book or a thesis or something like that, but when quoting others' message board posts in my own posts I actually (gasp!) fix most obvious spelling errors, without pointing them out. I was quoting the material for its content, not to point out some trivial error, and I feel it's more charitable to silently fix the misspelling and drive on with the content than leave the misspelling in there or point it out with a [sic].

[_Daniel Peterson]

One can innocently claim that including [sic] is just the standard way of indicating that an error existed in the original quote, but I personally find that its use is often a way of sneering at one's opponent.

And, very often, it's not.

But, of course, I bow to the superior insight that others undoubtedly have into my mental processes and those of my friends and colleagues.

What would you think, DCP, if critics posted all kinds of quotes from Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or any other of the early LDS leaders, using [sic] to point out each and every deviation from standard English? Would you not find a reason to object to this?

Yes. But largely because [sic] doesn't tend to be used with quotations of primary source material from pre-modern periods when English spelling, capitalization, and etc. were still being standardized.

When we quote Ed Decker, though, or Dr. Dr. John Weldon, we're quoting living writers of English, educated in modern schools and published by contemporary publishing houses. And the errors are not pervasive, in every sentence.

ps: by the way, I know this practice of mine might well not be appropriate in an academic setting if I were writing a book or a thesis or something like that, but when quoting others' message board posts in my own posts I actually (gasp!) fix most obvious spelling errors, without pointing them out. I was quoting the material for its content, not to point out some trivial error, and I feel it's more charitable to silently fix the misspelling and drive on with the content than leave the misspelling in there or point it out with a [sic].

I've done the same thing on numerous occasions, heartless villain though I am.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

A hearty welcome to [Rollo Tomasi]!

It's been a long time since the last of our interminable exchanges.

Thanks, Bishop Dan. It's nice to know you missed me ....

I haven't missed them a bit.

... oh, well.

[_harmony]

You know me so well.

Indeed. We might almost be family. Indeed, we probably are, knowing my husband's geneology as I do.

So you believe that a private and essentially invisible joke, never published -- a joke that so mortified Brent Metcalfe that he went to the news media to tell them about it as soon as he heard about it, since they hadn't heard -- should have resulted in the firing of the teller of the joke?

That's not what I said. I said in the real world... you know, the one without tenure, where stupidity is rewarded with a pink slip... people get fired for doing stupid things. A close family member of mine was fired when he anonymously posted correct information about his company on an internet bulletin board. He was defending his company. He was fired the next day, without notice, without a severance package, because his company did not want anyone discussing them on the internet, even though there was no written or implied policy about it at all.

That's the real world, Daniel, one in which stupidity is not overlooked and not rewarded with tenure.

But in academia -- which, incidentally, is no less "real" than non-profit fundraising and corporate law and carpetlaying -- we do have tenure and similar protections. They're designed to protect academic freedom.

They serve to protect bad teachers and stupid behaviors. And they certainly don't guarantee academic freedom.

Some critics fault BYU for allegedly lacking academic freedom. I take it that you join John Larsen in believing that it has too much?

You know my opinion of BYU. Even my comparative pittance of tithing is too much for the church to spend supporting BYU.