Martha Beck: FARMS reviews sexual abuse claims

[_Jersey Girl]

I wish I could really say much about this subject. I represent one of the parties. If anybody is really interested in this sordid affair it is very helpful to look at both sides.

It isn't all that pertinent to me that she waited a long time to bring her charges.

If we wanted to look at both sides, where would we be looking?

[_solomarineris]

If we wanted to look at both sides, where would we be looking?

Reminds me one of those alien abduction sessions coming to surface with a right shrink.
That is what my logic tells me but would I be surprised what she was telling to be true?
No.

[_harmony]

I wish I could really say much about this subject. I represent one of the parties. If anybody is really interested in this sordid affair it is very helpful to look at both sides.

It isn't all that pertinent to me that she waited a long time to bring her charges.

If we wanted to look at both sides, where would we be looking?

One of the original sides is dead. So who are the sides now?

[_Daniel Peterson]

If we wanted to look at both sides, where would we be looking?

Since Professor Nibley is dead, it's fairly difficult to speak with him.

However, the following reviews raise very important questions about Martha Nibley Beck's credibility:

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=1&id=569

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=2&id=587

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=1&id=570

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/index. ... raint=none

[_harmony]

If we wanted to look at both sides, where would we be looking?

Since Professor Nibley is dead, it's fairly difficult to speak with him.

However, the following reviews raise very important questions about Martha Nibley Beck's credibility:

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=1&id=569

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=2&id=587

http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=1&id=570

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/index. ... raint=none

Actually, the reviews themselves say more about the credibility of the review authors than they say about Martha's credibility. A review is only someone's opinion, after all. It's not like any of them actually interviewed Martha, spent any amount of time with her, or lived in her skin.

You place altogether too much emphasis on reviews, but I suppose that's only to be expected, given your hobby.

[_Paul Osborne]

I don't know if Nibley is guilty of anything. But nothing would surprise me anymore. I've seen enough of planet earth to make me realize we are all insane.



Paul O

[_Daniel Peterson]

Actually, the reviews themselves say more about the credibility of the review authors than they say about Martha's credibility.

On what basis do you say that?

Have you read them? Even one of them?

Please elaborate. Set forth an argument.

A review is only someone's opinion, after all.

As are your posts.

But these reviews, by contrast, offer evidence and logic.

It's not like any of them actually interviewed Martha, spent any amount of time with her, or lived in her skin.

It's true that Boyd Petersen, rather like you yourself, has never lived in Martha's skin. But he's her brother-in-law, is married to her sister, and knows her very well.

[_harmony]

Actually, the reviews themselves say more about the credibility of the review authors than they say about Martha's credibility.

On what basis do you say that?

Have you read them? Even one of them?

Please elaborate. Set forth an argument.

I suggest you read the entire thread. Several people have already commented on the reviews.

Generally speaking, a review is simply one person's view of another person's book. That doesn't make the view of the reviewer valid, nor does it establish any benchmark for judging the credibility of the author. It simply puts forth an opinion, based on a single individual's world view, which may or may not accurately reflect the author's intent. If a reader wants to actually form an informed opinion about a book, they shouldn't read a review; they should read the book.

I realize as the editor of the FROB, a fine hobby if ever there was one, this cuts straight to your heart. That doesn't make my comment inaccurate or skewed.

A review is only someone's opinion, after all.

As are your posts.

But these reviews, by contrast, offer evidence and logic.

That would not necessarily be the case, based on the history of the FROB, if I recall at least one thread that had reviews going back decades, most of which were simply attack pieces from people whose expertise was questionable (in some cases at least), and/or who had an axe to grind against the author(s). Evidence and logic are not necessarily part of a book review. Expecting both or even one or the other would not necessarily be prudent on the part of a potential reader.

Trusting a reviewer, especially one with an agenda, to use evidence and logic to dissect the book itself instead of the author, as opposed to personal attack and agenda-driven argument, is likely to result in disappointment for the reader.

It's not like any of them actually interviewed Martha, spent any amount of time with her, or lived in her skin.

It's true that Boyd Petersen, rather like you yourself, has never lived in Martha's skin. But he's her brother-in-law, is married to her sister, and knows her very well.

