A closer look at FROB 3, Part 1

[_Daniel Peterson]

Incidentally, for what little it's worth, I own and have read every one of the "misses" listed by Tom, the Review's editor manqué.

I bought them with my own personal funds (a.k.a. my lavish, ill-gotten, dishonest Mopologist loot).

And, though we haven't had much contact for a long time, I consider Todd Compton a personal friend. We go back to graduate school together.

[_Tom]

[O]ur principal focus, as we see it, remains the Book of Mormon and other ancient-studies-related materials, as well as major publications that involve the truth-claims of Mormonism or are likely to occasion significant controversy that we feel we ought to address (and that we think our readers will expect us to address). But we make no claim to exhaustiveness, and feel no obligation to do so. We review what we find interesting and relevant to our primary focus.

It's difficult to determine why you choose or choose not to review/rate certain books, including Mormon history-related books.

Why Carmon Hardy's book and In Sacred Loneliness and not More Wives Than One?

Why Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power and not Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power?

Why The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU and not Isaiah in the Book of Mormon?

Why Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet?

Why The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion and not All Abraham's Children?

Why Evolution and Mormonism: A Quest for Understanding and Mormonism and Evolution: The Authoritative LDS Statements?

Why Working toward Zion: Principles of the United Order for the Modern World?

Why Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900?

Why American Massacre, Blood of the Prophets, and Forgotten Kingdom?

[_Daniel Peterson]

It's difficult to determine why you choose or choose not to review/rate certain books, including Mormon history-related books.

You would have precisely the same problem, if you cared to consider it, in trying to determine why Time and Newsweek and the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement and The New Republic and National Review and The Nation review some books and not others.

There are always severe limits, and there is no little arbitrariness, or seeming arbitrariness.

And you should also know that, sometimes, we've sought and been unable to find reviewers, or that we have reviewers who are dawdling in getting their reviews to us. (Don't assume that all of the items that you list will escape review forever.) Our Scartch-certified-lavish compensation system -- a free copy of the item to be reviewed, if the reviewer hasn't already bought it, and a free copy of the issue of the FARMS Review in which the reviewer's review ultimately appears -- doesn't provide us with much leverage over potential reviewers.

Sometimes we simply figure that it's taken so long to get a review out that the time for such a review has passed.

Sometimes, too, we publish unsolicited reviews that we happen to think are pretty good.

You can do differently with your journal, if you wish.

[_Mister Scratch]

Some of the biggest misses by Dr. Peterson over the years include the following:

Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness (not an editor's pick)
Newell Bringhurst, Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life (not an editor's pick)
Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy, Its Origin, Practice, and Demise (not an editor's pick)
...
D. Michael Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (not an editor's pick)
D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (not an editor's pick)
D. Michael Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics (not an editor's pick)

Daniel, why were none of these Editor's Picks? Personal bias or not something you're personally interested in?

It is obviously a function of personal bias. DCP loves to boast about how many friends he has, and how he's on good terms with the likes of Compton, but does he ever say the same about Quinn? Of course not. He and his colleagues have worked extremely hard to discredit Quinn, going to so far as to suggest that he was engaged in "sad incidents" with a member of his ward, and that his "then-Stake President" was blabbing about it. DCP was also responsible for stating, on multiple occasions, that Quinn's work is "untrustworthy," and for suggesting that Quinn's homosexuality--rather than his honest scholarship---was the leading cause of his excommunication.

And the reviews themselves are appalling examples of smear tactics, Hamblin's "That Old Black Magic" in particular. People need to bear in mind that, as editor of the Review, DCP both commissioned and edited all of these pieces. It is not an exaggeration to say that he exercises a good deal of control over the Review, and that its content, to no small extent, reflects his views.

Another thing worth pointing out is that DCP never deals directly with Quinn's actual work. This is ironic and hypocritical, since The Good Professor is constantly saying, "Deal with the actual reviews!" or "read the actual reviews," or whatever else, but when it comes to Quinn's work, he always defers to his reviewers. Does this mean that he agrees, to the letter, with the nasty and appalling things his reviewers said? Is this reflective of a "hive mentality" when it comes to Quinn? On this last point, recall that Louis Midgley paid several visits to the Tanners' bookstore, and that during these visits, he would often vocally slam Quinn's work, saying offensive things like, "Oh, you still have this queer's books?!?"

