Will DCP Keep His Promise To BYU?

[huckelberry]

There was a time that I was very concerned about the role of Mopologetics on BYU campus. I thought it was a very bad situation, and I called it out. I also sometimes went too far and did stupid things as I did it. I recognize I should have done better than I did, although I will credit myself with also trying to be a decent person, failing sometimes, admittedly, and trying to correct myself when I did fail.

Listen, there will always be people who are attracted to nasty apologetic tactics, no matter how self-defeating they are. At the same time, it does us no good to get down in the mud with people who thrive on behaving badly or who get their kicks playing these games. My two cents.

Where it gets really weird, in my opinion, is when it becomes this endless obsession with one person, whose intelligence, honesty, sanity, weight, personal appearance, family, hobbies, trips, anecdotes, indeed, entire life are made the stuff of mean-spirited sport for years on end. It is really gross, in my opinion. I don't expect it will end just because I write about how I find it grotesque, offensive, and beneath the dignity of decent human beings, but I had my say. You know how I feel, and you will do as seems best to you.

I'm sorry, was there a point in that mish mash of words, bad thinking, and opaque reasoning? Do a better job of writing. Thanks.

That said, it appears to me you've taken some of these DCP threads personally. Try not to make his shortcomings your own. If you're not published, us noting his lying to his employer and taking money without producing an agreed upon product isn't your professional cross to bear.

- Doc

Doc, I find Kishkumens post clear and straightforward in reasoning. Perhaps you just do not care for his reasoning.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I'm sorry, was there a point in that mish mash of words, bad thinking, and opaque reasoning? Do a better job of writing. Thanks.

That said, it appears to me you've taken some of these DCP threads personally. Try not to make his shortcomings your own. If you're not published, us noting his lying to his employer and taking money without producing an agreed upon product isn't your professional cross to bear.

- Doc

Doc, I find Kishkumens post clear and straightforward in reasoning. Perhaps you just do not care for his reasoning.

I was parodying his asshole comment earlier.

- Doc

[Lem]

Speaking as a nevermo interested in the extent to which religious truth claims may be seen as reasonable, I'll say that when Daniel Peterson used to frequent this board, and was willing to engage in debate without being able to silence his opponents (or have the silencing done for him by biased moderators), I found him an interesting figure.

Nowadays, not so much. However, I don't claim that lack of interest as a sign of superior ethical standards on my part: it's just that from my point of view (as one who has enjoyed debating with aggressive religionists) he has dropped off the menu of possible sources of distraction in life's duller moments.

If, however, I had spent much of my life in the CoJCoLDS, and finally, like many posters here, exited it at some considerable personal cost, including cost in terms of my family, social and business relationships, as well as a sense of having been personally deceived and swindled financially, I think I would feel differently about DCP in his capacity as a long-term, aggressive and not very scrupulous defender of 'the Church'.

So I don't think I would want criticise such people much if they don't feel inclined to cut DCP any slack.

"Not very scrupulous," indeed. Given that his lack of scruples also includes the fact that he utterly demeans the occupation of a University Professor with his ongoing and blatant theft of intellectual property (documented dozens of times on our previous board), I think you've covered the issues pretty well.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Kish,

Thank you for your thoughts and opinions.

I will certainly try to be more circumspect when pointing out DCP's homophobia, racism, plagiarism, lies, hypocrisy, anger and bad apologetics.

I actually agree with you on discussing DCP's weight. I will refrain from discussing the same. I have only brought it up occasionally and only because DCP himself has made an issue of it. DCP has said that the WoW is a faith affirming doctrine to him. Honestly, chances are slim to none that DCP's stomach has ever seen a vegetable.

Thanks Kish!

[Kishkumen]

I have only brought it up occasionally and only because DCP himself has made an issue of it. DCP has said that the WoW is a faith affirming doctrine to him. Honestly, chances are slim to none that DCP's stomach has ever seen a vegetable.

I hope that none of us are given the kind of treatment we give DCP. You really don't know enough about DCP to know why he finds the WoW a faith-affirming doctrine, and you do not know what his diet is like. We all have our weaknesses, challenges, and problems. Yours would probably be no more flattering for you if you attracted a fan club like DCP's. In some people, that realization might inspire more introspection and circumspection.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I hope that none of us are given the kind of treatment we give DCP.

Thanks Kish for sharing your opinion again. I respect your opinion but couldn’t disagree more.

I would sincerely hope that if any of us here represented an institution that many of us care deeply about and we were plagiarizing over and over in public venues, that our bad behavior would be pointed out.

I would hope that if any of us here were posting racist, hateful or homophobic articles that our bad behavior would be called out.

I would hope that if any of us here were posting bad Mopologetic arguments that we would be called out.

Kish, you might want to put me on ignore so my future posts about DCP will not offend your delicate sensibilities.

[Symmachus]

I find the comment on another thread made by dastardly stem to be relevant to the direction the thread has taken:

I mean, giving him [Blake Ostler] credit in a sense. After all these years he's still trying. Mentioning Blake Ostler and Jeff feels like we're setting the clock back 20 years. But they have staying power, even though it feels like both of them fell off the radar for a couple of decades.

Daniel Peterson has certainly never been off the radar, but the range of that radar has diminished significantly from what it was even 5 years ago, let alone 20. Though I was not a participant, I know that there was frequent sparring—skirmishing?—with apologetic types on boards like this in the early 2000s, including with Daniel Peterson. I can see it as understandable then that a lot of the veterans of those wars still harbor not just bad blood but also an outsized view of the enemy from whom they won their wounds. No one wants to think that the opponent giving them a hard go is weakling—wha would that imply? It helps him to keep feeding that image, as well.