I have no doubt he knows Martha's sister very well. However, saying he knows Martha very well is probably not only inaccurate, but likely is somewhat insulting to them both. I'd be highly suspicious of any brother in law who makes that claim. And since he didn't join the family until many years after the alledged abuse took place, I doubt he has much to say that is applicable to those incidents. Since the rest of the family appears to have been oblivious, I don't see how his assessment, from a person who was not even on the horizon at the time, could have any validity at all. Everything he'd hear about it is hearsay, anyway.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I suggest you read the entire thread. Several people have already commented on the reviews.

I've read the comments, such as they were.

Have you read the reviews? Have you read even one of the reviews?

Generally speaking, a review is simply one person's view of another person's book. That doesn't make the view of the reviewer valid, nor does it establish any benchmark for judging the credibility of the author. It simply puts forth an opinion, based on a single individual's world view, which may or may not accurately reflect the author's intent. If a reader wants to actually form an informed opinion about a book, they shouldn't read a review; they should read the book.

Have you read the book?

Do you think that a person should read a review, if that person wants to form an informed opinion about the review?

Have you read the reviews? Have you read even one of them?

But these reviews, by contrast, offer evidence and logic.

That would not necessarily be the case, based on the history of the FROB, if I recall at least one thread that had reviews going back decades, most of which were simply attack pieces from people whose expertise was questionable (in some cases at least), and/or who had an axe to grind against the author(s).

You base your opinion of the reviews on a thread here about the reviews?

Evidence and logic are not necessarily part of a book review.

Perhaps not. There are bad reviews, just as there are bad books. But evidence and logic are part of all four of these reviews -- one of which, in any case, was published in Sunstone, not in the FARMS Review.

Have you read the reviews? Have you read even one of them?

"If a reader wants to actually form an informed opinion about a book," you wrote just above, "they shouldn't read a review; they should read the book."

Can one have an informed opinion about a review without having read the review?

Trusting a reviewer, especially one with an agenda, to use evidence and logic to dissect the book itself instead of the author, as opposed to personal attack and agenda-driven argument, is likely to result in disappointment for the reader.

And your strategy to avoid such disappointment, I take it, is not to read at all?

I have no doubt he knows Martha's sister very well. However, saying he knows Martha very well is probably not only inaccurate, but likely is somewhat insulting to them both. I'd be highly suspicious of any brother in law who makes that claim. And since he didn't join the family until many years after the alledged abuse took place, I doubt he has much to say that is applicable to those incidents.

You should hear his wife, her sister. Martha is lucky that Zina didn't write the review. (Or, anyway, so Zina has told me.)

Since the rest of the family appears to have been oblivious

Whereas you, being much more aware and better placed than they were, know that the alleged abuse actually occurred?

I don't see how his assessment, from a person who was not even on the horizon at the time, could have any validity at all. Everything he'd hear about it is hearsay, anyway.

And if you never read his review, you'll be able much more easily to persist in your conviction that "hearsay" is all he offers.

Ignorance is bliss.

[_Pahoran]

I will address just three specific claims that Beck made in her book.

1) She claimed that she tried to look up references to Sonia Johnson (a once well-known ex-Mormon) in the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU, but she couldn't find any. They had all, said she, been "removed." All of them. Including newspaper articles.

One of the MA&DB posters personally went to the HBLL and looked up the articles. They were exactly where they were supposed to be. All of them. Including newspaper articles.

2) Beck described her visit to a therapist, to whom she gave a pseudonym, like everyone else in her book except herself and her husband. The pseudonym she chose for her therapist was "Rachel Grant." As she sat in the waiting room, she tells us, she wondered whether "Rachel Grant" might be related to late LDS President Heber J. Grant; and she then segued into a rather funny family anecdote about President Grant.

However, it seems a little unlikely that she truly had these thoughts in the waiting room. Why? Because "Rachel Grant's" real name is Ruth Killpack. Are we supposed to believe that she sat in the waiting room wondering if Ruth Killpack might be related to Heber J. Grant? Do those surnames seem identical to you?

By the use of pseudonyms and various other devices, Beck does her best to make sure we can't check up on her story. But every time we can check up on it, it fails. For example:

3) She tells a heart-rending story of Mormon ritual shunning when she and her husband left the Church. She claims that all the neighbours came down into the street and literally turned their backs until the Becks had gone. She called it Mura Hachibu, a Japanese expression meaning "expulsion from the village." However, when interviewed about it, her husband contradicted her account. He doesn't remember any such thing happening.

Because it didn't.

Now you can grumble all you like about those evil FARMS people. You can do your best to revive the vanished credibility of "recovered memory" therapy and related junk science.

But then you need to deal with facts.

Regards,
Pahoran