More evidence that bias underlies his treatment of Quinn can be found in his reaction to Rollo Tomasi on the old, ironically named FAIRboard. When DCP began gossiping about Quinn's sexual orientation, and Rollo called him on it, DCP flipped out and was given permission to post a "Boring Clarification" on a closed, locked-down thread. Later, he sent Rollo a series of condemnatory emails in which he indicated that he hoped that Rollo would suffer in the afterlife. Are these the actions of someone who deals fairly with critics? Are these the actions of someone who is unbiased?

[_Tom]

And, though we haven't had much contact for a long time, I consider Todd Compton a personal friend. We go back to graduate school together.

How did he respond to your footnote in your introduction to FROB 13/2?

"That writers on history are not necessarily sophisticated thinkers is unmistakably demonstrated in the difficulty that one subject of a pair of FARMS reviews has had, along with his would-be defenders, in understanding the use by one of the reviewers of the concepts of naturalism and naturalistic explanation. He appears to believe that FARMS has accused him of atheism. For the record, I wish to say that this is not true. I am well acquainted with him—indeed, have considered him to be a friend since our days in graduate school—and know him not to be an atheist. I would never have let such a charge by had I seen it. But I did not see such a charge and still do not."

[_Trevor]

Hamblin's "That Old Black Magic" in particular.

I don't like that particular review very much either. My least favorite part was the use of a Church disciplinary council in the 1840s as a way of countering evidence for the interest in and use of magic in the 1820s. I didn't buy it.

[_Mister Scratch]

Of the thirty picked items published by FARMS, six received four stars (20%), eighteen received three stars (60%), five received two stars (16.7%), and one received one star (3.3%). Thus, twenty-four of the thirty picked FARMS products (80%) received either three or four stars. Six of the thirty (20%) received either two stars or one star.

Of the 127 picked non-FARMS products, six received four stars (4.7%), twenty-nine received three stars (22.8%), one received a rating of **(*) (.78%), fifty-six received two stars (44.1%), and thirty-five received one star (27.6%). Thus, ninety-one of the 127 picked non-FARMS products (71.7%) received either two stars or one star. Thirty-five of the 127 picked non-FARMS products (27.6%) received either three or four stars.

This is great stuff, Tom. It's important to remember that FARMS Review is first and foremost a polemical, ideological publication, and only secondly a scholarly publication. DCP once state that he engages in apologists in order to "create a space for faith to exist" (or something like that), and it seems to me his is referring (at least in part) to the review. It is a polemical, ideological vehicle for assaulting critics, and yet, uncharacteristically for academic book reviews, it features peer reviewing and extensive footnotes. Why these additional features? To create the impression of genuine scholarship, and to divert LDS attention away from the harsh polemics and rather obvious bias.

As Dr. Peterson once wrote, "Book reviewing...is a rather idiosyncratic activity, and readers would do well to bear in mind Ambrose Bierce's definition of admiration as 'Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves,' and, thus, to take the recommendations of the current chairman of the FARMS Board of Trustees for what they are worth."

LOL! Yes, of course. "If you're like me, I'll give you four stars. If you disagree with me, however.... You'll get the 'That Old Black Magic' treatment."

[_Daniel Peterson]

It is obviously a function of personal bias.

It's a function of informed but personal judgment, yes.

I can only dream from afar of the Olympian personal detachment and objectivity that Master Scartch brings to this and all other issues.

DCP loves to boast about how many friends he has, and how he's on good terms with the likes of Compton, but does he ever say the same about Quinn? Of course not.

For the simple reason that I would be lying if I described him as a friend. We've only really met once or twice. While Todd Compton and I went to the same graduate school, Mike Quinn went to a different one.

Pretty sinister, that.

