Brant Gardner on Clark and Book of Mormon Historicity

[_EAllusion]

Incidentally: When certain people react to attending a performance of Camelot -- Camelot!, for heaven's sake! -- as if mentioning it represented a grossly boastful pretense of elite high culture, that seems to say a lot more about the cultural preferences and status anxieties of the people reacting than it does about the person who attended the musical.

If this is in reference to what I wrote, I specifically singled out Camelot as not being elitist high culture.

[Guest]

Take that opinion as you will.

Not to worry. I already have.

If this is in reference to what I wrote, I specifically singled out Camelot as not being elitist high culture.

Well, if it'll make you feel any better, I regard most opera as just an older form of the musical. There's nothing particularly deep or difficult, in my view, about the story line of I Pagliacci or Cavalleria Rusticana (nor, for that matter, of Così fan tutte or La bohème or Turandot). Carousel, Camelot, and The Music Man are every bit as profound. Or shallow.

[_JohnStuartMill]

That's a Loewe and Lerner production, isn't it? Ick. Give me Rodgers and Hammerstein (or Hart) any day.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Take that opinion as you will.

Not to worry. I already have.

Who's worrying?

[_EAllusion]

Well, if it'll make you feel any better, I regard most opera as just an older form of the musical. There's nothing particularly deep or difficult, in my view, about the story line of I Pagliacci or Cavalleria Rusticana (nor, for that matter, of Così fan tutte or La bohème or Turandot).

I don't think so either. I think people who automatically view opera as high and broadway musicals as low, especially in terms of intellectual sophistication needed for appreciation, are not unlike people who will only respect comic books if they get to call them graphic novels. It's pretenious douchebaggery. Nonetheless, they have a patina of high culture about them and sound intellectually sophisticated to a certain crowd as a result.

You definitely have a habit of name dropping stodgy, intellectual-sounding things in questionable situations often enough that it makes it look like your trying to impress upon your audience that you are intellectually serious. One can almost seeing you hold a giant, dusty old copy of Shakespeare's collected works in your lap as you type. As an intelligent person, I trust you know that others who are mature, intelligent, and reasonably educated aren't going to be impressed by such things (Yale! Oxford!), but, trust me, that's the tone it sets. Hey, it's no fun to have real personality quirks like this poked at, but you dish out enough that I'm not worried about it. Plus, I think you rather like this kind of conversation.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Do I enjoy this sort of conversation? Yes. Rather.

I've always said that a major reason for my coming to places like this is a peculiar psychological interest. Some believe that I'm joking. Others believe that they've been insulted. But it happens to be entirely true.

And the responses on this particular topic are, psychologically speaking, very interesting to me.

You definitely have a habit of name dropping stodgy, intellectual-sounding things in questionable situations often enough that it makes it look like your trying to impress upon your audience that you are intellectually serious. One can almost seeing you hold a giant, dusty old copy of Shakespeare's collected works in your lap as you type. As an intelligent person, I trust you know that others who are mature, intelligent, and reasonably educated aren't going to be impressed by such things (Yale! Oxford!), but, trust me, that's the tone it sets. Hey, it's no fun to have real personality quirks like this poked at, but you dish out enough that I'm not worried about it.

I don't think it's really a quirk of mine at all.

I think it's a characteristic of this place that much of what I do, say, and am irritates and inflames, partly because of ideological hostility and, frankly, partly also because of the quirks of several of those who hang out here.

And you're right: Among many of the people I know, with whom I work, and whose opinions I value, mention of Yale or Oxford or Shakespeare or Beethoven or Dante or Verdi or Sartre wouldn't particularly impress, certainly wouldn't inflame, and probably wouldn't even attract much notice. This is my life and my world, and it's really not my fault that the sheer mention of it sets some people here off into irrelevant class and status anxieties that can (as on this thread) leave them hyperventilating for hours if not for days at a time.

[_EAllusion]

And you're right: Among many of the people I know, with whom I work, and whose opinions I value, mention of Yale or Oxford or Shakespeare or Beethoven or Dante or Verdi or Sartre wouldn't particularly impress, certainly wouldn't inflame, and probably wouldn't even attract much notice. This is my life and my world, and it's really not my fault that the sheer mention of it sets some people here off into irrelevant class and status anxieties that can (as on this thread) leave them hyperventilating for hours if not for days at a time.

Your tendency to frequently find strained ways to make these references and seem intellectually serious isn't inflaming me, or dare I say, anyone else here Dan. It's causing people to roll their eyes.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Your tendency to frequently find strained ways to make these references and seem intellectually serious isn't inflaming me, or dare I say, anyone else here Dan. It's causing people to roll their eyes.

The small audience here is entirely welcome to roll its eyes, collectively and individually. Several on this thread seem to be rather obsessed with the matter -- the pouting and complaining and criticizing have been going on for a ridiculously long time -- and I find that weird. Pop psychology doesn't interest me, and it's just not important to me to try to perform amateur analysis on anybody here. I simply don't care enough.

If I were concerned very much with what the folks in this small and rather monochrome pond think of my character and personality, or even regarded them, as a rule, as worth taking seriously on that front, or as qualified by any real measure of insight or perceptiveness or sympathy to judge me, I might well be in despair. Fortunately, I don't.

Analyze away. Devote as much energy to it as you wish. Post about it to your heart's content. I'll be listening to either Palestrina or Richard Strauss (I haven't yet decided) while working on notes for the lecture that I have to deliver on Sunday on behalf of the Islamic Center of Orlando. (There. That should feed the appetites here for a while longer.)

[_karl61]

DCP when you have the urge to name drop just replace name with "as I sit here enjoying a can of spam and lemonade"

[_Daniel Peterson]

When I have the urge to name drop, I'll exit the Oval Office, remove my Super Bowl ring, take my Academy Award for Best Acting, and smash my Grammy Award plaques with it.