and in any case I am one who doubts that anything like authentic self-expression—or even anything like an "authentic self"—actually exists.
For once, Kishkumen, you may actually have stumbled upon a nut. This actually smacks of postmodernism to me, or perhaps one of its antecedents (The non-existence of an authentic subject, a core self, would fit well with Satre or Nietzsche). I'd have to hear Welch flesh that out a bit more, however, before coming to any clear conclusions about it.
But conceding for the sake of argument that some kind of personal communication can spring directly from the soul, unmediated by environment or exigency, surely a vibrant social community is the last place one would expect to find such authentic expression.
Indeed, revelation from God is precisely this kind of communication.
A social community is nothing more than a source of mediating narratives, names, and norms that exist precisely to shape the substrate of basic human perception into meaningful experience.
Yeah, yeah, she talks like me, but that's not important now...
If "authentic" expression is language that arises directly from an unadulterated private conscience, then expression from within a community can only be seen as artificially mediated—it's simply the nature of the thing.
I'm not sure if Dehlin really meant to take it this far. Whatever the merits of Welch's arguments here (and I'm not exactly sure what she's trying to say), Dehlin has created a kind of community outreach or group therapeutic community to mediate and cushion exit from the Church. By "authentic," I'm sure Dehlin simply means to say the true, internalized desires, beliefs, and settled position a person takes within himself, detached from external pressures and forces of resistance such as the psychological resistance and challenge to apostasy one is going to receive from peers and family.
In any case, Welch's argument above is a non-sequiter as it stands. There's a philosophical system or assumption behind it, but its not here stated. At best, the argument is missing a premise or premises connecting "authentic expression" as being " language that arises directly from an unadulterated private conscience" with the assertion that "expression from within a community can only be seen as artificially mediated." There is no obvious reason why deeply and clearly (in one's own mind) settled desires or beliefs cannot be fully expressed within a community without artificial mediation, if by artificial mediation she means that one's ideas cannot be expressed as an authentic reflection of the core self unless the community in some sense allows it.
Or, perhaps she means that language itself does not allow authentic self expression outside the boundaries of the cultural and psychological constraints imposed by that language. This would be an interesting, if severely constrained position to take, but I'm still not sure it would be relevant to Dehlin's project, which is just one of a shepard leading and guiding apostatizing lambs. If Welch is a Latter day Saint, then the idea that no authentic self, or subject, actually exists, and that undiluted, authentic, internal self expression from an actually existing "self" or "I" is impossible, even in the most "vibrant" and supportive communities, would appear to me to be both a high fly ball outside Church doctrine, as well as philosophically and psychologically gummy.
This does not mean that language does not condition and mediate mind and thought, only that mind and thought condition and mediate language and constrain its own powers of mediation.
Duh. The point, in my view, is not that there is an authentic self--your common tactic of Mopologetic nitpicking--but that in the Mormon Stories community people have the freedom to say things that they were unable to say in an LDS ward.
Pure nonsense, of course. You are free to say anything you want in your ward. As perfectly free as you are out in the street. In Dehlin's support group atmosphere, however, you will never be challenged or confronted with any faulty arguments, self serving rationalizations, or mistaken perceptions. Dehlin is there as a
facilitator of one's desire to leave the Church, not, as one will find in most wards, a member who is critically concerned about the welfare of anther's soul and will do all he can to persuade and dissuade one from exiting the Lord's Kingdom.
Of course, most of us understand this, but LDS apologetics is all about nitpicking on issues of terminology, as in the case of their disagreement with John's loose use of the term "ad hominem." In the latter case, we all understand that John is referring to the personal attacks that are perpetrated in apologetic material, but the apologetic dodge is to say, "that's not what ad hominem means." Hardy-har.
An actual example of this "personal attack" tradition against the fragile Bro. Dehlin would be welcome here, at this point (after weeks of breathing fire and coughing up rhetorical phlegm among the critics).
Anyhow, we will undoubtedly continue to see much more of these impertinent pseudo-arguments against John Dehlin and Mormon Stories. Keep your eyes out for them, if you can stomach the sad spectacle.
Dehlin is a liberal/secular apostate with a smiling face and his cheeks covered with Dixie Cup flowers. We know this at this juncture. You are attempting to defend him because, despite all of the stomping the ground and snorting you do, you like and support what he does, and if he was not an apostate who's core purpose was the degradation and destruction of belief, faith, and commitment to the Church, you wouldn't be bothering with him at all.
The defense of John Dehlin by the vast body of the Internet exmo/Post-Mormon world is Dehlin's own accuser.