The fact remains, though, that he no longer manages a real publication, cannot command the prestige of a university institute, does not appear to enjoy any special status with the Church, no longer has a newspaper column. In short, he is no longer any authority figure in Mormon intellectual life, let alone in Mormonism more broadly. He once held court as lord of the FARMS Review (or whatever it was), which made apologetics look academic to LDS questioners and provided social capital to be used against skeptics and to discredit critics. It was quite the distribution system the apologists had to support their claims, and it had the effect of creating a contrast with amateurs like Sandra Tanner. She had no PhD and was not employed as a professional smart person and instead ran a self-published operation out of her house. Peterson's almost entrepreneurial skill was to apply that high-budget vs. low-budget contrast in such a way that it seemed to reflect the quality of the claims each side was making so that the medium was made to be the message: who are you gonna believe, these smart professors with PhDs from top schools, or these uneducated self-publishers and Bible-thumpers ranting in their living room? That is socially very effective, and I can see how locking horns amid that backdrop made him appear formidable. And maybe some people are immoderately impressed by his middle-school sarcasm. Today, however, apart from pretending to edit the Interpreter, his main apologetic activity appears to be curating comments on his blog. His chief adversaries are people who go by names like Gemli and Everybody Wang Chung, and his comrades in arms are people with names like Kiwi57. The medium and the message truly are one now.

It appears that he plagiarizes on his blog, and he certainly advances the poorly constructed arguments of others, contrives the appearance of a scholar without having much of the substance (a form of social plagiarism, perhaps), and occasionally says mean things (in this department he evinces rather more originality than in the others). Even so, I can't say that spending some time with the DSM 5 in order to be able to diagnose, with clinical confidence, the alleged mental illness of a minor-league internet personality appears as healthy as some might think it to be. For those of us who did not fight in Board Wars just past the turn of the century—well, let me just speak for myself—it is a little baffling to see not just the amount but also the kind of attention he can command from some posters here. Each has their own interest, so I certainly have no place to tell anyone not to post about Daniel Peterson; I just struggle to see what his relevance is. I half wonder whether the object of these "DCP" posts is not Daniel Peterson as he is but rather as he was. He must have been really something.

[Lem]

It appears that he plagiarizes on his blog,

And in the Desert News, and in his Interpreter Journal, and in the FARMS publications. Anywhere he has published, he has plagiarized.

For those of us who did not fight in Board Wars just past the turn of the century—well, let me just speak for myself—it is a little baffling to see not just the amount but also the kind of attention he can command from some posters here.

Nah, he's just a university professor who egregiously demeans our joint profession with his long repeated and still ongoing plagiarism. Ignoring his theft of intellectual property because some people think he is picked on is nonsensical. Our profession deserves more respect.

[Moksha]

I hope that none of us are given the kind of treatment we give DCP.

Especially Dr. Michael Quinn.

[Kishkumen]

Thanks Kish for sharing your opinion again. I respect your opinion but couldn’t disagree more.

I would sincerely hope that if any of us here represented an institution that many of us care deeply about and we were plagiarizing over and over in public venues, that our bad behavior would be pointed out.

I would hope that if any of us here were posting racist, hateful or homophobic articles that our bad behavior would be called out.

I would hope that if any of us here were posting bad Mopologetic arguments that we would be called out.

Kish, you might want to put me on ignore so my future posts about DCP will not offend your delicate sensibilities.

I am fully capable of ignoring your posts without putting you on ignore. Most of what you post isn't that interesting to me anyway. No offense, but it obviously is not my thing. I do not dismiss you as a person, however, because I know you are very intelligent and quite capable of saying interesting and perceptive things. On occasion you do, and on occasion I read them and appreciate them.

Furthermore, I can't let your strategic faux-obtuseness about what I am saying stand (that's what it is; you know what I am saying and you choose to respond in a way that misrepresents the point I am making). You know that I have no problem with people criticizing things that are genuinely unethical or immoral. There are also items that fit into an ideological gray area. If you happen to align with certain viewpoints, you will think that what DCP has said is genuinely awful. I lean left, so I sometimes find what he has said to be problematic for that reason.

Most of all, you know that I have specifically said that bad apologetic arguments call for a robust response. I have said so in this very thread. So, I don't appreciate the disingenuous pretense that I have not said exactly that.

What I take issue with is the endless disparagement of a single human being that makes that person out to be a cartoonishly evil caricature. There are varying degrees of bad behavior, as you well know, and it behooves us to put things in their proper perspective in order to find the right remedy for the problem. Good judgment is required and very desirable.

As a model example, I would point to our dear consul, Prof. Symmachus, who is in some ways perhaps even more effectively cutting in his criticisms than you or I could ever hope to be. Another highly effective critic is Dean Robbers, whose observations are usually very thought-provoking, insightful, and on the nose. I don't take them to task because I think that they generally stick to the realm of accurate and salutary criticisms.

On the other hand, there are people, most of whom I like, including you, whose posts I often skip over because they are pretty content free. They are pointlessly emotive and sometimes plain juvenile. They do not reflect the best of the person posting them. I do not call these posts overly dramatic, inaccurate and juvenile as a cut on the person posting, because I know that these people are much, much better human beings than comes through in a lot of their posts. I would include you on that list. You not infrequently post way below your humanity.

Thank you for your concern. I think I can handle your posts just fine. I hope you can handle my well-intentioned criticisms of those posts of yours that I do not like or find valuable. We will undoubtedly continue to differ in our views on this topic, but I believe we can all share this space without being nasty to each other about these differences of opinion.