He and his colleagues have worked extremely hard to discredit Quinn, going to so far as to suggest that he was engaged in "sad incidents" with a member of his ward, and that his "then-Stake President" was blabbing about it. DCP was also responsible for stating, on multiple occasions, that Quinn's work is "untrustworthy," and for suggesting that Quinn's homosexuality--rather than his honest scholarship---was the leading cause of his excommunication.

We've been over all this, and over it and over it and over it and over it and over it and over it and over it and over it and over it, before.

And the reviews themselves are appalling examples of smear tactics, Hamblin's "That Old Black Magic" in particular. People need to bear in mind that, as editor of the Review, DCP both commissioned and edited all of these pieces. It is not an exaggeration to say that he exercises a good deal of control over the Review, and that its content, to no small extent, reflects his views.

Readers here can examine the FARMS Review for themselves.

It's on line at http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/review/.

For especially appalling examples of our smear tactics, I suggest starting with the reviews by Brant Gardner, Michael Heiser, Lavina Fielding Anderson, David McClellan, Larry Morris, John Butler, David Bokovoy, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Richard Bushman, David P. Wright, Todd Compton, James Allen, Blake Ostler, and Steven Harper.

Another thing worth pointing out is that DCP never deals directly with Quinn's actual work. This is ironic and hypocritical, since The Good Professor is constantly saying, "Deal with the actual reviews!" or "read the actual reviews," or whatever else, but when it comes to Quinn's work, he always defers to his reviewers. Does this mean that he agrees, to the letter, with the nasty and appalling things his reviewers said? Is this reflective of a "hive mentality" when it comes to Quinn?

It's easy, on line, to identify all of the reviews of Mike Quinn's work that the FARMS Review has published, to read them, and to judge whether the Scartchmeister's characterization of them is just or fair.

I'm not quite sure why Scartch thinks it's a character failing on my part to have solicited reviews of Quinn's books from other scholars, but he's wrong in suggesting that I've never addressed Quinn directly, myself:

Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks, “The Mormon as Magus,” review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, by D. Michael Quinn (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), Sunstone 12 (January 1988): 38-39.

On this last point, recall that Louis Midgley paid several visits to the Tanners' bookstore, and that during these visits, he would often vocally slam Quinn's work, saying offensive things like, "Oh, you still have this queer's books?!?"

This is anecdotal hearsay, it doesn't appear in the FARMS Review (which is ostensibly the topic of discussion on this thread), I've never visited the Tanners' bookstore, and believing Latter-day Saints don't constitute a "hive mind."

So how, exactly, is this relevant?

More evidence that bias underlies his treatment of Quinn can be found in his reaction to Rollo Tomasi on the old, ironically named FAIRboard. When DCP began gossiping about Quinn's sexual orientation, and Rollo called him on it, DCP flipped out and was given permission to post a "Boring Clarification" on a closed, locked-down thread. Later, he sent Rollo a series of condemnatory emails in which he indicated that he hoped that Rollo would suffer in the afterlife. Are these the actions of someone who deals fairly with critics? Are these the actions of someone who is unbiased?

Good grief, you're bizarre.

And much of the above is substantially false. Just for the record.

[_Daniel Peterson]

How did he respond to your footnote in your introduction to FROB 13/2?

He disagreed.

We disagree.

I still like him.

I think he still likes me. (Perhaps he doesn't. Somebody can ask him, I suppose.)

I don't like that particular review very much either. My least favorite part was the use of a Church disciplinary council in the 1840s as a way of countering evidence for the interest in and use of magic in the 1820s. I didn't buy it.

Disagreement is the essence, or nigh thereunto, of scholarship.

I'm unconvinced by many things I read, too, and I've argued for and against various propositions advanced by other academics.

I never regard them as evil, though, simply because we disagree.

[_Trevor]

Disagreement is the essence, or nigh thereunto, of scholarship.

I'm unconvinced by many things I read, too, and I've argued for and against various propositions advanced by other academics.

I never regard them as evil, though, simply because we disagree.

Well, by saying I disagreed, I wasn't exactly calling him a hack. He may be a wonderful scholar in many ways. That I do not like one review he wrote is not a blanket condemnation.